MKULTRA: How A Watch Foiled CIA’s Secretive Mind Control Experiments

The USG Finds An Unlikely Culprit That “Prevents Time Travel”

By Anonymous

In the W.O.E. world, we focus on watches used as tools to get the job done. But in one fascinating historical instance, a watch was part of the problem rather than the solution. According to CIA, a simple wristwatch may have prevented some test subjects from traveling through time and space, by grounding them in the present.

In the early 1950s, under the direction of Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Allen W. Dulles, chemist Sydney Gottlieb ordered the purchase of a large quantity of lysergic acid diethylamide by the CIA, whom he worked for as the head of MKULTRA, a covert program experimenting with the effects of psychoactive substances on interrogation subjects. This compound, known to most as LSD, was reportedly used on subjects—sometimes unwittingly—throughout the nation via numerous front organizations posing as research foundations and clinics, including a program at Stanford University.

Boston crime boss Whitey Bulger was reportedly an MKULTRA test subject while serving time at an Atlanta penitentiary in the 1950s.

Needless to say, MKULTRA isn't the proudest moment in CIA’s history and serves as a legacy that plagues the Agency to this day. Once a highly compartmentalized and classified program, MKULTRA is now a part of pop culture and has given rise to a myriad of conspiracy theories. The 2009 film starring George Clooney, The Men Who Stare at Goats, is a satirical riff on the government’s unconventional experiments with New Age philosophy applied to warfare seemingly inspired by the real-like MKULTRA experiments. The Netflix hit Stranger Things also explores known elements of the program including “remote viewing”, the skill that allows character Eleven to “see” what’s going on elsewhere.

CIA staff photo of Gottleib.

MKULTRA is often cited in modern conspiracy theories stemming from the belief that events from the 2024 Pennsylvania assassination attempt on President Trump to the recent vehicle attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas were all products of covert government mind control programs, encouraging ordinary individuals to carry out terror attacks to influence domestic politics. Under even a basic level of scrutiny, these theories are right up there with the idea that a lizard-human hybrid species is running the entire planet. That said, the reason they catch on is that the program did exist and much of the documentation surrounding the extent of it has been destroyed.

The story of MKULTRA is rather unbelievable, but the CIA has declassified many legitimate documents that shed light on this unusual era in Agency history. A lot of what transpired in the MKULTRA program (which is in reality a series of smaller programs lasting from 1953 to 1973) is out in the open for all to review. The CIA has made all the documents referenced in this very story available in the Reading Room, a digital archive of declassified documents related to past Agency activity. It was in these documents that our research revealed an interesting case where something as seemingly insignificant as a watch foiled the CIA’s highly secretive experiments.

Sydney Gottlieb(left), one of MKULTRA’s principal architects, in 1977

The experiments started by recruiting individuals en masse who would be willing to enroll in trials for a “wonder drug” put on by CIA-controlled front organizations. The drug was advertised as a way to improve their lives and treat their ailments. In reality, the drug was LSD, and its effects on these patients were recorded and studied.

Thus, LSD was introduced to America. Eventual recreational usage of LSD was an externality of MKULTRA, but the real aim was to gain knowledge that would allow the US to extract information during interrogations or force confessions. US intelligence has suspected that the Soviet world had come up with a substance or technique—or a combination of both—that enabled them to use mind control, and that posed a threat to the United States. MKULTRA was their attempt to catch up to—and get ahead of—the Soviet threat.

MKULTRA is the most well-known of the CIA’s programs of this nature, inspiring many Hollywood plots—but the intelligence community’s role in this field of study went much, much deeper. “MKULTRA” was the cryptonym for the program with the digraph “MK” indicating it was owned by the Office of Office of Technical Services and “ULTRA” a randomly generated word to cover the program. This naming convention is still used to this day to cover operations, cases, and assets.

In the early ‘70s at Fort Meade, Maryland, a secret program that sought to explore psychic phenomenon in defense and intelligence applications under the US Army was launched, codenamed the Stargate Project (it went by a litany of other names as well, but it was all eventually consolidated under “Stargate”). The program was conceived and directed under the Defense Intelligence Agency in collaboration with a civilian contractor called SRI International (formerly the Stanford Research Institute before spinning off from the University in 1970).

Stanford Research Institute in 1963 (Photo Credit: South Pasadena Public Library)

Similar to MKULTRA, the premise was that the US could gain an advantage over the Soviet Union by exploring the paranormal phenomena known as “remote viewing” using clairvoyance and “out of body” techniques. Gifted individuals, known as “remote viewers” would use their ability to “see” and report on what the adversaries of the US were doing. This was a time of great experimentation by the US intelligence community, and no idea was too nutty not to at least explore, even leveraging the potential power of the astral plane.

According to a declassified 1988 report on Project Sun Streak, the Defense Intelligence Agency focused on two techniques under the practice of Psychoenergetics. The goal was to “...establish remote viewing as a reliable intelligence tool”.

Remote Viewing (RV)

Ability to describe remote areas or concealed data via unknown mental processes

Remote Action (RA)

Ability to influence physical or biological systems via undefined physical mechanisms

The results of these experiments were deemed “too impressive to dismiss as mere coincidence.” The scientific panel was composed of some of the brightest minds of the time like Dr. Donald Kerr, the Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. In a test case where RV was leveraged in a theoretical hostage rescue situation, the summary states that “several instances of startling corroboration with other intelligence” were found, and that the “reporting was assessed reliable and accurate”.

It appeared the DIA was experiencing some success with the program, but one failed attempt is particularly interesting to W.O.E.

A routine Extended Remote Viewing (ERV) session on 02 August 1986 started normally, with the source entering a hypnagogic state—the state of the mind right before falling asleep, when sensory perceptions can be experienced—and provided encrypted coordinates by a Special Activities Officer (referred to as an interviewer in the report). The source then uses RV to “see” what’s going on at the given coordinates, which he summarized after the session.

Part of RV is being able to travel through both time and space using unknown mental processes; the Source was asked to “travel” to a different time when something more relevant to the objectives of the session.

Then something peculiar happened.

A watch had the power to prevent the source from “traveling” through time according to a 1986 report. It somehow anchored him to the present, unable to manipulate time.

This is a fascinating bit of information, despite not knowing what exact watch he was wearing. The truth is that he shouldn’t have been wearing a watch at all. Over a decade earlier in 1974, Special Management Guidelines for the SRI Paranormal Project were established. As per the official procedure:

“Before a day’s experimentation, subjects should strip-down (removing rings, wristwatches, etc, as well) and put on a special lab garment (jumpsuit)”

It’s unlikely that a known phenomenon of watches stopping sources’ time travel was the reason subjects had to strip down, but it’s noteworthy that watches in particular are called out in these guidelines.

Time Travel & The Gateway Process

We’ve explored how DARPA has developed experimental technology in the form of watches to master the exacting nature of accuracy. On the other end of the spectrum, the IC has experimented with the abstract nature of time itself, and more interestingly, how to manipulate it. As part of the same larger set of experiments, analyses, and assessments known as Project Stargate, time travel was a specific area of interest for the Department of Defense. Perhaps the most fascinating of all the findings was the CIA’s research on reaching altered states of consciousness; the CIA refers to this as the “Gateway Experience” in now-declassified documents.

A worn copy of the book Journeys Out of the Body

The “Gateway Experience” resulted from subjects using the “Gateway Process”, a methodology developed by Robert Monroe, a New York City broadcasting executive with a penchant for having out-of-body experiences. In the late ‘50s, Monroe began experimenting with altered consciousness. He penned Journeys Out of the Body in 1971, and along with the book, he opened The Monroe Institute in Virginia. The institute still exists today, with a simple mission: Helping people create more meaningful and joyful lives through the guided exploration of expanded consciousness. The CIA tapped The Monroe Institute to see how altered states of consciousness might be useful to the United States.

A 1983 report from Military Intelligence Lieutenant Colonel Wayne M. McDonnell, summarizes his position on the program by quoting the physicist Niels Bohr:

While it’s a completely far-fetched idea, there was enough of a reason for the United States Government to explore the possibility of time travel using taxpayer’s money, a concept previously confined to the pages of science fiction novels.

The Monroe Institute is still experimenting in this field to this very day. But make sure that if you’re attempting time travel using the Gateway Method or any other methodology born from MKULTRA research, heed this simple piece of advice learned from the program: Don’t wear a watch.

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