---
aliases:
- Jacques Bergier
born: 1912-08-21
category: Authors & Journalists
died: 1978-11-23
location: Odessa, Ukraine
summary: Jacques Bergier was a journalist, former French resistance spy, and author
  with strong ties to the intelligence community and an interest in the supernatural.
tags:
- Person
- Journalist
- Author
---

Jacques Bergier was a journalist, former French resistance spy, and author with strong ties to the intelligence community and an interest in the supernatural. He is known for bringing secret government [ESP](/concepts/extrasensory-perception/) programs to public attention[^1].

In December 1959, Bergier published an article in the French magazine *Constellation* titled "Thought Transfer, Weapon of War." The article reported that ESP tests had been conducted aboard the USS Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, in 1958. The purpose of the experiment was to determine if long-distance telepathic communication could be achieved through barriers like thousands of miles of seawater, thick polar ice, and the metal walls of a submarine[^1].

According to Bergier, the ESP experiment involved simple sender-receiver trials using [Zener Cards](/concepts/zener-cards/). He identified [William H. Bowers](/people/william-h-bowers/), director of the Biological Department of the Air Force Research Institute, as the man overseeing the joint-service ESP experiment. Bergier's story claimed that the sender and receiver communicated telepathically over a sixteen-day period starting on July 25, 1958[^1].

An expanded version of his story, "The Secret of the Nautilus," was published in France's top science journal, *Science et Vie*, in February 1960. While no authors were identified, editor Gérald Messadié stated that multiple sources had confirmed the story. [J. B. Rhine](/people/j-b-rhine/) of the [Duke University Parapsychology Laboratory](/organizations/duke-university-parapsychology-laboratory/) was identified as the civilian scientist assigned to the project, with reports of "about 75% of the telepathic tries are said to have been successful"[^1].

Whether Bergier's story was true or fabricated remains a debate, but it had real-world consequences. The Soviets used the news story to their strategic advantage, with [Leonid L. Vasilev](/people/leonid-l-vasilev/), Russia's leading ESP researcher, claiming that Soviet parapsychology research was stimulated by the *Nautilus* reports[^1].

### Publications
*   "Thought Transfer, Weapon of War" (*Constellation*, 1959)
*   *Morning of the Magicians* (co-authored with Louis Pauwels)

[^1]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis*. Little, Brown and Company, 2017.