The Men Who Stare at Goats
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| Author | Jon Ronson |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher |
Picador Simon & Schuster |
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Publication date
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2004 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) Audiobook |
| Pages | 277 (first edition, hardback) |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 56653467 |
The Men Who Stare at Goats (2004) is a book by Jon Ronson concerning the U.S. Army's exploration of New Age concepts and the potential military applications of the paranormal. The title refers to attempts to kill goats by staring at them. The book is companion to a three-part TV series broadcast in Britain on Channel 4—Crazy Rulers of the World (2004)—the first episode of which is also entitled "The Men Who Stare at Goats". The same title was used a third time for a loose feature film adaptation in 2009.
The book's first five chapters examine the efforts of a handful of U.S. Army officers in the late 1970s and early '80s to exploit paranormal phenomena, New Age philosophy, and elements of the human potential movement to enhance U.S. military intelligence and operations. These include the First Earth Battalion Operations Manual (1979) and a "psychic spy unit" established by Army intelligence at Fort Meade, Maryland, in the late '70s. (This was the Stargate Project, which the book never mentions by name.) Ronson is put on the historical trail of the "men who stare at goats"—Special Forces soldiers who supposedly experimented with psychic powers against de-bleated goats at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, at the now-decommissioned "Goat Lab" medical training facility. He examines, and dispenses with, several candidates for the legendary "master sergeant" who was reported to have killed a goat simply by staring at it back in the day. In the middle third of the book (Chapters 6-11), the author leaps to the present day—i.e., 2004, just after the Abu Ghraib abuse revelations—and attempts to make connections between the earlier (now terminated, and mostly discredited) military programs and the abuses resulting from the post-9/11 War on Terror (Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, psyops in Iraq, etc.). This includes the use of the children's song "Barney & Friends" on Iraqi prisoners-of-war. A purported linking element is the alleged use of music and subliminal messaging at the 1993 Waco siege and other FBI operations. Another is the private business "franchises" and consultancies that retired members of the "psychic unit" later pursued as civilians. A connection is also proposed between these "privatized" psychics and the mass-suicide of members of the Heaven's Gate cult in 1997. The final section of the book (Chapters 13-16) leaps backward to the 1950s and attempts to connect the Army psychic program, and later interrogation techniques, with the CIA's MK-ULTRA "mind control" research program and the notorious death of Army researcher Frank Olson in 1953. Ronson spends time with Olson's son Eric as he attempts to uncover the mystery of his father's death. The narrative ends with the suggestion that the "psychic warriors" are now back in business working for the U.S. military again, possibly in support of assassinations.
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