Episode Intro
If you went to elementary school in the 70s, 80s or 90s, do you remember being tested by a stranger, or group of strangers? Ever get pulled out for a special class with others from different grades? Made to drink something pink?
For whatever reason, right now many are remembering details of GATE programs. But who was behind these school programs? And what was their purpose?
Intro to GATE Memories
Let your mind drift back, back, back to those innocent days of youth.
Picture the elementary school you attended. The teacher. Your friends. Recess. Did you play kickball? Or hopscotch? Or jump rope? Imagine your desk. Did it have that front load opening with a special well to hold your pencils? How about the pencil sharpener? Was it mounted to your teacher’s desk at the front of the room? How did the classroom smell? Remember other details? Like Pirate paste that smelled like wintergreen. That ripe scent of bodies when the weather turned warm and all of your class was reassembled on the rug sitting criss-cross applesauce?
I mention all this as precursor, because only you know what it felt like to live during those years. If you need to, pause this episode and write down your strongest recollections. I’m sure I missed lots. Like school lunches, did you bring your own in a sack or fancy lunchbox? Or did you turn in a paper ticket and receive a hot lunch in the cafeteria? What about the school library? Or gym? Any art projects you remember doing? And art supplies? What about those special classroom jobs? My teachers had a rotation that changed week to week.
Write down what you like. Make sure your thorough because we are going deeper in a second.
Did you ever have a stranger in a suit or more than one come into your classroom to observe? Did the teacher explain that they were from a college in the area? Did they bring with them an oversized case with latches and a handle, and inside was equipment that included knobs and dials? Were you sent one by one to the back of the room and told to put on large headphones that plugged into the case? Asked to identify tones? I said, inside the classroom, but I remember a trailer, one of those mobile trailers, or portables, that they needed when schools outgrew the number of neighborhood kids.
Some people recall tanagrams, colorful shapes you’d manipulate to form larger shapes, like boats and such. Others remember cards, some say they were black and white, others remember colors with scenes on them. Slipped into envelopes, the tester encouraged children to visualize what was inside the envelope. Visualize. Visualize. Visualize.
There were other tests, too.
Weeks afterwards parents of a few kids might be notified that their child was going into the GATE program. GATE stands for Gifted and Talented Education, by the way. These programs were spun differently across the United States, but the letter home often used the word, “gifted” or “talented.” Even the program itself had a different name depending on the school district. TAG, LEAP, Extended Learning Program, or in Richland, Washington - across from the Hanford Nuclear Reactor, they called their program ALPHA.
These were pull-out programs that met weekly, sometimes with more than one grade combined together. And in our school, Mark Twain Elementary (because by that time I’d moved to Pasco) and those kids were bussed in from schools across the district and convened in a portable beside the basketball courts.
What did they do in those GATE classes?
Well, that’s complicated. For many participants, the details remain hazy, at best. Some suffer memory loss about the entire program, while others in recent months, saw one of those black and white cards, or a photo of those clunky testing headphones, which rattled loose a few recollections. They remembered maps and strange activities like guessing the number of candies in a jar. Others remember brown paper covering up the classroom windows and unfamiliar adults. And many report their most potent memory being of a pink drink or fluoride, which they were told to ingest. Others recall red tablets that stained their teeth. And some have speculated online, those things might’ve wiped kids memories.
ALPHA Testing in Richland, Washington
If you’ve seen the movie, Oppenheimer, staring Cillian Murphy, then you know the Hanford Project. I lived down the river from it, the site known as Site W which was established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project. Hanford Engineer Works, from hanford.gov, and its B Reactor was the first full-scale plutonium production reactor in the world.
“Plutonium manufactured at the site was used in the first atomic bomb, which was tested in the Trinity nuclear test, and in the Fat Man bomb used in the bombing of Nagasaki.”
Why do I mention all this? Well, because of this next bit, “The town of Richland, established by the Manhattan Project, became self-governing in 1958, and residents were allowed to purchase their properties. After sufficient plutonium had been produced, the production reactors were shut down between 1964 and 1971.”
1971. That’s a significant year because within a few months, The Marland Report was issued nationwide that for the first time defined the “best students” as gifted. The report stated that if gifted children weren’t challenged, they would act up.
Within months, states developed programs to identify, and challenge, gifted students. These included pull-out classes and accelerated learning classes, too.
All of this happened to coincide with a cold war that was heating up between the US and Russia.
Cold War Era Russia - Were they training psychics?
From Hannah Brites’ article titled, Unveiling the Mysteries of Soviet Parapsychology Research and Psychic Warfare, I found this;
“ The Cold War era saw the Soviet Union explore parapsychology research deeply. They looked into psychic abilities, extrasensory perception, and how the mind affects matter. Their efforts in paranormal studies were unmatched, even compared to Western nations.
Soviet scientists studied telepathy, psychokinesis, and remote viewing. Their work was often secret, with military uses in mind. This made the study of science and the supernatural a unique battlefield during that time.
While the U.S. had its own projects, like Project Stargate, the Soviet Union was more committed. They set up special institutions and invested heavily in psychic research. This mix of science and the unknown is a fascinating part of both psychology and military history... By the 1970s, they were deeply studying ESP with lots of government support.”
(JH) Yep. 1970s. And a bit more from that article;
“The KGB was key in Soviet paranormal research. They managed top-secret projects and KGB investigations into psychic phenomena. Their work mixed science with espionage, keeping everything under wraps.”
And even more;
“ Soviet remote viewing research was a big deal for decades. It was a secret program that tried to use psychic powers for spying. The Ministry of Defense and maybe the KGB funded it, looking into how far human senses can go.
ESP trials were key in these studies. Scientists used Zener cards to see if people could sense things without seeing them. These cards were simple but helped find people with special remote viewing skills.”
(JH) The Zener cards they wrote about? Those are the same cards with shapes on them that kids in the US remember them using in those GATE tests.
Key Takeaways
Soviet Union led in parapsychology research during the Cold War
Studies focused on telepathy, psychokinesis, and remote viewing
Research had potential military applications
Dedicated institutions were established for paranormal studies
Soviet efforts surpassed those of Western countries
The research blended scientific methods with supernatural exploration
Let’s zoom back out to capture the larger picture. Here’s what Wicked Mysteries podcast had to say about that testing that happened across classrooms in America.
Those headphones connected to that case with the dials inside? They played what some testers called tones as a part of again, what they called hearing tests. They’d instruct, “listen to the tones... listen...” Often what they played were hemi sync hypnosis or meditation tapes created by Robert Munro of the Munro Institute. The tapes were thought to enhance remote viewing, a part of CIA run, Project Stargate, and they were also said to help initiate out-of-body experiences.
We don’t know why they were used In the GATE program. All I’ve got are my own memories and the experiences others have shared. For me? I remember hearing voices in languages besides English spoken beneath the tones and ocean waves, but because the adults looked at me with needy salivating expressions, I shut up and played stupid. Others said they felt, saw or heard things that led them to be put into those special pull-out programs.
One thing that’s emerged from the collective memory? Pink liquids or swish and spit fluoride that students were instructed to ingest, as well as red tablets that dyed teeth for a time. Many have connected the dots to that moment in Men in Black when a person’s told to look at the light and Zap! their memories are wiped clean.
Specific to the fluoride? Fluoride is known to calcify the pineal gland, or what older cultures call the third eye - our centers for psychic powers. Even scientists have proven that the pineal gland regulates melatonin, which impacts sleep.
Some experiencers recall the use of metronomes, they had a freckle in their inner arm, a forehead scar, and one thing that set off my own spidey senses is the common thread of kids in GATE being INFJ or INTJ, which is relatively rare in the world, but common in GATE. I myself am INFJ, so it strikes a chord.
The White Rabbit Report
To find out more, I turned to The White Rabbit Report on Substack who asked, “Did the CIA influence the GATE program for intelligence recruitment and mind control?” And they make a solid case for a connection between gifted education and covert operations.
They ask, “What if the GATE program wasn’t just designed to teach gifted children...but to study them? Track them? Maybe even groom them?”
(JH) Did that make you feel uncomfortable? Me too.
Because here’s where it all gets really strange.
Dozens of former students across decades and districts recall the SAME bizarre experiences, which include;
Tests they can’t explain
Memories that don’t quite feel like theirs
A sense later on life that someone had been watching them
And the deeper you dig, White Rabbit writes, “the more questions emerge.”
(JH) The article explains that the impact the launching of Sputnik had on the US in 1957 was that Russia had been first into space.
Eisenhower responded by signing the National Defense Education Act on September 2nd, 1958.
White Rabbit describes the law as;
“....a sweeping Cold War-era law designed not to improve education, but to weaponize it. Officially it was aimed to strengthen science, math and language instruction. Unofficially, it was a CALL TO ARMS - to identify and cultivate the next generation of scientists, engineers and operatives.”
(JH) That urgency and mission culminated in the creation of GATE - programs meant to search for the best young minds systematically and secretly!
They include an article that backs up my own personal theory that all those un and under-employed scientists at the Hanford Area? They were employed to head up this effort.
The article, written by the NY Times in 1956 titled, ‘Special Training for Gifted Urged,’ written by Gene Currivan quotes Rear Admiral Flyman G. Rickover -one of the chiefs of the naval reactors branch of the Atomic Energy Commission, who said the schools need radical change because the system is neglecting its talented youth.
But, before GATE, there was Project Talent, headed by military psychologist, John C. Flanagan, which launched in 1960, and tested almost half a million teens; tested, profiled, and categorized. It basically inventoried teens, US teens. It also identified possible capabilities and threats; and it tracked participants for decades; identifying people that could be programmed or utilized.
(JH) Yikes!
Enter the GATE programs. Project Talents’ tests were modified so they could be used on kids. They made tests feel like games, but participants were being measured for how well they could think outside of the box. Who could generate many solutions to a single problem? And who could mentally detach from reality and reimagine it from SCRATCH? Yep. They were looking for divergent thinkers.
That feels like proof GATE was a governmental, maybe even alphabet agency recruiting tool.
As I was typing up notes for this, I remember being asked to stare at two images and when a glowing red dot appears? I did not tell them.
I encourage everyone listening to read the full article by White Rabbit, which I’ve linked to.
Why were we tested by strangers in school? Why didn’t we ever see those results? Why weren’t we given our personal files when we graduated from high school? Who got them?
What was the purpose of GATE? Was it simple, like make a coherent list of psychically capable kids in the United States? Or was it even more sinister? Like shut down the psychic gifts of those kids?
I do feel comfortable saying there’s a direct link between the bright minds that made the atomic bomb a reality, and GATE. I wish I had a whistleblower out there that could give us a deeper explanation.
Sources and Materials
GATEkeepers Pt 1: The CIA, GATE, and the Gifted Student Pipeline, The White Rabbit Report, Substack
Unveiling the Mysteries of Soviet Parapsychology Research and Psychic Warfare, Hannah Brites
I was enrolled in ‘gifted’ classes as a child - I now believe it was a CIA training program, NY Post
