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| Scientists & Researchers |
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Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity engineer who was its Grill Flame project officer and rebutted the Gale committee's call to end the Army's remote-viewing work. | 1935-10-30 | 2026-01-19 | Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland | 2026-09-22 | 2026-09-22 |
John Winston Kramar was born in Chicago and moved with his parents to Edgewood, Maryland, at fourteen. He graduated in mechanical engineering from Purdue University in 1957 and became chief of the Ground Warfare Division of the Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity (AMSAA) at Aberdeen Proving Ground and a charter member of the Army's Senior Executive Service. He died in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on January 19, 2026.1
Grill Flame
Kramar and Colonel Albert De Prospero of AMSAA were named as discussants, with Dale Graff of the Foreign Technology Division, in the "Sensory Technology Assessment" of November 14, 1978.2 AMSAA's interim note of July 1979 on its STARGATE PROJECT phase I efforts listed "Mr. John Kramar" among its participants, with Evan Harris Walker and Lewis Walt.3
As AMSAA's Grill Flame project officer, Kramar wrote for the record on February 13, 1980, that the report of the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee, "transmitted to AMSAA January 1980, was found to be somewhat ambiguous and confusing," and took "exception" to its recommendation to "Terminate all AMSAA GRILL FLAME efforts": "This recommendation, as best as can be determined, is based only on a partial understanding of AMSAA's initial effort, which was terminated before the SEC came into being. There is an apparent mistake by the SEC in considering the AMSAA challenge/validation efforts to be an integral part of the SRI contract." He copied Manfred Gale and DARCOM.4
Footnotes
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"John Winston Kramar," obituary, McComas Family Funeral Homes, January 20, 2026. https://www.mccomasfuneralhome.com/obituaries/john-kramar ↩︎
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"Sensory Technology Assessment," November 14, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00787R000500120001-5. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. ↩︎
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U.S. Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity, "Project Grill Flame AMSAA Phase I Efforts," Interim Note No. 15, July 1979, acknowledgements, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100080005-8. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. ↩︎
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Kramar, John W., AMSAA Grill Flame Project Officer, memorandum for record, "Scientific Evaluation Committee (SEC) GRILL FLAME Report, Dated November 1979," February 13, 1980, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230026-7 (copies at R002000250025-7 and R001100080007-6). Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. ↩︎