The Men Who Stare At Goats Jun 2026

The goal was to stop the animal's heart using only mental energy. According to various insider accounts, at least one soldier—a martial arts expert named Michael Echanis—successfully killed a goat through focused mental intent. While mainstream science dismisses these claims as coincidence, stress-induced trauma, or outright fabrication, the fact remains that the military dedicated time, personnel, and funding to testing these boundaries. Declassified Realities vs. Hollywood Fiction

In the late 1970s, Channon compiled his radical ideas into the First Earth Battalion Operations Manual , a 125-page graphic field guide that reads like a blend of The Whole Earth Catalog and a military handbook. This manual served as the blueprint for turning American troops into psychic supersoldiers and was embraced by a small group of true believers within Army intelligence.

Training soldiers to develop intuition, telepathy, and the ability to sense danger before it occurred.

Django watched the dust settle. The light seemed to go out of his eyes, replaced by a weary resignation Ray hadn't seen before. The irony was thick enough to choke a horse The Men Who Stare At Goats

The objective was simple. Ray had to stare at the goat. He had to harness his psi-energy, focus it into a lethal beam of intent, and stop the goat’s heart. It was the ultimate non-violent weapon. No bullets, no mess. Just a silent, psychic cessation of life.

The 2009 film, directed by Grant Heslov and written by Peter Straughan, adapted Ronson’s book into a star-studded satirical film.

While the movie uses fictional names, the primary figures are based on real individuals: Bill Django The goal was to stop the animal's heart

In 1978, the CIA partnered with the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), a think tank and research organization, to further develop remote viewing. SRI researcher Russell Targ, along with his colleague Harold Puthoff, began to experiment with a program called the Gateway Experience. This initiative aimed to train individuals to access higher states of consciousness, allowing them to tap into their psychic abilities.

Most importantly, Channon believed in "Remote Viewing" and "psychic driving." He envisioned battalions of silent, meditating men who could project themselves into the Kremlin, read the minds of enemy generals, and shut down tanks by staring at their ignition coils.

Directed by and based on the non-fiction book by Jon Ronson , The Men Who Stare at Goats Declassified Realities vs

"Clear your mind," Django intoned, circling Ray slowly. "Imagine a beam of light shooting from your third eye. It is a laser of purest intention. You are not angry at the goat. You love the goat. You love him so much you are setting him free."

The most infamous claim involved soldiers attempting to stop the heart of a goat simply by staring at it. Jon Ronson’s Investigative Journey

In the 1970s, the U.S. military began exploring the concept of remote viewing, a technique that allowed individuals to gather information about a target using extrasensory perception (ESP). The program, initially known as Stanford Research Institute (SRI) project, was led by physicists Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff. Their work caught the attention of the CIA and the U.S. Army, which saw potential military applications.

If you are looking for the original research, you can read more in Jon Ronson's original reporting .

In 2009, the story finally reached mass culture with the film The Men Who Stare At Goats , directed by Grant Heslov and starring George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, and Kevin Spacey.