In 1979 a secret unit was established by the most gifted minds within the U.S. Army. Defying all known accepted military practice -- and indeed, th...
read full description
reviews
May 29, 2011
brian
rated it: 
during the cold war the cia was engaged in some strange strange shit -- psychic spies and remote viewings and lots more: agents staring at goats all day long trying to make their hearts explode (some of the higher ups claim to have seen it happen), agents (with badly scuffed noses and foreheads) trying to walk through walls, dosing people with lsd, playing music with subliminal messages, entering the bad guy's lair while cradling a baby lamb in one's arms as a means to overpower the enemy with
More...
10 comments
like
(6 people liked it)
Jun 22, 2010
Kemper
rated it: 
After watching the movie version of The Men Who Stare At Goats, I figured that there must be a kernel of truth to it coated with several layers of Hollywood bullshit so I read the book to get an idea of what the real story was. I thought I’d get a funny story about some stupid things the military did once upon a time. Instead, the book turns into a template for starting conspiracy theories that really pissed me off.
Oddly enough, the really weird stuff that happened in the film vers More...
Oddly enough, the really weird stuff that happened in the film vers More...
4 comments
like
(9 people liked it)
May 31, 2011
Petra X
rated it: 
Its hard to know what to say about this book as its a light-hearted, somewhat mocking look at the various always-nefarious schemes of the American Military, or at least of some of the specialised recherche departments of Intelligence. However, the subject is deadly serious and what seems funny on the surface - bombarding Iraqi prisoners with an endless loop of the Barney song, 14,000 renditions over three days - really isn't when you consider that this 'information' was probably released deliber
More...
Mar 07, 2011
Rhys
rated it:
I hardly ever read non-fiction, I don't know why. I often enjoy non-fiction more than fiction. Maybe it's because I *write* fiction myself. I do occasionally read history books, but rarely cover to cover. This one is an exception: but it's not just history, it's also investigative journalism of the highest calibre.
This astonishing book tells the recent history of US Military psychic warfare, a very shady area that overlaps with PsyOps (psychological warfare), Black Ops (secret assass More...
This astonishing book tells the recent history of US Military psychic warfare, a very shady area that overlaps with PsyOps (psychological warfare), Black Ops (secret assass More...
0 comments
like
(2 people liked it)
Dec 01, 2010
Russell
rated it:
So here's my problem with this book. The author manages to string together a long series of random tidbits in what appears to be a coherent manner, but ultimately there was no point to anything we as readers have learned. "Hey everyone, look at all of the weird things our armed forces experimented with during the war on terror! They played a Barney song over and over! They played a Sesame Street song and the composer tried to sue for royalties! Maybe the CIA killed someone once or maybe the
More...
0 comments
like
(2 people liked it)
Oct 05, 2010
Callista
rated it:
I had this book on my radar because of a review I saw soon after it came out, long before they made the movie. But I saw the movie before I got around to buying the book. I liked the movie a lot; it made me laugh.
[later] I felt compelled to do some research while reading this book. I looked at Jim Channon's and Lyn Buchanan's websites; got Google pages full of results for "remote viewing", "PsyOps", and other terms and people; and saw that Amazon sells copies of Lyn Buc More...
[later] I felt compelled to do some research while reading this book. I looked at Jim Channon's and Lyn Buchanan's websites; got Google pages full of results for "remote viewing", "PsyOps", and other terms and people; and saw that Amazon sells copies of Lyn Buc More...
4 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Sep 15, 2008
Jim
rated it: 
Jon Ronson looks at army intelligence experiments in psychic phenomena. One of these experiments, refered to in the title, was to try to kill goats by concentrating on them, real hard. Ironically, much of this stuff had its origins in the army's post-Vietnam funk, when esprit de corps was at its lowest ebb. A young colonel convinced his chain of command to allow him to study hippy philosophy as a potentially new ethic for a revived Army. All that came of this was a field manual for something cal
More...
0 comments
like
(2 people liked it)
Dec 14, 2010
Kirsten
rated it:
The subject matter of this book is fascinating. It explores the US military's research into decidedly strange fighting and reconaissance techniques: psychic warfare (as in, soldiers using psychic powers to stop the enemy in its tracks), remote viewing, you name it. It starts out fairly lighthearted: look at what happens when you give some whackadoos in the government money to try to walk through walls! There's a serious side to it, though; out of some of the same minds that came up with the m
More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Jan 23, 2012
Keli
rated it:
This book was so bizarre that I though he had to have made the whole thing up. Then there would be a reference to something that had made it to the news and I'd see the whole thing in an entirely different perspective. The suspension of disbelieve is less in the idea that these psychic occurrences were real, than that the people involved believed they were real. Given the historical context of the Earth First Battalion and the confusion in the war on terror and the bizarre stories that came o
More...
Sep 28, 2011
Patrick
rated it:
The Men Who Stare At Goats by Jon Ronson was another of Nick Hornby's suggestions from his excellent collection of columns on books he has bought and read, The Polysyllabic Spree. I saw it on sale at a book store not long ago and picked it up. It started out a little slow for me as it stated chronicling The First Earth battalion, which was created in order to get ideas form people thinking out of the box. This included outlandish experiments like trying to kill goats by staring at them to make t
More...
Aug 25, 2011
This book worked hard to earn, decisively, its crop of zero stars.
It is about what supposedly happens when new age super-abilities (flying, invisibility, the power to stop a goat's heart by staring at it...) meet the oh-so-impressive military mind.
Since the military exists to destroy people and property, guess what they experiment with in attempts to gain these powers and apply them?
Alledgedly.
All kinds of names, dates, people and conversational More...
It is about what supposedly happens when new age super-abilities (flying, invisibility, the power to stop a goat's heart by staring at it...) meet the oh-so-impressive military mind.
Since the military exists to destroy people and property, guess what they experiment with in attempts to gain these powers and apply them?
Alledgedly.
All kinds of names, dates, people and conversational More...
Aug 23, 2011
Christine
rated it:
I saw the film before I read the book, and took heed of those who said the book was nothing like the movie version. Whilst this is true, it also is very similar.
I feel as though when someone decided to make this into a film they realised that there were way too many characters in the book, and narrowed them down to make it easier to watch. There’s no story in the book, it is simply a navigation through research by Jon.
So, to the content itself. I love the stuff about goats and the walking throug More...
I feel as though when someone decided to make this into a film they realised that there were way too many characters in the book, and narrowed them down to make it easier to watch. There’s no story in the book, it is simply a navigation through research by Jon.
So, to the content itself. I love the stuff about goats and the walking throug More...
Jul 27, 2011
Dave
rated it:
I bought this book simply because of the title and am so glad I did. It starts of quite benignly but then lurches into the very dark heart of the law of unintended consequences. On the surface it's about kooky american attempts to harness the occult and psychic powers for military aims but it gets darker once the lessons first applied by the so-called First Earth Battalion shift from harmless (unless you are a goat) to outright spooky. The chapter where Ronson interviews the writers of the Ba
More...
Jul 24, 2011
T.
rated it: 
The Men Who Stare at Goats is a 'mockumentry' claiming to expose the exploits of the American Government's attempts to ultilize psyhic phenomenon to further their war efforts.
The book is journalist/biography style with the author making contact with numerous military figures all somehow linked to 'psy-ops'. Rather than covering a coherent story format this book reads as a series of gags and irony ridden tales of the military's attempts to train their own X-men.
Ronson craf More...
The book is journalist/biography style with the author making contact with numerous military figures all somehow linked to 'psy-ops'. Rather than covering a coherent story format this book reads as a series of gags and irony ridden tales of the military's attempts to train their own X-men.
Ronson craf More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Jul 18, 2011
Eve
rated it:
I can't believe I just discovered Jon Ronson. Even though the first line of the book is, "This is a true story," I kept thinking for the first third, "Nah, this can't be true."
The second part had me laughing hysterically -- the inmates are running the asylum, the inmates are running the asylum -- but the last part of the book, starting with the chapter on "The Dark Side," sobered me up pretty quickly.
Current torture methods used by the U.S. More...
The second part had me laughing hysterically -- the inmates are running the asylum, the inmates are running the asylum -- but the last part of the book, starting with the chapter on "The Dark Side," sobered me up pretty quickly.
Current torture methods used by the U.S. More...
Jul 06, 2011
Jen
rated it:
Last week, I listened to the audiobook of THE PSYCHOPATH TEST, which was my first exposure to Jon Ronson. Right after finishing it, I wanted to read another of his books, to sort of see how this investigative-humorist-detective-culture-critic makes it all work in print. So I picked up THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS, from 2004. The great thing about Ronson is how he must spend years tracking down these people, these documents, and yet when he writes it up, he's able to condense it and organize it int
More...
Jan 09, 2011
Penny
rated it:
Ok, it's am amazing story on a lot of levels but I found the style a real irritation. Kept using that device of the narrator discovering something apparently momentous but keeping it from the reader. A master of the art can get away with that and rack up the tension, but this was just irritating (to me anyway) and in the realms of creative-writing-beginner's-error. We get things like - he whispered in my ear ... I said 'Oh my God!' ... end of chapter. No clue what it's about until ages later
More...
Nov 27, 2010
Ensiform
rated it:
The documentarian examines how the US military intelligence community has attempted to make use of paranormal and extra-sensory techniques and how this has impacted the war on terror today. Ronson shows how Jim Channon, a US Army colonel, who wrote the “First Earth Battalion” manual which attempted to reorganize the military along non-lethal, New Age ideals such as pacifying the enemy with indigenous music, positive energy, or discordant sounds. He interviews people such as Guy Savelli, martia
More...
Sep 27, 2010
Teresa
rated it:
In this book, Jon Ronson examines the U.S. military s forays into psychological, psychic, and paranormal warfare. Ronson talks with members of the military, scientists, and even a Guantanamo Bay detainee. Some of the interviews are hilariously absurd, as when he talks to Guy Savelli, a purported goat dropper who claims to have video evidence that he has killed a hamster with his mind. But then the book turns chilling. A faked UFO photo is shown to lead to the Heaven s Gate suicides. And th
More...
Jan 30, 2010
Julie
rated it:
At first blush, The Men Who Stare at Goats looks as though it will be a book about a crazy bunch of army extremists who believe that they have the power to kill mammals with their minds. And, yes, this book is about that, but also about so much more . . .
Whatever your views happen to be about psychic powers, telekinesis, mind reading, and mind control, The Men Who Stare at Goats has something for you. The author begins by discussing the titular goat starers. However, he expands up More...
Whatever your views happen to be about psychic powers, telekinesis, mind reading, and mind control, The Men Who Stare at Goats has something for you. The author begins by discussing the titular goat starers. However, he expands up More...
Jan 05, 2010
Liz
rated it:
The Men Who Stare at Goats is a fascinating work of literary journalism. It begins with a relatively light-hearted premise: the cultivation of psychic powers for military applications. The subject matter becomes much darker as the book goes along, though, covering topics ranging from the Heaven's Gate mass suicide to the (sometimes curious) treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, from the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib to the FBI siege on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, TX in 1993.
More...
Jan 05, 2010
Sean
rated it:
I haven't seen the film based on "The Men Who Stare...", but I did see the BBC programme and I did attend a Ronson book-signing at the (now defunct) Borders in Oxford. It just took me a while to get round to actually reading it.
The title refers to some crazee cats in the U.S. military who tried to use paranormal techniques (some borrowed from the 1970s California new-age scene) to create 'super-soldiers' to fight in future conflicts. The original idea was to weave in almost More...
The title refers to some crazee cats in the U.S. military who tried to use paranormal techniques (some borrowed from the 1970s California new-age scene) to create 'super-soldiers' to fight in future conflicts. The original idea was to weave in almost More...
Jan 03, 2010
Bill
rated it:
I knew Ronson's work from "Them: Adventures with Extremists" -- another journey into the heart of a bizarre subculture (multiples subcultures, in the former case). This one is a similarly funny, frightening, searching and poignant work, a look into the U.S. military's experiments in the paranormal over the years, but especially since the late 1970s. The driving irony is that the passion of one New Agey Vietnam veteran to make military operations less, well, violent, might have been twi
More...
Dec 31, 2009
The Men Who Stare at Goats, by Jon Ronson, narrated by Sean Mangen, produced by Bolinda Audio, downloaded from audible.com.
Ronson, a British journalist and generally a satirist, became interested in stories he was hearing that the American military was trying to invoke supernatural powers to fight wars. It is very frightening because it is all true. He interviews many men in the military and out of it now, as well as agency people who used to be in the CIA. What the army is trying More...
Ronson, a British journalist and generally a satirist, became interested in stories he was hearing that the American military was trying to invoke supernatural powers to fight wars. It is very frightening because it is all true. He interviews many men in the military and out of it now, as well as agency people who used to be in the CIA. What the army is trying More...
Dec 29, 2009
Dennis
rated it:
I found the first few chapters of Ronson's "The Men Who Stare At Goats" amusing though somewhat akin to listening to a UFO junky explain his proof for the existence of extraterrestrials.
What started out as a humorous chronology of the weird world of super secret US intelligence efforts during the Cold War took a disturbing turn as Ronsin presented his speculative and fragmented hypotheses as proof for the existence of an underlying methodology of evil sanctioned at the highest More...
What started out as a humorous chronology of the weird world of super secret US intelligence efforts during the Cold War took a disturbing turn as Ronsin presented his speculative and fragmented hypotheses as proof for the existence of an underlying methodology of evil sanctioned at the highest More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Dec 15, 2009
Molly
rated it:
I can't really see how this book would be a good movie. It's literally the story of a goofy reporter chasing a dead story for a few years. However, the story he is chasing is interesting to the point it seems almost a farse. The First Earth Battalion written back in the post-vietnam hippie days has supposedly held its roots in American military history since then. The secret psychics predicting future terrorist attacks, the power of the mind overwhelming oncoming armies... all of that seems farf
More...
Dec 13, 2009
Amy
rated it:
A quick and baffling read, The Men Who Stare at Goats is the story of the PsyOps (that's Psychic Operations, for those of you not in the know) division of the US Army. Begun almost wholly by a Vietnam veteran who wanted to find more peaceful ways for to conduct a battle, the plans for the First Earth Battalion - which would be able to become invisible, walk through walls, use unheard sound to elicit all manner of response from the enemy, and more - was adapted by higher ups with a quickness that
More...
Nov 18, 2009
Read the Stop Smiling Review of Grant Heslov's film adaptation of Men Who Stare At Goats
Postwar: The Messenger and The Men Who
Stare at Goats
Smugness marches on in The Men Who Stare at Goats, starring George Clooney and directed by his bestie, actor Grant Heslov. While I don’t think it’s too soon to mine the Iraq War for chuckles, this shrill, irritating, and incredibly self-satisfied effort mostly amuses itself. It’s not always fair to compare comedy to drama, but T More...
Postwar: The Messenger and The Men Who
Stare at Goats
Smugness marches on in The Men Who Stare at Goats, starring George Clooney and directed by his bestie, actor Grant Heslov. While I don’t think it’s too soon to mine the Iraq War for chuckles, this shrill, irritating, and incredibly self-satisfied effort mostly amuses itself. It’s not always fair to compare comedy to drama, but T More...
Oct 11, 2009
Todd
rated it:
One Strange Trip
This book came to me as a recommendation from a science teacher I work with and the premise of the book was too unique to pass up. In the late 1970's the post-Vietnam U.S. Military went through an identity crisis and started looking for different ways of achieving their goals. The idea was that whatever they had tried in Vietnam had obviously not worked so they needed new, fresh ideas and approaches to military engagements. What one man brought to some of the Speci More...
This book came to me as a recommendation from a science teacher I work with and the premise of the book was too unique to pass up. In the late 1970's the post-Vietnam U.S. Military went through an identity crisis and started looking for different ways of achieving their goals. The idea was that whatever they had tried in Vietnam had obviously not worked so they needed new, fresh ideas and approaches to military engagements. What one man brought to some of the Speci More...
Nov 29, 2008
Fred
rated it:
I now know the world is a much larger and much stranger (much, much, stranger) than I believed.
I picked up this book because I saw it was George Clooney's next project (inspiration comes from the strangest places) and I saw the basic plot outline. Once I started reading it, I was intrigued and slightly weirded out. It's a non-fiction book discussing the various non-combative tactics our armed forces use.
The title refers to an exercise in which men stare at goats and attem More...
I picked up this book because I saw it was George Clooney's next project (inspiration comes from the strangest places) and I saw the basic plot outline. Once I started reading it, I was intrigued and slightly weirded out. It's a non-fiction book discussing the various non-combative tactics our armed forces use.
The title refers to an exercise in which men stare at goats and attem More...
