GONDOLA WISH
The US Army's first psychoenergetics effort, established September 1977. Its stated purpose was DEFENSIVE: an operations-security mission in which trained personnel would mimic Soviet collectors so the Army could measure its own vulnerability. The technique was the out-of-body experience taught by the Monroe Institute of Applied Sciences, which the founding document distinguishes explicitly from what SRI called remote viewing. The Army's Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence cancelled the effort in 1978 and implemented a new programme, GRILL FLAME, directed at intelligence collection using remote viewing.
In the consciousness threadClassified 25 August 2026 from this entity's own role text, which reads: "The US Army's first psychoenergetics effort, established September 1977. Its stated purpose was DE". An editorial classification, the same kind of field as cat - it rests on no page and does not claim to.
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This entity's name appears in the 12 documents below. That is the entire claim. Nothing here is evidence for anything on this map, no connection rests on it, and it says nothing about what the document is about. It is a place to look next.
4 connections
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← INSCOMestablished it in September 1977 as an operations-security missionCENTER LANE Information Papers for Director, Defense Intelligence AgencyPDF p. 31 checked against the page
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the Army work it began was placed under the nickname GRILL FLAME in July 1978same document as the row abovePDF p. 31 checked against the page
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was approached in 1978 to determine what it could provide in support of the programsame document as the row abovePDF p. 31 checked against the page
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attended a public parapsychology seminar for it as project officer and reported on it, 29 July 1978
Notes on this record
The chronology gives the month only - 'SEP 77'. 1 September is the file's placeholder for a month-known date.
IT DID NOT STOP - IT WAS RENAMED. The Army cancelled GONDOLA WISH and started GRILL FLAME in the same act, and the effort continued under the new nickname; the succession is drawn at link 1292. This node carries an end because the programme under THIS NAME ended, not because the work did.
CANCELLED, and the cancelling act started the successor. The Defense Intelligence Agency briefing on Project SUN STREAK (cia-rdp96-00789r002100240001-2), slide 14, rendered at 165 dpi and read by eye 2026-08-25, prints on the slide itself: "1978: U.S. Army ACSI cancels GONDOLA WISH, starts Project GRILL FLAME", and narrates: "THE ARMY ACSI CANCELLED THE GONDOLA WISH EFFORT, PLACED A COMPLETE SECURITY ENVELOPE OVER THE ARMY'S INTEREST IN PSYCHOENERGETICS AND IMPLEMENTED A NEW PROGRAM DIRECTED TOWARD INTELLIGENCE COLLECTION USING REMOTE VIEWING." THE YEAR IS ALL THAT DOCUMENT GIVES - no month, no day - which is why end_precision is "year". THE DAY RECORDED HERE IS THE SUCCESSOR'S, NOT THE CANCELLATION'S: the CENTER LANE information papers (cia-rdp96-00788r000400060001-2) carry a chronology reading "13 JUL 78 - Establishment of GRILL FLAME", with GONDOLA WISH still active in the entry above it, "APR 78-JUL 78". The file's usual year placeholder of -01-01 was REJECTED here because it would be wrong rather than merely vague: that same chronology shows the programme running from April to July 1978, so a January date would end it six months before the record shows it alive.
Checked against CREST documents supplied 23 August 2026 and read by eye at 170 dpi on 2026-08-23.
The document carries these 2
- Established September 1977 - "The US Army Intelligence and Security Command's involvement with psychoenergetics began in September 1977. At that time, an INSCOM element implemented the GONDOLA WISH Program" (programme history, printed 1).
- The defensive, operations-security purpose - "so that they can mimic Soviet collectors in an operations security (OPSEC) support effort" (Assessment Report, printed 1); "designed to integrate the Soviet and East European psychoenergetic intelligence collection threat into the all-source Operations Security (OPSEC) support scenario" (programme history, printed 1).
It does not support this
that GONDOLA WISH was a remote-viewing effort
Its founding document names the technique as the out-of-the-body experience and, in the same paragraph, separates the two: "An OOBE differs from what Stanford Research Institute (SRI), Menlo Park, CA, calls 'Remote Viewing.'" Remote viewing is what SRI did and what the SUCCESSOR programme adopted. Same subject, different technique.
Corrected to psychoenergetics, with the OOBE technique and the Monroe Institute named.
It does not support this
that GONDOLA WISH was renamed GRILL FLAME in July 1978
Three documents describe a cancellation and a replacement, not a rename. The programme history, printed 1: "He cancelled the GONDOLA WISH effort, placed a complete security envelope over Army's interest in psychoenergetics, and implemented a new program ... given the unclassified nickname GRILL FLAME." A memorandum of 25 September 1978: "the 902d's concept, unclassified title GONDOLA WISH, is cancelled." An information paper of 27 October 1978: "MIAS was rejected as a training possibility."
Corrected to cancelled and replaced. The July 1978 date is dropped: the history says "By Spring of 1978" for the decision and no document read gives July for it.
In the document, and left out of the description above
- The Monroe Institute of Applied Sciences, Afton VA, was the organisation selected to do the training, at a fee of $2,000 for October and November 1978, approved 19 July 1978 by BG John A. Smith Jr.
- The training was never delivered. By 25 September 1978 the Institute was "not cleared" and the effort was cancelled.
- The first operational target named in the training plan was the recovery of "word" information - computer access passwords - from nonwitting subjects.