Narratively

Narratively

Share this post

Narratively
Narratively
Journeys of a Psychic Army Spy
Copy link
Facebook
Email
Notes
More
Secret Lives

Journeys of a Psychic Army Spy

Trained by the U.S. military in the art of mentalist warfare, a clandestine intelligence agent travels the world and unlocks state secrets, all without leaving his desk chair.

Maria Smilios
May 14, 2014
∙ Paid

Share this post

Narratively
Narratively
Journeys of a Psychic Army Spy
Copy link
Facebook
Email
Notes
More
Share
llustrations by Onsmith

On the morning of May 15, 1987, Paul H. Smith, a robust thirty-four year old captain in the U.S. Army’s Psychic Espionage Unit, Center Lane (later known as Stargate), lay down in an all-gray room in Fort Meade, Maryland, and relaxed his mind by listening to music. Twenty minutes later, in a different gray room, he listened as his colleague, Ed Dames, recited a series of random numbers that represented a military target. Within minutes, he was no longer seeing the walls or the table or Dames. He was now somewhere else.

“I perceived a large metal object, like a warship at night in a large body of water,” he says. “I saw an aircraft that dropped a metal object that started flying. I heard noises like clanging sounds and people screaming, and I saw smoke and fire and water. It was very chaotic.”

For about an hour, Smith drifted in a reality that was beyond normal comprehension, seeing flashes of images, hearing snippets of sounds and feeling the terror of an event tha…

Keep reading with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to Narratively to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
© 2025 Narratively, Inc.
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start writingGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture

Share

Copy link
Facebook
Email
Notes
More