Did ‘Top Men’ Really Find the Ark of the Covenant?

It turns out top men really were working on it finding the Ark of the Covenant.

But unlike that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, they were trying to find that biblical artifact — not hide it in a giant warehouse.

The Central Intelligence Agency allegedly used clairvoyants in 1988 to locate the famous Ark. This information was declassified in 2000, but for some reason exploded onto social media (again) last week

Yes, Our Government Did Use Psychics

Yes, during the Cold War and up until 1995, the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency ran a paranormal surveillance program called Project Stargate. Its main thrust was so-called “remote viewing,” in which select, trained personnel used “a mental faculty that allows a perceiver (a ‘viewer’) to receive impressions from a target that is otherwise not accessible to normal senses.

The target being perceived might be hidden by distance, time, or shielding.” It could be “on the other side of the world,” or “an event that happened a long time ago.”

This is according to Paul H. Smith, who worked in the program, wrote its training manual, and now runs a company that purports to train people in remote viewing. Similar efforts by US Army Special Forces were detailed in Ron Johnson’s 2004 book The Men Who Stare at Goats, which was made into a sardonic movie of the same name five years later, starring George Clooney.

Doubting aside, however, my contacts in the intelligence community have told me that the program was often successful, although no one knows how it works. Lue Elizondo, the former head of the US government’s Advance Aerospace Threat Identification Program, also vouches for the effectiveness of remote viewing in his recent book Imminent: Inside the Pentagon’s Hunt for UFOs.

Some of These Psychics Were Channeling Indiana Jones

The specific Indiana Jonesy program known as “Project Sun Streak” is outlined in a document dated December 5, 1988. This states that “coordinate remote viewing” would be used to “access and describe … training target 0209,” which “is the Ark of the Covenant.” (There’s a link to the 17 pages of relevant material at the end of this article.)

This was in “stage IV” of remote viewing (the penultimate level), and the viewer was described as being able to “keep AOL” [analytic overlay, or subjective interpretation] to a minimum.” So this data was, by the program’s standards, deemed reliable.

So what did viewer 032 ascertain? It’s worth quoting from the “session summary” at length:

Target is a container. This container has another container inside of it. The target is fashioned of wood, gold and silver. The target is similar in shape to a coffin … and is decorated with seraphim …. The target is located somewhere in the Middle East as the language spoken by individuals present seemed to be Arabic. Visuals of surrounding buildings indicated the presence of Mosque Domes …. Individuals in the area were clothed in virtually all white, had black hair and dark eyes …. The target is hidden underground, dark and wet were all aspects of the location of the target. The purpose of the target is to bring people together …. It has something to do with ceremony, memory, homage, the resurrection …. The target is protected by entities … and can only be opened (now) by those who are authorized to do so — this container will not/cannot be opened until the time is deemed correct …. Individuals opening the container by prying or striking are destroyed by the container’s protectors … through the use of a power unknown to us.

Following that are multiple pages of sketches and notes, one of which mentions something not in the summary: “mummies.”

If there is any truth to this research, what conclusions might be drawn?

Theories about What Happened to the Ark of the Covenant

First, let’s look at theories on the Ark’s fate. I discussed the role and importance of the Ark of the Covenant in a 2021 Stream article. I also outlined what might have happened to it:

• Taken by invading Egyptians (the Raiders thesis).
• Destroyed by the Babylonians, or taken back to Babylon, when they sacked Jerusalem in 586 BC.
• Hidden in Jerusalem or environs before that invasion, or…
• Transported out of Judah to Egypt, where it was later…
• Seized by the Christian rulers of Ethiopia, and kept there since in a church in Axum, or…
• Moved all the way to Zimbabwe.
• Hidden either in the city of Antioch or at the bottom of the Sea of Galilee/Lake Tiberias; this is per several Islamic traditions.

What CIA Psychics Said They ‘Saw’

Project Sun Streak does seem to describe the Ark, in terms of its static angelic decoration and active supernatural protection. Its alleged location in the Middle East, surrounded by Arabic speakers and mosques, rules out Ethiopia or Zimbabwe. So East Jerusalem, Iraq (Babylon), or Antioch (Syria) are in play.

The reference to a “wet” setting might indicate the Sea of Galilee. But the mention of “mummies” could only be Egypt. That the Ark’s caretakers wear white might well refer to Sufis, Islamic mystics — among whom white clothing is the ultimate symbol of purity before Allah and is worn during their dhikrs or devotional ceremonies. (In Islam the Mahdi, the main eschatological figure, will bring forth the Ark to prove his authority.)

On the surface, then, this remote viewer/ lost Ark quest has more in common with Muslim traditions than any Western theories. Is that telling? Not really. That some accurate historical data about the fate of the ancient Hebrews’ most important object might have survived in Islamic sources does not mean the latter religion is true.

Even If They Did Locate It — So What?

Of course, this whole line of speculation depends on that 1988 paranormal archaeological research being true — which is not a given, even if some remote viewing was deemed successful.

As I said in my original article on this topic, a Muslim leader trotting out the Ark might gain that religion some converts. But it would also attract the envy, and ire, of Israel and the IDF. For Christians, the discovery of the Ark, while hugely fascinating, would mean very little theologically; for as important as it was in Old Testament times, “the Ark’s mercy seat cannot hold a candle to the Cross” and the Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Why Is This Quarter-Century Old Info Making the Rounds Now?

Finally, and more mundanely: Why is this 25-year-old information, while fascinating, being disseminated on social media now?

Call me jaded, but the story has certainly served as a red herring (or maybe a dead cat), drawing attention away from the CIA’s possible role in “Signalgate” or the JFK assassination. It might also mark an attempt to make the Agency more appealing as DOGE prepares to wield its ax against the roots of Langley.

Our spooks are claiming that the Ark of the Covenant is not in some huge government warehouse. But they certainly have lots of other things hidden there, most of which they want to keep in the dark. (Like aliens?) Perhaps President Donald Trump’s desire to declassify UFO files is even more threatening to the Deep State than releasing those on the JFK, RFK, and MLK assassinations.

If those CIA remote operative really did pin down the Ark of the Covenant, well — as Dr. Marcus Brody said in the third Indiana Jones movie, they were “meddling with powers you cannot possibly comprehend.”

Unfortunately, with all the seedy revelations in recent years about the spies who hate us, most of us no longer believe that top men work in our government. We Americans have become pilgrims in a paranoid, if not quite yet unholy, land — and even finding the Ark wouldn’t fix that.

Timothy Furnish has a PhD from Ohio State in Islamic, World & African history. He’s been an Arabic interrogator in the 101st Airborne, a US Special Operations Command analyst, an author and professor. Furnish is the military/security affairs writer for The Stream.