The soviet union spent 1 billion on mind control experiments – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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The Soviet Union spent $1 billion on mind-control experiments

Brain drawing (Wikimedia)
Brain drawing (Wikimedia)
Brain drawing (Wikimedia)
Casey Newton
is the editor of the Platformer newsletter and cohost of the Hard Fork podcast.

The Soviet Union’s arms race with the United States during the Cold War included an expensive effort to develop mind-control weapons, the Physics arXiv Blog reports. Drawing on a new paper published by researcher Serge Kernbach, the blog describes the USSR’s extensive efforts around what they called “psychotronics” — the equivalent of America’s own experiments with parapsychology. Among the results: the Soviets developed a device called a “cerpan” intended to generate and store high-frequency electromagnetic radiation produced by the human brain in hopes of influencing other objects. For more on Kernbach’s research, check out the blog.

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