Yes, a session happened. A nine-page record titled "Mars Exploration, May 22, 1984" sits in the CIA's Star Gate collection. The viewer was handed a sealed envelope that, when opened afterward, read "The planet Mars. Time of interest approximately 1 million years B.C." He described pyramids, dust storms and very tall, thin people. The document names no viewer, no monitor and no agency, and it records impressions, not findings.
What the record is
What the viewer described
Who was in the room
What it is not
Where to read it
What the documents say, and what people claim
What the record is
The CIA Reading Room lists the record as "MARS EXPLORATION, MAY 22, 1984," nine pages, originally unclassified, released June 24, 1998, under the number CIA-RDP96-00788R001900760001-9. It has three parts: a cover sheet with the date, a one-page note on method, and a transcript of the session between a monitor ("MON") and a subject ("SUB").
The method page says the target was set by "sealed envelope coupled with geographic coordinates." The envelope was handed to the subject just before the interview and not opened until after it. Inside was a 3 by 5 card reading "The planet Mars. Time of interest approximately 1 million years B.C." The coordinates, "provided by the parties requesting the information," were read aloud during the session. The document does not say who those parties were.
What the viewer described
The session began at 10:09 AM. Asked to focus on the first coordinates, the subject reported an oblique view of "a pyramid or pyramid form," very high, in a large depressed area, yellowish or ochre in color. Moved to the time in the envelope, he reported severe dust storms, the "after effect of a major geologic problem." Moved to before it, he saw large, smooth, megalithic walls and "a perception of a shadow of people, very tall...thin."
At later coordinates he described a canyon with carved structures, an obelisk he compared to the Washington Monument, a huge circular basin ringed by mountains, channels cut into valleys, and pyramids he called "shelters from storms." Of the people, he said: "They're ancient people. They're ah..they're dying, it's past their time or age." They were waiting for a party that had left in something like "the inside of a larger boat" to find a new home.
The monitor's own notes appear in the transcript, marked as not heard by the subject. About halfway through he records: "I think that he's losing his ability to move accurately, but he is attracted to things that are interesting," and lets the subject follow his own interest instead of the listed coordinates.
Who was in the room
The document does not say. No names, no unit and no requesting office appear on any of the nine pages. The record number places it among files from the Army's Fort Meade unit, which in 1984 was called Center Lane, and the session falls in the years the Army was working with the Monroe Institute.
Joseph McMoneagle, an Army remote viewer from 1978 to 1984, has said publicly that he was the subject and that Robert Monroe, founder of the Monroe Institute, was the monitor. He told Slate in 2017 that neither of them knew the target was off Earth, that the request came from an Army official rather than the CIA, and that he did not know why the target was chosen. That identification rests on his account; the record is silent.
What it is not
It is not a finding. Reports in these files were handed over as raw impressions with no analysis attached, and this one is no different. Nothing in it checks any statement against anything. The only verifiable claim is that a session took place on May 22, 1984, with that card in the envelope.
The session also sits far outside the program's normal work. The 1995 review, covered on Is remote viewing real?, found no case in which a remote viewing report had guided an operation. For how the unit was supposed to work a target, see the CRV manual.
The documents say: on May 22, 1984, an unnamed subject, given a sealed card reading Mars, one million BC, described pyramids, storms and tall dying people, while the monitor noted he was losing accuracy. No one is named, nothing is checked, and no conclusion is drawn.
People claim: that the CIA confirmed an ancient civilization on Mars, or that the session proves life there. The record is a transcript of one person's impressions. The coordinates were chosen by whoever asked for the session, and the paper does not say who that was or why.
Last updated November 4, 2026.
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Star Gate remote viewing, answered: What Project Star Gate was, what the 1995 review found, the Mars session, the Ark of the Covenant target, the CRV manual, Uri Geller at SRI and more, with CIA record IDs.
What was Project Star Gate?: Star Gate was the last name of a US remote viewing effort that ran from the 1970s to 1995. Dates, agencies, cost and the 1995 review, from the records.
What is the CRV remote viewing manual?: The 1985 Army working paper on Coordinate Remote Viewing, now in the CIA Reading Room: its six stages, ideograms, analytical overlay and session rules.