The First Earth Battalion: America's Strangest Military Experiment

This episode of the Y Files is brought. to you by PDS Death. Imagine an army that uses music instead. of bullets. That drinks herbal tea and. meditates between combat patrols. That. studies Iikido and carries baby lambs. into conflict zones. In 1979, the US. Army launched Project Jedi, a program to. build an army of psychic soldiers. They. were called the First Earth Battalion. The program was shut down officially, but those soldiers are still serving and.

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>> [music]. >> It's 0900 hours at Fort Bragg, North. Carolina. At the Special Warfare Center, soldiers run urban combat drills. Paratroopers practice jumps. And at. building 41156, another unit runs a different kind of. drill. They're trying to kill goats with. their minds. [music]. Giselli stares at specimen 17, a. 2-year-old brown and white goat. The. room is silent because the goats are. silent. Their vocal cords were removed.

to keep them quiet during these. experiments. For 20 minutes, [music]. Seveli stares. Then the goat's ears. start to twitch. Its eyes roll back. It. falls over. A military veterinarian. checks the animal. Its heart stopped. The experiment worked. These are the men. who stare at goats. And if you saw the. movie with George Clooney, it wasn't. fiction. It was a real US Army program. called the First Earth Battalion. >> Who have any men tried staring at cats? >> Stop it. The unit was created by.

Lieutenant Colonel Jim Shannon, a. decorated Vietnam veteran with one of. the most unusual records in military. history. Shannon spent 319 days in combat. He led. search and destroy operations in. Vietnam. His unit was part of the 173rd. Airborne Brigade, one of the first major. army units deployed to Vietnam in 1965. They operated in the Iron Triangle, one. of the war's deadliest zones. The 173rd. suffered massive casualties. In 1967,

during Operation Junction City, the. brigade took over 400 casualties in a. single month, but Shannon lost only one. soldier, and he was killed by a sniper. on his first day. For the next 317 days, his platoon suffered zero casualties, and they never killed a single innocent. civilian. On one patrol deep in enemy. territory, [music] Shannon's men froze. They didn't make a sound or signal each. other. They just stopped. 30 seconds. later, a large group of North Vietnamese.

soldiers walked past them 20 ft away, and the enemy never knew the platoon was. there. When Shannon returned from. Vietnam in 1979, he knew soldiers needed. better tools, not bigger [music] guns, better minds. He spent months writing. the first Earth Battalion field manual, a guide that detailed his operations and. techniques. It contained things like. herbal supplements, mindfulness, music. used in combat. Soldiers were supposed. to hug every day to exchange energy. Shannon's guide read more like hippie.

new age philosophy than military. tactics. But the US Army took Shannon's. ideas seriously. They had to. His combat. record proved they were. So instead of. dismissing Shannon's techniques, the. army began using them. >> [music]. >> Jim Shannon believed he had a special. kind of intuition that saved his platoon. in Vietnam. And he wanted to teach that.

skill to the entire US Army. And all. those techniques are outlined in the. first Earth [music] Battalion field. manual. And this might sound made up, but it's a real document. And you can. read it right now. It's been. declassified and archived online. Shannon wrote it at Fort Levvenworth in. 1979. He taught future generals from 11. nations while he developed his vision. for warfare's future. The manual was a. self-help book for creating warrior. monks. Soldiers would receive Jins Singh. regulators, natural supplements for. night vision, and dividing rods for.

locating hidden enemies, for. hand-to-hand combat, pressure points. from Tai Chi. And these weren't just to. disable enemies, but to heal wounded. allies. Shiatsu massage for a combat. first aid, hypnotherapy for weapons. effectiveness. The manual also covered. hygiene and affection. A specific hand. soap cost $7,600 [music]. a gallon. Shannon claimed it had. mystical capabilities that could alter. time. Then there was the warrior hug. Soldiers were expected to hug each other. three times a day to exchange energy.

>> Ah, did he look into the benefits of a. little friendly towel snapping? >> I don't think so. Even the uniform was. unique. Biodegradable materials that. wouldn't harm the environment. built-in. solar panels for charging equipment and. colorchanging fabric that adapts to. surroundings. There are embedded health. sensors to monitor vital signs in real. time. And Shana described all this in. 1979. Smart fabrics, wearable health monitors, adaptive camouflage, technology that.

wouldn't exist for another [music] 30. years. Now, the unit's command center. wouldn't be a sterile room with maps and. radios. It would be a cerebral. environment with breathing exercises, [music] relaxation music, and isolation. tanks. Commanders would float in. darkness to achieve [music] expanded. consciousness for better. decision-making. >> It sounds like a tech startup. Did they. have bean bag chairs and kombucha on. tap, too? >> Actually, yes. Shannon taught something. very similar to modern biohacking.

>> I knew it. Sucker B is a warrior monk. A. lizard warrior monk. One of the crazy things when you do. these live Q&A is some of them are very. silly. So, we got one. Mark, are the. allegations true that you are secretly a. lizard? Um, I'm going to I'm going to. have to go with no on that. I I am not a. lizard. Um, but you know, keep the high. quality comments coming in. >> There were lots of food recommendations. [music]. No more turkeyloaf sea rations. Instead, they ate algaebased protein bars,

dehydrated vegetable cubes, [music] and. fasting protocols were designed to. enhance mental clarity. Then there was. psychotronics, the use of sound. frequencies to affect the mental states. of the enemy. In November 1979, Shannon. presented the first Earth Battalion. manual at the Task Force Delta. Conference. Military leaders from. multiple commands attended, and when. they heard Shannon's ideas, they didn't. laugh. They took notes. One general. specifically was fascinated. General Max.

Thurman, future commander of the 1989. invasion of Panama and considered one of. the army's most brilliant strategic. minds. After the presentation, Thurman. pulled Shannon aside with an offer. Build and lead the first battalion. Not. on paper, not in class, in combat. General Max Thurman saw the potential in. Shannon's manual and he wanted him to.

lead the new unit into battle. Shannon. said no. He felt the first earth. battalion was more powerful as a concept. [music] than as a literal fighting. force. He believed the first battalion. should fight for the planet, not just. for the United States. He wanted troops to carry loudspeakers. into hostile territory to play. indigenous music and words of peace. He. wanted soldiers to bring baby lambs into. combat zones as living symbols of. nonviolence. >> Hold on. The guy who murders goats says. goats are symbols of nonviolence.

>> I admit I I see the contradiction. Shannon even described a sparkly eye. technique, a form of non-verbal. influence to calm enemies through eye. contact. >> Yeah. Oh, sparkly eye technique. That's. not a combat strategy. That's how I. ended up with three ex-wives and guppy. support payments up the wazoo. So Shannon passed, but the army didn't. need him. They had his field manual. By. 1980, special forces operators meditated. before weapons drills and practiced. iikido in full combat gear. They studied.

ancient martial arts pressure points. between livefire exercises. They. implemented Shannon's nutrition. strategies, intermittent fasting, optimized macronutrients, supplements. for cognitive enhancement. In 1979, military nutritionists dismissed this as. hippie nonsense. Now it's standard. practice. At Fort Bragg, in a classified. facility, Project Jedi tested whether. human minds could be weaponized. The. GOAT lab was just the beginning. The. program's biggest champion was Major.

General Albert Stubble III, West Point. graduate, master degree in chemical. engineering, 32 years of military. service. Stubble was commander of the US. Army Intelligence and Security Command, INSCOM, responsible for all Army. Intelligence Operations around the. world. 16,000 soldiers under his. command, every spy, every analyst, every. codereaker. He stood in his office in. the Pentagon. He stared at the wall. across from his desk. He took a breath,

focused his mind, and ran straight into. the wall. He hit his head hard again and. again and again. Stubble believed he. could walk through walls. He figured. that atoms are mostly empty space and if. he could just get his own atoms to align. with the walls atoms, he would slip. right through. He practiced every day. He also tried to levitate which probably. didn't work either. Sometimes Stubeline. stood on his porch and stared at the. sky. He tried to break clouds with his.

mind. a major general. He screamed. mentally at cumulus clouds until they. disappeared. This man commanded Army. intelligence during the height of the. Cold War. He's in the military. intelligence hall of fame and he was. absolutely convinced that Jim Shannon's. first Earth [music] Battalion manual was. a blueprint for the future of warfare. Under Stubble's command, the military's. psychic programs [music] escalated. He. hosted spoon bending parties. High-ranking officers were required to. attend. They gathered in a room with.

silverware. They stared at the metal. until it melted. Some of them swore it. worked. They brought in psychic Yuri. Geller. Stubbleine wanted to know if. Geller could telepathically erase. [music] computer discs or even better. possibly trigger nuclear launch codes. And Stumblebine had believers. everywhere. Colonels, majors, intelligence [music] officers. They all. read the first Earth Battalion manual. and they saw the possibility. Millions. were invested in classified psychic. warfare programs [music].

driven by the fear that the Soviets were. doing the same thing. And the Soviets. were doing the same thing. Soviet. research into psychotronics is well. documented. The Cold War wasn't just. missiles and tanks. It was mines. And. whoever harnessed human consciousness. first would have an unbeatable. advantage. So Stubble gave the order. The psychic programs were going. operational.

General Stubbleine had turned the first. Earth Battalion's concepts into. operational projects. Now the military. needed soldiers who could actually do. the work. What started as Jim Shannon's. one-man vision became a network of. classified psychic [music] programs. Scan 8 became Gondondawish. Gondelish. became Brill Flame. Real Flame evolved. into Centerlane, then Sunstreet, then. finally Stargate. Different names, same. goal, weaponize human consciousness.

The CIA recruited people with natural. talent for remote viewing, gave them. nothing but geographical coordinates, and asked them to describe what they saw. thousands of miles away. Remote viewers. described a massive Soviet submarine. under construction before satellite. imagery confirmed it actually existed. They sketched building [music] layouts. that later matched actual facilities. They provided details that went beyond. [music] chance. One remote viewer code. named subject 372 was given coordinates, nothing else. He described a large.

building with a [music] distinctive. curved roof. He said it was near water. He drew a sketch that showed unusual. architectural features. The target was a. Soviet shipyard 4,000 mi away. His. drawing matched satellite photos taken 3. days later. Same building, same curved. roof, [music] same unusual features. The. CIA couldn't explain it, but they kept. using it. Subject 372 [music] was Pat Price, a. former police commissioner from. California who became one of the most. gifted remote viewers in the program. [music].

He died under mysterious circumstances. in 1975, but not before he proved he. could see things that no one should be. able to see. Ingo Swan, another. legendary viewer, claimed he could see. Jupiter's rings before NASA discovered. them. Joe McMonicle spent years remote. viewing Soviet facilities. His accuracy. was so consistent, he received a legion. of merit for his intelligence work. These were trained professionals with. documented results. But in 1995, the CIA. reviewed the entire program. [music]. They said that remote viewing had not. been proven to work by a psychic.

mechanism, so they shut it down. allegedly. But the people didn't disappear. Major. General Stubble retired and founded. [music] Scitec, a private remote viewing. company. Another viewers also went into. business offering their services to. private clients. But the techniques from. Shannon's manual grounded in physics and. psychology were quietly absorbed into. standard military training. And to. nobody's surprise, [music] these. techniques worked.

[music]. The CIA officially shut down its psychic. spy programs in 1995, but the military. didn't throw away Jim Shannon's manual. Walk into any US special forces training. facility today. You won't find soldiers. staring at goats and you won't see. generals running into walls, but you. will see other techniques from the first. [music] Earth field manual. Special. operators practice controlled breathing. for high stress exercises. Navy Seals.

use mindfulness techniques to maintain. focus during operations. And Army. Rangers train in heightened sensory. perception and intuitive threat. detection. Shannon provided the. philosophy. The modern army provided the. budget. In the '90s, the army released. two documents, [music]. Force 21 and the Army after next. These. documents are almost identical to. Shannon's manual. They just removed the. hippie language. Neuroscience confirms. what Shannon intuitively understood. The. prefrontal cortex responds to.

meditation. The parasympathetic nervous. system activates with controlled. breathing. Pattern recognition improves. with mindfulness training. These are. techniques that you can try for. yourself. They're easy to learn but hard. to master. [music] But once you master. them, you'll see that they work. The. non-lethal weapons survive, [music] too. And they got weird. In 1989, the army. tested Shannon's psychotronic sound. weapons during Operation Just Cause. They surrounded Manuel Noriega's. compound in Panama. They didn't shoot.

They set up massive speakers and played. Van Halen and the Clash at deafening. volumes for three days straight. He. surrendered. >> Yeah, they played Van Halen. >> Yep. >> Now, come on. Playing Panama. Panama. Uh, that's just lazy writing. If the US. military makes a K-pop playlist, they. may conquer the world. [music]. >> In 1994, the Air Force Right Laboratory.

proposed a halattosis bomb, a chemical. weapon to give enemies severe bad. breath. >> I guess it's still better than the. flagulance grenade. Then came the gay. bomb. They wanted to spray aphrodesiacs. over enemy troops to make them sexually. attracted to each other. It was a real. funded proposal. >> Oh, did the gay bomb work? >> I didn't ask and they didn't tell. >> Yeah, nice. >> Other non-lethal technology Shannon. envisioned are now standard equipment. Sticky foam that immobilizes targets. Calming techniques for crowd control.

Electronic vehicle stopping devices. Colonel John Alexander, a former member. of the first earth battalion, became. known as the father of non-lethal. weaponry. And Shannon had a technique. called omnidirectional thought when. today the army calls it multi-dommain. operations. The idea is that soldiers. have to perceive threats across land, ARC, [music] cyber, and space. simultaneously. The warrior hug is also used. Soldiers. build emotional bonds through physical. contact. >> Oh, does it get hit with the gay bomb?

No, but this became the foundation for. modern combat psychology and units that. emphasize team cohesion and emotional. support. They show lower rates of PTSD. Modern counterinsurgency emphasizes. winning hearts and minds. Special forces. train in cultural sensitivity, language. skills, and community engagement. It's. warrior diplomacy. All of these. techniques come from Jim Shannon. So, his vision wasn't wrong. In fact, it was. way ahead of its time.

>> [music]. >> We looked at goat experiments, psychic. spies, and the general who walked into. walls. It's a strange story. It's a good. one. But how much of it is true? Well, soldiers never learned to walk through. walls, but it is true that General. Subivine kept trying. And the goat lab. stories, they happened, but they were. mostly exaggerated. One of the goat. starers, Guy Seveli, claimed he stopped. the goat's heart with his mind. But he.

later admitted he was aiming for goat. 16, but accidentally killed goat number. 17. >> Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. This. guy's supposed to be a trained psychic. soldier, and he can't even hit the right. goat. What do you do? Use Yahoo Maps? >> No. >> Human. I once tried to order a pizza and. accidentally bought a time share. At. least I can admit I was drinking on. ambient. What's his excuse? and remote viewing. Despite 16 years of. research at least [music] and millions. in funding at least, the CIA said it. never produced reliable results. They.

said it was just good guessing. [music]. Though personally, I think Pat Price had. a gift of something. Probably ESP. And. Ingos Swan and Joe McMagle also got a. lot of things right. But the skeptics. say that if you spend thousands of hours. remote viewing, eventually you'll get. some things right. But the failure of. psychic programs doesn't mean the first. Earth battalion was worthless. In high. stress situations, the human mind is. capable of far more than we realize. Shannon's Vietnam platoon proved that. his soldiers weren't psychic. They were.

just really well trained. If you can. develop a high sense of situational. awareness, it looks like predicting the. future when it's done right. And. soldiers who can settle their minds. during combat can compartmentalize fear. and make better decisions. [music]. The first Earth Battalion's biggest. mistake wasn't the ideas, it was the. branding. If Shannon had called it. neurological combat optimization instead. of Warrior Monks with ESP, the program.

might still be running under its. original name. But here's what Jim. Shannon got right. War doesn't have to. be about maximum violence. Soldiers can. be trained to operate with precision, awareness, and minimal collateral. damage. They can use technology to. achieve objectives [music] without. massive body counts. Today, that's not a. conspiracy theory. That's a fact. Eventually, Jim Shannon retired to. Hawaii where he built an eco-friendly. home. And in his final years, he tried. to mobilize the military to plant trees. and restore a coral reefs. He founded.

footprints for the future. He taught. communities how to live sustainably. The man who wrote a manual about warrior. monks fighting for the planet had become. exactly [music] that. not as a soldier. anymore, as an environmentalist. And. Shannon passed away in 2017. They never. got to see special forces operators use. his techniques or non-lethal weapons. become standard. Maybe that's the real. tragedy. Not that his psychic. experiments failed, but that his core. [music] message got lost in the noise. Soldiers should be aware, but also. compassionate. War should be a last.

resort, not a first response. Imagine. what the human race could achieve if we. spent our energy solving actual. problems. Climate, disease, hunger. We. have the resources. We just keep using. them to build better weapons. [music]. Shannon understood that 40 years ago and. knew that we can do better, that we can. be better. Colonel Jim Shannon didn't. want us to get better at killing. He. wanted us to get better at [music]. living. He literally wrote the book on. peace. So, how many people have to die.

before we start listening? Thank you so much for hanging out today. I'm AJ the Escycle Fish. >> Yeah, I'm looking for some cats to steer. right with my evil powers. >> This has been the W Files. If you had. fun, learned anything or felt like this. was a good way to kill a [music] few. minutes, do him a favor and subscribe, comment, like, share. That stuff really. helps him out. And like most topics we. cover here, today's is recommended by. you. So, if there's a story you'd like. to see, [music] go to the. wifiles.com/tips,

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>> Keep that secret close to your gills, Zach. >> We got it all. [music] It felt like it. Lot of plugs. More are coming. I keep. threatening, but they are coming. But. until then, [music] be safe, be kind, and know that you are appreciated. [music]. [bell]. >> [music].

[music]. >> I play Vivious in Area 51. A secret code. inside [music]. the Bible said I would. I love my UFOs and paranormal fun as. well as music. song singing [music] the. like I should. then another conspiracy theory becomes. the [music] truth my friends. and it never ends. No it never ends.

[music]. I be [music] the crap guy. I got stuck. inside Mel's home with MK out. I [music]. feel only two unaware. Did [music] Stanley Cubrick fake the. moon landing alone on a film set? [music] I would shadow people there. The Rwelling [music]. just fought the smiling man, I'm told,

and his name was cold. [music and singing] But I can't breathe. I'm dancing with the fish and the. [music] fish on Thursday night. and. all [music] through the night. All I ever wanted was to hear the truth. [music]. all through the night.

[music]. >> [music]. [music]. >> The math man silence and the solar storm. still come to a gather the secret city. underground. [music]. Mysterious number stations, planet. circle to [music] project stargate and. what the dark watchers found.

>> [music]. >> in a simulation. Don't you worry though. The black night. is so I can't believe I'm dancing with. the fish [music] and your fish on. Thursday nights when they chase you and. me [music] all through the night. All I ever wanted [music] was to hear. the truth.

all through the night. >> [music]. >> on Thursday. That's when they. all. wanted [music]. to hear the truth. [music].

>> [music]. >> loves to dance. Girl loves to dance [music] on the dance. floor because she is a camel. Camel. loves to dance when the feeling is. right. [music]. [music].

>> [music].