Andrija Puharich, born Henry Karel Puharić in 1918, was an American physician, medical inventor, and investigator of paranormal phenomena. He studied philosophy and pre-medical subjects at Northwestern University, completed medical training in 1947, and pursued independent research in biophysics and neurophysiology. His technical career produced dozens of patents, including work on miniaturized hearing devices and electrical stimulation, alongside interests that placed him far outside conventional medicine.

In 1948, Puharich established the Round Table Foundation in Maine, where he attempted to study telepathy, trance, altered states, and psychic healing with laboratory methods. He later served in the Army Medical Corps at Edgewood Arsenal and founded Intelectron Corporation, which received an Air Force contract related to hearing research. This movement between military medicine, private patronage, and consciousness and psi experimentation made him an enduring figure in histories of Cold War fringe science.

Puharich became best known for bringing psychics Peter Hurkos and Uri Geller to wider American attention. His 1974 book about Geller described purported psychokinesis, telepathy, and communications from entities he associated with extraterrestrial intelligence. Scientists and skeptics criticized his methods and credulity, and the extraordinary episodes he reported were never independently established. His earlier trance sessions also helped popularize the entity group called “The Nine,” a story later woven into accounts of alleged non-human intelligence.

His legacy is neither that of a conventional laboratory scientist nor simply that of a promoter. Puharich genuinely worked in medical electronics and invention while repeatedly extending weak or ambiguous evidence into sweeping theories about mind, technology, and contact. That combination influenced later remote-viewing researchers and contact narratives, even as it made his conclusions difficult to separate from suggestion, performance, and belief. His career remains a revealing example of how established institutions and speculative inquiry sometimes occupied the same Cold War networks.