Consciousness Science

Psychokinesis Scientific Evidence: What the US Military's Research Actually Found

Psychokinesis scientific evidence reviewed—from classified US Army experiments to John Hasted's controlled lab tests and Uri Geller's altered nitinol alloy. What the research actually found.

By Brendan D. Murphy · 5 June 2026 · 12 min read

The scientific evidence for psychokinesis includes documented laboratory studies spanning five decades—from John Hasted's controlled strain-gauge experiments at Birkbeck College to Soviet Academy-verified levitation research to Uri Geller's irreversible alteration of nitinol alloy under observed conditions. The US military took this research seriously enough that a Commanding General of Army Intelligence demonstrated mind-bent silverware to a roomful of officers in 1983. The phenomena are real. The mainstream explanation is absent.


The US Military's Psychokinesis Research Began With a General and a Pocket Full of Bent Spoons

It was 1983. Major General Albert Stubblebine III was Commanding General of INSCOM—the US Army Intelligence and Security Command. At an intelligence school in Fort Huachuca, Arizona, he gave what those present would remember as the most unusual pep talk of their careers.

Paul Smith, a retired Major and former military remote viewer, recalls what happened. Stubblebine had summarised the advances in intelligence-gathering technology, then reached into the pockets of his dress greens and began tossing small, glinting objects into the audience. Spoons buckled into tight spirals. Fork tines twisted into pig-tail curls. None of it showed evidence of heat treatment.

Then Stubblebine announced that he and his staff had bent the silverware using nothing but mental intention.

He told the room that anyone could learn to do this—even "old farts" like him and his colonels.

Smith, who had spent his boyhood summers working with tools and heavy machinery across western farms and ranches, had handled metal in every condition. Nothing he had seen mechanically or thermally bent resembled Stubblebine's cutlery. And since that day, Smith has observed "skeptic" debunking demonstrations that fail to produce anything resembling even the low-end version of what Stubblebine showed. This is a pattern in PK research: debunker simulations consistently fail to replicate higher-level phenomena, while the researchers who dismiss the field rarely engage with the stronger documented cases.

The US military's interest in psychokinesis was not Stubblebine's personal eccentricity. It was a response to decades of controlled research—both domestic and Soviet—that had demonstrated effects no mainstream model could account for.

The Controlled Research the Debunkers Ignore

Highly controlled PK research outside Russia goes back at least to the 1970s. A French research report translated and edited by the Eyring Research Institute documented significant PK effects under rigorous conditions—filmed deformations of metallic target samples, transformations of physical properties, and remotely inflicted effects on materials.

John Hasted (1921–2002), former head of experimental physics at Birkbeck College, University of London, ran his own controlled program. He suspended metal objects—usually latchkeys—from the ceiling and positioned child subjects three to ten feet away, eliminating any possibility of physical contact. Inside each key was a resistive strain gauge connected to an amplifier and pen recorder, capable of detecting deformations too small to see with the naked eye.

The results were not ambiguous. Keys swayed. Some fractured. Abrupt voltage spikes of up to ten volts—the recorder's maximum—registered repeatedly. And when children were asked to influence several keys hung separately, the individual strain recorders logged simultaneous signals. A field effect, not a local mechanical one.

This simultaneous, multi-target field response is a signature of what researchers call hyperdimensional or torsion-based influence—the same field signature that appears consistently in poltergeist phenomena. The instruments were not malfunctioning. The effect was real and repeatable across subjects.

In Moscow, Dr. Venyamin Pushkin tested Boris Ermolaev's ability to suspend small objects—matchboxes, pencils—in the air for several seconds using focused mental intention alone. Pushkin ruled out electrostatic and electromagnetic mechanisms and concluded that Ermolaev was generating something that functioned as a localised gravitational field. His report was checked and co-signed by five members of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, including world-renowned brain researcher A.A. Luria. This was not fringe science. It was peer-verified Soviet Academy research.

Uri Geller: What the Science Actually Shows

Uri Geller is probably the most tested psychokinetic subject in history, and the results of that testing are considerably more interesting than his popular reputation suggests.

The late Lt. Col. Tom Bearden analysed Kirlian images taken during a controlled PK experiment by James L. Hickman, in which Geller attempted to bend a metal ring without physical contact. The resulting image showed a striking "kindling" of bioenergetic field—a line extending from Geller's finger and intersecting the ring. Bearden's analysis of the nuclear-level mechanics: intense kindling of this kind affects the nuclear currents between protons and neutrons inside the target material's atoms. The reduction in positive charges destabilises the crystalline lattice structure of the metal, enabling bending or fracture. In a parallel experiment with a Seiko wristwatch, scientist Henry S. Dakin, one of the observers present, described the extending line of bioenergy as "a streak of light."

Where actual fractures occurred in Geller experiments, subsequent analysis of the metal in and around the fracture showed evidence of severe localised electromagnetic fields—as if the metal had been treated with intense heat, though no heat source was present.

Most significantly: Geller was found to irreversibly alter the crystalline structure of nitinol—an alloy of nickel and titanium with a fixed shape memory that cannot be rewritten by normal physical means. He warped its shape in ways researchers could neither explain nor replicate by conventional methods. In 1977, John Randall and Peter Davis reproduced this nitinol effect using a thirteen-year-old boy as the subject.

Frenchman Jean-Pierre Girard, tested in the mid-1970s, apparently altered the atomic configuration of stainless steel—converting it from austenite to martensite, a structural change that requires extreme heat or mechanical pressure under standard conditions—without either.

What the Hutchison Effect Tells Us About the Underlying Mechanism

The work of independent researcher John Hutchison is relevant here, not because it is rigorously verified—it is not, and that caveat stands—but because the class of effects it produces maps structurally onto what controlled PK research has documented independently.

The Hutchison Effect, discovered accidentally in 1979 while Hutchison was investigating Tesla's longitudinal waves, is generated by radio-wave interference in a zone encompassed by high-voltage sources, Van de Graff generators, and Tesla coils. The documented range of effects includes levitation of heavy objects, fusion of dissimilar materials, and temporary or permanent alteration of metals' crystalline properties.

What makes these effects theoretically significant is the mechanism proposed: dissimilar materials can merge without displacement of mass and without the individual components dissociating. A block of wood can apparently sink into a bar of metal while both remain structurally intact. The explanation offered is partial dematerialisation—some of the material's atomic content leaves the standard space-time reference frame, reducing its solidity long enough for interpenetration to occur. The same rotating-vortex dynamics have been documented in natural phenomena: tornado-driven tree branches have been recorded passing through metal objects without visible displacement or damage to either material.

It has been proposed that the dynamics driving torsion field devices are the same as those producing Hutchison's effects. If so, then Hasted's voltage spikes, Geller's nitinol alteration, and the Hutchison Effect may all be different expressions of the same underlying field interaction—one in which focused mental intention generates torsion-field effects comparable to those produced technologically.

Lyn Buchanan—the remote viewer known from Jim Marrs's PSI Spies—discovered as a child that he could push a rock through a metal plate using mental focus alone. What he was apparently doing, on the best available theoretical account, was partially disaggregating the field structure that organises information into atomic matter, softening the plate just enough for the rock to pass through. No heat. No mechanical force. Just intent.

Saints and mystics were levitating objects long before John Hutchison got a bowling ball to hover in his laboratory. That continuity—between the human mind's documented effects and the technologically produced analogs—is not coincidence. It is structural.

A Field Account That Defies All Standard Frameworks

The above evidence—controlled, filmed, peer-reviewed or Academy-verified—already constitutes a formidable challenge to materialist models of mind. But biologist Lyall Watson's field account from Indonesia places the stakes in starker relief.

Watson describes encountering a girl named Tia, unaware she was being observed. Tia caused an entire grove of kenari trees to vanish from view in broad daylight—with a small child present as the apparent audience for the feat. After the trees "blinked" back into existence, the delighted child ran between them, touching each one to confirm they were real. Tia repeated the procedure several times. Watson left the scene in shock.

This is not laboratory research. Watson documents it in Gifts of Unknown Things as a first-person field account, without independent verification. It stands in a different evidentiary category from Hasted's strain gauges or the Soviet Academy's Ermolaev report. What it shares with those documented cases is the structural implication: whatever mechanism the human mind is capable of engaging with physical matter, the upper limit has not been established.

Thomas Henry Huxley's instruction is apt here: "Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing."

What Psychokinesis Evidence Implies for the Nature of Consciousness

The standard materialist position is that consciousness is produced by the brain and is therefore confined to it—unable to act on external matter except through the body's ordinary physical mechanisms. The psychokinesis evidence, taken seriously, demolishes this position structurally.

If Hasted's child subjects generated simultaneous field effects in separately hung keys without physical contact, then some aspect of their conscious intention was operating on matter at a distance. If Geller irreversibly altered the crystalline structure of nitinol, then mental intention produced a physical outcome that conventional physical force cannot reproduce. If Ermolaev suspended objects in mid-air through focused intent, and five members of the Soviet Academy co-signed the report confirming it, then the brain-as-producer model of mind has a problem it cannot solve from within its own framework.

This is precisely the territory the Consciousness Transition Model addresses at the structural level. The CTM's foundational premise is substrate independence: consciousness is not produced by the brain but operates through it, constrained by it, while remaining capable of engaging with physical reality in ways that exceed the brain's ordinary physical mechanisms. Psychokinesis is not an anomaly within this framework. It is an expected consequence. If consciousness is substrate-independent and operates on matter via field-level mechanisms—torsion fields, scalar effects, whatever the correct terminology proves to be—then the documented PK effects are precisely what the model predicts.

The hard question is not whether psychokinesis occurs. The controlled evidence establishes that it does. The hard question is why the mainstream model of mind—despite this evidence, despite five decades of controlled research, despite Soviet Academy verification—continues to be treated as settled.

"The evidence for psychokinesis is not a collection of anecdotes. It is documented laboratory research, Academy-verified Soviet science, and irreversible metallurgical effects. The question is not whether the phenomena occur. The question is what model of mind is capable of accounting for them."


Frequently Asked Questions

What is the scientific evidence for psychokinesis?

The scientific evidence for psychokinesis includes controlled laboratory research spanning five decades. Key studies include John Hasted's strain-gauge experiments at Birkbeck College, in which children caused simultaneous deformations in separately hung metal keys without physical contact; Soviet Academy-verified research by Dr. Venyamin Pushkin documenting Boris Ermolaev's levitation of small objects using mental intention alone; and Uri Geller's irreversible alteration of nitinol alloy—a shape-memory metal that cannot be rewritten by normal physical means—documented under observed conditions and independently replicated by John Randall and Peter Davis in 1977.

Did the US military conduct psychokinesis research?

Yes. The US military's engagement with psychokinesis research is documented. Major General Albert Stubblebine III, Commanding General of INSCOM (US Army Intelligence and Security Command), publicly demonstrated mind-bent silverware to military personnel at Fort Huachuca in 1983 and stated that both he and his staff had produced the effects using mental intention. The military's broader remote viewing program—Project STARGATE—ran from the early 1970s through 1995, and the psychological operations interest in psi phenomena was well established within US intelligence circles.

Is spoon bending scientifically proven?

The alteration of metal through apparent psychokinetic means has been documented under controlled scientific conditions. Uri Geller's metal-bending effects were studied by multiple researchers, including physicist John Hasted (Birkbeck College). Kirlian imaging of Geller during experiments showed a measurable bioenergetic field extending from his finger toward target objects. More significantly, Geller irreversibly altered the crystalline structure of nitinol alloy—a change that conventional physical methods cannot reproduce—in ways researchers could neither explain nor replicate. Jean-Pierre Girard produced similar structural changes in stainless steel. These are not anecdotes; they are documented experimental outcomes.

What is the Hutchison Effect and how does it relate to psychokinesis?

The Hutchison Effect is a range of phenomena discovered by independent researcher John Hutchison in 1979, produced by radio-wave interference between high-voltage sources and Tesla coils. Documented effects include levitation of heavy objects and the apparent fusion of dissimilar materials without displacement of mass. The proposed mechanism—partial dematerialisation of atomic content via torsion-field dynamics—has been theorised to be the same mechanism underlying documented psychokinetic effects. The Hutchison work is not rigorously peer-reviewed, but the class of effects it produces maps onto what controlled PK research has independently documented in human subjects.

What did Soviet psychokinesis research find?

Soviet PK research was extensive and in some cases Academy-verified. Dr. Venyamin Pushkin's testing of Boris Ermolaev—who could suspend small objects in the air using mental intention—was co-signed by five members of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, including the brain researcher A.A. Luria. Pushkin eliminated electrostatic and electromagnetic mechanisms as alternative explanations. The Soviet research tradition, documented in Ostrander and Schroeder's Psychic Discoveries: The Iron Curtain Lifted, established that psychokinetic effects were reproducible under controlled conditions and warranted serious scientific investigation.

How does the Consciousness Transition Model explain psychokinesis?

The Consciousness Transition Model treats psychokinesis as consistent with its foundational premise of substrate independence: consciousness is not produced by the brain but operates through and beyond it. If consciousness can engage with physical matter via field-level mechanisms—independent of the biological body's ordinary physical channels—then action at a distance through focused mental intention is not impossible. It is an expected consequence of a consciousness-first model of reality. The CTM does not offer a specific mechanism for PK, but it provides the ontological framework within which such effects are coherent rather than anomalous. More on the CTM is at brendandmurphy.com/consciousness-transition-model.


The Mechanism Is Uncertain. The Phenomena Are Not.

Five decades of controlled research—in the US, the UK, France, and the Soviet Union—have documented psychokinetic effects under conditions designed to exclude fraud, chance, and conventional physical mechanisms. The effects include simultaneous multi-target field responses, irreversible alteration of metallic crystalline structure, and levitation of objects under Academy-verified conditions.

The mainstream scientific community has not refuted these findings. It has mostly ignored them—or engaged only with the weakest cases while avoiding the strongest. That is not how evidence is supposed to work.

If consciousness is substrate-independent—if it operates on matter through field-level mechanisms that the brain mediates but does not produce—then psychokinesis is not a violation of physics. It is a consequence of a model of mind that the evidence, taken seriously, demands.

The full architecture of that model is in the Consciousness Transition Model and developed in Reverse Engineering the Afterlife.


References

i. Smith, P. Reading the Enemy's Mind. Tor Books, 2005.

ii. Ibid.

iii. Yurth, D.G. Seeing Past the Edge. 225–6.

iv. Solis, M. The Hutchison Effect. World Mysteries.

v. Ibid.

vi. Ibid.

vii. See Vesperman, G. Survey of energy suppression cases.

viii. Wilcock, D. The Source Field Investigations. Dutton, 2011. 287.

ix. Ibid.

x. Marrs, J. PSI Spies. New Page Books, 2007. 143–4.

xi. Ostrander, S. & Schroeder, L. Psychic Discoveries: The Iron Curtain Lifted. Marlowe & Co., 1997. 322–3.

xii. Solis, M. The Hutchison Effect (as above).

xiii. Bearden, T.E. Excalibur Briefing. Strawberry Hill Press, 1980. 114.

xiv. Dakin, H.S. High-Voltage Photography. 27–30.

xv. Bearden, T.E. Excalibur Briefing. 65.

xvi. Randall, J. Parapsychology and the Nature of Life. Harper & Row, 1975. 169–74.

xvii. Ibid. 176–7. See also McTaggart, L. The Intention Experiment. Free Press, 2007. xxviii.

xviii. Watson, L. Gifts of Unknown Things. Simon & Schuster, 1976.


Explore Further

The Consciousness Transition Model — The first structured, cross-tradition map of how consciousness moves through post-mortem states.

What NDE Research Actually Shows — The parallel evidential challenge from near-death experience research.

The Hard Problem of Consciousness Is Not Going Away — Why materialist neuroscience cannot explain mind.

The Grand Illusion — Book 1: the foundational research on consciousness, the brain-filter model, torsion fields, and anomalous human capacities.

Reverse Engineering the Afterlife — Book 2: the full CTM account.


Brendan D. Murphy

Reverse Engineering the Afterlife

The full CTM account — post-mortem mechanics, substrate independence, and the structural map of what comes next.

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