When we first step foot on Mars, it’ll be an incredible leap for humankind—a moment even bigger than the moon landing. But what if I told you that the CIA and the U.S. military have already made it to Mars? And they didn’t even use spaceships—they used psychics.

Let’s dive into this curious tale. During the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union went deep into some bizarre territory, including CIA’s Operation Acoustic Kitty—which was as weird as it sounds. They surgically implanted a microphone into a cat’s ear to eavesdrop on conversations. Sadly, the kitty’s career was cut short by a taxi, and the project cost $20 million.

Meanwhile, the Soviets were experimenting with low-frequency radio waves to control dogs’ brains. In 1972, reports surfaced that the Soviet Union was heavily into researching ESP, mind reading, and telekinesis for espionage. A bit spooked, the CIA got approval to start their own psychic spy project.

The CIA, U.S. Army, and Defense Intelligence Agency created secret spots nationwide, aiming to harness remote viewing skills—psychics describing what they saw far away. They actually found people who could do it. For example, in 1976, a psychic pinpointed a crashed Russian bomber in the Congo.

Convinced they had something valuable, these psychic projects were centralized at Fort Meade in Maryland, under Project Stargate, which ran until 1995. These remote viewers accomplished quite a bit—sketching secret Soviet bases, locating hostages in Italy, and even predicting the 9/11 attacks.

One intriguing case involved a psychic named Angela Ford, who located a fugitive in Wyoming correctly, despite a slight name error. This led researchers to wonder—if they could remote view Earth, could they view other planets? Enter Joe McMonagle, a Vietnam vet turned psychic spy, who reported visiting Mars 1 million years ago without leaving Earth.

In 1984, McMonagle was given coordinates and asked to describe what he saw. He reported seeing tall, thin beings in a Mars-like landscape. When the envelope was opened, it read: “Planet Mars, 1 million years B.C.” Yeah, mind-blowing.

Sure, this sounds crazy, but these stories come from real CIA document dumps—12 million pages worth. Whether you believe in ESP or not, the U.S. government has invested heavily in it. McMonagle and his colleagues weren’t just playing with tarot cards. In fact, McMonagle was quite successful, locating a sunken Soviet submarine, among other feats.

But why stop the program if it worked? Well, government projects never truly end. In 2014, the Office of Naval Research started a new program to study premonition-like skills among soldiers. Even Dr. Edwin May, the former head of Stargate, champions ESP as a legitimate tool for military use.

As for me, I’m a skeptical believer. Sure, the government spends money on odd stuff—like teaching pottery in Morocco or studying chimps throwing feces. If they can fund those, why not ESP research?

Thanks for hanging out with me today.