Samuel Magabe has been dealing with the world of ghosts since the CIA's remote-viewing experiments of the early 1970s. When certain subjects began contacting "post-life entities" (PLEs), He was transferred to a branch program codenamed PROJECT: SHADOWLANDS, the purpose of which was to make further contact with and explore the military and security applications of the ghost world.
When the Eurydice Corporation began making headway into the development of projector technology, PROJECT: SHADOWLANDS quickly stepped in, appropriating most of the technology and personnel (including Dr. Masato Takeichi). While a splinter group went on to form Orpheus Group, Magabe and Takeichi went on to perform the Conquin State Prison experiments, which led to the transformation of Bishop and his crew.
Magabe helped establish Terrel & Squib Pharmaceuticals and set up Dr. Takeichi's laboratory in Bolivia to manufacture pigment. By this time, Magabe was now head of PROJECT: BLACK MERCURY, a military program with the aim of developing projector-soldiers, and pigment was a key component to the project. Magabe was aware of Bishop's activities but did nothing to stop him so long as the ghost's goals did not conflict with his own.
When Magabe began to perceive Orpheus Group as a potential threat to the secrecy of his operation, he leaked information about Orphus personnel and security to Bishop, which led directly to the assault on Orpheus Group and the assassination of many of its key personnel. Magabe's own Black Mercury operatives played no part in the initial attack, although they did sweep the ruins in order to recover any surviving computer records. He then attempted to blackmail Senator Richard Boyle into resuming Black Mercury's funding, which had been cut off after the Orpheus Group debacle.
Magabe was eventually tracked down by Orpheus Agents and brutally murdered by Agent Robert Herschler.