The Why Files
The First Earth Battalion: America's Strangest Military Experiment
2025 • E35 Nov 23, 2025 31m
A Vietnam War hero with zero casualties wrote a manual about warrior monks who hug daily and use ESP in combat. Instead of dismissing it, the US Army turned it into Project Jedi—a decades-long experiment in psychic warfare. Generals tried walking through walls.
Intelligence officers hosted spoon-bending parties. Soldiers stared at goats until their hearts stopped. The CIA spent millions on remote viewers who claimed to see Soviet secrets thousands of miles away. Most experiments failed, but the successful techniques became foundational to modern Special Forces training.
This is the true story of America's psychic soldier program and how a hippie field manual accidentally revolutionized military operations.
Intelligence officers hosted spoon-bending parties. Soldiers stared at goats until their hearts stopped. The CIA spent millions on remote viewers who claimed to see Soviet secrets thousands of miles away. Most experiments failed, but the successful techniques became foundational to modern Special Forces training.
This is the true story of America's psychic soldier program and how a hippie field manual accidentally revolutionized military operations.