Hal Puthoff

Harold Edward Puthoff is a physicist and electrical engineer born in Chicago in 1936. He earned degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Florida and Stanford University, where he completed his PhD in 1967. Over five decades, Puthoff has held senior roles in classified U.S. government UAP research initiatives, including the CIA's remote-viewing program at Stanford Research Institute and the Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). He has also founded private research organizations focused on advanced physics and space propulsion.

What was his role in government UAP programs?

Puthoff served as Director of the CIA's remote-viewing program at Stanford Research Institute from 1972 to 1985, which was later publicly known as Project Stargate. He later became a contractor and Senior Advisor to the Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). According to available records, he was named chief scientist to the AATIP program. He also served as a senior scientific voice for the Defense Intelligence Agency's Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP), a $22 million initiative to study UAPs.

What private research organizations has he founded?

In 1985, Puthoff founded The Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin (IASA), which was later incorporated as EarthTech International, Inc. in 1991. He serves as President, CEO, and Chairman of EarthTech International. His research has focused on fundamental electrodynamics, gravitation, quantum vacuum, and space propulsion. He was also a key figure in Robert Bigelow's National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS) in the 1990s, which investigated Skinwalker Ranch.

What is his connection to To The Stars Academy?

Puthoff co-founded To The Stars Academy with Tom DeLonge in 2017 and served as cofounder and Vice President for Science and Technology. The Academy created the ADAM project to acquire and test metamaterials linked by provenance claims to UAP incidents. In 2019, To The Stars Academy announced a cooperative research and development agreement with the U.S. Army.

What public statements has he made about UAP?

Puthoff appeared in the History Channel series Unidentified: Inside America's UFO Investigation, situating UAP accounts within a national-security frame. In a May 2026 episode of The Diary of a CEO podcast, he stated that people involved in recoveries had said there are at least four types of recovered non-human entities. He clarified that he had not personally handled materials but had sourced information from recovery-team members in classified UAP programs.