astronomy

The Men Who Stare at Goats

The Men Who Stare at Goats is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Men Who Stare at Goats rather than just read about it. In short: The Men Who Stare at Goats (2004) is a non-fiction book by Jon Ronson concerning the U.S. Army's exploration of New Age concepts and the potential military applications of the paranormal.

Key takeaways

The Men Who Stare at Goats belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Men Who Stare at Goats to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Men Who Stare at Goats from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Men Who Stare at Goats (2004) is a non-fiction book by Jon Ronson concerning the U.S. Army's exploration of New Age concepts and the potential military applications of the paranormal. The title refers to attempts to kill goats by staring at them and stopping their hearts. The book is a companion to a three-part TV series broadcast in Britain on Channel 4—Crazy Rulers of the World (2004)—the first episode of which is also entitled "The Men Who Stare at Goats". The book received a loose feature film adaptation released in 2009.

Content

Book synopsis The book's first five chapters examine the efforts of a handful of U.S. Army officers in the late 1970s and early 1980s to exploit paranormal phenomena, New Age philosophy, and elements of the human potential movement to enhance U.S. military intelligence-gathering capabilities as well as overall operational effectiveness. These include the First Earth Battalion Operations Manual (1979) and a "psychic spy unit" established by Army Intelligence at Fort Meade, Maryland, in the late 1970s. (This was the Stargate Project, which the book never mentions by name.) Ronson is put on the historical trail of the "men who stare at goats"—Special Forces soldiers who supposedly experimented with psychic powers against de-bleated goats at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, at the now-decommissioned "Goat Lab" medical training facility. He examines, and dispenses with, several candidates for the legendary "master sergeant" (Chapter 2) who was reported to have killed a goat simply by staring at it, in the earliest days of the program. A martial arts instructor named Guy Savelli claims to be the master sergeant in question. In the middle third of the book (Chapters 6–11), the author leaps to the present day—i.e., 2004, just after the Abu Ghraib abuse revelations—and attempts to make connections between the earlier (now terminated, and mostly discredited) military programs and the abuses resulting from the post–9/11 war on terror (Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, psyops in Iraq, etc.). This includes the use of the children's song "I Love You" from Barney & Friends on Iraqi prisoners of war. A purported linking element is the alleged use of music and subliminal messaging at the 1993 Waco siege and other FBI operations. Another is the private business "franchises" and consultancies that retired members of the "psychic unit" later pursued as civilians. A connection is also proposed between these "privatized" psychics and the mass suicide of members of the Heaven's Gate cult in 1997. The final section of the book (Chapters 13–16) leaps backward to the 1950s and attempts to connect the Army psychic program, and later interrogation techniques, with the CIA's MKUltra "mind control" research program and the notorious death of Army researcher Frank Olson in 1953. Ronson spends time with Olson's son Eric as he attempts to uncover the mystery of his father's death. Eric suggests that Frank Olson was murdered, not simply because he knew too much but, rather, that he was having a crisis of conscience and seriously entertaining the notion of going public with all that he knew. The narrative ends with the suggestion that the "psychic warriors" are now back in business working for the U.S. military again, possibly in support of assassinations.

Featured individuals

Interviewed by Ronson Glenn B. Wheaton, retired U.S. Army Special Forces sergeant with 5th SFG; psychic and remote viewer; set Ronson on the trail of the "men who stare at goats" Albert Stubblebine, retired Army major general; career military intelligence officer; proponent of psychic warfare, levitation, spoon bending and walking through walls Jim Channon, retired Army lieutenant colonel; author of the First Earth Battalion Operations Manual; New Age guru and consultant John B. Alexander, retired Army colonel; proponent of non-lethal weapons and of military applications of the paranormal; introduced Channon's book to Stubblebine Frederick Holmes "Skip" Atwater, retired Army lieutenant; Gen. Stubblebine's "psychic headhunter"; later president of the Monroe Institute James V. Hardt, research psychologist and expert on the electrophysiological basis of spiritual states; assisted the "men who stare at goats" Steven Halpern, new-age musician consulted by the Army on how to deploy music as a weapon or for mind control via subliminal messages Guy Savelli, martial artist and psychic; recruited to work with U.S. Special Forces by Col. Alexander; purportedly "downed" a goat and killed a hamster using only his mind Pete Brusso, martial artist and psychic; inventor/marketer of a personal self-defense weapon ("the Predator"); Savelli's rival for U.S. military contract work Uri Geller, spoon-bending Israeli celebrity psychic entertainer; self-described consultant to the U.S. military Prof. Courtney Brown, Emory University political scientist and paranormal proponent; allegedly barred from the Art Bell radio show after inspiring the Heaven's Gate mass suicide Prudence Calabrese, psychic who worked with Courtney Brown; also banned from the Art Bell radio show Christopher Cerf, Sesame Street songwriter; song appropriated by U.S. Army PSYOPs soldiers in Iraq Jamal al-Harith, Jamaican-British convert to Islam; subjected to musical weirdness as GTMO prisoner Edward ("Ed") A. Dames, retired Army major, intelligence officer and psychic; frequent guest on the Art Bell radio show; known as "Dr Doom" Joseph McMoneagle, retired Army NCO and chief warrant officer; intelligence officer and psychic; now runs a remote viewing business Lyn Buchanan, retired Army intelligence NCO and psychic. Eric Olson, son of Frank Olson; lifelong activist to uncover cause of his father's mysterious death Bob Ricks, American law enforcement official; incident commander at 1993 Waco siege Norman Cournoyer, Ft. Detrick colleague of Frank Olson; confirmed to Frank's son Eric that, in his view, his father's death was a CIA murder

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Men Who Stare at Goats

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Men Who Stare at Goats claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Men Who Stare at Goats before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Men Who Stare at Goats ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Men Who Stare at Goats

In research: The Men Who Stare at Goats appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Men Who Stare at Goats in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Men Who Stare at Goats is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2004 English-language non-fiction books, 2004 non-fiction books, Books about the United States military, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Men Who Stare at Goats outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The Men Who Stare at Goats in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Men Who Stare at Goats means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Men Who Stare at Goats out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Men Who Stare at Goats in simple terms?

The Men Who Stare at Goats (2004) is a non-fiction book by Jon Ronson concerning the U.S. Army's exploration of New Age concepts and the potential military applications of the paranormal.

Why does The Men Who Stare at Goats matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Men Who Stare at Goats?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Men Who Stare at Goats.