Andrija Puharich

In November 1978, a letter on official Canadian Department of National Defence letterhead was issued by the Operational Research and Analysis Establishment in Ottawa. The document has been linked by researchers to the network of Dr. Andrija Puharich, one of the most unusual figures in investigations of consciousness and unexplained phenomena from the late 1940s until his death in 1995. Puharich’s career spanned legitimate medical invention, parapsychological research, and claims of contact with non-human intelligence. His work sits at the intersection of Cold War-era interest in the mind, early UFO research, and persistent questions about what governments knew or were willing to explore beyond conventional science.

Born Henry Karel Puharić on February 19, 1918, Puharich earned his medical degree from Northwestern University. During World War II he participated in the Army Specialized Training Program. He later served as a captain in the U.S. Army Medical Corps at the Army Chemical Center from 1953 to 1955. After his military service, Puharich established himself as a medical inventor. He developed improved hearing aids and founded Intelectron, a company focused on electronic methods of stimulating hearing and other sensory functions. He held numerous patents in medical electronics. Puharich continued researching and writing into the 1980s and early 1990s, exploring topics including the relationship between electromagnetic fields, consciousness, and healing, as well as advanced energy concepts.

A feature documentary titled Mind Traveler, directed by filmmaker Greg Mallozzi, is currently scheduled for release in Fall 2026. The film draws from extensive access to Puharich’s private archives, including never-before-seen documents, personal recordings, and footage, and an exclusive scene from the documentary has already been released as a sneak preview.

In the late 1940s, Puharich founded the Round Table Foundation in Maine. Initially, the foundation conducted research into sensory perception and medical applications of electronics. Over time, its focus shifted toward the scientific study of extrasensory perception, psychokinesis, and related phenomena. Experiments were often conducted in Faraday cages designed to reduce outside electrical and radio-frequency interference. The foundation attracted both serious researchers and wealthy patrons interested in the boundaries of human consciousness.

Before his work with Uri Geller, Puharich was involved in sessions involving channelled communications. In the 1950s, he participated in experiments with a group that reportedly made contact with a collective intelligence referred to as The Nine. These communications, received through trance mediums, described themselves as an ancient extraterrestrial or higher-dimensional council overseeing humanity’s development. Puharich documented some of this material and later connected it to his broader research into consciousness and non-human intelligence.

Puharich’s most public work began in 1971 when he met Israeli psychic Uri Geller. He brought Geller to the United States and conducted a series of tests. In his 1974 book Uri: A Journal of the Mystery of Uri Geller, Puharich described sessions in which Geller, under hypnosis, claimed to be in contact with extraterrestrial intelligences. According to Puharich, these entities, sometimes described as super-intelligent computers aboard a spacecraft, warned of impending global disaster unless humanity changed course.

Declassified materials and contemporary records show interest from military and intelligence communities in psychic phenomena and mind-related research. Interestingly, Puharich was also deeply interested in water as a potential energy source and even patented technology to split water molecules with high efficiency. That same idea pops up in other places too — like claims from a Soviet engineer about advanced propulsion systems running on water-based deuterium fuel, and even a 2023 academic paper co-authored by a Pentagon official that casually floated the possibility of extraterrestrial probes using Earth’s water as fuel.

Later in his life, Puharich became deeply interested in new energy technologies, particularly the possibility of using water as a primary fuel. In recorded lectures from the 1970s and 1980s, he described the economic and political pressures created by conventional energy development and exploitation. He argued that visionary scientists envisioned an ideal future fuel that would be as cheap as water, non-toxic in both short-term and long-term effects, renewable, safe to handle, and universally available anywhere on Earth where people live. He stated that this fuel is water itself, which can be used in freshwater, saltwater, brackish, snow, or ice form, and noted that Canada would be an excellent place to develop such a resource. When water is decomposed by electrolysis into hydrogen and oxygen gases, he explained, it becomes a high-energy fuel with roughly three times the energy output of an equivalent weight of high-grade gasoline.

Puharich discussed the need for near one-hundred-percent efficiency in both the endergonic reaction of breaking water apart and the exergonic reaction of recombining hydrogen and oxygen. He argued that major cost reductions could come from eliminating the need for liquefaction, storage, transmission, and distribution of hydrogen by producing the fuel on demand at the point of use. His own invention, which he referred to as a TEEM device, was designed to achieve this by generating hydrogen and oxygen as they are consumed rather than storing them. He emphasized that this approach directly addressed common safety concerns, often called the Hindenburg mentality, because there would be no compressed or liquefied hydrogen to transport or store. He claimed that tests of his system, using a novel application of alternating current in a resonant circuit with coaxial electrodes, had achieved efficiencies averaging close to one hundred percent, with some variation depending on the parameters being tested. He noted that he held numerous patents related to the circuit design and had conducted careful measurements using precision equipment, while stressing that the process did not violate the laws of physics.

Puharich also suggested that under certain isothermal closed-system conditions, where heat is absorbed from the environment, it might be possible to obtain a net energy surplus of around fifteen to twenty percent when combining the various efficiencies. He presented these ideas publicly, including in Toronto, where he discussed the practical and thermodynamic aspects of his approach.

A letter dated 17 November 1978 from Canada’s Department of National Defence Operational Research and Analysis Establishment in Ottawa has been connected by researchers to Puharich’s activities. The document, file reference ORAESG 2230-155/A1-1, is a response from the DND operational research unit acknowledging interest in a subject and expressing willingness to continue communication. The Operational Research and Analysis Establishment was an analytical branch within the Department of National Defence. Its existence alongside earlier Canadian projects, Project Magnet under the Department of Transport led by Wilbert Smith and Project Second Storey under the Defence Research Board, illustrates that interest in unusual phenomena within Canadian government and defence circles extended beyond the formal closure of those 1950s programs.

In 2023, Conservative MP Larry Maguire wrote to Canada’s Defence Minister claiming that Defence Research and Development Canada had participated in the analysis of recovered UAP material through Five Eyes channels. The Department of National Defence has denied possessing any such recovered material. Maguire’s letter referenced historical Canadian efforts and called for greater transparency and classified briefings.

Puharich continued researching and writing into the 1980s and early 1990s, exploring topics including the relationship between electromagnetic fields, consciousness, and healing, as well as advanced energy concepts. Supporters view him as a pioneering investigator who refused to dismiss anomalous phenomena and who pursued practical technological solutions to major global problems.