All language subtitles for Secrets.Declassified.with.David.Duchovny.S01E05.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

- Throughout time,
governments and the people

who work for them have done
strange and even terrible

things in the name
of national interest.

Tonight, soldiers spiked
with dangerous drugs.

- No one's going to volunteer
to test brain-frying chemicals.

- And citizens with unusual
gifts recruited to spy.

- Psychic spies would be able
to unlock Soviet secrets.

- What about
channeling an enemy's

deepest fears to defeat them?

- The Viet Cong began
hearing these disembodied,

echoing voices.

- These soldiers are
terrified that their very

worst nightmares might
have come to life.

- Sometimes the best weapons
governments use are mind games.

Now it's time to bring these
strange secrets to light.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

The 1950s is a boom time
for pharmaceutical companies.

They're turning out
radical new psychoactive

drugs that give some
in the U.S. military an idea.

Could these drugs be
turned into weapons?

To find out, they decide to
test them on American soldiers.

♪ ♪

Edgewood Arsenal,
Maryland, headquarters

of the U.S. Chemical and
Biological Defense Command.

- The military is attempting
to create a non-lethal weapon,

something that can incapacitate
the soldiers on the other side,

but not necessarily kill them.

- So at Edgewood Arsenal,
they began developing

psychoactive compounds.

- They decide that
their best candidate

is this substance known
as 3-quinuclidinyl

benzilate, or BZ.

- BZ is developed
as a stomach medicine.

Side effects like confusion
and hallucinations

mean it never
gets FDA approval.

But it's those side effects
that interest the Army.

- Now the team
faces a problem.

Where will they find
people to test BZ on?

The Army gives them permission
to recruit volunteer soldiers

from around the country.

Recruiters tell the troops
they'll be testing equipment.

- The Edgewood team wants to
record exactly what happens

to the volunteers on BZ.

So they construct a mock
communications outpost

and fill it with cameras
to record their experiments.

- The team doses four
volunteers with varying

amounts of this horrific drug.

- They want to see how these
young men are going to react

while they're high on BZ.

And they test them across
a broad range of scenarios,

including simulating
a poison gas attack.

- The peak of the
compound's physical effects

was reached within four
to six hours, the peak

of mental incapacitation
several hours later,

when a simulated
chemical alarm sounded.

[alarm blaring]

- The initial results
are promising.

The men are distracted.

They're disoriented.

It seems like BZ is
the non-lethal weapon

the Army dreamed of.

- Soon BZ testing
takes an ominous turn.

- Ronald Zadrozny
is the soldier

given the highest dose of BZ.

- And this causes him to go
into a drug-induced psychosis

for 36 hours, and he still has
lingering effects afterwards,

which makes him
nervous and panicky.

- Other volunteers are
also badly affected,

but the Army decides the
experiments should continue.

♪ ♪

In November 1964,
the Edgewood team

is ready to test BZ outside.

- They settle on Dugway
Proving Ground as a safe space

to test this out of doors.

- When you're at Dugway, you
are far away from prying eyes.

You're out in the
middle of nowhere.

In that way, Dugway is
the perfect place to go.

- The men suit up
in the pre-dawn cold and are

then doused with the gas.

♪ ♪

- These unfortunate troops
are dosed with choking amounts

of BZ gas for 15 minutes.

Then these befuddled volunteers
are taken for evaluation.

- The test proves that BZ
can incapacitate soldiers,

making them unable to fight.

- The Army is convinced
of the potential for BZ weapons

on the battlefield.

- Meanwhile, back at Edgewood,
testing on BZ

variants continues.

- In 1975, after details of
CIA LSD experiments leak out,

President Ford instructs
VP Nelson Rockefeller

to investigate.

- The Rockefeller Commission
starts to go through

the Army's dirty laundry.

And in June 1975,
they haul Army

bosses in to interrogate them
about the Edgewood experiments.

- When the Congressional
investigators ask them what's

going on, they just start
fessing up like Boy Scouts

and they tell them, like,
yeah, the BZ testing is ongoing

and it's been
going on for years.

- The things that
have been done,

which are in contradiction
to the statutes.

But--

- The Army admits that
somewhere between 2,100

and 2,900 volunteers
were subjected

to BZ gas during the course
of their experiments.

♪ ♪

- BZ is not
the only drug they test.

The US Army dosed some
7,000 unsuspecting

soldiers with more than 250
different chemical agents.

♪ ♪

- The volunteers aren't
told what they're testing,

so there's no way they
could give informed consent.

So basically, the soldiers are
being treated like lab rats.

So the lawmakers are
naturally furious.

♪ ♪

- In 1975, the BZ research
program is shut down,

but that doesn't
stop U.S. intelligence

agencies from developing
other ways to play mind games.

In 1968, they decided
to turn the Viet Cong's

own weapons against them.

♪ ♪

It's the summer of 1968,
and U.S. troops

are fighting
the Communist Viet Cong

near the Cambodian border.

♪ ♪

- A North Vietnamese
fighter takes deadly aim

at a vulnerable GI on patrol.

But when the Communist
soldier pulls the trigger,

he signs his own death warrant.

His Chinese-made AK-56
explodes on firing--

♪ ♪

Killing him instantly.

- The GI got lucky,
but this is not a one-off.

- The thing about
these deadly misfires

is that they weren't
accidents at all.

- The extraordinary truth
is that the exploding guns

are the result of a secret
U.S. military operation.

- Anybody who's
ever fired a gun

has the same nightmare
that one day they're

going to pull the trigger,
and the round in the chamber

is going to blow up
in their own face.

And this nightmare
is exactly what

was playing through the mind
of every VC combat member

during Vietnam.

♪ ♪

- It's not until 30 years
later that a book

by a Vietnam vet
reveals the operation,

code named Eldest Son.

- The Vietnam Studies
and Operations Group

was charged with a mission
to undermine the will

to fight of the Viet Cong.

The SOG identified that
along the Ho Chi Minh Trail,

there were several munitions
cache areas where

the Viet Cong would resupply
ammunition, actual bullets

and rounds for their guns.

- The recon teams were finding
these caches of ammunition.

So they come up
with this brilliant idea.

And that is,
rather than trying to haul

this ammo off
or destroy it on sight,

why don't we just sabotage it?

But importantly,
not sabotage all of it.

Sabotage some of it.

♪ ♪

- They'll make the communists
afraid of their own guns

by booby trapping
their bullets.

- But how would
they pull this off?

- Sabotage is a very
tricky business,

because it's part engineering
and part espionage.

And that's exactly
what the SOG had

to do to find a way
to engineer a round that

would explode, but still
look like other rounds.

- First, they refill the
bullets with high explosive.

But there's a problem.

The most commonly available
military-grade explosive

at the time actually
had a white color to it

that did not match the
gunpowder that was inside

the round itself.

- If the communists
investigate,

they'll detect the fakes.

- So the SOG had to create
a whole new different kind

of explosive that
had the same power

but matched the color
of black powder.

- The next challenge is how to
get the sabotaged bullets back

in Viet Cong hands.

- SOG's Green Beret
reconnaissance patrols come

up with an ingenious solution.

So the Viet Cong don't
suspect sabotage,

they make sure to load
up only one phony bullet

in each magazine or ammo can.

- We're not going to kill
them one soldier at a time,

one bullet at a time.

What we're going to
do is we're going

to create psychological chaos
among the enemy's ranks.

And that's a pretty big win
for a pretty low investment.

- Eldest Son is so
successful in Vietnam

that the U.S. makes it part
of its psychological

warfare arsenal.

It will use the
tactic again years

later in Iraq and Afghanistan.

- In World War II, the U.S.
Army creates a top secret unit

whose sole job
is fooling the enemy.

It calls itself the Ghost
Army for a very good reason.

Nothing about
this Army is real.

[dramatic music]

It's 1944,
and the United States

is preparing to take the
fight to Hitler by invading

Nazi-occupied Europe.

- America needs to leverage
any advantage they can find.

So Army chiefs
turn to an industry

where the nation leads
the world, show business.

- The Pentagon creates
the Ghost Army.

They're not using
rifles and machine guns.

This unit will
ultimately use Hollywood

stagecraft to fight the enemy.

- The purpose of the Ghost
Army is to create diversions

and feints and deception.

- Officially known as the 23rd
Headquarters Special Troops,

the Ghost Army is made
up of just 1,100 men.

- The concept is that
you're engaging in force

multiplication by having
a small group of soldiers

pretend, and give the enemy
the impression that they're

actually a very large group of
soldiers, up to two divisions.

So you have a unit
with about 1,000 people

in it that is able to make the
enemy think it's 30,000 strong.

- In June 1944,
the Ghost Army vanguard

Task Force Mason gets an
airlift onto the battleground

in France.

Here, their mission
is to support

the U.S. 928th
Artillery Division

by providing an attractive
target for German gunners.

- The Ghost Army inflate
a series of rubber

howitzers matching
the real guns.

The idea is to draw
in the Nazi fire

to get them to
focus on that area

where these inflatable
weapons are,

as opposed to where American
soldiers actually are.

♪ ♪

- The Ghost Army has to keep
their inflatable guns ahead

of the real artillery
for almost a month,

taking as many hits
as possible themselves.

So these guys are either just
really, really brave or really

crazy, possibly both.

- Over the next 12 months, the
Ghost Army supports the Allies

in some 20 operations before
this wartime Hollywood team

gives their finest performance
on the banks of the Rhine

in March 1945.

- The biggest obstacle
that we had to confront

after the Normandy landings

was crossing the Rhine.

- General Patton
and his Ninth Army

are trapped behind the river,
which blocks them

off from the path to Berlin.

- Rivers are
a natural obstacle,

especially to heavy-treaded
vehicles like tanks.

♪ ♪

You have to bring
in Army engineers,

start erecting bridges.

It turns into a big mess.

- Meanwhile, German forces
are waiting on the other side,

and they're just
poised to rain hell

on any allied troops
that try to make

that difficult river crossing.

- The Ghost Army is ordered
to divert German defenders'

attention from Patton's
crossing point to draw

the fiercest German fire.

- The first phase
is to generate

sneaky signals traffic.

Ghost Army communications
teams fill the airwaves

with bogus radio chatter,
creating the illusion

of a huge Army on the move.

- But that's just the
beginning for the Ghost Army.

- During the day,
sonic teams play

the sound of heavy
construction through

500-pound speaker systems.

- To the Germans
on the other side,

it sounds as if pontoon
bridges are being constructed.

- The enemy would then be led
to believe that I'm about

to be attacked
by this very powerful force,

when in actuality, all that was

over there
were a couple of Jeeps

with loudspeakers on them.

♪ ♪

- The supporting cast plays
its part behind the lines,

but the key part of the
operation is yet to come.

- The Germans are conducting
daily photo reconnaissance

sorties over allied lines,
measuring what our strength

looks like across the river.

So that if there's
any noticeable build up,

those photo reconnaissance
aircraft, they will detect it.

- To fool these pilots,
the Ghost Army creates

an entirely fake front line.

- 600 inflatable Sherman tanks
and field artillery pieces are

moved into position purposely
so that an aircraft can

photograph them, and the enemy
can then be left to wonder,

all right, it looks like
there's a build-up here.

- The Nazis react as intended,
pounding the Ghost Army's

position with artillery fire.

Three of the unit lose their
lives, but the ruse works.

- Patton's Army crosses
the Rhine miles up the river,

facing only scattered
Nazi resistance.

They take only
minimal casualties.

This is a critical
victory for the Allies.

♪ ♪

- In 2024,
the Ghost Army is presented

with the Congressional
Gold Medal for Heroism.

- It can be quite
difficult to quantify

psychological operations,
but it has been estimated

that the Ghost Army saved tens
of thousands of American lives

during the war.

- 1953, the CIA
starts an experiment

with a top secret goal--

find drugs to control
the human mind.

It will become one
of the government's

most notorious projects.

Its name is MKUltra.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

CIA Director Allen Dulles
has a big problem.

- There was a great
fear at the time

that American prisoners
held by the North Koreans

were being subjected
to brainwashing.

- The CIA suspects that the
communists might be utilizing

mind altering drugs, not
only to extract information,

but to reprogram the brains

of American soldiers
in captivity.

- The CIA suspects
that one of them

is a new wonder drug called
lysergic acid diethylamide,

popularly known as LSD.

- LSD was discovered in 1943

by Albert Hofmann
at Sandoz Labs.

It's still pretty untested,
but it has the potential

of being the greatest
mind-altering drug that

the agency
has come across so far.

- The CIA director
initiates a program

to explore the brainwashing
potential of LSD

and other psychoactive drugs.

- You have to
understand the sense

of emergency that was
gripping the United States

in the early 1950s.

What Dulles wanted and
why MKUltra was created

was a search for a silver
bullet, a magic potion that

would break down
the person who ingested it

or break down
his facade of lies.

- The CIA hopes to use
brainwashing on spies,

foreign prisoners, and
ultimately even foreign leaders

like Fidel Castro.

- Dulles charges chemist
and poison expert

Sidney Gottlieb
to run the program.

Gottlieb spends $240,000
to buy as much LSD

as he can get his hands on.

- Gottlieb went to Sandoz
and said, I'll buy it all.

I want to corner
the market on this stuff.

And Sidney Gottlieb
became America's

first government-authorized
drug dealer.

He is the man who
brought LSD to the CIA.

- Gottlieb decides the best
way to evaluate

this incredibly powerful new
psychedelic drug is to test it

on humans across the country.

MKUltra funds 149
research projects

across 80 institutions.

- The CIA has never
wanted for money.

Cash is its most
powerful secret weapon.

- Among the institutions
taking part

in Gottlieb's experiments

are 44 colleges
and universities,

as well as hospitals,
pharmaceutical companies

and even prisons.

- All manner of drugs became
the focus of these experiments,

and all manner of unwitting
human Guinea pigs.

For example, there was
a federal prison in Kentucky

that housed people
who had been heroin

junkies before their arrest.

A number of these prisoners
were inducted into the MKUltra

program, and without
their knowledge,

they were fed LSD
for 77 days in a row.

What this essentially
meant is that you

were in a drug-induced
schizophrenic state.

I can't imagine that
these were good trips.

- In 1957, Gottlieb enlists
Canadian psychiatrist

Ewen Cameron.

- Between 1957
and 1964, Cameron

conducts a series of hideous
experiments for the CIA,

attempting to use LSD and
other extreme treatments

to break down the human mind
and rebuild it from scratch.

♪ ♪

- Ewen Cameron softens his
patients up by getting them

into an insulin-induced coma.

He then exposes them
to LSD and other forms

of psychological torture.

- The subjects
of these experiments

had no idea they
were in the middle

of a giant CIA experiment.

They were just normal people
looking for psychiatric help,

and they came out destroyed.

- Gottlieb takes some
of his most extreme

experiments overseas.

- The CIA set up secret
detention centers

across Asia and even in
Europe, far away enough

from home and
congressional oversight

so they won't attract
any unwanted attention.

- Here, Gottlieb's team
will experiment

on suspects like foreign
agents captured

by the CIA for other reasons.

They call these
subjects expendable.

♪ ♪

- MKUltra runs for 20 years.

We don't know how many
people were affected

or how badly they were harmed.

But nothing works, and
brainwashing remains elusive.

The CIA cancels MKUltra
and Gottlieb retires in 1973.

- They know it's not
a good look for the agency.

So to bury the
evidence, Gottlieb

and outgoing CIA
Director Helms decide

to destroy all of the records.

- Gottlieb literally takes box
upon box of hard copy MKUltra

documentation back to the CIA
archive to have is shredded

and destroyed.

- But he doesn't quite
manage to destroy all of it.

- Those remaining
MKUltra documents will

come back to haunt the CIA.

In 1975, Congress
launches an investigation

into the agency exposing
projects like MKUltra.

Sidney Gottlieb testifies
before Congress,

but claims he doesn't remember
much about the experiments,

and he gets off scot-free.

- The CIA officers who
took part in this doubtless

felt that the United States
was at war,

and that there were
no rules in such a game.

The mission was more
important than the rules,

even though those rules might
be the laws of God and man.

♪ ♪

- In the 1950s, Communist
militias are battling U.S.

influence across the Pacific.

To gain an edge.

American PsyOps teams
turned to mind games.

♪ ♪

The Philippines, early 1950s.

- The U.S. backed
Filipino government

is fighting an insurrection by
guerrillas known as the Huk.

- The Huk rebellion was
a Communist rebellion,

and like others
in Southeast Asia,

it was seen as something
that the United States

had to conquer.

- The U.S. is on the
defensive as Huk rebels

hidden in the dense
forests threaten

to overrun nearby towns.

But as the guerrillas
prepare their next assault,

these fierce fighters stumble
across something unsettling.

- Early one morning,
a group of devoted Huk rebels

is moving through the jungle.

What they find chills
them to the bone.

- They find one of their
missing soldiers lying dead.

His body is completely
drained of blood.

- There's no bullet wounds.

There's no blade marks.

Instead, there's just two
small punctures in his neck.

♪ ♪

- The reason why is revealed
in a 1972 memoir written

by a man involved

in the conflict,

Local CIA Station
Chief Edward Lansdale.

- Edward Lansdale was a
firm proponent of the use

of psychological warfare.

He really believes that if
you can terrify your enemies,

you make them a lot less
effective on the battlefield.

- Lansdale knows
of a local legend

he can use to beat
the Huk, using

fear instead of firepower.

- Every culture has
its scary monsters.

And in the case
of the Philippines,

one of the key monsters
is the aswang.

♪ ♪

An aswang is a shapeshifting,
vampiric, blood sucking demon.

- Edward Lansdale
wants to harness

the local cultural
beliefs of fear

around this sort
of vampire and use

that to terrorize the people
in the countryside.

- Lansdale gets a native
Filipino psychological warfare

team under his command
to spread rumors

among the locals in town.

They claim a terrifying
vampiric aswang demon has

been seen stalking the area.

- The word starts
to reverberate

throughout the community,
and it scares people.

- Next, Lansdale ups the ante.

- Lansdale's
psychological warfare team

creeps into the jungle
and sets up an ambush.

It's very dark
in the forest at night,

so they have no problem hiding.

When a Huk patrol comes along,

they wait
for the very last man

and then grab him
without making a sound.

♪ ♪

- They kill him without
leaving any marks on the body.

Then they puncture his neck
with two small puncture wounds.

They hang it by its feet
so that all of the blood

will drain out
through the wounds.

- The body is then
taken and left

in a rebel-held area
where they know

it's going to be discovered.

- When the Huks come
back through the area,

they find their comrade
drained of blood.

♪ ♪

These Huk soldiers
are terrified

that their very
worst nightmares

might have come to life.

They abandon their stronghold,

and they stop launching
attacks in that region.

- In 1954, the Huk surrendered
to Philippine troops

and the rebellion is over,
in no small part

thanks to Lansdale's tactics.

One reason governments use
PsyOps is because they work.

In 1969, the U.S. tries
a new kind of terrifying mind

game against the Viet Cong.

By the beginning of 1969,
American forces are getting

bogged down in Vietnam.

- The U.S. is going all
out with saturation

bombing and even
chemical warfare,

but it's just not working.

- If anything, the Viet Cong
are winning the upper hand.

There are some people
that suggest

that maybe the United States
should try a different tactic.

- Then something
stirs in the forest.

- VC troops operating
at night begin

to hear anguished,
disembodied voices

echoing through the darkness.

- When you're patrolling
in the jungle at night,

your senses are limited.

So you can only
imagine how creepy

it must have been to hear these
sort of disembodied voices.

- The ghosts are all
part of a campaign

of psychological
warfare against

North Vietnamese troops.

It's called Operation
Wandering Soul.

- We are playing on North
Vietnamese superstitions

by claiming that
the wandering souls

of their unburied dead in the
South are guiding our bombs.

- The average Viet Cong
soldier is a teenager who's not

particularly well educated.

They're very superstitious,
if you will.

They believe that spirits
can haunt the Earth.

If your body is left unburied,
the presumption

is that the soul
can't move on, that it

becomes a wandering soul.

- But where are these ghostly
voices really coming from?

- No surprise, but the haunting
voices, they're not ghosts.

Instead, they're American tape
recordings being blared out

from massive speaker systems.

- PsyOps teams
put Vietnamese voices

through an echo chamber.

They process it
and add horror show

sound effects to up the ante.

♪ ♪

- We don't know how
effective Wandering Soul

was against the enemy, but we
do know it spooked our allies.

♪ ♪

- There are specific
orders issued to the Army

that they are not
to play this in earshot

of their South
Vietnamese allies,

because it wasn't just
affecting the target audience,

the Viet Cong, but it was
also affecting our allies

and scaring the hell
out of them, too.

- During the 1970s,
U.S. spy agencies report

that the Soviet Union
is experimenting

with a new espionage tool,
telepathy.

They respond with a mission
that sounds out of this world,

Project Stargate.

At the Stanford
Research Institute,

scientists funded by the CIA
are running a series

of experiments to test
a psychic technique known

as remote viewing,
the ability to telepathically

see faraway things using
only the power of the mind.

The agency hopes it will help
them spy on the Soviet Union.

- These guys are so
desperate for information

from behind the Iron Curtain
that they will try anything.

So maybe, just maybe,
this remote viewing

could be the way to get it and
with no risk of getting caught.

- If it works,
the U.S. government

would gain a way
to systematically create

psychic spies, and that would
give an incredible advantage

to the national security
infrastructure

of the United States.

It would change the nature
of warfare forever.

- American doctor
and paranormal

enthusiast
Andrija Puharich hears

of a promising
potential candidate.

He's a former
Israeli paratrooper

who claims to possess
paranormal powers, Uri Geller.

Puharich introduces Geller

to the remote
viewing researchers.

- At Stanford,
Geller's psychic ability

will be put to the test.

Researchers film the trials.

- 15 drawings were placed
in double sealed envelopes

in a safe.

Geller's task was to draw what
he perceived in the envelope.

- What they hope
he'll be able to do

is reproduce images
only through utilizing

the power of his mind.

- If he could do what
he said he could do,

it could transform the world
of intelligence collection.

- This is Geller's
representation

of what he believed was
sealed in the envelope.

At no time during
these experiments

did he have any
advance knowledge

of the target material.

♪ ♪

- A secret report from
1973 reveals that Geller

seems to be getting results.

- So to get ahead
of the Soviets,

they doubled down
on paranormal research.

- The CIA transfers
the remote viewing research

to the Defense
Intelligence Agency, or DIA,

who embark on a series of
projects later consolidated

under the code name Stargate.

- Stargate is the DIA's
ultimate mind game.

If it works, it could maybe
even win the whole Cold War.

♪ ♪

- The government
decides it's time

to test remote viewing during
major international events.

First, they try it
when a Soviet bomber

crashes into dense jungle in
the Central African Republic.

- If America can
find the plane first,

they'll be able to study
the secret Soviet

technology inside.

This is an opportunity
too good to miss.

- Time is running out.

They need to act quickly.

However, conventional
intelligence

is drawing a blank.

They have to think
outside the box.

- Intelligence teams
call in a Stargate

test subject, Rosemary Smith.

- They show Smith
the part of Africa

where they believe
the plane has gone down.

- Rosemary Smith
actually used a technique

she called map dowsing.

- She took a pendulum, and it
was a weight on the end of it,

and she uses that
to divine the location

of the downed jet.

She eventually
settles on a location.

♪ ♪

The team converts
those to coordinates.

- The ground team went out,
and lo and behold,

the bomber was there, very
close to the exact location

where she said it
was going to be.

- It's a win
for the remote viewing team.

So now they apply it
in a high-stakes situation

where U.S. citizens
are in danger.

[all chanting]

- Islamic fundamentalists
have just taken

over the country, when radicals
invade the U.S. embassy

and seize more than
60 American hostages.

- I'm from Utah.

I was a political secretary,
and I'm 33.

- Hunkered down in Fort Meade,
the Stargate team focus

on Iran
and the American hostages.

- One of the remote
viewers claims

he has a vision of a sick
hostage on a stretcher.

But which one?

He suggests
the hostage is associated

with a royal playing card.

You know, like the king,
the queen, or the jack.

- Just four days
later, a hostage

suffering from
multiple sclerosis

is released and flown home.

His name is Richard Queen.

♪ ♪

- The vision of the stricken
man and a royal card

matching his last name,
which is Queen,

suggest that this is a hit.

Maybe they're actually
on to something.

- Stargate research continues
for years until the mid-'90s,

when the government
questions how much it really

is bringing to the table.

- Lawmakers want
to know what is

the upshot of
decades of big dollar

DIA spending on this
strange secret program?

They tasked the CIA
to evaluate Stargate.

- In September 1995,
the CIA releases its report.

- It is kind of eerie,
but incredibly enough,

this report suggests
that remote viewing

generates more so-called
hits than you'd get

by simple chance alone.

In other words, there might
be something more than random

guessing going on here.

- But even when there
are so-called hits,

the research does not
show that they are

caused by paranormal means.

♪ ♪

- The report does not explain
the better-than-chance

hit rate.

To this day, no one has.

But that can't save the
remote viewing program.

In June 1995, the Stargate
program is finally shut down.

- During the 1950s,
the U.S. and Soviet Union

install ballistic
missiles on submarines.

But it's hard to communicate
with these subs underwater.

Reports suggest scientists
from both nations

try something unusual,
mind games.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

An article in a French
scientific magazine

sends shockwaves
through the Soviet Navy.

- This former French resistance
fighter turned sci-fi author,

Jacques Bergier, claims he has
inside information about mind

games on board the world's
first nuclear powered

submarine, the USS "Nautilus."

- The "Nautilus" has just
made an incredible record

breaking journey.

It has stayed submerged
for six whole days

and it has traveled
underneath the North Pole.

- Bergier's article claims
that on the "Nautilus" voyage,

the Navy tests a new form
of sub to shore

communication, telepathy.

- Communication
with the submarine

is a huge challenge,
because when they're

underwater, for the
most part, they can't

receive radio broadcasts.

- So the thought was, well,
what if we could use telepathy?

What if we could use
ESP to accomplish

this super important task?

- It sounds incredible,
but worryingly to the Soviets,

this article claims that
paranormal mental communication

is working.

- Bergier's article is making
some fantastical claims

that they have a person
on the sub underwater

who is sending telepathic
communications to a person

on land who receives them.

That's kind of bonkers.

- The experiments themselves,

according
to Bergier's article,

were using something called
Zener cards, which were

commonly used in ESP research.

The sender would look at cards,
and the receiver

would attempt
to identify the shapes

that he saw on these cards.

And according to Bergier,
it worked fantastically well.

- This story is
impossible to verify.

But if it's true,
it's a game changer.

♪ ♪

- "Nautilus" could receive its
firing orders while still

hidden deep beneath the waves.

♪ ♪

- A form of communication
that is silent

and can't be intercepted
by the enemy

is just what they need.

- The Soviets are
playing catch-up.

They come up with their own
psychic test, which is

revealed in a declassified
CIA report.

- Buried in the documents
are details of a sinister

Soviet sub-to-shore
telepathy experiment,

this one using animals.

- Soviet scientist Pavel Naumov
is pursuing research that

suggests there's
a strong psychic link

between mother and child that
could make telepathy easier.

- His theory is that no matter
how far apart the mother

and child are, the mother can
sense the death of that child,

that they are connected.

♪ ♪

- To test the idea, Soviet
scientists separate a mother

rabbit from her babies.

They send her young out on
a submarine far out to sea.

- On land, the scientists
insert electrodes

into the mother
rabbit's skull so they

can measure the electrical
activity in her brain.

- Then the telepathic
communication test begins.

- On the submarine
deep underwater,

these scientists are taking
the baby rabbits and one by one

mercilessly executing them.

- Back on shore, Naumov,
the Soviet scientist,

was monitoring the brain
activity of the mother rabbit.

- Surprisingly,
the test seems to work.

- Naumov claims that the
mother rabbit's brain

has a signal spike every time
one of her little baby bunnies

is murdered.

♪ ♪

- This spurs
a fever of activity

inside the Soviet Union,
so that by 1967,

there are 30 labs
spending millions

of rubles on this sort
of weird paranormal research.

♪ ♪

- The record kind of
goes dark after that.

I'm sure the Soviets
continue to try telepathy,

but in the end, there's no
evidence that this was ever put

into practice successfully.

♪ ♪

- From dangerous psychedelic
drugs to projects designed

to trick the enemy,
nations have always

used mind games as weapons.

Sometimes these tactics
are disturbing,

but sometimes they lead
to surprising victories.

I'm David Duchovny.

Thanks for watching
"Secrets Declassified."

♪ ♪