This Paranormal Life - #390 Psychic Spies of the Cold War - China and Russia’s Paranormal Agents

Episode Date: October 29, 2024

Kit and Rory have investigated a number of paranormal military programs over the years: MK Ultra and CIA experiments on Uri Geller and Ingo Swann, but America was only one superpower involved in the Cold War. What was Soviet Russia doing? And what about China, the most populous country on earth? As it happens they were also developing top secret paranormal programs to investigate telekineses and remote viewing, with some alarming alleged evidence of its existence. This week Rory and Kit dive deep into the history of psychic spies and Cold War.Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunitySupport us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to weekly bonus episodes!Buy Official TPL Merch! - thisparanormallife.com/storeIntro music by www.purple-planet.comEdited by Philip Shacklady Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do ghosts have functioning pockets? Is it possible to eat cereal with my mind? Answers to these questions and more on this episode of This Paranormal Life! Wahaha! Woo! Welcome back to This Paranormal Life, the weekly comedy podcast where every Tuesday you are joined by me,

Kit Grummelvenna, and this guy Mr. Rory Parves. Uh, every Tuesday we dive into a different paranormal case deciding by the end whether we think it's really true or not. How you doing today Rory? Do ghosts have pockets? That's a really great question. You know usually if you're someone who's still appearing in ghostly form on this earth you left something behind. So presumably they don't have pockets because they can't find the f*** thing they left here. That's a great point It's probably just their car keys. It's a great point often

The ghosts are wearing what they were wearing when they died what happens to the contents of the pockets? We're getting I know we're getting into the nitty-gritty very early on but what happened is you have ghost keys ghost wallet hard to say Oh my god, never know Rory, this episode is dropping at a pretty exciting time in our year. We are at the 11th hour my friend, it is October, it is late October right now, the day I can't remember. The Halloween is only a couple of days away, we're in Halloween week officially. Oh my god, cue the thunder sound effects, the bats flying overhead. More than usual.

I hope when you're listening to this podcast, it is pouring rain outside. I hope it is gloomy. I want golden leaves. Nope, still rain. I want it to be terrifying. I want golden leaves falling from the trees. I hope everyone's having a fantastic October. Normally, I think we'd be making a big deal out of it right here on our kind of Tuesday episode,

but if you've been living under a rock, we are doing Campfire at the moment, which is our Thursday limited series, dropping all of October. And the final Campfire episode is coming on Thursday, which is the 31st of October, Halloween night. Wow! So please tune into that later this week whenever you get

the chance and celebrate your Halloween with us. Hope you're having a great Halloween so far. That is not what we're here to talk about today though we've got a regular paranormal case for us to get into but that is not what we are here to talk about today. Today Rory we're here to talk about the paranormal and I do have a reasonably big case for you here. It's a little different. You know, we've been doing plenty of cryptids, a couple of ghost things recently too. But today we're getting back into stuff that I can never get enough of talking about. We're talking government secrets, CIA documents...

Hello! And kinda MKUltra-esque psychic shenanigans. Alright, so the one time of the year it makes sense to talk about witches and goblins and ghouls. We are talking about declassified government operations. This is the sorbetto, this is the limoncello, my friend. This is the palatebetto, this is the limoncello my friend, this is the palate cleanser before we, I don't even remember what Thursday's episode is about,

but I know it's a banger that's coming out on the Campfire Thursday, but this is the little palate cleanser before maybe the dessert course on Thursday. Because this is the shit that's really terrifying. You know, when kids come to my apartment, trick or treating, I say, hey kids, you want to know something really scary? And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm like, OK, gather round. And I pull down a whiteboard and I say, in 1947, the government was involved in a secret operation

to assassinate leaders of other countries. They did so using alien technology discovered in the Nevada desert that can pop people's minds. assassinate leaders of other countries. They did so using alien technology discovered in the Nevada desert that can pop people's minds. The kids start crying. Yeah. We're going to get over this quick, little Timmy. You know what's really scary?

Pulls on a chart of the average global temperature of the seas. The planet is dying. Planet is dying, little Timmy. Parents are taking their kids away. They need to know the truth! What'll it be, kids? Trick or treat? Treat! The trick is there is no treat.

Welcome to the real world! You can't say treat and then he says the trick is. You can't do that. We are gonna get right into some Halloween appropriate government secrets right after a couple words from today's sponsors and a reminder that every episode of this paranormal life, even campfire, everything, everything we've ever done is on patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life link is in the description of this podcast. You want to give us a little treat this Halloween season head over to preach.

Sorry, can we time that up in the edit? Because I felt like I was going somewhere. Head on over to Patreon.com and you can put a piece of candy in our bucket. You want to take another swing at that last line too? Did I say something wrong there? Just a little stuttery. You can... Head on over to Patreon.com. Now you're going to be laughing.

How about this Halloween, you give us a little treat. If you head over to Patreon.com, you can put a little bit of candy in our bucket. That sounded sexual the second time I said it. It's been a couple years since you were at acting school, so I get it. Not in a sexual way, but go over to Patreon. Put some candy in our bucket. Rory, today's episode begins by going back in time, but not far. The year? 2024, this year. The location? Episode 359 of this paranormal life, remote viewing. Whoa, okay, we're going back in time to our older episodes. Phil Q. The Podcast Time Machine. Many today consider Ingo Swann the father of modern remote viewing.

Remote viewing is the ability to accurately perceive a location without ever having been there physically. I don't understand. I don't recognize these numbers. That's because these coordinates are for the moon. Alright. Horniness and the truth rarely go hand in hand. So unfortunately it's gonna be a no for me this week. Those who have heard this episode will remember we weren't convinced by the wild claims of Ingo Swann, the celebrated psychic of 1975.

The claims that he was a real psychic, capable of seeing the dark side of the moon. Yeah, he made some pretty bold claims, I remember from that episode. And, God, we should have known from the moment we saw Ingo's hobby as an erotic painter, that of course he wasn't a real psychic medium. That's why I didn't show you the penis paintings until the very end of the episode. Right. But that case and others like it, including our episode many years ago, but I believe it was the real story behind Stranger Things. Some of the history of MKUltra, the declassified CIA project.

This all left a mark on us as investigators, but also in the world of the paranormal. The US government kind of accidentally conducted the most serious research to date in the world on paranormal abilities like telepathy, telekinesis, and remote viewing. Hmm, okay, we'll say so far this really isn't that spooky.

And it being Halloween week, I think we need to kind of like- Oh, you need to kind of, you need to get beyond that, Roy. We are, this is not spooky. This is, this is- Well, we should change it then. We should change-

We're at the bleeding edge of trying to prove the paranormal real by looking through the most hardcore and terrifying research conducted by government authorities. I have a case ready about a goblin who lives under a bridge. I can maybe do that because I think for this week that might be alright. Sadly, MKUltra, like our investigation and its double no, the entire project kind of came to not. There was some limited evidence that paranormal abilities had been observed. But the conditions

of those tests have been very heavily critiqued and debated. But what if those studies were only half the story? After all, the USA is only one country in the world, and only one major superpower. What if, running alongside the Cold War between America and Russia between 1947 and 1991 there was also a secretive paranormal cold war a Psychic arms race. All right. I'm back in you know, cuz when we think about America, we're taught to think America number one big cars hot dogs baseball Freedom all of that jazz but really America is number one in only a select few things.

For example, potato-based stew. Ireland's got that on lock. Right here. I've had some of the best potato-based stew here at home. Guinness? Ireland again, number one. So all I'm saying is, when a government project is this secretive, we don't know which country is leading in the field. Rain?

Ireland? Yeah, I think depression too for sure. Depression? Suicide? Ireland is coming out top in a lot of fields it turns out. It is funny that- Crack? Both the drug and the fun and possibly a classified psychic government program.

We don't know. It could be Ireland that's leading the way. It's not Ireland. Just like the USA developing a space program to land on the moon, if America was investigating the paranormal, it turns out that Russia and China weren't about to let them have all the fun. And you bet your buttons there are a few other contenders in the race. Not a saying, not a saying.

You bet your buttons. I assume Ireland was also involved in the mind race. You bet your buttons. It sounded like a saying. Now bearing in mind that this is a world so secretive that the only reason we even know about any of this is pretty much due to the Freedom of Information Act. The fact that US government documents have to be made public after something like 50 years.

Right, right. You can then submit a request and I think they have to give you the files within 20 days. They show you the ones they want to show you, for sure. That's why in 2002, 22 years ago, we got a glimpse of a crazy time during the Cold War when a CIA document from 1975 was finally released to the public, a document called

Soviet and Czechoslovakian Parapsychology Research. Wow. And this thing is a treasure trove. Rory, you and I have read our fair share of declassified documents over the years. True. And a good document, as you well know, will really make you feel like there's a red dot sight

on the back of your head. Oh my God, yeah, my favorite, if I had to choose my favorite declassified secret government operation, it would probably have to be Project Gateway, which is actually kind of adjacent to today's case, made famous by the fact that when the government did release it to the public, there was a missing page.

And I think people hunted for years to find out why it was missing, where it went, and what was on it. And that was just so alluring. So it's like Christmas morning when we find one of these reports we haven't opened yet. Yeah, I do notice that when you're reading some of these declassified documents, they're like, here it all is.

And I'm like, okay, cool. Reading page one, page two, page five, hold on. See, we missed it a couple there. Right, yeah. Now the PDF is intact. Yeah. Hold on. Seemed to be missing a couple there. Right, yeah. Now the PDF is intact. Yeah. But even so, this thing feels like they took nothing out.

The document reads, Over the past 25 years, Soviet scientists have reported that abilities such as extrasensory perception, clairvoyance, and telepathy have been demonstrated in the laboratory under rigorously controlled conditions. If these reports are even partly true, and if mind-to-mind thought transference can be used for applications such as interplanetary communication

or the guiding of interplanetary spacecraft, the Soviets have accomplished a scientific breakthrough of tremendous significance. of interplanetary spacecraft, the Soviets have accomplished a scientific breakthrough of tremendous significance. Good Lord, slow down a second chief. What did he just say? He just accidentally let a lot of stuff slip. Cause I was like, we said mind to mind.

I'm like, oh, that's cool. So we can like beam our thoughts to each other. And he's like, maybe that's how we'll talk to the aliens. It's like the what? The what sir? I'm sorry I missed a couple declassifieds if we're already saying they're around. He seems to be saying if this is true this is going to be huge for interplanetary communication. I'm sorry who are you trying to talk to? Interplanetary communication just saying that phrase indicates

that there's a planet you've been trying to communicate with, right? This will be useful for guiding interplanetary spacecraft? What is this? We have one? Do we have one, sir? It goes on. The Soviets prefer the term biocommunications instead of parapsychology or ESP. They divide this into what they call bioenergetics

and biophysical effects. Czechoslovakian researchers have begun to refer to all paranormal abilities as psychotronics. Oh, that one's the coolest. This thing describes a hidden world of paranormal research by the Soviet communist government and scientific establishment, dating all the way back to as

early as the 20s, a place in which over 100 years ago from today they were conducting human-animal telepathic experiments with mixed results. Why human-animal? It's a good question. I wonder if it's because animals are considered a kind of simplistic kind of brain type, but also less prone to cheating and lying. Mm, I guess, yeah. Like if you could telepathically tell a dog

to do something kind of weird, it's like, well, it's unlikely the dog was trying to like rock the test. The dog isn't like a professional psychic and his career hinges on winning in this scientific result, right? Sure. I guess maybe though in a mind-to-mind transfer, you're not getting a lot from a human to animal. You know, if you're sitting in a laboratory staring at a pig for 24 hours at the

end of the test, you're just going to be like, I'm getting oink. I'm getting a strong oink. Right? Cut that down. Cut that down. Snort, snort strong oink. Right, jot that down, jot that down. Snort, snort, oink. We have completed complete mind transfer with the dog. One of the subjects said, I want a biscuit. It's like, yeah, that's a human thought too. We kind of knew that. Dogs and humans both want biscuits.

And for a couple of decades, this research was permitted and allowed to flourish until a change in government that considered paranormal research a threat to the values of the country and materialism, and all research was shut down overnight. That is, until the Soviets received a tip-off. It was a pig in uniform, arrived at their doorstep. Imagine like a scientist with like oink and woof like written out on a page and he's like rearranging the letters. Mother of God! I would love it if this Soviet scientist goes to a car park late at night and there's like a car parked with its headlights on,

so bright that you can only see the silhouette of like a smoking officer. And they're like, are you the man that tipped us off that the Americans are still working on this research? Oh gosh, private porkins, I'm here to tell you, the operation's still going. Operation pig and shit. Their intelligence had gathered that after the Second World War, an obscure French magazine reported the US Navy had conducted extensive research into psychic spying and had finally perfected a new technique. Theoretically allowing them to gather intelligence completely remotely, the Soviets were rattled. They had of course considered this a possibility, but didn't believe anyone had done it yet.

This was the kind of atom splitting moment like in Oppenheimer, kind of in the race to build the atom bomb. It was like all bets are off. Well, yeah, the first government to figure out magic is real. They're going to win a couple of wars. Yeah, you're going to get the next couple probably. Yeah, we'll give them the next couple. If they're flying around on a Nimbus 2000 through the battlefield,

lay down your arms. Lay down the guns. Russia knew they couldn't be left behind and immediately planned an extensive psychic research program. Except, what they didn't know was that that French news story was utter bollocks. The Americans didn't have any new technique. They didn't have any proof at all that they could use psychics in the field. But it didn't matter because this kickstarted the paranormal arms race.

Russia was now working as fast as they could. Wow. And you've got to move fast as well because as soon as the other guy figures out how to remotely view your laboratory, they're gonna get all your work anyway. Yeah. Because they can just peek down into it. At a certain point, the espionage is just completely transparent. I mean, this is like Coke trying to get secrets on Pepsi.

Yeah. Y'all are doing the completely same shit. It's like, can anyone taste the difference at this point? It is like a 1% minute difference of recipe. You would be so demoralized as well if you knew the Americans had cracked this to be able to transport their minds anywhere in the world. And you're working in your lab like writing notes, like maybe if we add this compound to this and you just hear a floating voice going, wrong, not even close.

You're like, all right, I'm getting, I must be getting closer. How long are you gonna be here? I don't know, I'm sleeping right now. I could stay here forever. Yeah, it's like being a kid and playing a video game and your older brother is like, you are way off. Do you want me to help you?

Do you want me to just help you? No, I wanna do it myself, mother f***er, I can do it. You know you miss an item like five levels ago. Shut the f*** up, I've got this. Well, you guys are still using pigs? We stopped using pigs in the 80s, this is embarrassing. But this is genuinely kind of hilarious. If I can't be more explicit, a French newspaper

told a lie saying Americans had cracked psychic spying. Russia kick-started a psychic research program. When America found out Russia was doing it, they were like, oh shit, now we really need a psychic research program. Yeah, Russia needs to check their intel. I don't know why they trusted this obscure newspaper so much. Now, as always with classified documents, it is a little difficult

to separate what is the whole truth and where you need to kind of read between the lines of what is missing. You know, if there's anything so classified, it's still redacted to this day. But returning to our 1975 document, this thing gives us a pretty good idea of some of the shocking areas of paranormal research Russia engaged with. The report extensively describes an invention that the Russians were calling a psychotronic generator. Once they realised how hard to measure psychic effects are and how difficult they are to repeat, they attempted to develop a machine that can quote,

"'draw biological energy from humans'." And once charged with human energy, the machines can quote, "'do some of the things psychic subjects can.'" What is this? What are we talking about? It eats souls? It eats humans? Bro? And then can what?

Make people float? I don't know. The really frustrating thing is the document I'm pretty sure says we have a diagram of what we think one of these machines looks like. That's one of the pages that's missing, by the way. I didn't get a picture of it. But it says that they have been potentially harvesting what they call bioplasmic energy since the 40s for experimentation. They say that the benefit of this machine is that it would allow someone with no psychic ability

to operate a machine that can produce psychic effects. And worryingly for Americans at the time, the document says that this machine can also be used as a weapon in one early test They placed flies on top of the machine and turned it on the flies instantly died Okay, well that could be anything in another disturbing you want to make a machine that kills flies There's a lot of easier ways to do it. It's a hammer Kind of invented machines that kill. They're guns.

And they're very easy to make, and in some countries very easy to get your hands on. They don't require 40 years of psychic energy to load up. They require a bullet. I think that was test one. You're never going to guess what test two was. The inventor of the machine pointed it at his daughter's head and turned it on. Oh my god! And she apparently became dizzy. Now this sounds crazy, but the CIA wrote in this document quote, Soviet perfection of psychotronic weaponry poses a severe threat to an enemy military.

The only power source required is the human operator itself. It seems like even at max capacity using 40 years of built up energy, when activated it can make a little girl dizzy. So I don't know how if it's going to necessarily topple a regime. Yeah, I mean, I guess it does point to how paranoid maybe governments were at this time. But their logic, they go on to say in the document, their logic is that these early machines are, I think, quite small, and the Russians have been working on amplification of the effects.

So they believe if they could amplify it to a significant degree, they could just Thanos snap an entire artillery out of existence. Maybe every time Biden fell down the stairs of Air Force One, he was getting hit with that psychotron. They're making the old man dizzy. Every time he called Zalensky, Putin, every time he misspoke. There's a little man with a gun pointing the dizzy ray at his head. I mean, do I have to spell it out to you guys?

What about the Cuban embassy? Gotta be more specific than that. The Cuban embassy thing, where the American embassy workers in Cuba, they all started throwing up and getting dizzy and collapsing for no discernible reason. And there was a belief at the time that maybe microwave radiation or some kind of just for no discernible reason. And there was a belief at the time that maybe microwave radiation or some kind of,

some kind of just electromagnetic thing was being used to f*** with their heads. The psychotron. Cook their brains. Yeah. Is it? The psychotronic, what did I call it? Psychotronic generator. It really is called a psychotron? Yeah, psychotronic generator.

Good Lord. Because this was in 1975, and, yeah, like 50 years later, it's scrambling people's brains in an office building. But the Russians didn't just meddle with psychic machines. They claimed to have tested proven psychics. The document reads that in 73 and 74 they tested a man named Boris Ermelayev. Quote, in some tests Ermelayev pressed an object together in his hands and then separated his hands to a distance of 8 inches either side while the object stayed levitating in the air. That's pretty cool. That's a real

report. This is in that same document. The scientists believe this is proof that psychic powers can bend space-time and gravitational effects. They tested a woman who was able to make a frog's heart beat inside a jar on the other side of the room. Oh, God! They took a frog's heart out of his body, dead frog, heart's not beating, put it in a jar on the other side of the room, and then a woman was able to use her mind to make it start beating again. That's kinda crazy. That is kinda, like, because if we're talking paranormal,

are we talking raising things from the dead? She can bring frogs back to life. That is kinda, what could we do to a little girl's head if she can make a dead heart start beating? Now that I think about it, Kermit has been around for a really long time. We're talking, what, 40, 50 plus years? I don't know the lifespan of a frog, but someone's keeping that guy alive. Yo, what year was Kermit invented?

Comrade Kermit? Yeah, rest in peace, Russian laboratory frog. Welcome back, Kermit the frog. But I see what you're saying if this person can start a heart maybe they could stop one too. Anything is possible at this time and maybe the most alarming single sentence in the document is about experiments involving one Leonid Vasilev when it says quote the Soviets have accomplished astral projection in the laboratory.

Yeah, this is going to be a big one. Rory, what do you make of these absolutely wild claims? The fact that let me remind everyone, I know that you guys listening to this podcast are used to me, Kit, saying bullshit because I'm telling you a paranormal story. But for once, it's not even my words. I'm reading words taken from the CIA.Government website of a document from 1975 that just said the words, they have accomplished astral projection.

But that is, they're saying that about someone else. That is their intelligence about Russian experiments into the paranormal. Which we've established so far, the intelligence is poor because this entire program was started because the intelligence got the intelligence wrong. So just bear that with a grain of salt here. What we're hearing from is the people

who got something so wrong. This whole project was started because the intelligence was wrong. So if you're like, well, the intelligence says that they can fly now. It's like, cool, well, you were wrong about a lot of stuff before. So I'm just gonna, yeah.

I'm not gonna take this at word value. I mean, yes, to an extent that the original French rumor that kicked off the Soviet research was complete bullshit, but that was kind of a snippet, a headline. When we start getting into a paper trail of 40 years of laboratory research, that is less likely to be a one-off lie. That is more likely to be the Americans might disagree with findings. They might, maybe the evidence doesn't say what the Russians are saying it is,

but it's unlikely that every person involved or Every experiment really didn't happen. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you this right now. I'm always more on board with the scientific experiments into the paranormal and telepathy and astral projection less into the idea of just a guy coming in who can kill a frog with his eyes. Because I'm like, I feel like there would be more of those people outside of government control. So we would know about this by now. But the machines and stuff, that's always kind of cool and interesting. I see what you're saying. Like, were there X-Men mutants walking the streets?

We'd know. Because to some extent, the X-Men universe would be real. There would be guys who are like, you know what, fuck this, I don't like working a desk job. I'm gonna use my mutant abilities to rob a bank. And then eventually push comes to shove, you've got Professor Xavier, a guy in a wheelchair, using his mind to put the money back in the bank.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, because this is it. If there really was a guy who could make something levitate between his hands, humans are selfish enough that he's not going to keep that a secret and then volunteer for a government program where he can use that to serve his country. He's going to be in Vegas doing card tricks. He's gonna be one of the most famous men in the world. So it's a bit of a stretch for me to believe that these people existed. Well, Rory, we might come back to that last thought a little bit later because there might

be a guy who was investigated who also was extremely famous at the time, a name since forgotten. We are going to hear more about who that might be, right after a couple of words from today's sponsors. It's Kermit. It was comrade Kermit, the Russian frog. He's been working undercover on Sesame Street for the last 50 years. He's not a puppet. That is a human soul inside that felt animal. That is a Russian hand up inside him. That is a Russian colonel reanimated into the body. That's just what they had lying around for some reason.

Oh, Kitten Roy from the future here, just diving in very quickly with a little bit of an update, actually. A big update, a very exciting update. Look, some of you may remember that last week we covered the paranormal history of Puerto Rico that, yes, included a haunted Burger King. Well, Burger King saw the episode.

A few days after it went live, we got an Instagram notification that said Burger King Puerto Rico wants to send you a message. Yeah, you know, whenever the whenever the king calls, you pick up the phone. The best part was this was during an award ceremony we were attending. So we were in the crowd in suits and Kit just hands me his phone and points at the message. The notification. It said, I can't believe I'm reading this, the message said, Hi Rory and Kit, we're so happy you

guys found our paranormal case. We need your help. We can't keep serving the best whopper in history while ghosts and spirits roam around the restaurant and scare our employees. Please visit us in Puerto Rico ASAP. So, I kind of can't believe I'm saying this, but at the time this episode goes live, Kit and I will be in Puerto Rico investigating a haunted Burger King. Are you sure? I'm sure. We're going.

We, this isn't a joke. Be careful what you wish for, ladies and gentlemen, because one day you're talking about a haunted Burger King. The next day, for the first time in history, someone has called our bluff on this part of my life. Oh, you don't think this is real? Here's a plane ticket, bud. That's basically what happened. How about you stand at the grill and you see if there ain't an orb flying around So yeah, this sounds like a bit that we're doing on the podcast, but I assure you it isn't we're gonna be filming a full-on location paranormal investigation in Puerto Rico for YouTube that is by the time you're hearing this it's gonna be live very soon

Right in the following days We're gonna be uploading that alongside vlogs and more from our adventure. So yes, subscribe to our YouTube or Instagram or any of our social media accounts and we're gonna be posting about it nonstop all this week. It's really happening. Holy shit.

Okay, so yeah. Hit subscribe, follow us on social media. You're gonna be seeing a Blair Witch style first person video of us in that frigging Burger King imminently. Let's go find the orb. And while Rory, we've only talked about Russia so far, we haven't even touched the Emerald Isle. That's right, right here in Ireland,

we probably had our own little psycho experiments going on. Not really. I assume. We were actually kind of neutral in the second world war, pretty small military. We kind of come out of a civil war about 20 years earlier. Neutral with our bodies but not with our minds, Chappy. You bet your buttons that we were doing shit with our minds. Because normally you would need like a large military program to have the budget to work on this kind of stuff

We were kind of busy just like I think kind of stop being a poor nation Build infrastructure things that we didn't really care so much about like trying to spy on other countries. Yes being neutral Well, we were angry about religion too. I took up a lot of our time Yeah, if we were gonna start using psychic abilities, it was to hear the thoughts of sinners. I was a priest would have been getting together and being like, problem is the real bastards aren't coming to confession. So if we can read the minds of the f**kers and we can hear their crimes before they confess them. Right.

Yeah. That is, I think if Ireland had had psychic spies, we would have used them to prey on the most vulnerable people in society. Probably. Most likely, yeah. It wasn't Diemmerald Isle. We're talking about China. Ooh. A place that, like, yeah, we go sometimes in this paranormal life, but let's face it,

nowhere near often enough for how big it is the footprint of human history, which has taken place in China. I've said it many times on the podcast before, sadly, due to a sheer language barrier, there are so many paranormal tales we'll never know about. We need to recruit my brother who is learning Chinese, so he would be able to help us out a little bit. Yeah, although between kind of running a couple charities, being a kind of one of the Fortune 500 company executives, and running, what do they do?

Like five or six marathons this year. He's a busy guy. I don't think he's gonna have time for that. It's kind of below his pay grid. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's why he learns all these languages because his team's in Shanghai, international companies, it's like a big deal. Wasn't he like building houses in Malawi this weekend or something?

I don't know. I'm not his keeper. Yeah, I know. What do you want from me? Nothing, nothing. He's just awesome, that's all. I do cool stuff too. Sometimes I wish he was on the podcast. What? I do cool stuff all the time too. I built houses last weekend. On The Sims, sure. But you should have seen the size of this thing.

It's not charity though, is it? It's a video game. My Sims lived for four days as well. A new record. So I think I'm actually pretty responsible in growing up as well. It sounds like the houses killed them. If they died within four days of you building them a house. It wasn't the house, it was the oven. It exploded. Cooked them alive, because I didn't build doors.

Never. I always forget the doors. Never become a landlord. It was one big room, it was the oven. It exploded. Cooked them alive because I didn't build doors. I always forget the doors. Never become a landlord. It was one big room with an oven in it. I put all nine of my Sims in there. When I say I built them a house, I built them an oven. The door is the oven door and it locks. I right-clicked on oven and said go inside and the game uninstalled itself. It reported you to the authorities.

To understand what was happening in China at this moment in history, let's go to the late 70s in a rural part of Dazhu County in the Sichuan province of China. An 11 year old boy from a peasant family walked home from school with a friend. Story story goes that this boy, Tang Yu, accidentally brushed up against his schoolmate's jacket, and at that moment, he had a vision. He claimed he could see a cigarette packet in his friend's pocket. He said he could see the symbols and graphics on the packet, and he correctly identified the brand before it was revealed to him physically.

It wasn't long before Tang began perfecting this ability. He was somehow able to sense objects, symbols, and writing that was hidden from him. The American science magazine Omni wrote an article about Yu saying, he began to play guessing games with villagers. He asked them to write random characters on pieces of paper, crumple the paper into balls, and let him hold each ball in turn next to his ear. Tang then guessed the message within. His guess is it was said, always proved right.

Tang Yu caught the attention of the region's science commission, the Sichuan Provincial Party Committee, and eventually the Chinese state media. Once they started paying attention, they realized it wasn't just Tang. Reports began coming in about children with powers of telepathy, clairvoyance, x-ray vision, and psychokinesis. Alright, I'm going to need to see some receipts from this article. The typical child was between the ages of 9 and 14, but some were as young as 4. Which does, I will say, break our raw, reinforced rule on TPL

of not using child witnesses below, what did you say? Ten. Ten is the cutoff. Oh sure, alright. Let's focus on the 14 year olds, let's say. They reported that these children claimed to do far more than simply read using their ears. They could decipher hidden messages with their fingers, palms,

scalps, abdomens, feet, armpits and buttocks. What are you talking about? These kids were sitting on crumpled up pieces of paper and reading the messages. This is telekinesis at its finest. One nine year old girl was able to read messages by touching the crumpled paper with the end of her pigtails. What is this? I don't know what we're doing anymore. This is nonsense.

What is this magazine? This article that's been written about magic children? Scientific magazine. Scientific magazine. How did they, did they meet these children that have ass magic? If I was one of the Chinese researchers, you know, researching these kids, it's like, wow, this is incredible. One of them's like, I could do it with my ass. I don't need to hear about that. Leave that kid here. Yeah, he's not getting on the bus. Look, I don't need any kids going back to the parents saying that I investigated their ass.

Alright? I don't need that. I don't need that kind of heat. I worked hard to get here. I had to go to university, work my way up through the ranks. I'm not losing this over a little shit who's trying to pull a prank on me. I didn't even want the foot girl. Even- that's where I drew the line, but you guys said we needed her. I still think it's weird. But there was one young man who stood out among the rest in terms of his sheer ability to do this without fail. A young man from Northeast China named Zhang Baosheng. It's said that Zhang was capable of smelling the contents of a written down message

in what people called reading with his nose. Baosheng's paranormal abilities began to be used by local police. They enlisted him to help solve crimes. He's just a sniffer dog. That's basically what it is. He's got an amazing nose. He's a super taster. He was brought to nearby hospitals to serve as a human x-ray machine, which also interestingly dogs do. I don't know if you knew that. They train dogs to like smell cancer. Wow, that's crazy. Yeah, absolutely twisted.

It sounds crazy even when I'm saying that, but I've heard that. Yeah, which doesn't bode well for me because my sister's dog always smells my nutsack whenever I go around to their house. Okay, that'd be a mood killer, wouldn't it? It's like, oh, I'm sorry, he's being friendly. I'm like, oh no, you know, he just smells,

you know, he smells probably my neighbor's cat. The dog goes, you've got rot cancer, rot rancor. The room goes completely silent. I'm gonna, what was that? What's weirder, did he talk to or the words that came out? You should see a general physician. All right, I'm probably not gonna stay for dinner. I'm probably gonna go call my doctor.

I'm gonna leave now. Rot rancor, that's an not gonna stay for dinner. I'm probably gonna go call my doctor. I'm gonna leave now Ranser that's an all-time TPL low Scooby-doo telling you've got cancer, right? Oh The scans don't look good Breaking down into you. Well, give you a moment alone with your loved ones. With your loved ones. That's so dark. Hahaha. News of Baosheng's skills spread far and wide, and he began to be investigated by science societies.

By the 1980s, Baosheng was a high-ranking member of government circles, rubbing shoulders with some of the administration's elite figures. He was conducting medical experiments on high-ranking officials and worked on national defense. By the late 80s, he was called Superman, person from the stars, guest from another world, living Buddha, or even Chinese God. What? This is escalating very quickly. He drove a luxury car and lived in a luxury home,

which in communist China were conditions reserved for only the most high ranking of officials. Yeah. He was given a siren that allowed him to drive through traffic lights. Okay. Hey, apparently I have a nose that can read as well because I smell bullshit on the page right now in front of me. This is nonsense. This is someone who seems like they have scammed people into turning him into a celebrity. I mean, I'm glad we've hit this point of the investigation because as crazy as Zhaobao

Sheng sounds, I learned of him through trawling the kind of CIA documents about paranormal research in other countries. The CIA, the American government and its branches was keeping very close tabs on all of these people. It was keeping close tabs on the Russian experiments and on the Chinese experiments. And so it took me a minute and probably other people who come across these documents a second to realize that when you're reading these CIA documents, often what you're reading is intercepted Chinese reports being republished by Americans or translated and published. Right. So this is a great example of how just because the CIA have reported on Zhao Baosheng, they do care and they are taking it seriously and that's why they're reporting it internally. But it doesn't mean that they've personally tested him.

No. As we've talked about on this podcast before, they also have an entire folder on Elvis Presley. Yeah. They just have to do the work. That's part of the job is investigating these people whether or not they think there's anything there or not. And it's been pointed out by many, of course, that particularly with China at this time, I think less so with the Russian experiments because that was more secretive and they,

if you go through those documents, it was a big scientific world of experimentation and a lot of really boring stuff that I didn't cover. Whereas when we look at Zhaobao Sheng, they were, they were like calling him Chinese God. He was all in the media. He was driving a fancy car. They're not trying to hide him. They, he was almost a symbol of like Chinese excellence. Yeah.

And if you think about the mood at the time, the government were trying to make the Chinese people feel like they're the most powerful country in the world, the greatest country in the world with the best people. And so if there's a guy who can make shit levitate, could he though? That's stay with me. You can just smell words. But I'm saying if they're telling people, Hey, we've got a guy who can make shit levitate, the Chinese people, even if their lives are hard, they're going to feel pretty awesome about being Chinese.

I don't know. I wish you would levitate more money into my pocket if I was a poor farmer. Better than nothing, I think, if you were a Chinese citizen. So you have to understand that there was a propaganda angle to telling the world that you have Chinese God. And I'm not being a sinophobic here. This is obviously present in US experiments too. But Rory, I didn't want to round out today's episode by just looking at Russia, just looking at China,

as fascinating as that is, covering the entire kind of other half of the Cold War of the psychic War of the Psychic Arms Race, I was disturbed to find that these experiments also went on in the UK. Oh, okay. And disturbingly, recently. I don't know actually if there's a lot of evidence to say that the UK was researching this stuff at the same time as China, Russia, America in the mid 70s, but they certainly dipped their toes into these waters in the 2000s. Wow, that recently? Around 2001.

And that is not a coincidence. This is of course after 9-11. Really? What? Using the kind of UK equivalent of this kind this freedom of information stuff, we can read documents online stating that the British Ministry of Defence were conducting studies that, as they say, were undertaken quote, to investigate theories about gathering information remotely and to determine the potential value of such theories to the Ministry of Defense.

In their words, seeing if remote viewing could be of any use. Rory, if you remember- So late, so late to the game. Everyone's figured out it isn't by now. Isn't this mind blowing though? So to recap, if there's some young listeners who weren't around at that time or were goo-goo-gagging back in 2001, which is extremely possible. 911 happened.

Well, I think they hopefully know what that is. We're not going into that deep dive. So there was two TARs, right? Stay with me here like Lord of the Rings. But 911 happened and what ensued was the US and UK combined invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes, I remember protesting at our school at like 14 years old. Well, yeah, I was about to say we're about 10 years old. So I agree. I went to George Bush protests back then,

which was pretty bad given that our understanding of the conflict was pretty much limited to Green Day lyrics. Yeah, it was like we're young and even we know that this is wrong. What's happening? The UK and the US together were trying to hunt down a lot of people. And if you remember that whole period, the next like 15 years was basically characterized by just trying to find Osama bin Laden, trying to find key members who may have been involved in the September 11th attack and

They were so Desperate they hired psychics. This is crazy They were they were trying to scar the Middle East and they figured this is so hard to gather intelligence Let's pull out every single stop here and use defense spending to hire psychics out every single stop here and use defense spending to hire psychics, conduct experiments and try to see if psychics can pin down the location of these terrorists. They're like, get that kid with the magic ass. This is really important. We need everyone.

We need everyone. Yeah. Imagine if there's a movie about this and you get hired to work at this project, like Samuel L Jackson is like, we're putting together a team There's an eight-year-old with his ass sitting on top of a scanner machine. You got a Zao Bao Sheng in the corner He's levitating shit. You got Uri Geller, Ben and Spoons just the freaks and geeks of the last 50 years Yeah, yeah. Yeah all assembled together You got a little girl of reading using her pigtails.

Kermit the Frog in the corner in full military fatigues. But what I kind of love about the UK experiments into psych expiring is that the whole thing feels very British and a bit shit. They kind of like give it a go, but it kind of falls apart instantly. The report says that the first subject walked into the Ministry of Defense's remote viewing room at 345 on the 20th of November, 2001. His target, hidden in an envelope,

was a photo of Mother Teresa. And Rory, you know, we have our little extremely grainy scan of Mother Teresa, the kind of thing we would see in a Uri Geller experiment or something like that. And below it says, Mother Teresa, the kind of thing we would see in an Uri Geller experiment or something like that. And below it says, Mother Teresa, who is this? The report says that after 10 minutes with his head in his hands, the man began to breathe more deeply, but still nothing happened. Time passed.

His head slumped forwards and the officials monitoring him thought he had fallen asleep. Eventually his left arm slipped off the table, waking him up, and he sat up straight in the chair, arms folded. He got up and went to the toilet, and then right at the end of the session, finally grabbed a pen and drew some objects on some paper in front of him.

The entire process took nearly two hours. Rory, this is what he drew. All right, this doesn't look anything like... It doesn't look anything like anything! It's not, yeah. What am I looking at here? It's just scribbles. He's drawing like a little triangle, like, it says I think white, tar, and then here it's like a pyramid. Okay, so he was wrong. He's thinking it's like steps and then maybe a couple of letters there.

Right. But inexplicably they deemed that drawing a success because one of the testers said that the triangle pyramid shapes might be reflecting Mother Teresa's shirt on the bottom of her photo. Oh shut up that's such a stretch. It's needless to say. That's someone who doesn't want their project defunded. They're like, it was kind of a success. Imagine how stressed you'd be as the person running that project day one of the experiments, and it's a shit show.

It's a mess. It's a complete shit show. Needless to say, the Ministry of Defence pretty quickly cancelled the further experiments into remote viewing and trying to find terrorists. Good. Thank God. I mean, you say good, but I mean, kind of hating the British establishment and military spending. I'm kind of down for them to waste their time doing boring shit like that and putting some pennies in the pockets of paranormal scam artists. That's true. Maybe there's some money that we could actually be making.

I haven't thought about this before. I have a magic ass. I really do. I've got magic junk in my trunk and I will accept 10,000 British pounds a day to sit on a picture of terrorists. Me and Rory have kind of hung out in a couple of gay bars in our times and I've been told I have a magic ass, but I don't think that I kind of paranormal psychic way. I can't give up to me bought me a drink and said my ass had his name written all over it which I didn't quite understand at the time but I don't think that was like a

mind reading thing. Right yeah having a butt that won't quit doesn't mean it's that it's some sort of incredible power. I think it's just good. He said he thought he could bounce a quarter off my high knee, but I don't think it could levitate. Right. Let's say Rory, I have taken you all the way from America to Russia to China and then circled the world back to the UK. We have covered at this point in TPL history what seems like every major government's historic program into investigating the paranormal. I mean, things got reasonably interesting towards the end with the Iraq war and psychic spies, but it feels to me like the most interesting

or shocking bit to me was the Russian program into making psychic machines and weaponry. Pretty cool stuff. Where's your head at? Well I'm waiting to hear the last bit of the story which is the psychic research done right here at home on the island of Ireland. Oh right. I assume scientists use their psychic powers to find out if you are Catholic or Protestant so we can fight each other. Is that in the notes? It's not. It's not in the notes. Although, I mean, you joke, but I would say I'd say that's another episode, honestly. We've talked a lot before about how the Catholic Church

has probably the most rich and detailed paranormal archives. They keep enormous tabs on paranormal activity within the church. And Ireland, sadly, was pretty much owned and operated by the Catholic Church for kind of most of its modern history. So I would say there's a pretty decent archive of kind of paranormal happenings in Ireland. We should dive into that at some point. I bet there is some cool stuff that's been declassified. There's like streets where gravity works the wrong way.

There's the Blarney Stone. There's all these kind of ancient Irish artifacts that are kind of weird and paranormal. We can save that for another day. Then we don't have to get into that today. But I agree with you. I think it's what I said. When we're talking about scientific experiments into this stuff, I find that quite cool and alluring.

Whenever we're talking about magic people with psychic powers, you start to lose me a little bit. Why? Because I don't think they're real. Because I think if they were real, they wouldn't all be working for the government. I think there would be a kid in your school that can do it. Right. And he would use it to just by the law of averages. Exactly. We would know about it because it would be impossible to cover it up. But what

if I hear me out here, I'd say in every school there was that one kid who just like moved country one year. You just went over summer break and you came back to school after summer and you're like hey Rory great to see you hey Thomas great to see you. Where's Lloyd? Oh Lloyd went to Sichuan China and he ain't coming back. Lloyd's family moved away yeah his dad got a job in Switzerland. Yep, Switzerland. That's definitely where it is That's the whole family had to move. Yeah, just like just like that What if as soon as that kid starts levitating a pencil on their desk your school teacher You didn't notice at the time. They just talked into an earpiece. They went it's time Lloyd has displayed exceptional promise. Hey brother. why do you think I had to leave America

as a child? Oh shit. I was 20 feet in the fucking air. You grew up in the sleepy little witness protection small town. Rory's not even your real name. No, exactly. It's because they called me the walking weapon.

So they changed my name to AK Rory seven. Yeah, your rap mixed up name. That is also my rap name, yeah. That's why they had to relocate me to the best goddamn psychic program in the world. On the Emerald Isle! Yeah! He's been trying to tell us all along!

Wow! Yeah, so it's a no from me this week. Whoa, really? Because I have to keep the project under wraps. God damn it. A chip in my neck explodes if I say that it's a no from me this week. Whoa, really? Because I have to keep the project under wraps. God damn it. A chip in my neck explodes if I say that it's real, so I have to say it's a no this week. Look, I'm glad I covered this case because I've never not been obsessed with this era of government research.

I think we all have a soft spot for it. And I think if today has shown us anything, it's shown us how frustrating it is because these people put so much time and money and effort into really researching the paranormal and the whole thing is completely shit over by the fog of war, the cold war and propaganda. Yeah. And the problem is the reason that no one in science believes in the paranormal to this day is because these studies weren't conducted under like peer reviewed scientific processes.

They were conducted in extremely biased, cloudy, shitty circumstances in which countries were leaking information to each other to trick each other and scare each other into being scared of one another. So even in those tantalizing moments where the government comes out and says a guy called Gary came in and successfully levitated a truck for 30 minutes in Area 51. I want to believe that so badly but in the next sentence

We're talking about an eight-year-old boy who can read crumpled up messages using his ass So it unfortunately cast the whole thing into disrepute which means this week is Fine no, it's a double no. Oh damn it Unfortunately, look if you were your loved ones from that era and you have heard, maybe you live in Russia, you know about psychotronic machines, psychotronic generators. This is a big request. I know. You'll get thrown in jail.

I'm casting a wide net here. Yeah, probably. Probably me too. But hey, let us know. This is ParanormalLifePodcast at gmail.com. Happy Halloween. Yeah, it wasn't really a spooky one today. Well, I think there's been enough spooky shit. All right. I think I still have that

goblin case around here. So we want to do the goblin. Is a goblin even spooky? Oh, this guy for sure. His name is Trenton. He lives under a bridge. And he is a suspect in the 2001 Iraq War. He was hiding in Afghanistan. That is right. Hey, it's true. But Roy, that's the beauty of the campfire. It's the real Halloween celebration. It's this Thursday right here on This Paranormal Life.

Open up that podcast app. Check out youtube.com This Paranormal Life this Thursday for our big Halloween episode, the campfire. Yeah, we're with you. Well, don't big it up too much. It's even shorter than this one. Sure. Yeah. But there's... It's spookier though. It is spookier and there's so much other stuff that you can enjoy. We've got the bonus, monthly bonus episode coming out or has come out very soon or recently.

And every Friday we've got our after parties celebrating Halloween too. So there's so much this paranormal life to enjoy to round off your October. There certainly is. Thank you for joining us this spooky season. We've had an absolute blast so far and we're loving the response to Campfire. So thank you for that.

Of course, if you somehow, somehow can't get enough this paranormal life, the place to be is patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life. You know, I can normally sell you on just how much incredible content there is over there from the last so many years of doing this paranormal life. But I think thanks to Campfire, you're probably, you've probably got tons of this part of my life to listen to. So instead I'll say, patreon.com is how this show is funded, it's made. If you want to support this show and get so much stuff in return, head over to patreon.com and get some cool rewards for as little as $5. I think you could say, Kit, how about this Halloween, you give us a little treat and put a bit of candy in our buckets.

Yeah, not in that way. All right. Right, put it right up in there. In there? In the bucket! Put a bit of candy in our buckets. Yeah, not in that way. All right. Right. Put it right up in there. In there? In the bucket. At the end of a podcast, though, we like to shout out people who've supported us on that tier of Patreon. Who've put their candy in our buckets.

Why don't we stop talking about candies? Why don't we give them a shout out right now? So a special thank you to Alyssa Dunn. Alyssa Dunn did it. What she done do? Whatever you can think of. Anything you've done, Alyssa Dunn. Alyssa Dunn did it. What she done do? Whatever you can think of. Anything you've done, Alyssa Dunn did it already. Back flip.

Dunn did it. Really? 2008. That makes two of us. Ohio. Wow, that's pretty cool. Name something else. I don't know, front flip. Dunn did it, did it the same day, obviously.

2008, Ohio, Dunn did it. Okay. Dying? Sadly, Dunn did it this year. So rest in peace Alyssa, but resurrected done did it. They're back, baby Thanks also to Maria Rutledge. They call her Maria the CIA. Ooh Because she is able to as the unbelievable feat of reading Type as small as a size 11 font and a piece of paper from three miles away using her ass alright so the ass because you can't say the

unbelievable feet I assumed it was the feet no no no no it was the F E A T yeah of a magic ass yeah got it alright wish it was the feet Maria wish it was let me know if you can see this one coming, Maria. You're blocked from Patreon. Why? I just wanted to try and give her a curveball in case you can see that one coming. Thanks also to Emily Eichin-Martin.

Emily is my enemy. And like the stories we've heard today, Emily just leaks information about herself to kind of spur me on. You know, sort of be like, if I run a 10K, she's like, hey, did you hear this report saying that Emily can run a marathon? And I'm like, oh, god damn it.

Well, God, I gotta start training for a marathon. Too late, she's done an ultra. Wow. Yeah. Oh, she can actually, like Optimus Prime, she can transform into a fire truck. It's like, I can't compete with that, Emily. That's a bit too far. So Emily, I'm coming for you. I'm coming for you. I have bought a Transformers Halloween costume, and I'm gonna see if I can, you know...

This is crazy, I'm just reading on BBC News that Emily has actually transcended into a kind of demigod-like form. UGH! I was just about to do that, I swear to God! Yeah, she's omnipotent. She did it first son of a bitch Alright fair play Emily Thanks also and lastly today to Adam Chalinski Adam you're the one thing that we don't need in the paranormal commune. Uh damn, cuz there ain't no water Nothing to damn up We are bone dry. It's the kind of like

to dam up. We are bone dry. It's the kind of like silver lining I suppose if you can even call it that of not having water. Yeah. Yeah. I guess so. It would be good to have something the whole back. Not much kind of pollution. You know like no water bottle pollution because there's no water. Yeah no bottles either. Um. Yeah. There is the nuclear sludge. You don't know. There is the nuclear sludge leaking slowly towards the town. Oh get it. We need a dam then. A dam would be great. So Adam, if you could... Okay, Jesus, they're expensive too. You could head in. Well, we got one here.

Adam, if you could just lay sideways on the ground and kind of absorb that nuclear goo. We need you to buy us a couple minutes. Thank you, Adam. Thank you everyone we've shouted out today. We'll be back with more shoutouts from next week. We will see you on Thursday for Campfire and a very happy Halloween and of course again on Friday with the after party. Bye bye folks.