NASA
NASA is the U.S. civilian space agency established in 1958, whose relevance to this vault centers on the Apollo 14 Moon landing experience that prompted astronaut Edgar Mitchell to found the Institute of Noetic Sciences, early remote viewing experiments targeting space objects, and NASA's 2023 independent UAP study.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the U.S. federal civilian space agency, established by the National Aeronautics and Space Act signed on July 29, 1958, and beginning operations on October 1, 1958. NASA succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) and absorbed several other government research programs. Its primary mission encompasses civil aeronautics research, human spaceflight, robotic planetary exploration, and Earth observation. NASA's relevance to this vault arises through three distinct intersections: the consciousness experience of astronaut Edgar Mitchell during Apollo 14, the use of space-related targets in early government remote viewing research, and NASA's formal involvement in UAP investigation beginning in 2022.1
Edgar Mitchell and the Apollo 14 Experience
Apollo 14 commander Edgar Mitchell had a spontaneous experience during the return voyage from the Moon in February 1971 that he later described as a sudden overwhelming sense of unity with the universe and the understanding that consciousness was somehow fundamental to reality. This experience, which Mitchell characterized as a form of samadhi drawn from Eastern spiritual traditions, led him to undertake a scientific investigation of consciousness upon his return.
In 1973, Mitchell founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) in Palo Alto, California, to study consciousness and what he believed were its paranormal dimensions. IONS funded and published research on remote viewing, psychokinesis, and other psi phenomena, and provided some financial and institutional support to the broader network of researchers and practitioners associated with the U.S. government's parapsychology programs.
During the Apollo 14 flight itself - without NASA authorization - Mitchell conducted an informal telepathy experiment with four subjects on Earth, attempting to transmit Zener card symbols during his allotted rest periods. The results, which Mitchell reported as statistically significant, were published in the Journal of Parapsychology in 1971. NASA did not sanction the experiment and was not informed until afterward.1
Remote Viewing and Space Targets
The early STAR GATE remote viewing research conducted at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) in the early 1970s included several experiments in which subjects attempted to describe space-related targets. In 1973, Ingo Swann was asked by researchers to describe the planet Jupiter, providing his description before NASA's Pioneer 10 spacecraft reached the planet. Swann's session, conducted on April 27, 1973, described Jupiter as having rings - a feature not then known. Pioneer 10 flew past Jupiter in December 1973; later spacecraft confirmed Jupiter has a faint ring system. This session was cited by remote viewing proponents as one of the most significant predictive examples in the SRI database, though critics disputed the interpretation of Swann's original description and its match to the later discovery.
Similar space-target sessions were conducted with other SRI subjects during the 1972-1975 period. NASA spacecraft and planetary features were used as targets in some experiments.1
UAP Investigation
In June 2022, NASA announced it was commissioning an independent study of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), conducted by a sixteen-member team under astrophysicist David Spergel. The NASA UAP Independent Study was distinct from the Department of Defense's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) and the earlier UAP Task Force. The study team issued its report in September 2023, finding that UAP data was insufficient for scientific conclusions and recommending that NASA develop systematic observation and reporting infrastructure for UAP investigation.
NASA simultaneously announced it would appoint a Director of UAP Research, and named Mark McInerney to that position in late 2023. The NASA UAP initiative represented the first formal civilian scientific agency acknowledgment that UAP warranted systematic study, distinct from the longstanding defense-intelligence framing of the issue.2
Relevance to Parapsychology Network
Several figures who appear in this vault's coverage of the government parapsychology programs had NASA connections beyond Mitchell. Astronaut Gordon Cooper claimed multiple UAP sightings during his Mercury and Gemini flights. Robert Bigelow, whose Bigelow Aerospace was NASA's primary commercial crew habitat contractor (BEAM module, ISS installation 2016), separately operated the DIA's primary AAWSAP parapsychology contract through BAASS. The overlap between NASA's institutional culture - which attracted individuals with interests in frontier science - and the parapsychology research network was noted by program historians.1
Sources
- Jacobsen, Annie. Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis. Little, Brown and Company, 2017. Schnabel, Jim. Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America's Psychic Spies. Dell, 1997. ↩
- NASA Independent Study Team on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. UAP Independent Study Report. NASA, September 14, 2023. Available at nasa.gov. ↩
Hidden connections 6
Entities named in this page's prose without an explicit wikilink — surfaced by scanning for known titles and aliases.
Local network
NASA's direct connections. Click any node to navigate, drag to pan, scroll (or pinch) to zoom. + 2‑hop expands the neighborhood one level further.