James Clapper

Lieutenant General James Clapper was a U.S. Air Force officer who later served as the Director of the DIA and subsequently as the Director of National Intelligence. In the context of the Stargate Project, Clapper was involved with the program in the 1990s, serving as a project leader. His involvement highlights the continued, albeit evolving, interest in psychic phenomena within the U.S. intelligence community even in later stages of the program's existence¹.

In 1991, after the Associated Press broke the story about Psi and its involvement in finding Saddam Hussein's weapon sites, Clapper, then Director of the DIA, faced intense scrutiny. He stated that he and his three predecessors had all tried to kill the program, finding it "too far out at the leading edge of technology to maintain very well as an ongoing intelligence activity"².

Despite his efforts to terminate the program, Clapper noted that Congress mandated its sustenance through specific language in appropriations. He categorized the Department of Defense's ESP and PK research as "leading edge technology," rather than parapsychology².

In 2016, Clapper was asked to join a classified science advisory board for the Director of National Intelligence, indicating his continued influence in the intelligence community².