The Men Who Stare At Goats Jun 2026

Channon was a decorated Vietnam War veteran who returned from the war disillusioned. He hated the brutality of conventional warfare. He wanted to create a "new kind of soldier"—a warrior monk who was lethal, but also loving; a soldier who could defeat an enemy by causing them to feel overwhelming compassion.

Stubblebine, the U.S. Army’s chief of intelligence, famously believed that it was possible to walk through walls, a feat he reportedly practiced attempting 0.5.1. The idea was to create a "New Earth Army"—later branded the —consisting of "warrior monks" who combined martial arts with New Age spiritualism, telepathy, and remote viewing. 2. The First Earth Battalion: Soldiers of Light

Deploying peaceful music, indigenous greetings, and positive energy to de-escalate conflicts.

In the pantheon of strange but true stories, few narratives are as absurd, surreal, and genuinely thought-provoking as the one uncovered by journalist Jon Ronson in his book (later adapted into a 2009 film directed by Grant Heslov). The Men Who Stare At Goats

At the center of this story is Lieutenant Colonel Jim Channon, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, artist, and futurist. Disturbed by the horrors of war, Channon envisioned a new kind of soldier: the "First Earth Battalion"—peacekeeping warrior-monks who would use non-lethal, psychic, and New Age techniques.

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.

The Men Who Stare at Goats: Inside the Pentagon's Secret Psychic History Channon was a decorated Vietnam War veteran who

Popularized first by journalist Jon Ronson’s 2004 non-fiction book and later adapted into a 2009 Hollywood film starring George Clooney, the title refers to a literal military experiment: attempting to kill a goat simply by staring at it.

The program officially began in 1972 and operated for two decades, training roughly 25 remote viewers who were selected not only for their analytical abilities but also for their creative, “right-brained” talents in music, art, and language. According to retired Major Paul H. Smith, who participated in the program for seven years, the remote viewers were brought in when conventional intelligence failed—as a “last resort”. Viewers would describe their psychic impressions in broad strokes; if they saw large containers holding a viscous, harmful substance, analysts might determine that a facility housed biological weapons.

The most infamous training exercise of the First Earth Battalion occurred at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Military operatives set up a secret laboratory containing over 100 de-barked goats. Stubblebine, the U

In a University of California briefing in 1995, a former military intelligence officer presented Channon’s goat-staring manual to a new generation. By 2002, at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, these "soft kill" techniques were being used on prisoners.

The intellectual architect of this movement was Jim Channon, a Vietnam War veteran who created a manifesto for what he called the . Channon envisioned a new breed of soldier: the "Warrior Monk."

The thematic power of The Men Who Stare at Goats lies in its critique of the military-industrial complex. Ronson argues that the goat-staring program was not an isolated fluke but a natural outgrowth of a system that prioritizes “outside-the-box” thinking while being structurally incapable of separating brilliant innovation from sheer quackery. The essay connects the First Earth Battalion’s ideas to modern “soft kill” technologies—like the use of disco music and Barney the Dinosaur songs to torment prisoners at Guantanamo Bay—suggesting that the same desire for non-lethal, psychological control persists. Furthermore, Ronson draws a chilling line from psychic warfare to the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, implying that once you teach soldiers to believe that the rules of conventional engagement don’t apply to the mind, it becomes a short step to suspending them in the physical world.

The military began experimenting with the concept of the "dim mak" (the death touch) and psychic assassination. Because testing these theories on humans was illegal and unethical, the unit used a herd of goats kept at the base. Goats were selected because their cardiovascular systems are biologically similar to human hearts.

Today, the phrase "The Men Who Stare At Goats" is shorthand for weaponized woo-woo—the idea that the government once funded magic. It is a cultural touchstone that makes us laugh nervously because we know that somewhere, in some redacted file, the madness is probably still happening.