According to Russian publications and recently declassified documents, the Soviets spent over a billion dollars trying to research “unconventional” science and mind control technology. The interest in government-funded paranormal research rose and fell sveral times during the Soviet era but still continued even a decade after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Not to be outdone by U.S. military research that inspired men to stare at goats, the Soviets also seem to have poured a nice chunk of change into investigating telekinesis and mind control. A new survey of Soviet “unconventional” research on the server ArXiv has the details. Based on Russian publications and recently declassified documents, Serge Kernbach at the Research Center of Advanced Robotics and Environmental Science in Germany paints a portrait of unconventional research from 1917 to 2003, twelve years after the fall of the Soviet Union. The government-funded research into the paranormal fell in and out of favor, but ultimately might have cost up to a billion dollars.