Project Pandora

Project Pandora was a classified U.S. research program initiated by the ARPA (now DARPA) in response to the Moscow Signal, a microwave beam directed at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow by the Soviet Union. The project's primary goal was to duplicate the effects of the Moscow Signal and study the biological effects of microwave radiation.¹

Scientists with Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory were assigned to oversee the research. Experiments were conducted inside an anechoic chamber at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, where primates were irradiated with microwave beams similar to the Moscow Signal. Richard S. Cesaro, in charge of Project Pandora, became convinced of the harmful nature of the signal, believing it adversely affected the internal organs of primates, including the brain, and could cause Alzheimer's disease.¹

In 1969, Project Pandora was quietly expanded to include human subjects, with highly classified studies code-named Big Boy and Project Bizarre projecting microwave beams at unwitting sailors stationed in the Philadelphia Naval Yard. These experiments remained secret for seven years.¹