DECLASSIFIED — PARTIAL RELEASE — FOIA REQUEST #2009-04471
PROJECT HARBINGER — SUMMARY DOCUMENT
Classification withdrawn: partially. Sections 4, 7, and 11 remain under Executive Order 13526.
Project Harbinger was a military-funded parapsychological research program conducted at a facility in rural Virginia between 1973 and 1979. The program's stated objective: to determine whether sustained environmental manipulation could induce extrasensory perception in human subjects, and whether such perception could be directed toward tactically useful intelligence gathering.
Subjects were volunteer military personnel with no prior documented psychological conditions. The program used sensory manipulation, sleep scheduling, dietary control, and — in later phases — pharmacological intervention. Subjects were assessed monthly using standardized ESP protocols (Rhine card tests, remote viewing tasks, precognition assessments).
Results through 1977 were within the range of statistical noise. The program was under review for termination when Subject 11 produced results that warranted continuation.
Subject 11, a 26-year-old male, began producing statistically significant results in remote viewing tasks in February 1978. Over the following eight months, his accuracy rate increased from 23% (chance baseline: 20%) to 91%. This rate was considered impossible given the program's theoretical framework and prompted an internal review questioning the integrity of the testing protocols.
The protocols were found to be sound.
On October 14, 1978, Subject 11 requested an immediate meeting with the program director. He stated that he had perceived something during a remote viewing session that he needed to report. The nature of that perception is contained in Section 7, which remains classified.
Following the meeting, the program director ordered immediate termination of the project and destruction of all primary research materials. Two researchers refused the destruction order and were transferred to other assignments. One died of a cardiac event in 1981. The other's current status is not included in this document.
Subject 11 was debriefed and released from the program in November 1978. His subsequent whereabouts are not included in this document.
What Subject 11 perceived on October 14, 1978 — the thing he needed to report — has not been declassified. The program director's statement at the termination review includes the following: "The subject did not perceive something that was there to be perceived. The subject perceived something that became aware of being perceived. These are not the same situation and the distinction has significant implications for the program's continuation."
The review board approved termination the same day.
Project Harbinger does not appear in subsequent military research indexes.