Hacker Cinema
The Men Who Stare at Goats
2009 · Film · 94 min
Directed by Grant Heslov
A reporter in Iraq might just have the story of a lifetime when he meets Lyn Cassady, a guy who claims to be a former member of the U.S. Army's New Earth Army, a unit that employs paranormal powers in their missions.
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25 comments on Hacker News
Just checked BTW and ... premise looks fun but the score is too low https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/men_who_stare_at_goats was it actually good as movie, not just the idea behind it?
>A woman named Margaret Howe Lovatt lived full-time with the Dolphins attempting to learn a shared language between them.
She also had sex with a male dolphin called Peter.
>He would take LSD and place himself in the tank and believed he was psychically communicating with the Dolphins.
He eventually came to believe he was communicating with a cosmic entity called ECCO (Earth Coincidence Control Office). The story of the Sega game "Ecco the Dolphin" [1] is a tongue-in-cheek reference to this. I recommend watching the Atrocity Guide episode on John C. Lily and his dolphin "science" [2]. It's on par with The Men Who Stare at Goats (the non-fiction book [3], not the movie).
He has a website that looks like it's been untouched since his death, 2001: http://www.johnclilly.com/
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecco_the_Dolphin
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UziFw-jQSks
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Men_Who_Stare_at_Goats
For those who haven't seen it yet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Men_Who_Stare_at_Goats_(film)
there's also a nice movie & book called "Men Who Stare at Goats" - a reference to the fact that they tried to kill goats with their mind as a weapon. Haven't read the book, but have seen the movie docudrama(?) starring george clooney and that guy from star wars and big fish, it's not bad, taps into some of the hippie energy of the whole thing
There is a movie that makes fun of project stargate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Men_Who_Stare_at_Goats_(film)
To be fair, supernatural beliefs are fairly common amongst olderish veterans of the IC/DoD because those agencies spent/spend billions and billions of dollars a year on programs for things like that (mind reading, controlling the physical world with your brain, remote viewing, binaural beats, etc). The popular movie The Men Who Stare At Goats was based on a non-fiction book/documentary, which is unbelievably crazier than the Hollywood version.
Psychic spies: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Project
"The Men Who Stare At Goats" is a delightful book that was made into a film about the subject.
More practically, bouncing bomb: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouncing_bomb
The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009) documentary? Yes, I still remember Randi handing over one $million award to the team proving remote viewing.
Ah yes, here are some references. [1] Either way, the movie is great. You will never see Georgy Clooney the same way again. cloud bursting
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Men_Who_Stare_at_Goats
There was a comedy of sorts loosely based on the idea. The Men Who Stare At Goats [1] I promise it's worth watching, if for no other reason than to be entirely taken aback as to how they got A-list actors to play the parts.
[1] - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1234548/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
This needs a "Men Who Stare At Goats" style film, but with the cast of "Cats". It would be interesting.
> The Black Vault’s biggest score to date may be its material related to MKUltra, a top-secret CIA project that involved dozens of mind-control experiments on US citizens and others. [..]
Why would this be the biggest score (title doesn't reflect it)? Was this the first documentation regarding MKULTRA/ARTICHOKE/BLUEBIRD?
For those interesting in CIA's attempts to explore New Age (e.g. apply "remote viewing") I can recommend the documentary The Men Who Stare At Goats [1]. There's also a Hollywood adaptation of it.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Men_Who_Stare_at_Goats
> Go ahead, next time you're on bar with your friends (In a few months I think the bar are going to be open - hope) tell them this exactly headline and see how they react to it.
I don't think many Americans would doubt our military has funded all sorts of crazy stuff. There are confirmed paid studies for mind control and attempting to kill goats using telekinesis by the CIA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Men_Who_Stare_at_Goats
It's even been made into a Hollywood movie, so this stuff isn't that fringe. And the fringe stuff is really weird.
The book "Men Who Stare at Goats" (no idea about the movie) is a terrifying look at the weaponization of the technique turned on the American public.
You have to read between the lines: most people believe the CIA really was exploring use of ESP against the Soviets. Very, very few understand that it was a successful propaganda operation against the American public. Those few also have a clue how we were collectively convinced that invading Iraq would be a really good idea.
And "The Men Who Stare at Goats": https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1234548/
PSYOPs sounds like their operations are funny, but what has been leaked is actually quite chilling and terrifying.
I highly recommend the book The Men Who Stare at Goats. Don't bother with the movie; they fictionalize a lot of it and changes the names of the very real military operatives.
One theory proposed by people interviewed in the books goes back to Abu Ghraib: the soldiers seen posing with the sexually abused Iraqis were pawns. Others reported plain clothes operatives in the facility encouraging the photos and the interrogation techniques.
The various people the book's author interview suggest that it wasn't because of a lack of procedure leading to abuse, but the opposite: intentional abuse. Photos were encouraged to be taken and intentionally leaked to the public, in an effort to scare Iraqis by showing how they could be humiliated in prisons.
This is a terrifying military division that probably does operations similar in ethics to MK Ultra. (The book I mention even suggested one of the suicides in MK Ultra may have even been a coverup for more bizzare PSYOPs operations).
It's simple: if the Soviets have it, we should too.
I'd point you in the direction of Jon Ronson's The Men Who Stare At Goats for more detail (the book is non-fiction, but the movie is fiction).
That was a fascinating Sunday morning diversion, thanks!
I can easily believe there was a programme researching that. There's been research into all sorts of crackpot ideas, especially in wartime. The film The Men Who Stare at Goats was based on a true story of US military research, and there was WW2 research into death rays after all.
Mistaken, or failed research that was well secreted? It took 30 years for Bletchley Park to leak, despite involving thousands.
Cook now seems to be a defence consultant specialising in climate change.
Another one to add to my impossibly long reading list though. :)
Also relevant: The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1234548/
> "The Men Who Stare at Goats"
This is probably the weirdest film I've seen in my life. I still can't make heads or tails of it.
I've been saying for years now that Star Trek forms the best commonly-known model for what future "economics" will be like. It's really awesome to read a well-thought-out treatment of that idea.
Some points in no particular order:
* In the limit of nanotechnology and fusion power we can produce anything (physical.) This forces us to confront our essential challenge which is the development of good character. All forms of government are attempts to manage human wickedness. Corollary: it very nearly doesn't matter what form of government obtains if the people in that government are virtuous.
* Permaculture (modelling agricultural systems on natural ecologies) is a non-technological mode of abundance.
* Communism: The Smurfs.
* It seems to me that the "natural" economic system varies with personal "distance". Broadly: immediate family/friends -> communistic; (Are the Amish commies? No.) neighbors -> barter / reciprocal gift-giving; strangers -> capitalism.
* If there is something to that last point then as the Internet shrinks personal distance we should expect a general trend from impersonal capitalistic forms to more personal "altruistic" forms (Gittip, etc...)
* As technology advances we are forced to become unwilling to "solve problems with bullets". If you are willing (for any reason) to commit violence you will perforce be kept from the really potent weapons. Already so-called "psych-ops" have become the cutting edge (no pun intended) of warfare: eliminate the enemy's desire to fight. It is only a matter of time before hippy-dippy shit becomes the obvious counter to hostilities by the intrinsic logic of warfare itself. ("Men Who Stare at Goats" is a documentary.)
This reminds me of some of the tactics suggested by the First Earth Battalion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Earth_Battalion) which was profiled in the book/movie "The Men Who Stare at Goats." The organizers of that suggested that soldiers should parachute into conflict zones carrying baby animals to disarm (figuratively and literally) enemies.
Full Metal Jacket.
• Three Kings.
• In The Valley of Elah.
Good Morning Vietnam.
A Few Good Men.
Platoon.
• Jarhead.
Casualties Of War.
• The Men Who Stare At Goats.
The Deer Hunter.
The Thin Red Line.
• Syriana.
• The Green Zone.
• Stop Loss.
Also, • HBO's "Generation Kill".
(•'d relatively recent movies)
I don't think "The Hurt Locker" was particularly critical of the military and didn't count it. Also not counting documentaries like "Restrepo".
I hereby dispute the idea that the DOD has made it impossible for big-budget Hollywood movies to criticize the US military, and suggest instead that the bias Hollywood in favor of the military is responding to customer preferences and not leading it. Given what I presume to be America's default position of "supporting our troops", I'm struck by how many films Hollywood produce that challenge that default.
Remember also that Hollywood confronts at least two vectors of consumer preference in marketing films: first, Americans (in the large) have a (typical) diffuse nationalistic home-team support for our overseas adventures, and, more importantly, there's a less-political less-issue-oriented reverence expected for the sacrifices made by the young people we send into combat which is especially intense during times when large numbers of people are serving in combat zones. In other words, it's especially tricky to criticize the military during active conflicts.
Also, Three Kings is a fantastic movie.
The book[1] "Men who stare at goats" gives an insight into some of the, uh, unusual programs the US military ran.
[1] Not the film, which skips a lot of the detail.
The author of this post, Jon Ronson, wrote a book called The Psychopath Test that is a pretty good read on the subject.
http://www.jonronson.com/psycho.html
He also wrote The Men Who Stare at Goats, if you've read that or seen the movie.