On a recent clip from The Joe Rogan Experience, host Joe Rogan pressed U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna about one of the most enduring mysteries in religious lore: the Ark of the Covenant.
Luna didn’t hesitate.
According to the Florida congresswoman, decades-old CIA documents suggest the agency “remote viewed” the Ark’s location in the late 1980s.
Rogan, doing what he does best, poked and prodded at the details. He asked for dates, documents, and whether anyone actually went there.
Luna, for her part, said the paperwork exists – and said people can find it.
“The CIA Allegedly Located The Ark”
In the clip, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna states that “the CIA allegedly located the Ark of the Covenant,” emphasizing that the method was “remote viewing.”
She told Rogan that a New York Post write-up recently resurfaced the declassified paperwork and that the handwritten notes of a remote viewer are visible in that set.
She added that the documents describe not just the object but even “cherubim” and angelic imagery.
Rogan sounded both entertained and skeptical. “This is like Indiana Jones,” he joked, while still asking to see the source material on screen.
According to Luna, the records are dated “5 December 1988.” She pinned the era between late Reagan and early George H.W. Bush.
Her point wasn’t that the CIA dug the Ark out of a vault. It was that the agency allegedly tasked a viewer, recorded descriptive notes, and placed the “target” in a Middle Eastern country.
The Ethiopia Question, And A Congressional Field Trip
Rogan opened by asking about the well-known Ethiopian claim: that a church guards the Ark in Aksum.
Luna said she has “looked into that,” and even floated the idea of a CODEL – a congressional delegation trip – to check it out.
She added she’d pay her own way to avoid spending taxpayer money, then admitted Congress is “focusing on other things right now.”
Rogan kept the mood light. But he repeatedly pushed for clarity: What year? What documents? Did anyone actually confirm the location?
Luna’s answer returned to the remote viewing files. She said you can “pull up” the documents, and pointed to a scribd viewer and references to CIA archives.
What The Notes Allegedly Describe
As the clip rolled, Rogan’s team scrolled through pages Luna said belonged to the file.
The notes described mosque domes, clothing styles, language (“seemed to be Arabic”), and a container within a container.
One line, read aloud, said “Target is fashioned of wood, gold, and silver,” and is “decorated with the Seraphim.”
The viewer also wrote that the target was “hidden underground,” in a space that was “dark and wet.”
Rogan balked at the methodology. If you tell a remote viewer to find the Ark, he noted, you’re priming the outcome. The note even flagged that problem – bias, or “AOL,” which the page called something to “keep to a minimum.”
Luna acknowledged the criticism but leaned into the weirdness. The documents, she said, mention “protectors,” timing, and dangers to anyone who tries to pry the container open.
Religion, Radiance, And Risk
Luna threaded in biblical references. She cited Ezekiel’s “wheels” and the Book of Enoch’s angelic imagery, linking them to drawings the viewer sketched.
She also referenced the idea – popularized by writers like Graham Hancock, Rogan noted – that guardians of the Ark allegedly suffer cataracts or radiation-like sickness.
Rogan was half in, half out. He asked whether anyone fluent in Arabic did the viewing. He wondered why hostile groups or dictators wouldn’t have seized it if it’s really there.
Luna offered a faith-based counter: biblically, no one could access it unless the time was “deemed correct.”
Whether you buy that or not, it’s part of why this story keeps returning. It fuses Cold War espionage with scripture, modern paranormal programs with ancient artifacts.
What Remote Viewing Is – And Isn’t
To her credit, Luna didn’t oversell the method. She repeatedly used the word “allegedly.”
Remote viewing, made famous by programs like the Army’s “Stargate,” is controversial even inside government. The clip acknowledges this by highlighting the “blind” protocols that are supposed to limit bias.
Here, the “training target” was explicitly labeled “Ark of the Covenant.” Rogan called that a “big no-no,” because it tells the viewer what to imagine.
That matters. If the target cue is loaded, a skeptic will say you’re drawing from cultural memory, not psychic signal.
But the opposite argument—one Luna hinted at – is that the viewer still offered specific, checkable spatial and contextual details: domes, garments, language, underground conditions.
To believers, that’s enough to keep digging. To skeptics, it’s exactly vague enough to forever avoid falsification.
A Congresswoman’s Curiosity, A Podcaster’s Pressure
Luna comes off in the clip as sincerely curious. She wanted to go look herself—and said she’d do it without public money.
She urged Rogan’s team to “pull it up” live. She asked for zoom-ins on the “handwritten notes.” She pointed to references to seraphim and mechanisms on the container.
Rogan applied pressure. He kept asking if anyone followed up. He asked if there were dates and coordinates. He read the mission line himself: “Training target is the Ark of the Covenant.”
He also kept it grounded. If the file is 1988, he asked, what happened next? If it’s in a hostile area, wouldn’t it have been looted?
That tension – between wonder and verification – is the soul of the segment.
My Take: Fascinating, But Show The Receipts
I don’t dismiss curiosities just because they’re strange. The Cold War birthed stranger programs than remote viewing.
The clip makes one thing clear: there are documents – declassified, scribbled, and specific – asserting an attempted psychic look-in on the Ark.
But a claim that the CIA “found” it is doing a lot of work. Even Luna couches it—“allegedly,” “remote viewed,” “we don’t know if they followed up.”
If there’s more beyond training paperwork, show it. Field reports. Site photos. Corroborating intel from sources that aren’t primed by the word “Ark.”
Short of that, this fits neatly in a category we all know too well: compelling enough to share, thin enough to never settle.
Why People Keep Coming Back To This Story
Rogan put it perfectly by accident: it sounds like Indiana Jones.
Ancient power objects. Secret programs. Hand-drawn angels in a government file.
Add in Luna’s biblical references – Ezekiel’s wheels, Enoch’s visions – and you’ve got a perfect storm of myth and modernity.
Even the caveats are cinematic: “It cannot be opened until the time is deemed correct,” one note reportedly says. Try to pry it, and “the container’s protectors” destroy you.
You can hear the soundtrack.
What Would It Take To Change Minds?
For skeptics: independent verification. A site identified, accessed, and documented without primed cues or retrofitted symbolism.
For curious believers: a good-faith expedition that treats both the religious tradition and the scientific method seriously.
For Congress: transparency about what we actually did with these programs, beyond the training packets everyone points to.
Luna’s suggestion – a CODEL, funded personally – wasn’t silly. It was a lawmaker saying: if you want the truth, go look.
Rogan’s response – “show me the docs” – wasn’t cynical. It was journalism 101.
A Big Claim, A Bigger Caveat
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna used Rogan’s massive stage to say the CIA “allegedly located” the Ark via remote viewing in 1988, pointing to declassified notes that describe a gilded container under mosque-speckled skylines in a Middle Eastern country.
Joe Rogan pressed for proof, read the mission lines on air, and kept asking if anyone ever went there.
As of that clip, we still don’t know.
Until someone trades handwritten angels for ground truth, this story will sit in that alluring space between the possible and the provable – exactly where legends live.
Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, John developed a love for the great outdoors early on. With years of experience as a wilderness guide, he’s navigated rugged terrains and unpredictable weather patterns. John is also an avid hunter and fisherman who believes in sustainable living. His focus on practical survival skills, from building shelters to purifying water, reflects his passion for preparedness. When he’s not out in the wild, you can find him sharing his knowledge through writing, hoping to inspire others to embrace self-reliance.
