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The UFO and PSI Connection at Wright AFB

In 1977, Kenneth Kress writes in his summary report titled, "Parapsychology in Intelligence: A Personal Review and Conclusions":

"In April of 1972, Targ met with CIA personnel from the Office of Strategic Intelligence (OSI) and discussed the subject of paranormal abilities. Targ revealed that he had contacts with people who purported to have seen and documented some Soviet investigations of psychokinesis. Films of Soviets moving inanimate objects by “mental powers” were made available to analysts from OSI. They, in turn, contacted personnel from the Office of Research and Development (ORD) and OTS. An ORD Project Officer then visited Targ who had recently joined the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). Targ proposed that some psychokinetic verification investigations could be done at SRI in conjunction with Puthoff."

Experimental Research and The Manipulation of CIA Scientists

As outlined earlier in this article, Puthoff had made an unusual and tremendous career change in 1971. Turning away from a promising and successful career in laser research, Puthoff instead turned to parapsychology and conducting experimental research on the "e-meter." Concidentially, or not, Kress describes fellow scientist Targ essentially seeking out funding from the CIA on behalf of his colleague back at SRI, Hal Puthoff.

Based on Kress' description, part of the overwhelming argument at the time, within Intelligence circles, was the fact that the Soviets were allegedly having enormous success within the areas of psychic experimental research. Apparently the information Targ provided OSI and ORD convinced a large enough circle of folks within the CIA that the SRI research was worth pursuing and funding.

That growing belief in the possible reality of psychic functioning within certain circles of the Intelligence community, coupled with rumblings that hinted that the Soviets were researching those capabilities, led directly to the start of government funding of Puthoff’s SRI work with Ingo Swann.

When the CIA started to realize that, despite throwing good money after bad, there would be no significant findings or results from the remote viewing experimental research, the CIA opted out. By this point, the Air Force had gotten involved and in 1978, Dale Graff [at Wright Air Force Base] authored DIA report DST-18105-202-78, entitled “Paraphysics R and D–Warsaw Pact U.", which ultimately served as one trigger for the transfer of experimental research tasking and funding from DoD to DIA. This marked the official start of the DIA remote viewing program.

An Inside Account of Covert Research Funding Decisions

Why were grown men - including Air Force, Army, and Navy officials, starting to believe in a paranormal phenomenon that had not even been shown worthy of concern? Why were intelligent, high-ranking government scientists and officers starting to discuss, and fear, a phenomenon that no one had successfully proven even existed?

One answer to that question comes from an insider account of some of those closed-door meetings.

In his account, Skip Atwater provides some insight regarding what documents were fueling fear and speculation at the time (in 1977 through 1980) regarding the perceived Soviet “threat”. In his book Captain of My Ship, Atwater refers to classified files that he was provided access to upon promotion within INSCOM:

“The third classified document from the safe drawer was called Project SCANATE. It told about classified US Government remote-viewing research, conducted mostly by the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) in Menlo Park, California. This convincing report demonstrated the ability of remote viewing surveillance to acquire and report information of interest to the intelligence community. ”

SRI’s “convincing report” also convinced Skip Atwater, who proceeded to spread that belief throughout the next few briefings he provided to his superiors.

Later in his book, Atwater describes a routine OPSEC support briefing for the US Army Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, where the Project Managers provide another glimpse of some of the fear that military folks who’d read SRI documents and publications like "Mind-Reach" were feeling because of those reports:

“Just before we all got up from the conference table, one of the Project Managers sitting directly across from me said, “I appreciate all that you have told us, but how are we supposed to protect ourselves from this?” He pulled a book out of his briefcase and slid it across the table to me. I reached out for the book, wondering what he could be asking about. It was MIND-REACH! As I held the book in my hand staring at the title, the Missile Command OPSEC Officer at the head of the table abruptly asked, 'What’s this all about?'

The Project Manager had surprised him and I could tell from the sound of his voice that he was befuddled. A hush fell over the room; I turned to address the OPSEC Officer’s question and spoke slowly and deliberately, the words coming from somewhere deep inside me, 'He is worried about the threat posed by remote viewing, a human perceptual ability being investigated under classified government contracts at the prestigious Stanford Research Institute. He wants to know what OPSEC measures we recommend to counter this threat. This subject is beyond the scope of this survey and today’s briefing. I will have to get back to you later on this, sir.'"

In his effort to determine the potential for the Soviets to exploit remote viewing, Atwater discovered another secret document that was, in effect, another product written by someone very close to Hal Puthoff and his SRI Remote Viewing experimental research. This report was Dale Graff’s [Wright AFB] “Paraphysics R&D-Warsaw Pact.”

“I learned from Mr. Salyer [Jim Salyer] that an Air Force civilian employee by the name of Dale Graff was the point of contact at Air Force Systems Command, Foreign Technology Division [Wright AFB]. Dale was the principle author of Paraphysics R&D-Warsaw Pact. Before leaving DIA, I ask Mr. Salyer how to get in touch with Dale and he provided the necessary contact information.”

Not only was Dale Graff the principle author of this paper, but he’d previously been working closely with Hal Puthoff since about 1975 at Wright AFB in order to determine whether this phenomenon was “real” and presented a clear and present danger to United States national security.

“I took a trip out to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio to meet Dale Graff. Dale was a soft-spoken, mid-level civilian employee whose intellect far exceeded his job assignment. He had been investigating remote viewing on his own for years.

[snip]

The presumption was that the KGB was investigating remote-viewing surveillance as a possible source of intelligence information. Coupling this hypothesis with the remote-viewing success in the government-funded SRI research, it looked to me as though I had found evidence to demonstrate the probable exploitation of remote viewing by hostile intelligence services.”

To put this into perspective – in many ways SRI was, intentionally or not, the driving force behind the fear, and funding related to U.S. government parapsychology experimental research. Had SRI determined, through a proper scientific study, that the phenomenon was not able to be reproduced in the lab – the CIA would have concluded very early on that the data coming from the Soviet Union was nothing more than a form of “Active Measures” - intended to mislead U.S. experimental research into squandering millions into R&D research. Instead, SRI’s alleged “successes” created a belief within the Intelligence community that the phenomenon was actually real - and if real, it could be used by the Soviets as a dangerous form of intelligence collection. This, in effect, led to further funding of SRI and its Remote Viewing research.

Wright Air Force Base and The Core Story

Events at Wright Air Force Base, FTD Division are not detailed in the thousands of pages of declassified FOIA "Stargate" files. Gary Bekkum, a researcher and webmaster of Starstream Research, who has been researching the released Stargate files for many years (and speculating profusely on all of the blanked out documents), points out the following regarding the research at Wright Air Force Base:

“Paul H. Smith, former DIA remote viewer, and author of the definitive history of the STAR GATE program, ‘Reading the Enemy's Mind,’ has pointed out that the USAF paraphysics programs are conspicuously absent from the declassified STAR GATE files.

At his web site, Paul Smith writes, ‘While I have focused mostly on what is here in the Star Gate documents, I found what isn’t here also to be interesting. What seems not to be here is any documentation from the Air Force program run by Dale Graff in the Foreign Technology Division at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, beginning in 1975. That program went on for several years and achieved a number of important things. In fact, Graff and his program were directly responsible for keeping the SRI-International remote viewing research effort going after the CIA abandoned it the first time.’”

It does appear, in fact, that much of the Air Force work in remote viewing at Wright Air Force Base still remains secret.


However, oddly, this is also the time and place where there is a very interesting intersection between two paranormal worlds – PSI and UFO’s. Bruce Maccabee recognized it when he was interfacing with Kit Green throughout the late 1970s, as described in this previous post. We can see it in the records above that detail the transition from DoD to DIA, with Dale Graff at the very center, and Hal Puthoff profiting along the way.

During this crucial time period, where much is unknown about the Wright AFB Air Force RV work from 1975 through 1979, Dale Graff served as civilian Air Force monitor for the work, and Dr. Anthony Joseph Cacioppo served as FTD Chief Scientist overseeing the program.

Oddly enough, Wright AFB from 1976 through 1979 also marks the location and date where some of the tallest tales about Aliens and UFO’s allegedly came from. One of the tallest tales involve very secret high level classified “committee” meetings attended by Dale Graff and Dr. Cacioppo.

In his 2007 article titled, "FTD is Not a Florist!" Captain Robert Collins details some of the background surrounding the mysterious Ernie Kellerstrass, where much of the information published in his book Exempt from Disclosure, comes from (Collins own research began at Wright AFB). In fact, Ernie was central to much of the information coming from Wright Air Force Base, and being released to the UFO community throughout the 1980's.

In his 2007 article, Collins writes:

"Even before being assigned to FTD, like so many others, I had heard all the rumors and stories about alien bodies being stored at Wright-Patterson AFB. Being curious, I started asking many questions, which led me to one Ernie Kellerstrass who had retired from the Air Force in 1979 as a Lieutenant Colonel with FTD being his last Air Force assignment. Ernie was a short pudgy type of person who always seemed to have a menacing, intimidating attitude typical of AF Colonels of the time, yet full of fear and paranoia when talking about UFOs, MJ-12 and aliens, always saying that someone else had told him those stories.

[snip]

Ernie mentioned people like Dr. Anthony Joseph Cacioppo (Chief FTD Scientist at the time), Dale Graff (reassigned from FTD to the Defense Intelligence Agency [DIA] now retired) and others as having great in-depth knowledge of the UFO/alien subject. The prime reason according to Ernie was that both Cacioppo and Graff used to tag along with MJ-12 Team Members to various meetings."

There are two separate issues that deserve analysis. The first involves the Core Story, its development by a group and its purpose in being distributed to the public. The second involves looking beyond the "front" man, and identifying the core players behind the scenes.

Stay tuned.