Recently declassified CIA documents reveal a surprising fact—the U.S. government tried to locate the Ark of the Covenant in 1988 using psychics. The project, named Sun Streak, experimented with “remote viewing” techniques to locate the lost artifact.
Psychic remote viewers claim the ability to perceive and describe distant people, places, or objects without being in their physical presence. This is supposedly done through extrasensory perception (ESP) after the viewer enters a meditative or trance-like state, aiming to “tune in” to a target without prior knowledge.
The Jerusalem Post reports, “In one of these experiments, a person identified as Remote Viewer No. 032 was tasked with finding an unknown target, which was, in fact, the Ark of the Covenant. Without prior knowledge of the target, Remote Viewer No. 032 described a container made of wood, gold, and silver, adorned with images of six-winged angels, and similar in shape to a coffin.”
The article goes on to state, “The CIA’s Project Sun Streak, initiated in the 1980s, sought to employ individuals with purported psychic abilities to locate distant targets using only geographical coordinates. The project's findings fueled debates among historians, archaeologists, and conspiracy theorists alike.”
Perhaps the CIA was inspired by Raiders of the Lost Ark, the highest-grossing film of 1981. In it, the protagonist, Indiana Jones, embarks on a quest to find the Ark of the Covenant.
What else do the CIA files reveal? Remote Viewer No. 032 reported the target to be hidden underground in a dark and wet location, also noting that it was “protected by entities and can only be opened by those who are authorized to do so—this container will not/cannot be opened until the time is deemed correct.” Read the full report by downloading the declassified documents for yourself.
The Ark’s Origin and Purpose
The Ark of the Covenant is described in Exodus 25:10–22. God gave instructions to Moses concerning its construction. It was made of acacia wood and overlaid with pure gold. The lid, called the Mercy Seat, was made of one solid piece of gold and adorned with two cherubim. The entire Ark measured about “45 inches long, 27 inches wide, and 27 inches high” (Exodus 25:10 NLT).
The Ark was a sacred receptacle that housed the stone tablets on which God had written the Ten Commandments with His finger. It was kept in the innermost shrine of the Hebrew tabernacle, known as the Most Holy Place.
God told Moses, “There I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the Testimony, about everything which I will give you in commandment to the children of Israel” (Exodus 25:22).
The Mercy Seat served as God’s throne in His temple, and the Ark contained His law, the foundation of His government. Once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the children of Israel were judged by God’s holy law. Everyone who had confessed and repented of their sins received pardon and cleansing on that day of judgment (Leviticus 16:30). Anyone who had neglected confession and repentance was “cut off” from the people of God (Leviticus 23:29).
Disregarding God's Law
It’s ironic that in its search for the Ark, the CIA violated the law of God contained within it. The Bible expressly forbids consulting those who claim to have supernatural ability, such as psychics, mediums, and fortune tellers (Leviticus 19:31; Deuteronomy 18:10–12). We are reminded of Israel’s first king: “So Saul died for his unfaithfulness which he had committed against the LORD, because he did not keep the word of the LORD, and also because he consulted a medium for guidance” (1 Chronicles 10:13, 14).
It’s unwise to seek knowledge in ways that God has forbidden. The Scriptures warn, “When they say to you, ‘Seek those who are mediums and wizards, who whisper and mutter,’ should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living?” (Isaiah 8:19).
Psychics and mediums attempt to contact the dead, but the Bible tells us that “the dead know nothing” (Ecclesiastes 9:5), and when a person dies, “his spirit departs, he returns to the earth; in that very day his thoughts perish” (Psalm 146:4 NASB95).
One might argue that psychic remote viewers don’t necessarily claim to be contacting the dead. While that is true, the knowledge they are receiving has to come from somewhere.
So, who are psychics communicating with if not the dead? We have been warned: “Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons” (1 Timothy 4:1). When psychics and mediums seek supernatural knowledge from a source other than God, they open themselves up to being misled by these deceiving spirits. The information from them cannot be trusted.
Learn more about this dangerous deception in our free Study Guide.
The Final Judgment
While we can’t say whether the Ark and the Commandments from the Hebrew tabernacle will ever be recovered, one thing is sure, “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5:10).
In other words, we all must stand before the actual throne of God that the Ark with the Mercy Seat and Ten Commandments represented. The apostle John saw in vision a time when “the temple of God was opened in heaven, and the ark of His covenant was seen in His temple. And there were lightnings, noises, thunderings, an earthquake, and great hail” (Revelation 11:19).
And again, “Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. … And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. … And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books” (Revelation 20:11, 12).
Have you committed yourself to our only hope and “Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous”? (1 John 2:1).
Dig deeper into the details of the judgment with this insightful Study Guide.