In an extraordinary claim, Major Ed Dames, a former US Army remote viewer, asserts that he recently located the long-lost Ark of the Covenant within the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, West Bank, according to a report by Mail Online. Utilizing his purported psychic abilities, Dames said he pinpointed the sacred relic's location "within meters."
"I'm inside some type of a stone tunnel, and there's an object, and the object is boxy and it's heavy and dense," said Dames of his remote viewing session. "I feel very insecure because there's a feeling that I can't describe. Never felt it before, and it scares me," he recounted, according to the Mail Online.
Dames was part of the Stargate Project, a secret US Army initiative that operated between 1977 and 1995. The project aimed to utilize individuals known as remote viewers, who professed to perceive information about distant objects, people, or places through psychic means. According to the Daily Star, the US government invested up to $20 million of taxpayer money into the project and related initiatives before it was closed due to its failure to gather intelligence effectively.
During his time with the Stargate Project, Dames claimed he was assigned the Ark of the Covenant as a target while training. To locate the Ark, he performed a "technical" remote viewing search, entering an altered state of consciousness that he believed allowed him to observe a distant target. "The tangible ideas associated with the target are a boxy structure," Dames stated.
The Cave of the Patriarchs, also known as the Cave of Machpelah, is a site of religious importance to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. According to tradition, it is the burial place of key biblical figures such as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, along with their spouses. The site, located in the West Bank city of Hebron, has been a focal point of pilgrimage and reverence for millennia.
The Ark of the Covenant is described in the Bible as a gold-covered wooden chest containing the stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments, which Moses placed inside. Constructed by the Israelites after their exodus from Egypt in the 13th century BCE, the Ark was said to possess extraordinary powers. Stories tell of how the Jordan River stopped flowing and remained still while a group of priests carrying the Ark crossed the river. Other tales describe how the Israelites took the Ark with them into battle, where its powers helped them defeat their enemies.
However, during the Babylonian sack of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, the Ark disappeared without a trace, according to both canonical texts and historical accounts. Its fate has been the subject of speculation and legend for centuries, with theories suggesting it may have been hidden, destroyed, or taken to locations around the world.
There is currently no concrete evidence to suggest that the Ark of the Covenant exists, and remote viewing has not been scientifically validated. "He conceded that the 'working hypothesis' underpinning remote viewing 'does not align with Western scientific theory,' given the lack of evidence supporting psychic phenomena," the Daily Star reported.
Throughout history, locations have been proposed as the resting place of the Ark. For centuries, Ethiopian Christians have claimed the Ark rests in a chapel in the small town of Aksum. The Ark is believed by Ethiopian Orthodox Christians to have been brought to Aksum by Menelik, the son of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon of Israel, after Jerusalem was sacked and Solomon's temple destroyed.
Dames remains steadfast in his belief that he found the Ark. "I know exactly where the Ark of the Covenant really is," he asserted.
The article was written with the assistance of a news analysis system.