IN the era of 'fake news' what you're about to read may seem unbelievable, but it is all true.

The CIA used Scotland as part of its bizarre 'psychic spy' experiments which they thought would give them the ability to harness paranormal powers - such as astral travel, telekinesis and mind-reading - against their enemies.

As part of the top secret project ‘psychic spies’ in the US tried to use 'out of body' techniques and 'mind projection' to visit locations in Scotland. The bizarre research went on for decades as the CIA worked on harnessing paranormal powers for use in the military.

The project, codenamed Stargate, is revealed among 13 million pages of declassified documents the US intelligence agency has made available on the internet, relating to topics including UFO sightings.

A key aspect of this research was the use of so-called 'remote viewing' – involving the apparent ability to see locations or events from many hundreds of miles away and then describe it through words and drawings.

The technique was said to be used to try to spy on terrorists, enemies and facilities in hostile countries – but ‘training’ runs appear to have involved sites in Scotland including Edinburgh, Inverness and Loch Ness.

A report was published in July 1984 on the topic of the development of a database for ‘RV-training sessions’ by a firm which carried out research for the CIA.

The document, marked for dissemination only to “individuals with restricted access” and “not releasable to foreign nationals”, states it contains a report on the "current training status" of four 'remote viewers'.

This shows the ‘target sites’ around the world included famous landmarks such as Mount Everest, Central Park in New York, the Victoria Falls, Easter Island and Stonehenge.

But locations in Scotland were also on the radar – including Inverness, Loch Ness and Edinburgh.

Another Stargate document included the results of an experiment involving Urquhart Castle, near Loch Ness, as the target.

The notes show the ‘remote viewer’ described “rocks, "uneven holes", "smoothness", "height” and “high windows or window space with path leading up to it or larger structure similar in a castle”.

Other observations which seem less relevant included “A black dog? With longish curly hair” and a “pelican on a post”.

The Stargate project, run by both the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency, was first initiated in 1972 when reports that Soviet Russia was exploring the use of paranormal powers – often referred to as ‘psi’ – triggered a ‘psychic arms race’.

It also eventually led to more sinister investigations by the military as to whether damage could be inflicted on living creatures by thought alone, which inspired the book and film The Men Who Stare at Goats.

By the time the Stargate project was ended in 1995, the existence of it was already known.

A newspaper article published in the same year in is in the CIA files after being sent as a memo with the subject of “UK:US Use of Spies Reported”. The name of the sender and the receiver of the document have both been blanked out.

The article, which the CIA clearly took seriously, describes how stories of “astounding successes” led to support growing within the intelligence community to investigate psychic abilities, including an alleged 'psychic visit' by a “remote viewer” called Pat Price to a “sensitive” National Security Agency facility on the East Coast.

“Price’s verbal and graphic descriptions of the site were particularly detailed, and included an overhead view, the layout of underground offices and even Top Secret code-word labels on file folders,” the article noted.

A handwritten note in the margin in the CIA files states: “This wasn’t even the target he was asked to view."

The article goes on to say: “According to several former remote-viewers, as well as officials familiar with the programme, America’s psychic spies were used to gather information on: key facilities in Tehran during the 1978-81 hostage crisis, terrorists and Western hostages in the Middle East, the location of [military dictator] Manuel Noriega during the US raid on Panama in 1989; and of course, the location of Mu’ammar al-Qadhdhafi [Colonel Gaddafi] prior to the 1986 bombing raid on Libya.”

Another handwritten note scribbled in the margin of the document asks: “Did anyone even act on this intelligence?”

An experiment carried out into belief in psi powers by Edinburgh University’s Department of Psychology also appears to have caught the attention of researchers involved in Stargate.

However the Edinburgh project disappointingly failed to shed much light on the issue, concluding that a belief in psi was “not the result of a specific personality pattern or the consequence of some illogical cognitive process” and suggesting more research was needed to explore if those with strong beliefs have certain personality characteristics.

The CIA records have technically been available to the public for some time, but until now access has only been via a handful of computers based at the US National Archives in Maryland.

Pressure had been mounting on the CIA to publish the files online, with freedom of information group MuckRock suing the agency over access to their declassified records.