The Men Who Stare At Goats

In his bestselling book , Ronson investigates the "First Earth Battalion," a secret unit proposed in 1979 by . The project's goal was to create "Warrior Monks" capable of unconventional feats:

The program was shrouded in secrecy, and its existence was not publicly acknowledged until the 1990s. During its operational years, the Remote Viewing Program attracted some of the most brilliant and eccentric minds in the fields of psychology, physics, and parapsychology. One of the most notable remote viewers was Ingo Swann, a renowned psychic and author who claimed to have successfully identified and described several distant targets, including a volcano in Nicaragua and a Soviet military base. The Men Who Stare At Goats

When his soldiers invariably bounced off the walls of their offices, Stubblebine blamed their "lack of belief." In his bestselling book , Ronson investigates the

Channon’s vision was essentially the New Age movement in combat boots. He proposed a "Warrior Monks." These soldiers would be trained in martial arts, meditation, and "psychic self-defense." They would not fire bullets; they would fire "light and love." They would not storm beaches; they would conduct "non-lethal warfare," using strobe lights, sticky foam, and psychological confusion. One of the most notable remote viewers was

Skeptics maintain that the goats likely died of stress—being confined in a small room with a dozen sweating men in headbands will spike any animal’s cortisol levels. Or, perhaps, the soldiers were simply lying to justify their funding.

The real story of the men who stared at goats is not just a story about New Age hippies in uniform. It is a three-decade saga that stretches from a California meditation retreat to the interrogation cells of Guantanamo Bay. It is a tale of well-intentioned idealism gone sideways, of billions of taxpayer dollars spent on trying to telepathically spy on the Kremlin, and of a military so desperate for a “silver bullet” against asymmetric warfare that it briefly considered the Jedi mind trick a tactical option.