In late December 1977, Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin, known to the world as “Charlie,” died in his home in Switzerland. A few months later, his body was stolen from its cemetery plot, kicking off an international corpse hunt that briefly - if dubiously - included the FBI.

An eight page document unearthed in the Central Intelligence Agency’s declassified archives offers a standardized procedure for remote viewing, the psychic espionage technique utilized by various agencies during the government’s decades-long researcher into the militarization of ESP.

As part of its ongoing psychic research in the ’80s, the Central Intelligence Agency explored the ideas of notorious “free energy” advocate Tom Bearden, according to one of Bearden’s papers discovered in the CREST archives by Mike Lewinski. In particular, the Agency was interested in “STAR WARS NOW!,” Bearden’s warning of Soviet weaponization of electromagnetic fields to create superweapons such as the “Tesla Howitzer.”

As we kick off what will hopefully be a very transparent Sunshine Week 2018, we want to take a moment to reflect on one of the more absurd finds in the Central Intelligence Agency’s declassified archive so far, and how the work the #OpenGov community can find itself part of the public record.

A 12-page document discovered by Emma Best in the Central Intelligence Agency’s declassified archive is simply entitled “PHOTO WITH DARK IMAGES.” And as far as we can tell, that’s exactly what it is - pictures of something, arranged in different amounts and angles.

In late 1981, the U.S. Secret Service needed help locating someone. Unable to find the A-Team, they turned to the government psychics at Army Intelligence.

Intelligence work can make on feel awfully stupid, and in the Central Intelligence Agency’s 13 million pages of declassified documents that’s more than a few times that folks made their frustrations felt. Here’s five of our favorites.

Some researchers in the JFK assassination community are aware of the fact that one of the doctors that treated Jack Ruby was none other than Louis Jolyon West, a figure equally infamous for allegedly killing an elephant with LSD and for his work in MKULTRA - the Central Intelligence Agency’s infamous interrogation, hypnosis, and mind control program.

Notes from a January 26th, 1990 remote viewing suggest that even the participants had grown to become a bit skeptical of the Central Intelligence Agency’s three decade long psychic research program - until one fateful session convinced one viewer that there may be something to this ESP thing after all.

When then-President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order on geomagnetic storm preparedness, spiritual side effects of space weather events were criminally neglected. Apparently the Central Intelligence Agency took the issue of solar flare-induced psychic phenomena more seriously, however, dedicating part of of its 824 page risk report on it.