Beyond the Horizon

There is a peculiar discomfort that arises when intelligent, serious people - scientists, military officers, intelligence analysts - claim to have witnessed something that should not be possible. The instinct, especially for those trained in rational inquiry, is to reach for an explanation that makes the problem go away: fraud, self-deception, wishful thinking. And sometimes that instinct is correct.

But sometimes the discomfort itself is the most important data point.

This book is about remote viewing: a claimed human ability to perceive information about distant locations, objects, or events without the use of any known sensory mechanism. It is a phenomenon that most people, if they encounter it at all, file away under "psychic nonsense" and move on. That dismissal is understandable. It is also, this author would argue, premature.

For more than two decades, the United States government quietly funded a classified research program that took remote viewing seriously - not as folklore, not as a curiosity, but as a potential intelligence-gathering tool.

The program employed trained military personnel, operated under Defense Intelligence Agency oversight, and produced results that were, depending on whom you ask, either astonishing or underwhelming. The program was eventually terminated. But it was not terminated because it was proven impossible.