---
category: "Authors & Journalists"
tags:
  - Person
  - Stargate
  - Soviet
summary: "Ostrander and Schroeder's work, which included accounts from figures like Eduard Naumov, contributed to the growing awareness and concern within the U.S."
updated: 2026-10-08
---
[[Sheila Ostrander]] is an American author who, along with [[Lynn Schroeder]], co-authored the 1970 book *Psychic Discoveries Behind the [[Iron Curtain]]*. This book played a significant role in popularizing Soviet and Eastern European [[Parapsychology|psi]] research in the West. The book portrayed a "veritable frenzy of psychic research" going on in the [[Soviet Union|USSR]], with investigators uncovering powerful natural clairvoyants, psychokinetic prodigies, and dowsers whose talents could potentially be employed against the West.[^1]

The book's account of the [[The Nautilus (Telepathy Project)|Nautilus]] reports appears in its first chapter, pages 6 to 8, and a Russian's account of a submarine test with rabbits on pages 32 and 33. Of the first the authors write: "Whether the American Nautilus tests happened or not, the reports of them were enough to set the Soviets going on some ESP tests with their own submarines."[^2]

Ostrander and Schroeder's work, which included accounts from figures like [[Eduard Naumov]], contributed to the growing awareness and concern within the U.S. intelligence community about a potential "psi gap" with the Soviet Union, ultimately influencing the decision to fund and initiate programs like the [[Stargate Project|Stargate Project]].[^1]

### Footnotes

[^1]: Schnabel, Jim. *Remote Viewers*. Dell, 1997.
[^2]: Ostrander, Sheila, and Lynn Schroeder. *Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain*. Prentice-Hall, 1970, pp. 6-8 and 32-33.