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A declassified CIA file, made viral by podcaster Josh Hooper earlier this week, claims that the Ark of the Covenant was discovered in the Middle East in the 1980s as part of the agency’s Project Sun Streak. The file refers to a chest believed to contain the Ten Commandments and other biblical artifacts, including the Tablets of the Law, Aaron’s Rod, and a pot of manna.
Project Sun Streak was a mission undertaken by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) during the 1970s and 1980s. It sought to use alleged psychics or “remote viewers” to gather intelligence about distant objects or events through specific coordinates.
These remote viewers allegedly projected their consciousness beyond their physical bodies to observe these faraway targets. Several other intelligence agencies, including the CIA, also took part in Project Sun Streak.
The now-declassified document claimed that the CIA had known the location of the Ark of the Covenant for decades. According to the report, Remote Viewer No. 032 was given the coordinates of this historical entity and later found a coffin-shaped object, believed to be the Ark of the Covenant, “somewhere in the Middle East,” where Arabic is spoken.
“The target is a container. This container has another container inside of it. The target is fashioned of wood, gold, and silver... and it is decorated with [a six-winged angel],” the document alleges.
However, the remote viewer was unaware of precisely what they were searching for before the experiment or its historical/religious significance.
Notably, some historians believe the artifact originally resided in the innermost chamber of the Temple of Jerusalem, known as the Holy of Holies, until it disappeared during the Babylonian invasion of the city in 586 BC. Others claim that the Ark of the Covenant was later transported to Ethiopia, where it was placed in a local church.
All you need to know about Project Sun Streak amid the Ark of the Covenant claims
In 1978, the U.S. government launched Project Sun Streak and hired individuals with alleged paranormal capabilities, known as psychic spies, to gather intelligence on unknown targets worldwide. These individuals, referred to as remote viewers, utilized remote psychoenergetics, or the supposed connection between the human psyche and Earth’s natural energy, to locate specific objects, events, or people.
The project ran through the 1990s and was alternatively called Project Stargate. Between 1995 and 2000, most of the files were declassified. Other original names for the project included Project Gondola Wish, Project Grill Flame, and Project Center Lane.
Project Sun Streak began after reports emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s about the Soviet Union experimenting with psychotronics during the peak of the Cold War. Initially, the U.S. government did not take action; however, the CIA soon learned about the large sums of money the Soviet Union was spending and speculated that they had made a breakthrough in using psychotronics for alleged international espionage.
In response, the DIA, CIA, and other U.S. intelligence agencies funded and launched their own project called SCANATE (scan by coordinate) to explore the potential of psychic phenomena in military and intelligence operations. This project was based at the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, California, and later relocated to Fort Meade in Maryland.
Over the next two decades, Project Sun Streak evolved into a mission to gather information about global affairs using human subjects through remote viewing or psychoenergetics. The Popular Mechanics website defines remote viewing as "a type of extra-sensorial perception that involves using the mind to 'see' or manipulate distant objects, people, events, or other information that are hidden from physical view."
Other mind-reading techniques, including telepathy, psychokinesis, Scientology, and paranormal phenomena in the military, were also utilized. Project Sun Streak was reportedly deployed to locate human hostages, fugitives, and lost airplanes or ships.
It was also used to gather intelligence on adversaries, search for historical or mythical objects and events like the Loch Ness Monster and the Fall of Atlantis, and for space exploration endeavors such as searching for life on Mars.
For those unaware, the CIA declassifies files after a project has been inactive for over 25 years, as is the case with Project Sun Streak. In 2017, the Freedom of Information Act was passed, making it mandatory for the agency to publicly share files, reports, and documents in its online database.
More about the alleged discovery of the Ark of the Covenant
The now-viral CIA document claiming to have located the Ark of the Covenant as part of Project Sun Streak was declassified in 2000, according to the Daily Mail. Meanwhile, the file stated that the discovery occurred in 1988. However, actual evidence of the artifact’s existence remains uncertain.
The trending news about the Ark of the Covenant circulated online recently after podcaster Josh Hooper talked about coming across the Project Sun Streak online. In his latest episode of the Ninjas are Butterflies podcast, Hooper mentioned he thought the project was “fake” until he visited the CIA website and found the report linked to the alleged discovery of the historical chest.
Josh mentioned that the description was “bone-chilling,” and included excerpts from the remote viewer who shared details of the experiment. Part of it read:
“This target is located somewhere in the Middle East as the language spoken by individuals present seemed to be Arabic… The target is hidden — underground, dark, and wet were all aspects of the location of the target. The purpose of the target is to bring people together. It has something to do with ceremony, memory, homage, the resurrection.
“There is an aspect of spirituality, information, lessons, and historical knowledge far beyond what we now know. The target is protected by entities and can only be opened (now) by those who are authorized to do so — this container will not/cannot be opened until the time is deemed correct.”
According to the remote viewer, the “mechanics of the lock system will be found to be fairly simple,” and anyone attempting to unlock the chest would be “destroyed by the container's protectors through the use of a power unknown to us."
The declassified CIA report also stated that the remote viewer described the alleged location of the Ark of the Covenant as having Mosque Domes around it, with people “clothed in virtually all-white” and having “black hair and dark eyes,” some of whom even had mustaches. Additionally, the document included sketches and notes from the experiment, random ominous words, and more.
In brief, about the Ark of the Covenant
The Bible states that the Ark of the Covenant is a gold and wooden chest constructed by the Israelites in the 13th century BC after they escaped from Egypt. Later, Moses kept the Ten Commandments inside it. Some experts believe it remained in the Temple of Jerusalem for decades, and only the High Priest was allowed near it during Yom Kippur, until it disappeared.
Another legend suggests that the Ark of the Covenant resided in the Arabic-speaking, Islamic-majority African nation of Ethiopia. Menelik, the alleged son of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon, reportedly took the chest there and placed it inside the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion, where it has seemingly remained until today.
British scholar of Semitic languages and Ethiopian studies Edward Ullendorff claimed he saw the artifact inside the church during World War II. However, in a 2018 interview with Live Science, Tudor Parfitt, a British historian, writer, and former colleague of Ullendorff, revealed that it was a replica.
That same year, a group of U.S.-based Christians claimed to have found the Ark of the Covenant in a remote African church guarded by monks. It’s the same church where Menelik is believed to have placed the chest in Axum, Ethiopia. Around that time, the Bible Archaeology Search and Exploration Institute (BASE) claimed to be speaking to locals, including a monk called the ‘Guardian of the Ark.’
Over the years, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church has claimed that the Ark of the Covenant resides in a treasury near the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion. Meanwhile, the Lemba tribe of South Africa and Zimbabwe believes their forefathers hid it in a cave in the Dumghe Mountains. At the same time, British Israelites consider the artifact safely placed inside the grave of the Egyptian princess Tea Tephi.
