Richard S. Cesaro

Richard S. Cesaro was a scientist at the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) and was in charge of Project Pandora, a classified program initiated by the Pentagon to duplicate the effects of the Moscow Signal. The Moscow Signal was a series of microwave beams aimed at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow by the Soviet Union, believed to be an electromagnetic weapon designed to adversely affect the behavior of embassy personnel¹.

Under Cesaro's direction, scientists with Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory constructed an elaborate facility inside the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. There, in an anechoic chamber, primates were irradiated with microwave beams with a power density similar to that of the Moscow Signal¹.

Within a few months of beaming the signal at the monkeys, Cesaro became convinced of its harmful nature, concluding that it adversely affected the internal organs of primates, including the brain. He later stated, "In our experiments we did some remarkable things. And there was no question in my mind that you can get into the brain with microwaves." It was later determined that the microwave beam produced Alzheimer's Disease¹.

Cesaro vehemently disagreed with those who insisted the Moscow Signal was harmless, such as Samuel Koslov. Based on the evidence that the electromagnetic beam could penetrate the human nervous system, Cesaro argued that it was necessary to determine exactly what kind of weapon this was and "whether the Soviets have special insight into the effects and use of athermal radiation on man"¹.

In 1969, the Department of Defense quietly expanded ARPA's Project Pandora to include "the human," with highly classified studies code-named Big Boy and Project Bizarre projecting microwave beams at unwitting sailors stationed in the Philadelphia Naval Yard¹.