Joe McMoneagle

Joseph McMoneagle (born January 10, 1946) was a U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer and one of the original six remote viewers recruited into the Stargate Project when the Army established the program at Fort Meade, Maryland, in 1977. Known within the program as "Viewer 518," he is widely considered the most operationally successful remote viewer in the program's history, with credited sessions including a substantially confirmed description of a Soviet Typhoon-class submarine under construction and the location of a Soviet surveillance device in a U.S. consulate. He received the Legion of Merit at his Army retirement in 1984, partly for his contributions to remote viewing operations, and continued as a civilian consultant to the program until its declassification in 1995.

Early Life and Military Career

McMoneagle was born January 10, 1946, in Miami, Florida, and was raised in modest circumstances. He enlisted in the Army and entered the Army Security Agency, training in radio direction-finding techniques and signals intelligence collection. His early postings included an electronic surveillance station on Eleuthera Island in the Bahamas monitoring Soviet and Cuban ships and submarines, followed by deployment to Vietnam.

In Vietnam, McMoneagle served at firebases in the central highlands and developed a reputation among fellow soldiers for anticipating enemy mortar attacks, often moving to cover moments before rounds struck. He attributed this to spontaneous precognitive awareness rather than conventional observation. He survived multiple close calls and the war itself, which he had foreseen doing in a precognitive vision upon arriving in-country.

Near-Death Experience (1970)

In 1970, while stationed with an electronic-intercept unit in southern Germany, McMoneagle suffered cardiac arrest during a meal at a restaurant in an Austrian village. He underwent a classic near-death experience: he reported leaving his body and observing resuscitation efforts from above, passing through a tunnel toward an intense light, and receiving an instruction to return to his physical reality. He subsequently reported significant changes in perceptual experience following recovery, including increased frequency of spontaneous out-of-body states, precognitive episodes, and what he described as a heightened sensitivity to emotional and environmental information. The near-death experience was the event that led, years later, to his identification as a candidate for the Army's remote viewing program.

Recruitment into STARGATE (1977)

Frederick "Skip" Atwater, the Army intelligence officer who proposed and organized the Fort Meade remote viewing unit, identified McMoneagle as a candidate on the basis of anomalous perceptual experiences documented in his military records. McMoneagle was recruited into the program - then designated Gondola Wish - in 1977 by Atwater and commanding officer Major Murray Watt. He was one of six initial soldier-subjects, the others being Mel Riley, Ken Bell, Nancy Stern, Fernand Gauvin, and Hartleigh Trent.

The program received training and protocol guidance from Hal Puthoff and SRI, where Russell Targ and SRI researchers had developed the remote viewing experimental protocol under CIA contract since 1972.

His Grill Flame volunteer security agreement is dated February 8, 1979, his participant counseling statement October 26, 1979, and his volunteer consent statement February 19, 1980, the same forms signed by Mel Riley on February 8, 1979.¹

Operational Remote Viewing

McMoneagle became the program's most operationally credited viewer. Among his notable sessions:

The Soviet Typhoon-class submarine: Tasked by the National Security Council in 1979, McMoneagle was provided geographic coordinates corresponding to the Soviet shipyard at Severodvinsk and asked to describe activity there. He produced a description of a massive submarine under construction with an unusual double-hull design, canted missile tubes, and specific welding techniques. He predicted the Soviets would dynamite a channel in the riverbank to launch the vessel. Satellite imagery subsequently confirmed the presence of the first Typhoon-class submarine at Severodvinsk, including dimensional and structural details that McMoneagle had described. The result generated internal NSC debate about the intelligence value of the program.

The Chinese nuclear device (1979): McMoneagle and Mel Riley separately remote-viewed what they described as a new nuclear device at the Chinese test facility at Lop Nor, both drawing an unusual "hourglass on its side" shape. U.S. Air Force officials who reviewed the drawings reportedly confirmed that the shape corresponded to a then-current Chinese nuclear design.

The NSA surveillance device: Tasked by the NSA, McMoneagle accurately identified the location of a Soviet surveillance device in a U.S. embassy, identified the location of the Soviet monitoring station across the street, and perceived that a U.S. counterintelligence team had detected the operation and was conducting counter-surveillance.

Skylab reentry (1979): McMoneagle provided coordinates for the crash zone of Skylab, which reentered Earth's atmosphere over eastern Australia, consistent with the actual debris field.

On August 26, 1983, "CW2(P) Joseph Mc Moneagle, CENTER LANE Project Member," briefed General Albert Stubblebine with the project manager and operations officer on the project and the Monroe Institute. On November 30 Stubblebine "asked me if CW2 McMoneagle still planned to decline his promotion and retire. I stated that he had already declined the promotion."²

His Legion of Merit citation of 1984, as quoted by Edwin May, read that he "served most recently as a Special Project Intelligence Officer for SSPD, SSD, and 902d MI Group, as one of the original planners and movers of a unique intelligence project that is revolutionizing the intelligence community," and "used his talents and expertise in the execution of more than 200 missions, addressing over 150 essential elements of information," reported "at the highest echelons of our military and government, including such national level agencies as the Joint Chiefs of Staff, DIA, NSA, CIA, DEA, and the Secret Service, producing crucial and vital intelligence unavailable from any other source." On Nightline in November 1995 he said of the Iran hostages that "there were 2 or 3 others that were held away from the Embassy," and "we were instrumental in helping identify that location. The inside of the location, the exterior of the location, the uniforms and the kinds of people that were holding them," and of Dozier that the viewing "was absolutely accurate. As well as the description of the room he was being held in, how he was being held, chained to the heater."³

Retirement and Later Work

McMoneagle retired from the Army in 1984 with the rank of Chief Warrant Officer. His Legion of Merit citation referenced his contributions to intelligence collection through unconventional means. After retirement, he continued as a civilian consultant to the STAR GATE program - operating under DIA oversight through the Sun Streak and STAR GATE code names - until its declassification in 1995.

He married Nancy Lea Honeychurch, the sister of Robert Monroe, the founder of the Monroe Institute in Faber, Virginia. The Monroe Institute had developed methods for inducing altered states of consciousness using binaural audio technology and had trained some STARGATE viewers in out-of-body techniques. McMoneagle became associated with the institute after his retirement.

He published two books describing his work and his theoretical framework: Mind Trek: Exploring Consciousness, Time, and Space Through Remote Viewing (Hampton Roads, 1993) and Remote Viewing Secrets: A Handbook (Hampton Roads, 2000). He has continued to participate in publicly available remote viewing demonstrations and research.