Frederick Holmes “Skip” Atwater was born in Glendale, California, growing up in a house with land, dogs, cats, a goat, and a donkey. His father was a dentist, and his mother, a homemaker, held a strong belief in the paranormal. Atwater himself had out-of-body experiences as a teenager, sometimes using this ability to "float" to distant locations. He was intrigued by the possibilities of the paranormal and had heard rumors of Soviet and CIA psi research, including successful outcomes.[^1] He joined the [[U.S. Army]] and after officer candidate training and espionage school at [[Fort Huachuca]], Arizona, he arrived at [[Fort Meade]] in the summer of 1977. This was a period of significant reorganization within Army intelligence, with the formation of the [[Intelligence and Security Command]] (INSCOM). Atwater was assigned to an operations security (opsec) team that became part of the [[Systems Exploitation Detachment]] (SED).[^1] Atwater had a strong interest in psychic phenomena and, after discovering documents left by a predecessor, Colonel Kowalski, he began to argue that remote viewing represented a potential security threat that the Army's opsec teams should study. He proposed to the head of SED, Colonel [[Robert Keenan]], that a small remote-viewing team be assembled, screening Army intelligence personnel for psychic abilities. The proposal was approved by Major General [[Edmund Thompson]], the Army's assistant chief of staff for intelligence (ACSI), who had his own interest in psi and wanted a secret unit of experimental psychic spies.[^1] The project was initially codenamed [[STARGATE PROJECT|Gondola Wish]], and Atwater, along with his commanding officer, Major [[Murray Watt|Scotty Watt]], was tasked with selecting and training the first remote viewers. They recruited a team of six from the local population of Army intelligence personnel, including [[Mel Riley]], [[Joe McMoneagle]], and [[Ken Bell]]. Atwater and Watt visited [[Stanford Research Institute]] (SRI) to understand how to select good remote viewers, learning that artistic talent, visual-spatial intelligence, and creativity were associated with high scores. They used a stealthier approach to recruitment, contacting INSCOM unit commanders and the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) to identify potential candidates, particularly photo-interpreters, and then conducting personal interviews focusing on paranormal beliefs and experiences.[^1] Atwater served as the unit's operations officer, shaping incoming taskings into remote-viewing strategies, deciding who would serve as monitor and viewer, and presenting the final product. He was a firm believer in the potential of remote viewing and was a staunch defender of the program. He often dealt with officials from other agencies, ensuring the remote viewers provided the necessary information. He emphasized a "blind" protocol for initial sessions, where the viewer knew only the target type, allowing for self-correction. He also discovered that certain viewers had unique talents, such as [[Ken Bell]]'s ability to connect with human targets, [[Mel Riley]]'s artistic skill, [[Hartleigh Trent]]'s ability to take directions, and [[Joe McMoneagle]]'s talent for picking up technological details and perceiving radioactive material as a green haze.[^1] Atwater experimented with various applications of remote viewing, including informal "associative remote viewing" (ARV) experiments to win the Maryland lottery and a treasure hunt in Virginia, though these were unsuccessful. He also came up with suggestions for psi countermeasures, such as placing gifts from Communist countries in innocuous locations and festooning sensitive sites with strange objects to confuse Soviet remote viewers, though these were largely dismissed by mainstream intelligence officials.[^1] When the program became operational and was renamed [[STARGATE PROJECT|Grill Flame]], Atwater continued in his role as operations officer. He faced challenges, including the "giggle factor" from skeptical officials and the intense pressure during the Iran hostage crisis, which led to burnout among the remote viewers. He remained with the unit until his retirement from the Army in 1987 or 1988, managing to keep a nucleus of original members in place.[^1] After retiring from the Army, Atwater became the director of research for the [[Monroe Institute]] and then acting director following the death of [[Laurie Monroe]] and finally President in 2006 until his retirement in 2012. ## Publications Atwater published or contributed to numerous papers regarding [[Hemi-Sync]] for the [[Monroe Institute]]. ### Books Atwater wrote a book of memoirs released 2001 entitled *Captain of My Ship, Master of My Soul: Living with Guidance* (ISBN-10 1571742476). In 2024, he released *Project 8200: UFO/UAP Bases and Activities: The original Remote Viewing Transcripts* (ISBN-10 3911151047). # Footnotes [^1]: Schnabel, Jim. *Remote Viewers*. Dell, 1997.