The Ministry of Defence has defended a decision to fund secret tests into the ability of volunteers to use psychic powers to "remotely view" hidden objects.
The study, conducted in 2002, involved blindfolding test subjects and asking them to "see" the contents of sealed brown envelopes containing pictures of random objects and public figures.
Defence experts tried to recruit 12 "known" psychics who advertised their abilities on the internet, but when they all refused they were forced to use "novice" volunteers.
Commercial researchers were contracted at a cost of £18,000 to test them to see if psychic ability existed in case it could be used in defence, according to previously classified report released under the Freedom of Information Act.
Incredibly, 28% of those tested managed a close guess at the contents of the envelopes, which included pictures of a knife, Mother Teresa and an "Asian individual".
But most subjects, who were holed up in a secret location for the study, were hopelessly off the mark in their guesses. One even fell asleep while he tried to focus on the envelope's content.
A former Ministry of Defence employee who received a copy of the report has claimed that the timing of the study suggests security services wanted to "remotely view" hidden weapons caches in Iraq and find Osama bin Laden.
Nick Pope, who ran the MoD UFO research programme and worked at the ministry for 21 years, said: "It can only be speculation, but you don't employ that kind of time and effort to find money down the back of the sofa.
"You go to this trouble for high-value assets. We must be talking about bin Laden and weapons of mass destruction."
The MoD refused to discuss the possible applications of such a technique, but said that the study had concluded there was "little value" in using "remote viewing" in the defence of the nation.
