The Stargate program operated for nearly 25 years as a classified government research program into remote viewing — the purported ability of trained individuals to perceive locations or events at a distance.
Hal Puthoff, then a physicist at Stanford Research Institute, co-founded the program in 1972 with colleague Russell Targ. The CIA, which funded the initial research, concluded that remote viewing was at minimum worthy of continued investigation and at maximum a potential intelligence asset.
Over the following two decades, Stargate trained more than a dozen military remote viewers tasked against real intelligence targets: the locations of hostages, the specifications of Soviet weapons systems, the layout of underground facilities. The program's operational record was mixed.
In 1995, the CIA commissioned a formal evaluation. It concluded that while remote viewing showed statistical effects above chance in laboratory settings, its operational value could not be demonstrated — and the program was shut down and declassified. Puthoff went on to found EarthTech International, where he continued research into zero-point energy and exotic propulsion.