The Men Who Stare at Goats [Hardcover]

In 1979 a secret unit was established by the most gifted minds within the US Army. Defying all known accepted military practice - and indeed, the laws of physics - they believed that a soldier could adopt the cloak of invisibility, pass cleanly through walls and, perhaps most chillingly, kill goats just by staring at them. Entrusted with defending America from all known adversaries, they were the First Earth Battalion. And they really weren't joking. What's more, they're back and fighting the War on Terror. Ronson's highly acclaimed bestseller, THEM: ADVENTURES WITH EXTREMISTS, examined the paranoia at the fringes of Bill Clinton's America. THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS reveals extraordinary - and very nutty - national secrets at the core of George W Bush's War on Terror. With first-hand access to the leading players in the story, Ronson traces the evolution of these bizarre activities over the past three decades, and sees how it is alive today within US Homeland Security and post-war Iraq. Why are they blasting Iraqi prisoners-of-war with the theme tune to Barney the Purple Dinosaur? Why have 100 de-bleated goats been secretly placed inside the Special Forces command centre at Fort Bragg, North Carolina? How was the US Military associated with the mysterious mass-suicide of a strange cult from San Diego? THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS answers these, and many more, questions.

In 1979 a secret unit was established by the US Army. Defying all known military practice – and indeed the laws of physics – they believed that a soldier could adopt a cloak of invisibility, pass cleanly through walls, and, perhaps most chillingly, kill goats just by staring at them. They were the First Earth Battalion. And they really weren’t joking. What’s more, they’re back and fighting the War on Terror. So unbelievable it has to be true – this is the real-life account that inspired the film. ‘Simultaneously frightening and hilarious’ The Times ‘Not only a narcotic road trip through the wackier reaches of Bush’s war effort, but also an unmissable account of the insanity that has lately been done in our names’ Observer --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Jon Ronson is a writer and television presenter. His column in the Guardian, 'The Human Zoo', ran successfully for many years. He has written and presented a number of television documentaries on subjects ranging from the Rev. Ian Paisley to the Ku Klux Klan to - the biters bit - TV critics. His first book, Them: Adventures With Extremists, which describes his encounters with some of the world's craziest megalomaniacs and conspiracy theorists, was published by Picador in 2001. It received highly laudatory reviews, and spent seven weeks in the top ten of the Bookwatch/Sunday Times bestseller list.