Joseph McMoneagle was a participant in research concerning psychic abilities, notably in the context of remote viewing. He served as a consulting "consciousness researcher" alongside other individuals like Ingo Swann during the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) project, which explored psychic phenomena for potential operational use by the U.S. intelligence community. This research, co-founded by Harold E. Puthoff and Russell Targ, aimed to investigate the practice of remote viewing, a term coined by Targ and Puthoff to describe the act of gaining information about distant or unseen targets through extrasensory perception.

The SRI's work on remote viewing, including the contributions of individuals like McMoneagle, was a significant part of the broader Stargate Project, a U.S. government-sponsored initiative. While the research aimed to assess potential military applications of psychic phenomena, it faced considerable criticism regarding its methodology and the validity of its findings. Scientific reviews often concluded that the experiments lacked rigor and credible evidence, leading to the classification of remote viewing as pseudoscience by many in the mainstream scientific community. Despite these criticisms, the research contributed to the popularization of remote viewing, especially after the declassification of Stargate Project documents.

Joseph McMoneagle was involved as a "consciousness researcher" in the parapsychology investigations conducted at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). This research program, led by Harold E. Puthoff and Russell Targ, focused on the practice of "remote viewing," a term they coined. Remote viewing involves attempting to perceive information about a distant or hidden target using psychic means. McMoneagle, alongside other consultants such as Ingo Swann, contributed to the SRI's efforts to explore psychic abilities and their potential applications, particularly for intelligence agencies. The work at SRI eventually became part of the larger U.S. government initiative known as the Stargate Project, which aimed to investigate the military utility of psychic phenomena.

The research conducted at SRI, which included the participation of Joseph McMoneagle in the remote viewing experiments, faced significant scientific scrutiny and criticism. Many reviews of the experiments, including those by psychologists David Marks and Richard Kammann, and a report by the United States National Research Council, found them to be methodologically flawed and lacking credible evidence. Critics pointed to issues such as sensory cueing and insufficient controls, leading to the conclusion that the claims of successful remote viewing remained unsubstantiated. Consequently, the mainstream scientific community largely regards remote viewing as pseudoscience due to the absence of reliable, reproducible results and a coherent theoretical framework.