Tom McNear, 2022

Lieutenant Colonel, US Army, ret.
Seaford, Virginia, USA

Lieutenant Colonel, US Army (ret.) Tom McNear was a member of the STAR GATE program from 1981–1985 as a military personnel.

Tom was personally trained in Coordinate Remote Viewing (CRV) by Ingo Swann and was the only viewer Ingo Swann trained up to Stage VI at the time. In those early days of the development of the CRV protocol, it acted as a “guinea pig to prove the principle.” Tom’s sessions later also began to develop to Stage VII (phonetics), naming many places by phonetics. Paul Smith wrote: “Tom’s results were not just impressive. Some could even be described as spectacular.”

In 1985 Tom wrote the first CRV manual based on his training with Ingo Swann. This manual became the basis for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) manual published a year later.

Tom was a member of Ingo Swann’s five-person team that, on 15 June 1984, remote viewed the planet Mars. Swann included many details from this team effort in the posthumously published Penetration Special Edition Updated. McNear wrote the afterword for Penetration Special Edition Updated.

Together with Paul H. Smith and Jana Rogge, McNear recently published The Foundations of Controlled Remote Viewing, a compendium that collects fundamental CRV works. 

Tom has a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology from Saint Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas. After serving in the Army’s remote viewing program from 1981–1985, Tom continued a successful career in counterintelligence and counterespionage. He retired from uniformed service in 1997 and continued to serve as a civilian intelligence officer until 2019, culminating in 45 years of service. He now lives in Seaford with his wife.  

In 2011, after a 26-year hiatus, Tom had a successful CRV session with Ingo Swann as his monitor (see video below).

In Jim Schnabel’s book “Remote Viewers,” Tom McNear is nicknamed Tom Nance.

Short overview:

LTC Tom McNear, 1996 (at retirement)

  • First Star Gate viewer personally trained by Ingo Swann
  • Only viewer Swann trained through Stage VI (VII)
    • Helped develop training for Stages IV–VI
    • spent more time with Ingo Swann than anyone in the program
    • First viewer to experience Stage VII (“phonetics”)
  • In 1985, wrote the Army’s first CRV “manual,” which was the foundation of the “DIA manual.”
  • Swann’s “best student ever” (Ingo Swann)
  • “Swann considered his true protégé to be Tom (Nance)… the formal prototype for the CRV-trained military remote viewer, the best that could be achieved.” (Jim Schnabel [1])
  • “First to be trained through all seven stages. He was better than me. I was amazed.” (Ingo Swann – Jim Marrs [2])
  • “Of all Swann’s trainees, Tom (Nance) was the finest” (Tim Rifat [3])

References:
[1] Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America’s Psychic Spies (p. 306) – Jim Schnabel
[2] PSI Spies: The True Story of America’s Psychic Warfare Program (p. 157-158) – Jim Marrs
[3] Remote Viewing: The History of Psychic Warfare and Spying (p. 64) – Tim Rifat

Ingo Swann and Tom McNear, during the filming for the documentary „A Life Gone Wild“, 2011

Further information:

Downloads:

Back to Glossary Index Page