---
aliases:
- William H. Bowers
category: Psychics & Remote Viewers
summary: According to Bergier's article, 'Thought Transfer, Weapon of War,' the experiment
  aimed to test long-distance telepathic communication through significant barriers.
tags:
- Person
- RemoteViewer
- Soviet
---

William H. Bowers was a [U.S. Air Force](/organizations/us-air-force/) Colonel and the director of the Biological Department of the Air Force Research Institute. He was identified by journalist [Jacques Bergier](/people/jacques-bergier/) as the man overseeing a joint-service [ESP](/concepts/extrasensory-perception/) experiment conducted aboard the USS Nautilus in 1958[^1].

According to Bergier's article, "Thought Transfer, Weapon of War," the experiment aimed to test long-distance telepathic communication through significant barriers. The experiment reportedly involved a sender onboard the *Nautilus* and a receiver on land, using [Zener Cards](/concepts/zener-cards/) for simple sender-receiver trials[^1].

However, the Navy's response to Bergier's story was that it was a hoax. In a nationally syndicated Sunday magazine supplement in September 1963, Colonel Bowers was quoted as saying, "The experiment in which I was alleged to have participated never took place"[^1]. Despite the denial, the story had real-world consequences, as the Soviets used it to stimulate their own parapsychology research[^1].

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