The contingent of the UFO community known for holding a “nuts ‘n bolts” perspective has no doubt found recent developments within the space rather, shall we say, disconcerting. And that’s because, as time has gone on, the consciousness aspect of the conversation about UAP and NHI has only become more and more central; now even openly talked about by scientists and congresspeople seeking to wrap their heads around this age-old conundrum.
While recent years have seen a growing shift toward a consciousness-centric view of the phenomenon, this perspective is hardly new. For early pioneers like Jacques Vallée and John Keel, consciousness was central to understanding the UFO mystery. Additional key figures—such as Russel Targ and Hal Puthoff—also clearly saw the connection, and sought to research it in official capacity within programs funded by the US government.
Sitting alongside these paragons of new thought was the man we’re going to focus on today: Ingo Swann, credited with being the founder and architect of modern remote viewing protocols, and especially the structured version that became “Controlled Remote Viewing.” Swann’s participation with the Stanford Research Institute’s program in the early 1970s, working with the aforementioned Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ, is seen as foundational. He, for instance, provided a striking demonstration in his remote viewing of Jupiter, later said to match Voyager findings.
Swann’s psychic exploration of outer space didn’t stop with Jupiter, however. He was also tasked with psychically examining both the Moon and Mars, specifically in regards to potential extraterrestrial presences. What he found was as shocking as it was consequential to his later framing of what he saw as the limiting of humankind’s vast psychic potential in the modern world. And it’s that very matter in particular, outlined in his books Star Fire and Penetration, that we’re going to explore in this, the 119th episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.
118 ~ Charting the Gnostic Path