KGB’s Secret Files (part 1)

One of the most interesting chapters of the Cold War is still an active subject of investigation. After the end of WWII, the security and intelligence agencies of both the USA and the USSR, adopted new inventive methods to gather information from the other side, to show the rest of the world about their leadership and power. On the Russian side, Stalin transformed the traditional Soviet agencies that Lenin had created to control the government, into highly sophisticated espionage laboratories. One of these secret divisions was dedicated to paranormal development studies and experiments.

KGB Headquarters in the 1970s

In 1962, the US embassy in Moscow was plagued by a series of mysterious deaths and illnesses. The CIA’s investigation found microwave emissions coming from the building across the street of the embassy. According to legend, the agents who emitted these rays were more interested in mind control than cancer. This incident came to be known as The Moscow Signal. Considering Stalin’s oppression of psychic and occult belief systems, these experiments marked a change in the regime. They would try anything to get ahead. Stalin called in the famous psychic Wolf Messing, known for his accurate predictions. In order to test Messing’s abilities, he was told to rob a bank using only his mental powers. He proceeded to hypnotize one of the bank’s cashiers, who withdrew the money for him.

Another well-known KGB case was Nina Kulagina, who specialized in psychokinesis, the power to move objects without touching them. Her biggest test was to stop a frog’s heart, in which she succeeded and was quickly asked to run the same experiment with a person. She had to be stopped before actually giving someone a stroke. When she retired, ironically because of a heart condition, Kulagina was replaced by Alla Vinogradova, under similar tests. The first objectives were not military, but rather part of the psychological warfare to prove the Soviet’s advantages over the west. For instance, the chess player Anatoli Karpov allegedly won the famous Karpov-Korchnoi match with mental aid from Dr. Zuka. There were also real programs secretly dedicated to attack by psychic means. Legendarily, zombie agents were induced to a hypnotic state to carry out these attacks without even knowing so. Cases like the attempted assasination of Pope John Paul II or the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, and even President JFK himself, were investigated though never proven to be related. This is partly related in the novel The Manchurian Candidate.

Nina Kulegina performing a telekinetic act

But this institutional belief in paranormal power did not start with the Soviet Union. Look at historical figures like Rasputin, who played a fundamental role as the Tsar’s closest counselor. Rasputin’s famous occult powers supposedly came from outer space after he witnessed the fall of a mysterious object in 1908 in the middle of a Siberian forest. The event was known as The Tunguska event. Well, something very similar happened in 1968 and of course the KGB took control of the investigation and kept it secret for the technological advantages that its outcome might suppose. After this, psychics like Karl Nicholaev demonstrated their remote viewing powers in response to what American submarines were accomplishing with the SRI research. It was not an easy race.

Photograph of Tunguska days after the explosion

More examples can be brought and found, but it is very hard to be certain about anything, even as key intelligence documents were released after the fall of the Soviet Union. The Cold War was masked with so many illusions of grandeur and control that the line between propaganda and reality is impossible to ascertain. But they may very well be continuing psychic warfare in our contemporary climate and if they succeed we will probably never find out.

The elaboration of this post was based on the following documentary:

Marianna Baker author “Red Snow, Gold Clouds”.