Hartleigh Trent

Hartleigh Trent was a former Navy petty officer and one of the original six remote viewers in the Stargate Project. He was recruited into the program, then codenamed Gondola Wish, in 1977 by Skip Atwater and Scotty Watt.¹

Trent was the oldest of the initial group of remote viewers, in his fifties, and had a background as a photo-interpreter. He was described as a "restless tinkerer and inventor," having built a large solar-powered hot-water heater at his home. He was also a close friend of Mel Riley and Joe McMoneagle.¹

As a remote viewer, Trent was noted for his unusual ability to take directions at a target, even in confusing situations. In one instance, when asked to describe what was to his right, left, and front at a Soviet site, he accurately reported seeing a transmission, realizing he was lying under a truck.¹

Trent was one of the six most promising members of the team selected to travel to Stanford Research Institute (SRI) for further evaluation of their talents. He participated in the intense, round-the-clock remote viewing sessions during the Iran hostage crisis, and was present when Jackie Keith suffered a fatal heart attack.¹

The Documents

Trent signed four memoranda for the record from HQ INSCOM (IAFM-OPS-HU-SA) between May 23 and 27, 1980, as "GS-12, Analyst," each headed "Summary of Unconfirmed Source Information" and each recording a remote-viewing session against a redacted subject: one "in compliance with a request for information on a target of interest to USI," a source described as "an expert or professional, an analyst" and believed to work "as an Analyst who's office is in the South side of the Pentagon"; another "someone in middle management in an industrial complex" and "a shirt-sleeved 'orator'"; another a subject "fearful and restricting himself to his hotel like apartment" amid "a great deal of subterfuge." On June 30, 1980, he wrote "Possible Compromise of a Relationship Between Two SRI Scientists (Puthoff & Targ) and the U.S. Government": at "a two day conference on camouflage, concealment and deception" at the Foreign Technology Division at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base on June 25 and 26, "I, Hartleigh Trent, heard a briefer mention a contract the government has with SRI on psychic research"; the briefer, "after indicating by expression and gesture that the encounter was strange and somewhat unbelievable," said that SRI "had a large contract with the U.S. Government on psychic research"; asked afterward "does it really work?," "he asked if I knew that Puthoff and Targ were scientologists. I said I had heard that this was probably true. He then said that if they belong to that group there is a possibility that they are pulling the greatest hoax on the U.S. Government and the American public that has ever been perpetrated." "At no time was the U.S. Army or Grill Flame mentioned."²