Project Sun Streak was the code name for the U.S. government’s classified remote viewing program, run by the Defense Intelligence Agency from late 1985 through 1990 to test whether trained psychics could produce usable intelligence. The unit worked out of Fort Meade, Maryland, ran sessions against hostage locations and foreign military sites, and was renamed Project Star Gate on January 1, 1991, before being terminated in 1995 after an outside review found it had no operational utility.1Central Intelligence Agency. Project Sunstreak
Where Sun Streak Came From
The military had been experimenting with psychic intelligence collection for nearly a decade before Sun Streak got its name. It started in 1977 with Gondola Wish, a small Army Intelligence and Security Command project that looked at whether foreign adversaries might be using remote viewing and whether the United States could too.2Federation of American Scientists. STAR GATE [Controlled Remote Viewing] The Army canceled Gondola Wish in 1978 and replaced it with Project Grill Flame, which paired operational sessions at Fort Meade with laboratory research at Stanford Research Institute International.3National Security Archive. DIA Declassified Sourcebook – SUN STREAK
INSCOM ended its formal role in Grill Flame at the close of 1982, and the commanding general kept the work going under a special access program called Center Lane. In September 1984 the DIA and INSCOM signed a memorandum of agreement to move Center Lane to DIA control. When Army funding ran out in late 1985, the unit was redesignated Sun Streak and placed under DIA’s Scientific and Technical Intelligence Directorate.2Federation of American Scientists. STAR GATE [Controlled Remote Viewing] The name changes tracked real shifts in who held the budget.
Who Ran the Program
Under Sun Streak, DIA provided management and oversight while INSCOM kept direct administrative and operational control. The unit worked from a specialized facility at Fort Meade.4Central Intelligence Agency. Project Sun Streak Only a small number of officials had visibility into daily activities. Recruits were enlisted soldiers and officers pulled from the wider Army; starting in fiscal year 1984, the program used mass screening exercises, testing large groups on remote viewing tasks rather than relying on psychological profiles alone.5Central Intelligence Agency. Mass Screening for Psychoenergetic Talent Using a Remote Viewing Task Candidates who passed underwent extensive background checks for the high-level clearances the work required, and all participants signed nondisclosure agreements.
How a Session Worked
Sun Streak used Coordinate Remote Viewing, a structured protocol that SRI had developed in the early 1980s. The method walked a viewer through six progressive stages, each designed to draw out more detailed information about a target while keeping analytical thought out of the way.6Central Intelligence Agency. Coordinate Remote Viewing Stages I-VI and Beyond In Stage 1, a monitor read a set of geographic coordinates aloud, and the viewer drew an “ideogram,” a spontaneous pen stroke meant to capture the raw signal before conscious thought could intervene. Later stages built up sensory impressions, spatial detail, and the perceived function of the site, ending with a synthesis phase where the viewer described the target as a whole. Training to proficiency took months, and candidates had to demonstrate accuracy in controlled blind tests before working live targets.
The physical setup was deliberately sparse: a secluded room, a table, two chairs, and blank paper. The monitor had no knowledge of the actual target. Every word the viewer spoke and every sketch drawn was recorded, producing a formal transcript that intelligence analysts could later compare against satellite imagery or verified reporting. After each session, analysts assigned a confidence score. When multiple viewers worked the same target independently, overlap across sessions was used as a rough measure of reliability.
What It Was Tasked With
Sun Streak was pointed at targets that conventional collection had trouble reaching. Viewers tried to locate American hostages held in Lebanon by sketching floor plans and describing the buildings where captives were believed to be held. Others worked foreign military installations, describing hangars, underground bunkers, and equipment layouts inside the Soviet Union. A declassified DIA briefing cited an early success at a Soviet research facility at Semipalatinsk, where impressions from viewers reportedly matched details later confirmed by human intelligence and satellite imagery.3National Security Archive. DIA Declassified Sourcebook – SUN STREAK
The unit was also tasked with tracking drug smuggling vessels moving through international waters toward the United States. Results were packaged into standardized reports and distributed to requesting agencies.
The Star Gate Rename and the 1995 Review
Effective January 1, 1991, Sun Streak was renamed Project Star Gate. A declassified DIA memorandum said the new name reflected “a broader, more comprehensive program scope that includes all previously unified psychoenergetics-related activities.”1Central Intelligence Agency. Project Sunstreak The work transitioned to Science Applications International Corporation under continuing DIA sponsorship, with equipment, transcripts, and trained personnel formally transferred.2Federation of American Scientists. STAR GATE [Controlled Remote Viewing]
By the mid-1990s, Congress directed an outside review. The CIA commissioned the American Institutes for Research to evaluate both the laboratory research and the operational record, and the report was completed in 1995. Two outside experts filed independent reviews. Statistician Jessica Utts concluded that the statistical results were far beyond chance and that, judged by the standards of any other scientific field, the evidence established that psychic functioning was real. Skeptic Ray Hyman disagreed, arguing that effect sizes were small, inconsistent across laboratories, and explainable by methodological problems like sensory leakage. Both agreed the statistical results were significant; they disagreed about what those results meant.7Central Intelligence Agency. An Evaluation of the Remote Viewing Program
The AIR evaluation team sided with the skeptical reading. The report concluded that remote viewing had not demonstrated operational utility for intelligence collection and recommended termination. The CIA accepted the recommendation and shut Star Gate down.
Reading the Files Today
Sun Streak’s records stayed classified for years after the program ended. Release was facilitated by Executive Order 12958, which set up a framework for automatic declassification of records more than 25 years old that had permanent historical value.8National Archives. Executive Order 12958 The CIA’s CREST database, built in response to that order, became the main vehicle for public access.9Central Intelligence Agency. Project Sun Streak Declassified Sun Streak and Star Gate documents can now be searched through the CIA’s FOIA Electronic Reading Room. The collection includes session transcripts, internal memoranda, budget documents, and the Coordinate Remote Viewing training manual. The National Security Archive at George Washington University has also compiled a curated sourcebook of key DIA documents from the program.10National Security Archive. Defense Intelligence Agency, Project SUN STREAK