Nature of Reality News Stories

Excerpts of Key Nature of Reality News Stories in Major Media

Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on the mysterious nature of reality from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.

Note: This comprehensive list of news stories is usually updated once a week. Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.

Children regularly survive near-death experiences, or NDEs, just like anyone else. But a new study published in the journal Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice notes that very few researchers actually speak with this critical age group, despite the special insights it offers for experts exploring human consciousness. In their review, the authors noticed that children reported some similar "core features," including tunnels, bright lights, and out-of-body sensations. They interviewed seven children who survived cardiac arrest in a pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) using arts- and play-based approaches, rather than the more direct questions used in most adult-based NDE interviews. Strikingly, however, the children's self-reported NDE experiences did not include every hallmark found in adult descriptions of NDEs. For example, there are no life reviews or messages from loved ones present in children's descriptions. Culture and religion also played little to no role in their responses, leading the authors to assert that a child's NDE may be more "raw" ... than adult NDEs, and should be considered extremely valuable data for future research. Unlocking the secrets of NDEs could help us understand consciousness, but scientists need more data. Thankfully, as resuscitation techniques become ever more advanced, it's likely that more and more people will experience these events instead of simply dying before they can share what happened to them.

Note: Our Substack investigation, How Consciousness Research Can Help Heal a Divided World, features fascinating examples and credible, scientific investigations into past-life memories in children. Explore more positive stories like this on near-death experiences.

The human brain remains deeply mysterious. Scientists have mapped its synapses and neurons in extraordinary detail, yet ... the felt experience of being you still defies efforts at a full explanation. However, researchers do have one fascinating window into that inner world: near-death experiences, or NDEs. As the name suggests, near-death experiences are altered states of consciousness reported by upwards of one-fifth of people who experience a life-threatening medical emergency. Some common traits of NDEs have emerged over nearly 50 years of research: intense emotions of peace and joy, out-of-body experiences (OBEs), encounters with dead relatives, altered perceptions of time, and elevated lucidity, among others. These accounts from people who've nearly died appear to contradict what scientists expect to occur in the brain as its regions begin to shut down one by one. In a new qualitative study published in the journal Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, [researcher Nicole] Lindsay and her colleagues reveal details of how individuals' dreams changed drastically following an NDE. A participant named Basil said he could confidently recall one dream every week or two, but after his near-death experience, that recall became a nightly occurrence. Others reported that dreams become intensely vivid after an NDE and that the separation between dreaming and waking was much more ambiguous than it was before.

Note: For more inspiring and credible material on this topic, read our Substack investigations: How Consciousness Research Can Help Heal a Divided World and Insights from Near-Death Experiences Remind Us of Who We Are and What Unites Us. Explore more positive stories like this on near-death experiences.

Aliens arrived on Earth thousands of years ago and may STILL be hiding in secret bases thousands of feet below the oceans' surface, according to a respected congressman. The amazing declaration by Rep. Tim Burchett was based on the extraordinary number of UFO sightings recorded by U.S. Navy personnel near "five or six" unspecified deep-water sites around the globe. Those sightings have prompted "a lot of questions" focusing on whether secret alien bases are hidden at sea, according to Burchett, who is a member of the House Oversight Committee investigating USO (unidentified submerged objects) reports. "We have naval personnel telling me that we have sightings," notes Burchett. The underwater crafts "they're chasing are doing hundreds of miles an hour, and the best we've got is something that does maybe just a little bit under 40 miles an hour," he said. His stunning comments are only the latest to raise the specter of aliens hiding on Earth. As far back as Christopher Columbus' 1492 voyage to the New World, sailors – and pilots in more recent times – have reported seeing mysterious crafts dramatically emerge from the oceans and soar into space. U.S. Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Alexandro Wiggins testified during a September 9 congressional hearing on UFOs that he was aboard the USS Jackson off the coast of Southern California in 2023 when a "self-luminous Tic Tac-shaped object emerged from the ocean before linking up with three other similar objects" right in front of him. "The orb then disappeared simultaneously with a high, synchronized, near-instantaneous acceleration," Wiggins testified.

Note: Did you know that 80% of our oceans remain unmapped and unexplored? Congressman Tim Burchett has stated that US Navy admirals have reported encounters with unidentified submerged objects (USOs) as large as a football field moving at speeds of up to 200 miles per hour underwater. If accurate, such performance would far exceed the capabilities of any known human-made submarine, which are limited by drag, pressure, and propulsion constraints in water. Don't miss our new video UFO Disclosure Explained: New Solutions for Humanity w/ Daniel Sheehan and Amber Yang.

[Nick] Pope worked at the UK Ministry of Defence for more than two decades, from 1985 to 2006. For three of those years – 1991 to 1994 – he worked on what was known colloquially in the department as "the UFO desk". One encounter jumped out at him. It had been reported in Rendlesham Forest by two American airmen on Christmas night in 1980. Rendlesham Forest is in Suffolk, England, outside RAF Bentwaters, an airbase operated by the US during the cold war. On that airbase in 1980 were several nuclear missiles. Unlike other UFO sightings, the eyewitness reports from Rendlesham were backed up by hard evidence. It's multiple witnesses, including military. It's sightings over three consecutive nights. It's physical evidence in terms of radar, radioactivity, ground trace indentations, scorch marks. It's a case where we have declassified and released documents, which you can see at ... the Ministry of Defence website. [Staff sergeant Jim] Penniston says he felt a weird sensation, like static electricity ... then a blinding bright light burst into the night. Expecting an explosion, they flung themselves to the ground, but none came. Penniston rose to his feet and saw the bright light beginning to fade, revealing a triangular craft resting in a small clearing on the forest floor, multicoloured neon lights darting over its black opaque surface until they too dimmed and the only light remaining was emanating from underneath the craft.

Note: Don't miss our new video UFO Disclosure Explained: New Solutions for Humanity w/ Daniel Sheehan and Amber Yang. For more along these lines, explore our summary of the Rendlesham Forest incident in our UFO Information Center.

One of the most intriguing secrets of Operation Epic Fury is how, using an "exquisite" piece of classified technology, the CIA succeeded in finding the injured airman in Iran by detecting his heartbeat, the tiniest evidence of human life concealed in a narrow crevice up a 7,000ft mountain ridge. The technology that led to the airman's rescue by Seal Team Six commandos has been outed as a CIA "tool" called Ghost Murmur. It was reportedly developed as a highly classified "blue skies" invention by Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works, the famous laboratory where young, brilliant scientists and engineers devote their time to finding solutions to impossible concepts. John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, hinted at the new technology in a press conference this week. "We deployed both human assets and exquisite technologies that no other intelligence service in the world possess to a daunting challenge, comparable to hunting for a single grain of sand in the middle of a desert," Ratcliffe said. On the face of it, a futuristic magnetic sensing device ... pinpointed the missing colonel's heartbeat across a 40-mile stretch of land. Ghost Murmur, as described, would appear to push the boundaries of physics beyond even the most exceptional human brain or computer. Intelligence sources would not confirm or deny the existence of Ghost Murmur. But reportedly the "CIA tool" relies on what is called quantum magnetometry, which can find signals of human hearts, aided by artificial intelligence to separate out all the other noises getting in the way.

Note: While it's unclear whether the Ghost Murmur tool was actually responsible for rescuing the injured soldier, this technology is not out of the realm of possibility. Since the 1960s, the CIA had already developed poison weapons capable of causing heart attacks remotely. Learn more about real-life exotic weapon technologies used by militaries around the world. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on AI and intelligence agency corruption.

Retired rear admiral Timothy Gallaudet ... is a man with serious credentials. A graduate of the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, he is the former head of the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, has worked on anti-submarine warfare, ran the Naval Observatory, and eventually became the acting administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). He's also one of the most outspoken proponents of the idea that not only are UFOs real, but the government is hiding the truth about them. "We're being visited by some kind of higher-order intelligence that we don't understand," Gallaudet told me. "And it's happening often, frequently, in our airspace and in our water and in space." Gallaudet recalls participating in a naval exercise off the East Coast in 2015 and finding that pilots flying off the USS Theodore Roosevelt, an aircraft carrier, were not only seeing UFOs but getting so close that officers like him became worried about a midair collision. These sightings produced the famous GoFast video of a UFO, which the Pentagon later said was an object that appeared out of the ordinary due to an effect called motion parallax. Gallaudet, who says his correspondence about the object was mysteriously wiped from his computer, is far from convinced by that explanation. He's particularly curious as to why so many UFOs appear to be flying over water and in some videos, appear to be disappearing beneath the waves. "If they want to remain unseen," he told me, "that's the place they would be." He's testified before Congress about what he's seen. He says what the government has disclosed so far is "a fraction of the tip of the iceberg of what we're really seeing day to day."

Note: In this interview, Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet asserts that Atlantis was a real ancient civilization, citing Plato's accounts alongside archaeological and geological evidence suggesting it was destroyed in a catastrophic event around 12,900 years ago; he adds that he is part of a team studying it but "can't say much," implying the work may be tied to sensitive or restricted research. He further claims they may have identified its location on the seafloor and are seeking visual proof of human-made structures. For more, don't miss our new video UFO Disclosure Explained: New Solutions for Humanity w/ Daniel Sheehan and Amber Yang.

Despair is nothing more than ... reducing the immense vista of reality to a particular interpretation of a particular moment. While orbiting a war-torn world aboard the International Space Station, astronaut Chris Hadfield took questions from earthlings in a Reddit AMA. Asked for his advice to anyone on the brink of giving up and his own approach to those moments of darkest despair, he offers: "I remind myself that each sunrise is a harbinger of another chance, and to take quiet, unrecognised pride in the accomplishments I get done each day. Each evening my intended list is unfinished, but I celebrate what I've done, and resolve to do better tomorrow. Also, nothing is ever as good or as bad as it first seems. Keep at it with optimism – it is your life to tinker with, learn from, live and love." This ongoingness of creation – the fact that this world is unfinished and our story unwritten – is nowhere more visible, life's ceaseless insistence on itself nowhere more palpable, than when seen on the scale of the entire planet. Hadfield captures this elemental calibration of perspective: "It's endlessly surprising how continually beautiful our changing, ancient, gorgeous Earth is. Every one of my 1,650 orbits, I saw something new. And I was up long enough to watch the seasons swap ends on the planet, like Mother Earth taking one breath out of 4.5 billion breaths." It is not unimportant that the word "holy" shares its Latin root with "whole" and has its Indo-European origins in the notion of the interleaving of all things.

Note: Former NASA astronaut Ron Garan watched Earth from space for 178 days and came to the realization that we humans are living a lie with our extractive economic systems and how we treat each other and the Earth. Explore more positive stories like this on the mysterious nature of reality.

A great deal of visual processing in the brain goes on well below our conscious awareness. Some studies have probed the unconscious depths of vision. One source of evidence comes from the neurological condition known as blindsight, which is caused by damage to areas of the brain involved in processing visual information. People with blindsight report that they are unable to see, either entirely or in a portion of their visual field. However, when asked to guess what is there, they can often do so with remarkable accuracy. The phenomenon of inattentional blindness seems to show you can see without the information crossing into your consciousness. Anyone can experience inattentional blindness. In this experiment, participants are shown a video of people playing basketball, and told to count the number of passes between the players wearing a white shirt. If you've never done this before, I urge to you stop reading now and watch the video. In many cases, people are so busy counting the passes that they completely miss a large gorilla walking across the middle of the scene and beating its chest, then walking off. The gorilla's right there, in the centre of your visual field. Light from the gorilla enters your eyes, and is processed in the visual system, but somehow you missed it, because you weren't paying attention to it. The question is: what makes some information conscious, rather than the information that stays unconscious?

Note: Meet the blind professional skateboarder who teaches blind people how to skateboard. Echolocation expert Daniel Kish is a blind man who has taught thousands of other blind people to "see" and navigate the world by interpreting echoes that activate the brain's visual centers. Explore more positive stories like this on the mysterious nature of reality.

An unidentified, technologically advanced population could be living secretly on Earth. That startling claim was made in a new paper by researchers at Harvard and Montana Technological University. They speculate that "unidentified anomalous phenomena" (UAP), another term for UFOs, could be living underground, on the moon or even walking among humans. The paper posits the possibility of "cryptoterrestrials" as an explanation for unidentified and unexplainable observations made worldwide each year. Here are the theories proposed in the paper: A "remnant form" of ancient civilization remains on Earth; An intelligent species evolved separately from humans and now stays hidden; Cryptoterrestrials traveled from another time period or planet; The unidentified creatures are of supernatural origin, likened to "earthbound angels." The paper also suggests the idea of cryptoterrestrials living in or under sighting hotspots such as lakes and volcanoes. The researchers propose the influx of sightings in similar areas is due to entry/exit points for hidden societies deep in the Earth. Other possibilities for cryptoterrestrial settlements lie nearby, like on the moon. The paper delves into the government's response to sightings, adding that many believers feel federal agencies are "deliberately downplaying the topic or at least obfuscating the extraordinary nature of many UAP-related events."

Note: After being briefed by high-level military personnel, Rep. Tim Burchett believes non-human beings have underwater bases on Earth. In our new 23-minute video UFO Disclosure Explained: New Solutions for Humanity, civil rights advocate and leading attorney for the UFO disclosure movement Daniel Sheehan and WantToKnow.info Director Amber Yang explore how this topic will open the door to technologies and ideas that could transform how we address humanity's greatest challenges. For more, explore the comprehensive resources provided in our UFO Information Center.

Twenty years ago this month, the CIA released a report with the unassuming title, "An Evaluation of Remote Viewing: Research and Applications." The 183-page white paper was more like a white flag–it was the CIA's public admission, after years of speculation, that U.S. government agencies had been using a type of ESP called "remote viewing" for more than two decades to help collect military and intelligence secrets. At a cost of about $20 million, the program had employed psychics to visualize hidden extremist training sites in Libya, describe new Soviet submarine designs and pinpoint the locations of U.S. hostages held by foreign kidnappers. Although the CIA stopped funding ESP research in 1977, the Air Force, Army and Defense Intelligence Agency kept writing checks. The Army's Fort Meade base in Maryland became the program's secret operational home. In 1995, when Congress directed the CIA to evaluate remote viewing and either take over the program or cancel it for good, the DIA was at the helm. Congress bankrolled and protected the program for years. According to the now-declassified "secret" briefing, available online, the Army's Intelligence and Security Command had conducted "100 collection projects" using ESP since 1979 for a slew of government agencies including the CIA, NSA, FBI and Secret Service. Several of the projects involved the use of Army psychics to help locate Americans taken hostage by Iran in 1979. "Over 85% of our operational missions have produced accurate target information," states the briefing. "Even more significant, approximately 50% of the 760 missions produced usable intelligence."

Sarah wasn't expecting to experience paralysis at 7 am on a weekday during a meditation at her home. But in August, while listening to "The Gateway Tapes"–a set of guided meditations intended to help people reach new planes of consciousness–she says her limbs froze. Sarah ... says the tapes–which she had been listening to on and off for months–took her on a roller-coaster journey of out-of-body experiences. "I was in and out of time and space," she says. Developed by radio broadcasting executive Robert Monroe, the Gateway Process claims to be "a voyage of self-discovery" that can help people go "farther, deeper and faster into different dimensions of consciousness." Monroe founded the Monroe Institute in 1971. The facility claims to help coax people out of their bodies via in-person and virtual retreats, and even Spotify playlists, by way of self-hypnosis style exercises powered by "binaural beats"–sounds attuned to different frequencies which play in each headphone ear. In the early 1980s ... the CIA and the Department of Defense sent US Army lieutenant Colonel Wayne McDonnell to the institute to ascertain its suitability as a defense contractor. McDonnell gave the organization and its unusual curriculum his approval in a 1983 report which has since been declassified. "There is a sound and rational basis," McDonnell writes, "in terms of physical science parameters for considering Gateway to be plausible in terms of its essential objectives."

Note: A society that can self-regulate, self-heal, and access deeper layers of perception is harder to manipulate and even harder to govern through fear. Read our latest Substack, How Consciousness Research Can Help Heal a Divided World to learn more about the Gateway Project. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on intelligence agency corruption and the mysterious nature of reality.

Physics students learn about the basic stuff of reality–space and time, energy and matter–and are told that all other scientific disciplines must reduce back down to the fundamental particles and laws that physics has generated. This philosophy, called "reductionism," worked pretty well from Newton's laws through much of the 20th century as physicists discovered electrons, quarks, the theory of relativity, and so on. But over the past few decades, progress in the most reductionist branches of physics has slowed. Physicists largely ignored living systems. But today, many of my colleagues ... have come to believe that a mystery is unfolding in every microbe, animal, and human–one that challenges basic assumptions physicists have held for centuries, and could answer essential questions about AI. It may even help redefine the field for the next generation. Beginning in the 1980s, physicists ... began developing new mathematical tools to study what's called "complexity"–systems in which the whole is far more than the sum of its parts. Throughout the current AI boom, researchers and philosophers have debated whether and when large language models might achieve general intelligence or even become conscious. As the 21st century continues to unfold, my fellow physicists will undoubtedly continue to advance the study of black holes, quantum mechanics, and other traditional domains. The study of life, however, will take us to places we've never imagined, opening a path for the future of our field that, for once, unfolds on a level playing field with biologists, ecologists, neuroscientists, and sociologists. At its best, the pursuit of fundamental answers about the nature of living things might lead physicists not only to new scientific marvels, but also to an entirely new way of doing science.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on the mysterious nature of reality.

Reducing stress and softening the sharper edges of anxiety in this way are beginners' steps when it comes to the practice of meditation. Put in the hours, though, and you may well reach the deep end: a place where radical, long-lasting upgrades to how you feel and what you experience are possible. Now, these mental transformations are being examined and understood by neuroscientists at world-leading institutions. Matthew Sacchet [is the] director of the Meditation Research Program at Harvard Medical School. His team works hand in hand with advanced meditators, such as Buddhist monks, exploring how the material brain changes because of subjective experiences that are often considered spiritual in nature. Using state-of-the-art brain scanners, his team pinpoints the neural changes that occur across a variety of deep meditative practices. Beyond mindfulness-related stress reduction, advanced practitioners report experiences of ecstatic bliss, deep insights into their own minds, radical compassionate states and prosocial ways of being, and even shifts in their fundamental sense of self. Advanced meditators sometimes report states of consciousness that are described as deeply peaceful, mentally clear or subjectively non-dual – meaning there is no perceived distinction between self and other. These aren't just subjective reports: we observe changes in the brain that support their existence.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on the mysterious nature of reality.

She turned to me the other morning and said, "You heard of The Gateway?" It didn't register in the moment. The intrigue revolves around a classified 1983 CIA report on a technique called the Gateway Experience, which is a training system designed to focus brainwave output to alter consciousness and ultimately escape the restrictions of time and space. The CIA was interested in all sorts of psychic research at the time, including the theory and applications of remote viewing, which is when someone views real events with only the power of their mind. The documents have since been declassified. The CIA report "Analysis and Assessment of The Gateway Process" [was] produced [in 1983]. It provides a scientific framework for understanding and expanding human consciousness, out-of-body experiments, and other altered states of mind. Consciousness is used to achieve desired objectives in the physical, emotional, or intellectual sphere ... [to] block pain, enhance feeling, and even suppress tumors. The author of The Gateway Process report is Lieutenant Colonel Wayne M. McDonnell. Wayne was tasked by the Commander of the U.S. Army Operational Group with figuring out how The Gateway Experience, astral projection and out-of-body experiences work. One curious feature of The Gateway Report is that it seems to be missing page 25. It's a real cliffhanger too. The bottom of page 24 reads "And, the eternal thought or concept of self which results from this self-consciousness serves the," The report picks back up on page 26 and 3 sections later as if Wayne hadn't just revealed the very secret of existence.

Note: A society that can self-regulate, self-heal, and access deeper layers of perception is harder to manipulate and even harder to govern through fear. Read our latest Substack, How Consciousness Research Can Help Heal a Divided World to learn more about the Gateway Project. Explore more positive stories like this on the mysterious nature of reality.

Einstein once wrote about his friend Michele Besso, "Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us…know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." Could death, as we understand it, be a construct of our consciousness rather than a universal truth? Proposed by Dr. Robert Lanza, a respected stem cell biologist and author, biocentrism is a revolutionary theory suggesting that life and consciousness are not byproducts of the universe, but the very forces that shape it. According to biocentrism: Space and time are not external, objective realities. They are tools of our perception, shaped by conscious observation. Reality does not exist without an observer. Biocentrism places consciousness at the center of the universe. In doing so, it opens the door to reevaluating what death really means–if the self is not simply the body, its "end" might not be defined by physical decay. In the [two-slit experiment]: When unobserved, particles act like waves and pass through both slits simultaneously. When observed, they behave like particles and choose one path. Quantum physics further supports the biocentric view by demonstrating that the universe behaves differently when observed. Quantum entanglement shows that particles can be instantly connected across vast distances–what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance." This challenges our understanding of time and space, and suggests that reality is not locally bound or strictly linear. Redefining death redefines life. If consciousness persists in ways we don't yet understand, every aspect of human society–from science to ethics–will evolve.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on near-death experiences and the mysterious nature of reality.

From vegetarians craving meat to changes in sexual preference, some organ transplant patients report changes to their personality reflecting those of the organ donor. A 2024 study claims to challenge "conventional views of memory and identity" by suggesting organs carry memories and emotions and that the findings raise "ethical and philosophical questions" about transplantation. For decades, researchers have studied whether memories and emotions could linger in the heart, and histories of medicine and emotion show why the question is important. In 2010, I wrote Matters of the Heart: History, Medicine, and Emotion, a history of the emotional, physical and spiritual significance of the heart. My research shows that, before the emergence of scientific medicine, the heart was considered the centre of emotion and memory. Memory and emotions are not merely biological phenomena, but driven by environments, experiences and relationships. They, like beliefs about the heart, are informed by cultural contexts. In Thailand or Japan, for instance, there is more pronounced medical interest in the spiritual heart – Japan wouldn't recognise brain death until 1985 for this reason. So, cross-cultural comparisons are needed to understand how far narratives of memory transfer in heart transplantation are universal. One bride-to-be found her father's heart recipient because she wanted him to walk her down the aisle.

Note: Read our latest Substack, How Consciousness Research Can Help Heal a Divided World to learn more about the mysterious phenomena of organ transplant personality changes. Explore more positive stories like this on near-death experiences and the mysterious nature of reality.

Over the last few years, allegations of secret, exotic technologies have reinvigorated claims that the DOD may be concealing scientific breakthroughs from the American public. However, if the U.S. government, or some faction within it, hypothetically came across a groundbreaking development in energy production or applied physics ... such a revolution would likely be housed deep within the Department of Energy (DOE) rather than DOD. A DOE special investigative panel concluded in 1999 that the department is "a dysfunctional bureaucracy that has proven it is incapable of reforming itself." More recently, the DOE signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Department of Defense to confirm and enhance the "the longstanding partnership between DOE and DOD on space-related research and technology development." The MOU establishes joint working groups and promotes scientific exchange between the two departments in emerging and disruptive research fields such as advanced power and propulsion, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, next-generation communications, and autonomous or remotely piloted vehicles. The DOE also currently operates a Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) program, an Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program, and a Nuclear Sciences program, the latter of which seeks to put together "a roadmap of matter that will help unlock the secrets of how the universe is put together."

Note: Read our concise summaries of news articles on military corruption and the mysterious nature of reality.

Andre Daigle, 27, went missing on June 9, 1987, after a night of drinks and pool with friends, following which, the New Orleans resident was never seen alive again. Four days later, Andre's sister Elise, who lived out in California, went to psychic Rosemarie Kerr of Cypress with her brother's photo, whose body and killers were found 13 days later thanks to the clairvoyant. In researching the validity of psychics in police work, Euro Weekly News came across a highly surprising and unexpected 5-page US DoJ report published in 1993 entitled "Psychics and Police Work." "The usefulness of psychics in police investigations is controversial, but psychics have long been and will undoubtedly continue to be involved in unsolved criminal investigations," it reads. The Department of Justice document compares the work of psychics and detectives, saying "both base their work on intuition to some extent, and then they specifically mention one psychic who they say helped police in thousands of cases." In an August 2000 CIA document entitled "Use of Psychics in Law Enforcement," the US intelligence agency acknowledged that psychics have been helpful to police in many cases and outlined some guidelines on when and how to deal with them. "Psychics have provided information that was helpful to law enforcement, contributing to the successful resolution of cases," the CIA confirms. "Using psychics can be legitimate when traditional methods fail."

Note: Explore our resources on remote viewing programs. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on the mysterious nature of reality.

The CIA claimed to have confirmed the existence of the Ark of the Covenant by way of remote viewing – aka extra sensory perception or ESP – alleging the mysterious and sacred object is guarded by "entities" with an "unknown" power, a recently resurfaced declassified document claims. When a remote viewer is tasked with searching for a target, the desired object is written down on a piece of paper and put into an envelope. The remote viewer does not know what is written and is guided through the process by another person, retired US Army Chief Warrant Joe McMoneagle explained. McMoneagle, aka remote viewer #1, was the first to do the psychic phenomena experiments for the CIA. Remote viewer #32's vision described a secret Middle Eastern location of the object – which they don't know is the Ark – but they say is "protected by entities," the document reveals. "Target is a container. This container has another container inside of it. The target is fashioned of wood, gold and silver... similar in shape to a coffin and is decorated with seraphim," they relayed, per the file. "The target is protected by entities and can only be opened by those who are authorized to do so – this container will not/cannot be opened until the time is deemed correct," they said. "The purpose of the target is to bring people together. It has something to do with ceremony, memory, homage, the resurrection. There is an aspect of spirituality, information, lessons and historical knowledge," they said.

Note: Explore our resources on remote viewing programs. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on the mysterious nature of reality.

In 1972, American artist and psychic Ingo Swann altered the magnetic field inside a thickly shielded vacuum container located underground. As Harold Puthoff, a physicist with the Stanford Research Institute, witnessed the output from his magnetometer changing, he was mind-blown. By the time Puthoff and his colleague Russel Targ ... presented their results at an international meeting on quantum physics and parapsychology, the CIA had already begun working with SRI to perform top-secret research on paranormal phenomena–primarily "remote viewing" for intelligence collection. Remote viewing refers to a type of extra-sensorial perception that involves using the mind to "see" or manipulate distant objects, people, events, or other information. By the mid-1980s, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) took the program over, calling it "Stargate." DIA had three main goals for its research: 1. Determine how to apply remote viewing to intelligence gathering against foreign targets; 2. Figure out how other countries could be doing the same thing and using it against the U.S.; and 3. Perform laboratory experiments to find ways to improve remote viewing for use in the intelligence field. [Scientist Dean Radin] remembers asking one of his supervisors what would happen if they had a breakthrough–say, coming up with a drug to make someone super psychic. The response was immediate. "It would disappear and you would never be able to talk about it again," Radin recalls."

Note: Explore our resources on remote viewing programs. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on the mysterious nature of reality.

Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.