Over the course of his retirement, it became widely known that Stubblebine maintained a keen interest in psychic warfare throughout his service. He sought to develop an army of soldiers with special powers, such as the ability to walk through walls.[1][2]
As a colonel, Stubblebine participated in a special task force that defined the requirements of the U.S. Army for future conflict. By 1980, General Stubblebine commanded the Electronic Research and Development Command (ERADCOM). Stubblebine was strongly influenced by Lieutenant Colonel Jim Channon's New Age-inspired First Earth Battalion Field Manual (1979). Stubblebine became a proponent of psychic warfare and initiated a project within the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM), which he commanded from 1981 to 1984, to create "a breed of 'super soldier'" who would "have the ability to become invisible at will and to walk through walls". He attempted to walk through walls himself[1][4]—but failed, as he himself described in a 2004 interview.[5] (These activities feature prominently in Jon Ronson's 2004 book The Men Who Stare at Goats.[6][2])
A key sponsor of the Stargate Project (a remote viewing project) at Fort Meade, Maryland, Stubblebine was convinced of the reality of a wide variety of psychic phenomena. He required that all of his battalion commanders learn how to bend spoons in the manner of celebrity psychic Uri Geller, and he himself attempted several psychic feats, in addition to walking through walls, such as levitation and dispersing distant clouds with his mind. Stubblebine was a key leader in the U.S. military invasion of Grenada (1983).[4] After some controversy involving the experiments with psychic phenomena, Stubblebine took "early retirement" from the Army in 1984.[7] In addition to alleged security violations from uncleared civilian psychics working in Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIFs), Stubblebine offended then-U.S. Army Chief of Staff General John Adams Wickham, Jr. by offering to perform a spoon-bending feat at a formal gala; Wickham, a devout Presbyterian, associated such phenomena with Satanism.[8]
Stubblebine's successor as the INSCOM commander was Major General Harry Soyster, who had a reputation as a much more conservative and conventional intelligence officer. Soyster was not amenable to continuing paranormal experiments and the Army's participation in the Stargate Project ended during his tenure, though not until 1995.[9]
After Stubblebine retired from the Army he worked as a vice-president for BDM Corporation. He retired from that job in 1990. The same year, he was inducted into the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame.[10] In 1994 his wife Geraldine was granted a divorce on grounds of adultery.[11] Shortly thereafter, he was remarried to psychiatrist Rima E. Laibow.[12] He also acted as a part-time consultant to two government contractors, ERIM and Space Applications Corporation.[11]
Stubblebine believed that an airplane did not crash into the Pentagon in the September 11 terrorist attacks, but said he did not know what did.[12] According to Stubblebine, after analyzing the damage done to The Pentagon by the hijacked aircraft during the September 11 attacks, he concluded "(an) airplane did not make that hole". Stubblebine's statements have been cited by David Ray Griffin.[13][14]
A character ("General Hopgood") in the 2009 film The Men Who Stare at Goats — a fictionalized adaptation of Ronson's book — is loosely based on Stubblebine as commander of the "psychic spy unit" (portrayed in the film) who believed he could train himself to walk through walls.
^ abCourt Of Appeals Of Virginia. Albert N. Stubblebine, III v. Geraldine M. Stubblebine. Record No. 1915-94-4. Case heard on July 23, 1996. Accessed November 12, 2009.
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