People & places · 12 MIN READ · 8 SOURCE QUOTES
Skip Atwater
F. Holmes 'Skip' Atwater is the Army counterintelligence officer who, as a young lieutenant, pushed the Army to take remote viewing seriously and then served as operations and training officer of its remote-viewing unit at Fort Meade, Maryland. He recruited volunteers, sent them to the Stanford Research Institute for evaluation, designed their training, and worked with the viewers in planning, conducting and reporting intelligence collection missions. The program, which the public now calls Stargate, stayed classified until 1995.
Atwater met Bob Monroe in 1977 and kept the friendship while his work was still secret. Looking for ways to train soldiers, officers and civilians, he investigated Hemi-Sync, had some of the Army's viewers trained with it, and arranged the contract under which Joe McMoneagle spent about fourteen months of long weekends in Monroe's lab. After twenty years in the Army he retired and, in late 1987 or early 1988, moved to Virginia to work for Monroe. He joined the Institute staff in September 1988, built its brainmapping and EEG program, became its research director, and later rose to president.
Atwater describes a life steered by guidance: dreams, synchronicities and, in one story he tells, a voice he identifies as Monroe's after Monroe's death. His Institute research covered Hemi-Sync's EEG effects, sleep, brain-wave and oxygen-saturation changes during a ritual at Teotihuacán, and random number generators during the Gateway Voyage, with help from Dean Radin. He also wrote Captain of My Ship, Master of My Soul.
The Army officer who ran training for the remote-viewing unit, brought its viewers to Bob Monroe, and led research at the Institute for two decades.
Key points
A counterintelligence officer meets remote viewing
Atwater enlisted during the Vietnam era, partly to settle his draft status, and stayed twenty years, specializing in counterintelligence. Teaching at the Army intelligence school, he read Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ's Mind-Reach and saw a gap: if remote viewing worked, no one was defending against it. At Fort Meade he joined a team that played the enemy against Army installations, tapping phones and photographing from outside the fence. When commanders at Redstone Arsenal asked what to do about remote viewing, he says, it was a keynote day in his life.
Persuading the generals
Atwater says he took the problem to his boss, a major, who sent him to brief the deputy commander, a one-star general who controlled the budget. He asked for a couple of thousand dollars to fly to SRI. Behind the scenes, he says, a two-star general with CIA contacts had told the deputy commander to give him whatever he asked for. Paul Smith, a viewer who lived next door at Fort Meade, says Atwater was the one who figured it out first.
Recruiting and training the viewers
Volunteers signed secrecy papers and were sent to SRI, where Puthoff and Targ evaluated them. Atwater, as operations and training officer, wrote a multistage training plan using his psychology degree. SRI, paid through Army contracts, hired Ingo Swann to turn his methods into a structured system called controlled or coordinate remote viewing. Atwater is candid that it did not work for everyone. He also describes McMoneagle's meditative approach, now called extended remote viewing. The unit trained soldiers, officers and civilian employees.
Meeting Bob Monroe in 1977
Atwater first met Monroe in 1977, when the Institute's buildings did not exist and Monroe worked from a laboratory at his Whistlefield estate, about ten miles away, with a few programs on cassette. Atwater's mother had told him to look up a man named Bob Monroe when he got orders to Fort Meade. He kept the friendship while the Army work was classified, and Nancy McMoneagle remembers him arriving at Whistlefield with papers, trying to learn more.
How the Army and Monroe teamed up
Atwater says he investigated Hemi-Sync as one of several ways to train his unit. Once he had arranged a security clearance for Monroe, he recalls, he told him he was the operations and training officer for remote viewing, then handed him a contract and a $25,000 check so Monroe would work personally with McMoneagle. The request began with McMoneagle asking for advanced training like other Army specialists received. Eventually some of the unit's viewers were trained in the Hemi-Sync process.
Research director at the Institute
Atwater retired from the Army and moved to Virginia in late 1987 or early 1988, and joined the Institute staff in September 1988. A 1990 journal biography calls him Brainmapping Project coordinator from that month; a 1999 biography says he became research director of the Bob Monroe Research Lab then. In March 1989 the Institute bought a brain electrical activity mapping device and a physiological monitoring system to document Hemi-Sync's EEG effects and refine its processes. His papers include a 1992 evaluation of Hemi-Sync and resting alpha, a 1991 study of the Hemi-Sync Sleep Processor prototype, a 1998 talk on the neurochemical mechanisms of Hemi-Sync and a 2012 article on Spatial Angle Modulation audio technology.
Ritual and random number generator studies
In 1999 the Hemi-Sync Journal described Atwater's study of brain-wave and oxygen-saturation changes during a ritual beneath the Sun Pyramid at Teotihuacán, Mexico. In 2004 he presented preliminary data from a study, designed and analyzed with Dean Radin, of whether focused consciousness during the Gateway Voyage reduces the randomness of generators placed at three sites on the Institute grounds, and he noted possible overlaps with remote viewing. In a 2010 lecture he cited McMoneagle's remark that for a live television demonstration with shuffled envelopes and rolled dice, he did the viewing in his bedroom at home long before, as a reason not to assume ordinary time in experiment design.
President, teacher and author
Atwater says he was research director for nearly twenty years and was then promoted to president after the death of Monroe's daughter Laurie; in an interview posted in 2024 he says he spent 25 years at the Institute. He taught its remote viewing seminar until McMoneagle took it over, and in a 2012 conversation the two discussed keeping its coaching foundation while updating it. His book Captain of My Ship, Master of My Soul is now in a second edition.
Guidance, synchronicity and Monroe's voice
Atwater's mother became a yoga teacher, and he says the guidance in his own life was explicit but came in dreams and arrived by a roundabout route. One example he gives is finding three classified remote-viewing documents in the safe that came with his first desk in the unit's office. After Monroe's death, he says, he heard Monroe tell him where a key was. He describes these events matter-of-factly, because of the family he grew up in, and in an interview posted in 2024 he said he was still guided and not ready to retire.
In their own words
Quotes are checked word for word against the recordings and documents they come from. Bracketed words correct transcription errors; “…” marks an omission.
“They were studying at Stanford Research Institute a phenomena of people's ability to describe locations that were distant from them in space, distant from them in time, by mental means alone. Now, in esoteric terms we might call that clairvoyance, but they tried to put a different name on it that sounded a little bit more scientific, sounded more acceptable, called remote viewing. And when I read their work, I was reading it through the eyes of a counterintelligence specialist.”
“They asked us about remote viewing. They actually pulled [Puthoff and Targ's] book out of a briefcase and put it on the table and said, 'What do we do to protect ourselves from this?' That was a keynote day in my life and was the beginning of the next 10 years in my life in becoming involved in a US government counterintelligence effort in remote viewing.”
“Sir, I'm here to talk to you about a thing, something that we're not taking care of that is a responsibility of the special Detachment that we work for. It's part of what we do here, and you're the boss, we need to get involved in this thing called remote viewing. And I explained a little bit about it, and he said, 'Is that really possible?' I said, 'Yes, sir.'”
“This was one tool where people not always picked up on it. There were people who just couldn't get it, you know. I don't do very well at getting high math either, but it worked for many people.”
“Now, in 1977, when I first met Bob Monroe, the buildings that we're sitting in didn't exist. This was just farmland. And Bob Monroe lived in a place called Whistlefield, which was in [an estate] about 10 miles from here in rural Virginia. And he had a laboratory there in which he was doing further research into this audio technology, but it was not a [widespread] thing as it is now. It was just Bob Monroe in his laboratory, and he had a few programs recorded on cassette tapes, and you could sign up to do a weekend workshop.”
“So in 1977 I met Bob Monroe. Now, at that time this was all deeply classified, not declassified until 1995. So in 1977, when I met Mr. Monroe, I couldn't say to him, 'Gee, I trained psychic spies for the government, how would your system work?' I could not say those words to him. But I did develop a friendship and a rapport, and he described his technology, allowed me to experience that technology, and eventually we wound up training some of our remote viewers in this Hemi-Sync process.”
“Skip Atwater, whom we called Fred Atwater at that time, had been Joe's training officer, and he was already here because … we had known Fred all the way back in the '70s at Whistlefield, as he was always coming and bringing papers to Bob and so forth and so on, trying to learn more about all this stuff, for obvious reasons.”
“Years passed. A decade later I retired from the government, and Mr. Monroe asked me to come work down here at the Institute. So in late '87, '88, early '88, I moved down here, having retired from the government, and began working for Mr. Monroe and worked in the laboratory. So for nearly 20 years I was the research director here at the Monroe Institute. And then when Bob Monroe's daughter passed, when [Laurie] died, I was … promoted into the president position.”
Important things to consider
Much of the origin story rests on his own account
Atwater tells how the unit began in interviews and talks given after the program was declassified in 1995. McMoneagle, Nancy McMoneagle and Paul Smith describe the same outlines, but the budget, the generals' approval and the contract with Monroe rest on memory. The 1995 evaluation judged the program's operational value separately and found no actionable intelligence.
The research reports are the Institute's own
Atwater's EEG, ritual and random number generator work appeared in the Institute's journal and seminars, in places with outside help such as Dean Radin's analysis. The sources here describe preliminary data, not independent replication, and the 2004 report itself presents early results.
Match his title to the date of the source
Sources call him Brainmapping Project coordinator in 1990 and 1992, coordinator of educational programs in 1991, research director in 1998 and 2004, and president in 2007 and 2010. A 1999 biography dates his research directorship to September 1988, while a 1990 one calls him coordinator from that month. A 2012 profile lists research director, executive director and president among his roles and describes him as the operations officer of the Army counterintelligence and human intelligence collection effort within the Star Gate program. Use the title that fits the year.
The Institute did not run Stargate
Atwater says Hemi-Sync was one of several training methods he investigated. The Institute supplied training and lab time to the Army under contract, while the unit's tasking, funding and evaluation belonged to the Army and the DIA. The Gateway Experience tapes are not an Army program.
A Monroe program is not a remote viewing switch
Atwater tells people who ask that a Monroe program is not a magic switch for remote viewing, though they will have a good time. His own unit used a structured method, and he says it did not work for everyone. Treat remote viewing as a skill that varies between people.
Common questions
Who is Skip Atwater?
F. Holmes 'Skip' Atwater is a retired Army counterintelligence officer who, as a young lieutenant, pushed the Army into remote viewing and served as operations and training officer of its unit at Fort Meade, Maryland. He met Bob Monroe in 1977, arranged Hemi-Sync training for some of the unit's viewers, and after retiring from the Army joined the Monroe Institute in 1988 and became its research director. He later became the Institute's president and wrote the book Captain of My Ship, Master of My Soul.
What was Skip Atwater's role in Stargate?
As operations and training officer, Atwater recruited volunteers, arranged their evaluation at SRI, wrote the training plan, and worked with the viewers in planning, conducting and reporting intelligence collection missions. He says it began as a counterintelligence worry about foreign remote viewing, which he pitched to his superiors. A general approved a couple of thousand dollars to visit SRI, and a higher-ranking general backed the idea. SRI, paid through Army contracts, had Ingo Swann develop a structured method, and Atwater notes that not everyone could learn it.
How did Skip Atwater connect the Army with the Monroe Institute?
He met Bob Monroe in 1977 at Monroe's Whistlefield laboratory and kept the friendship while the Army work was secret. As the unit's training officer he investigated Hemi-Sync, eventually arranged a contract and a check for Monroe to work with Joe McMoneagle, and had some of the unit's viewers trained in the Hemi-Sync process. McMoneagle remembers Atwater bringing him to the Institute and introducing him to Monroe, and Nancy McMoneagle remembers Atwater bringing papers to Monroe in the 1970s.
What did Skip Atwater do at the Monroe Institute?
He moved to Virginia in late 1987 or early 1988 and joined the Institute staff in September 1988; journal biographies call him Brainmapping Project coordinator in 1990 and research director by 1998. His work included EEG evaluations of Hemi-Sync, a sleep-processor study, a brain-wave and oxygen-saturation study at Teotihuacán, and a random number generator study during the Gateway Voyage. He was promoted to president after Monroe's daughter Laurie died, taught the remote viewing seminar until McMoneagle took over, and says he spent about 25 years at the Institute.
Did Skip Atwater think remote viewing could be taught?
Atwater's unit taught remote viewing to soldiers, officers and civilian employees using a structured method developed at SRI, and he says it worked for many people. He is also direct that some people could not get it. Of the Monroe programs he says they are not a magic switch for remote viewing, though participants will have a good time. McMoneagle is blunter: remote viewing is probably a talent, like athletics or music, and results vary between people.
Was the Gateway Experience created for the Army's remote viewing program?
No. Atwater describes Monroe's work as his own line of research. Monroe began with sleep-learning experiments and the idea of keeping the mind awake while the body slept, then offered tape programs and, in Atwater's account, a 5,000-person experiment he called the M5000 program. The Army, through Atwater, investigated Hemi-Sync as a training aid and contracted for lab time and tapes for some of its viewers, and an Army officer wrote a 1983 assessment of the Gateway process. The Gateway Experience itself is Monroe's program.
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