---
category: Psi Phenomenon
created: 2025-07-22
description: Telepathy is the direct mental communication of thoughts, feelings, or
  ideas from one mind to another without the use of conventional sensory channels.
summary: Telepathy is the claimed direct mental communication of thoughts or feelings
  between minds without conventional sensory channels, one of the core phenomena studied
  in government parapsychology programs including the Stargate Project and Soviet
  psi research.
tags:
- concept
- psi
- parapsychology
title: Telepathy
updated: 2025-07-22
---

[Telepathy](/concepts/telepathy/) is the direct mental communication of thoughts, feelings, or ideas from one mind to another without the use of conventional sensory channels. It is a form of [psychic](/concepts/psi/) ability and a subject of study within [Parapsychology](/concepts/parapsychology/).[^1]

In the context of the *Remote Viewers* narrative, telepathy gained significant attention due to the sensational 1960 French magazine article, ["The Secret of the Nautilus,"](/programs/the-nautilus-telepathy-project/) which claimed successful telepathic communication with the USS Nautilus submarine. Although later debunked as a fabrication, this story spurred extensive Soviet [psi](/concepts/parapsychology/) research, with figures like [Leonid Vasiliev](/people/leonid-vasiliev/) and [I. M. Kogan](/people/i-m-kogan/) focusing on telepathy experiments. Kogan, for instance, attempted to characterize psi data transmission in terms familiar to communications specialists, concluding that psi data could be transmitted at very low bit rates.[^1]

Within the [Stargate Project](/programs/stargate-project/), telepathy was explored, particularly in the context of "telepathic interrogations." [Ken Bell](/people/ken-bell/) famously used this technique to extract information from a [KGB](/organizations/kgb/) agent in South Africa, and [Joe McMoneagle](/people/joe-mcmoneagle/) also employed it during the tracking of a Soviet T-72 tank. Experiments were also conducted at [SRI](/organizations/stanford-research-institute/) to augment ordinary telepathy with electroencephalograph (EEG) devices, aiming to develop a telepathic system for long-distance communication, potentially with submerged submarine crews.[^1]

---

[^1]: Schnabel, Jim. *Remote Viewers*. Dell, 1997.