by H. E. Puthoff, Ph.D.
Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin
4030 Braker Lane W., #300
Austin, Texas 78759-5329
On April 17, 1995, President Clinton issued Executive Order
Nr. 1995-4-17, entitled Classified National Security Information.
Although in one sense the order simply reaffirmed much of what
has been long-standing policy, in another sense there was a clear
shift toward more openness. In the opening paragraph, for example,
we read: "In recent years, however, dramatic changes have
altered, although not eliminated, the national security threats
that we confront. These changes provide a greater opportunity
to emphasize our commitment to open Government." In the Classification
Standards section of the Order this commitment is operationalized
by phrases such as "If there is significant doubt about the
need to classify information, it shall not be classified."
Later in the document, in reference to information that requires
continued protection, there even appears the remarkable phrase
"In some exceptional cases, however, the need to protect
such information may be outweighed by the public interest in disclosure
of the information, and in these cases the information should
be declassified."
A major fallout of this reframing of attitude toward classification
is that there is enormous pressure on those charged with maintaining
security to work hard at being responsive to reasonable requests
for disclosure. One of the results is that FOIA (Freedom of Information
Act) requests that have languished for months to years are suddenly
being acted upon.1
One outcome of this change in policy is the government's recent
admission of its two-decade-plus involvement in funding highly-classified,
special access programs in remote viewing (RV) and related psi
phenomena, first at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) and then
at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), both
in Menlo Park, CA, supplemented by various in-house government
programs. Although almost all of the documentation remains yet
classified, in July 1995 270 pages of SRI reports were declassified
and released by the CIA, the program's first sponsor [2]. Thus,
although through the years columns by Jack Anderson and others
had claimed leaks of "psychic spy" programs with such
exotic names as Grill Flame, Center Lane, Sunstreak and Star Gate,
CIA's release of the SRI reports constitutes the first documented
public admission of significant intelligence community involvement
in the psi area.
As a consequence of the above, although I had founded the program
in early 1972, and had acted as its Director until I left in 1985
to head up the Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin (at which
point my colleague Ed May assumed responsibility as Director),
it was not until 1995 that I found myself for the first time able
to utter in a single sentence the connected acronyms CIA/SRI/RV.
In this report I discuss the genesis of the program, report on
some of the early, now declassified, results that drove early
interest, and outline the general direction the program took as
it expanded into a multi-year, multi-site, multi-million-dollar
effort to determine whether such phenomena as remote viewing "might
have any utility for intelligence collection" [1].
In early 1972 I was involved in laser research at Stanford
Research Institute (now called SRI International) in Menlo Park,
CA. At that time I was also circulating a proposal to obtain a
small grant for some research in quantum biology. In that proposal
I had raised the issue whether physical theory as we knew it was
capable of describing life processes, and had suggested some measurements
involving plants and lower organisms [3]. This proposal was widely
circulated, and a copy was sent to Cleve Backster in New York
City who was involved in measuring the electrical activity of
plants with standard polygraph equipment. New York artist Ingo
Swann chanced to see my proposal during a visit to Backster's
lab, and wrote me suggesting that if I were interested in investigating
the boundary between the physics of the animate and inanimate,
I should consider experiments of the parapsychological type. Swann
then went on to describe some apparently successful experiments
in psychokinesis in which he had participated at Prof. Gertrude
Schmeidler's laboratory at the City College of New York. As a
result of this correspondence I invited him to visit SRI for a
week in June 1972 to demonstrate such effects, frankly, as much
out of personal scientific curiosity as anything else.
Prior to Swann's visit I arranged for access to a well-shielded
magnetometer used in a quark-detection experiment in the Physics
Department at Stanford University. During our visit to this laboratory,
sprung as a surprise to Swann, he appeared to perturb the operation
of the magnetometer, located in a vault below the floor of the
building and shielded by mu-metal shielding, an aluminum container,
copper shielding and a superconducting shield. As if to add insult
to injury, he then went on to "remote view" the interior
of the apparatus, rendering by drawing a reasonable facsimile
of its rather complex (and heretofore unpublished) construction.
It was this latter feat that impressed me perhaps even more than
the former, as it also eventually did representatives of the intelligence
community. I wrote up these observations and circulated it among
my scientific colleagues in draft form of what was eventually
published as part of a conference proceedings [4].
In a few short weeks a pair of visitors showed up at SRI with
the above report in hand. Their credentials showed them to be
from the CIA. They knew of my previous background as a Naval Intelligence
Officer and then civilian employee at the National Security Agency
(NSA) several years earlier, and felt they could discuss their
concerns with me openly. There was, they told me, increasing concern
in the intelligence community about the level of effort in Soviet
parapsychology being funded by the Soviet security services [5];
by Western scientific standards the field was considered nonsense
by most working scientists. As a result they had been on the lookout
for a research laboratory outside of academia that could handle
a quiet, low-profile classified investigation, and SRI appeared
to fit the bill. They asked if I could arrange an opportunity
for them to carry out some simple experiments with Swann, and,
if the tests proved satisfactory, would I consider a pilot program
along these lines? I agreed to consider this, and arranged for
the requested tests.2
The tests were simple, the visitors simply hiding objects in a
box and asking Swann to attempt to describe the contents. The
results generated in these experiments are perhaps captured most
eloquently by the following example. In one test Swann said "I
see something small, brown and irregular, sort of like a leaf
or something that resembles it, except that it seems very much
alive, like it's even moving!" The target chosen by one of
the visitors turned out to be a small live moth, which indeed
did look like a leaf. Although not all responses were quite so
precise, nonetheless the integrated results were sufficiently
impressive that in short order an eight-month, $49,909 Biofield
Measurements Program was negotiated as a pilot study, a laser
colleague Russell Targ who had had a long-time interest and involvement
in parapsychology joined the program, and the experimental effort
was begun in earnest.
During the eight-month pilot study of remote viewing the effort
gradually evolved from the remote viewing of symbols and objects
in envelopes and boxes, to the remote viewing of local target
sites in the San Francisco Bay area, demarked by outbound experimenters
sent to the site under strict protocols devised to prevent artifactual
results. Later judging of the results were similarly handled by
double-blind protocols designed to foil artifactual matching.
Since these results have been presented in detail elsewhere, both
in the scientific literature [6-8] and in popular book format
[9], I direct the interested reader to these sources. To summarize,
over the years the back-and-forth criticism of protocols, refinement
of methods, and successful replication of this type of remote
viewing in independent laboratories [10-14], has yielded considerable
scientific evidence for the reality of the phenomenon. Adding
to the strength of these results was the discovery that a growing
number of individuals could be found to demonstrate high-quality
remote viewing, often to their own surprise, such as the talented
Hella Hammid. As a separate issue, however, most convincing to
our early program monitors were the results now to be described,
generated under their own control.
First, during the collection of data for a formal remote viewing
series targeting indoor laboratory apparatus and outdoor locations
(a series eventually published in toto in the Proc. IEEE [7]),
the CIA contract monitors, ever watchful for possible chicanery,
participated as remote viewers themselves in order to critique
the protocols. In this role three separate viewers, designated
visitors V1 - V3 in the IEEE paper, contributed seven of the 55
viewings, several of striking quality. Reference to the IEEE paper
for a comparison of descriptions/drawings to pictures of the associated
targets, generated by the contract monitors in their own viewings,
leaves little doubt as to why the contract monitors came to the
conclusion that there was something to remote viewing (see, for
example, Figure 1 herein). As summarized in the Executive Summary
of the now-released Final Report [2] of the second year of the
program, "The development of this capability at SRI has evolved
to the point where visiting CIA personnel with no previous exposure
to such concepts have performed well under controlled laboratory
conditions (that is, generated target descriptions of sufficiently
high quality to permit blind matching of descriptions to targets
by independent judges)." What happened next, however, made
even these results pale in comparison.
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To determine whether it was necessary to have a "beacon"
individual at the target site, Swann suggested carrying out an
experiment to remote view the planet Jupiter before the upcoming
NASA Pioneer 10 flyby. In that case, much to his chagrin (and
ours) he found a ring around Jupiter, and wondered if perhaps
he had remote viewed Saturn by mistake. Our colleagues in astronomy
were quite unimpressed as well, until the flyby revealed that
an unanticipated ring did in fact exist.3
Expanding the protocols yet further, Swann proposed a series of
experiments in which the target was designated not by sending
a "beacon" person to the target site, but rather by
the use of geographical coordinates, latitude and longitude in
degrees, minutes and seconds. Needless to say, this proposal seemed
even more outrageous than "ordinary" remote viewing.
The difficulties in taking this proposal seriously, designing
protocols to eliminate the possibility of a combination of globe
memorization and eidetic or photographic memory, and so forth,
are discussed in considerable detail in Reference [9]. Suffice
it to say that investigation of this approach, which we designated
Scanate (scanning by coordinate), eventually provided us with
sufficient evidence to bring it up to the contract monitors and
suggest a test under their control. A description of that test
and its results, carried out in mid-1973 during the initial pilot
study, are best presented by quoting directly from the Executive
Summary of the Final Report of the second year's followup program
[2]. The remote viewers were Ingo Swann and Pat Price, and the
entire transcripts are available in the released documents [2].
"In order to subject the remote viewing phenomena to a rigorous
long-distance test under external control, a request for geographical
coordinates of a site unknown to subject and experimenters was
forwarded to the OSI group responsible for threat analysis in
this area. In response, SRI personnel received a set of geographical
coordinates (latitude and longitude in degrees, minutes, and seconds)
of a facility, hereafter referred to as the West Virginia Site.
The experimenters then carried out a remote viewing experiment
on a double-blind basis, that is, blind to experimenters as well
as subject. The experiment had as its goal the determination of
the utility of remote viewing under conditions approximating an
operational scenario. Two subjects targeted on the site, a sensitive
installation. One subject drew a detailed map of the building
and grounds layout, the other provided information about the interior
including codewords, data subsequently verified by sponsor sources
(report available from COTR)."4
Since details concerning the site's mission in general,5
and evaluation of the remote viewing test in particular, remain
highly classified to this day, all that can be said is that interest
in the client community was heightened considerably following
this exercise.
Because Price found the above exercise so interesting, as a personal
challenge he went on to scan the other side of the globe for a
Communist Bloc equivalent and found one located in the Urals,
the detailed description of which is also included in Ref. [2].
As with the West Virginia Site, the report for the Urals Site
was also verified by personnel in the sponsor organization as
being substantially correct.
What makes the West Virginia/Urals Sites viewings so remarkable
is that these are not best-ever examples culled out of a longer
list; these are literally the first two site-viewings carried
out in a simulated operational-type scenario. In fact, for Price
these were the very first two remote viewings in our program altogether,
and he was invited to participate in yet further experimentation.
Midway through the second year of the program (July 1974) our
CIA sponsor decided to challenge us to provide data on a Soviet
site of ongoing operational significance. Pat Price was the remote
viewer. A description of the remote viewing, taken from our declassified
final report [2], reads as given below. I cite this level of detail
to indicate the thought that goes into such an "experiment"
to minimize cueing while at the same time being responsive to
the requirements of an operational situation. Again, this is not
a "best-ever" example from a series of such viewings,
but rather the very first operational Soviet target concerning
which we were officially tasked.
"To determine the utility of remote viewing under operational
conditions, a long-distance remote viewing experiment was carried
out on a sponsor-designated target of current interest, an unidentified
research center at Semipalatinsk, USSR.
This experiment, carried out in three phases, was under direct
control of the COTR. To begin the experiment, the COTR furnished
map coordinates in degrees, minutes and seconds. The only additional
information provided was the designation of the target as an R&D
test facility. The experimenters then closeted themselves with
Subject S1, gave him the map coordinates and indicated the designation
of the target as an R&D test facility. A remote-viewing experiment
was then carried out. This activity constituted Phase I of the
experiment.
Figure 3 - Subject effort at building layout |
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Figure 3 shows the subject's graphic effort for building layout;
Figure 4 shows the subject's particular attention to a multistory
gantry crane he observed at the site. Both results were obtained
by the experimenters on a double-blind basis before exposure to
any additional COTR-held information, thus eliminating the possibility
of cueing. These results were turned over to the client representatives
for evaluation. For comparison an artist's rendering of the site
as known to the COTR (but not to the experimenters until later)
is shown in Figure 5.....
Figure 5 - Actual COTR rendering of Semipalatinsk, USSR
target site
Were the results not promising, the experiment would have stopped
at this point. Description of the multistory crane, however, a
relatively unusual target item, was taken as indicative of possible
target acquisition. Therefore, Phase II was begun, defined by
the subject being made "witting" (of the client) by
client representatives who introduced themselves to the subject
at that point; Phase II also included a second round of experimentation
on the Semipalatinsk site with direct participation of client
representatives in which further data were obtained and evaluated.
As preparation for this phase, client representatives purposely
kept themselves blind to all but general knowledge of the target
site to minimize the possibility of cueing. The Phase II effort
was focused on the generation of physical data that could be independently
verified by other client sources, thus providing a calibration
of the process.
The end of Phase II gradually evolved into the first part of Phase
III, the generation of unverifiable data concerning the Semipalatinsk
site not available to the client, but of operational interest
nonetheless. Several hours of tape transcript and a notebook of
drawings were generated over a two-week period.
The data describing the Semipalatinsk site were evaluated by the
sponsor, and are contained in a separate report. In general, several
details concerning the salient technology of the Semipalatinsk
site appeared to dovetail with data from other sources, and a
number of specific large structural elements were correctly described.
The results contained noise along with the signal, but were nonetheless
clearly differentiated from the chance results that were generated
by control subjects in comparison experiments carried out by the
COTR."
For discussion of the ambiance and personal factors involved in
carrying out this experiment, along with further detail generated
as Price (see Figure 6) "roamed" the facility, including
detailed comparison of Price's RV-generated information with later-determined
"ground-truth reality," see the accompanying article
by Russell Targ in the Journal of
Scientific Exploration, Vol. 10, No. 1. Click
here to read the abstract.
Figure 6 - Left to right: Christopher Green, Pat Price,
and Hal Puthoff.
Picture taken following a successful experiment involving glider-ground
RV.
Additional experiments having implications for intelligence
concerns were carried out, such as the remote viewing of cipher-machine
type apparatus, and the RV-sorting of sealed envelopes to differentiate
those that contained letters with secret writing from those that
did not. To discuss these here in detail would take us too far
afield, but the interested reader can follow up by referring to
the now-declassified project documents [2].
The above discussion brings us up to the end of 1975. As a
result of the material being generated by both SRI and CIA remote
viewers, interest in the program in government circles, especially
within the intelligence community, intensified considerably and
led to an ever-increasing briefing schedule. This in turn led
to an ever-increasing number of clients, contracts and tasking,
and therefore expansion of the program to a multi-client base,
and eventually to an integrated joint-services program under single-agency
(DIA)6 leadership. To meet the demand
for the increased level of effort we first increased our professional
staff by inviting Ed May to join the program in 1976, then screened
and added to the program a cadre of remote viewers as consultants,
and let subcontracts to increase our scope of activity.
As the program expanded, in only a very few cases could the clients'
identities and program tasking be revealed. Examples include a
NASA-funded study negotiated early in the program by Russ Targ
to determine whether the internal state of an electronic random-number-generator
could be detected by RV processes [16], and a study funded by
the Naval Electronics Systems Command to determine whether attempted
remote viewing of distant light flashes would induce correlated
changes in the viewer's brainwave (EEG) production [17]. For essentially
all other projects during my 14-yr. tenure at SRI, however, the
identity of the clients and most of the tasking were classified
and remain so today. (The exception was the occasional privately-funded
study.) We are told, however, that further declassification and
release of much of this material is almost certain to occur.
What can be said, then, about further development of the program
in the two decades following 1975?7
In broad terms it can be said that much of the SRI effort was
directed not so much toward developing an operational U.S. capability,
but rather toward assessing the threat potential of its use against
the U.S. by others. The words threat assessment were often used
to describe the program's purpose during its development, especially
during the early years. As a result much of the remote-viewing
activity was carried out under conditions where ground-truth reality
was a priori known or could be determined, such as the description
of U.S. facilities and technological developments, the timing
of rocket test firings and underground nuclear tests, and the
location of individuals and mobile units. And, of course, we were
responsive to requests to provide assistance during such events
as the loss of an airplane or the taking of hostages, relying
on the talents of an increasing cadre of remote-viewer/consultants,
some well-known in the field such as Keith Harary, and many who
have not surfaced publicly until recently, such as Joe McMoneagle.
One might ask whether in this program RV-generated information
was ever of sufficient significance as to influence decisions
at a policy level. This is of course impossible to determine unless
policymakers were to come forward with a statement in the affirmative.
One example of a possible candidate is a study we performed at
SRI during the Carter-administration debates concerning proposed
deployment of the mobile MX missile system. In that scenario missiles
were to be randomly shuffled from silo to silo in a silo field,
in a form of high-tech shell game. In a computer simulation of
a twenty-silo field with randomly-assigned (hidden) missile locations,
we were able, using RV-generated data, to show rather forcefully
that the application of a sophisticated statistical averaging
technique (sequential sampling) could in principle permit an adversary
to defeat the system. I briefed these results to the appropriate
offices at their request, and a written report with the technical
details was widely circulated among groups responsible for threat
analysis [18], and with some impact. What role, if any, our small
contribution played in the mix of factors behind the enormously
complex decision to cancel the program will probably never be
known, and must of course a priori be considered in all likelihood
negligible. Nonetheless, this is a prototypical example of the
kind of tasking that by its nature potentially had policy implications.
Even though the details of the broad range of experiments, some
brilliant successes, many total failures, have not yet been released,
we have nonetheless been able to publish summaries of what was
learned in these studies about the overall characteristics of
remote viewing, as in Table 5 of Reference [8]. Furthermore, over
the years we were able to address certain questions of scientific
interest in a rigorous way and to publish the results in the open
literature. Examples include the apparent lack of attenuation
of remote viewing due to seawater shielding (submersible experiments)
[8], the amplification of RV performance by use of error-correcting
coding techniques [19,20], and the utility of a technique we call
associational remote viewing (ARV) to generate useful predictive
information [21].8
As a sociological aside, we note that the overall efficacy of
remote viewing in a program like this was not just a scientific
issue. For example, when the Semipalatinsk data described earlier
was forwarded for analysis, one group declined to get involved
because the whole concept was unscientific nonsense, while a second
group declined because, even though it might be real, it was possibly
demonic; a third group had to be found. And, as in the case of
public debate about such phenomena, the program's image was on
occasion as likely to be damaged by an overenthusiastic supporter
as by a detractor. Personalities, politics and personal biases
were always factors to be dealt with.
With regard to admission by the government of its use of remote
viewers under operational conditions, officials have on occasion
been relatively forthcoming. President Carter, in a speech to
college students in Atlanta in September 1995, is quoted by Reuters
as saying that during his administration a plane went down in
Zaire, and a meticulous sweep of the African terrain by American
spy satellites failed to locate any sign of the wreckage. It was
then "without my knowledge" that the head of the CIA
(Adm. Stansfield Turner) turned to a woman reputed to have psychic
powers. As told by Carter, "she gave some latitude and longitude
figures. We focused our satellite cameras on that point and the
plane was there." Independently, Turner himself also has
admitted the Agency's use of a remote viewer (in this case, Pat
Price).9 And recently, in a segment
taped for the British television series Equinox [22], Maj. Gen.
Ed Thompson, Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, U.S. Army
(1977-1981), volunteered "I had one or more briefings by
SRI and was impressed.... The decision I made was to set up a
small, in-house, low-cost effort in remote viewing...."
Finally, a recent unclassified report [23] prepared for the CIA
by the American Institutes for Research (AIR), concerning a remote
viewing effort carried out under a DIA program called Star Gate
(discussed in detail elsewhere in this volume), cites the roles
of the CIA and DIA in the history of the program, including acknowledgment
that a cadre of full-time government employees used remote viewing
techniques to respond to tasking from operational military organizations.10
As information concerning the various programs spawned by intelligence-community
interest is released, and the dialog concerning their scientific
and social significance is joined, the results are certain to
be hotly debated. Bearing witness to this fact are the companion
articles in this volume by Ed May, Director of the SRI and SAIC
programs since 1985, and by Jessica Utts and Ray Hyman, consultants
on the AIR evaluation cited above. These articles address in part
the AIR study. That study, limited in scope to a small fragment
of the overall program effort, resulted in a conclusion that although
laboratory research showed statistically significant results,
use of remote viewing in intelligence gathering was not warranted.
Regardless of one's a priori position, however, an unimpassioned
observer cannot help but attest to the following fact. Despite
the ambiguities inherent in the type of exploration covered in
these programs, the integrated results appear to provide unequivocal
evidence of a human capacity to access events remote in space
and time, however falteringly, by some cognitive process not yet
understood. My years of involvement as a research manager in these
programs have left me with the conviction that this fact must
be taken into account in any attempt to develop an unbiased picture
of the structure of reality.
[1] "CIA Statement on 'Remote Viewing'," CIA
Public Affairs Office, 6 September 1995.
[2] Harold E. Puthoff and Russell Targ, "Perceptual Augmentation
Techniques," SRI Progress Report No. 3 (31 Oct. 1974) and
Final Report (1 Dec. 1975) to the CIA, covering the period January
1974 through February 1975, the second year of the program. This
effort was funded at the level of $149,555.
[3] H. E. Puthoff, "Toward a Quantum Theory of Life Process,"
unpubl. proposal, Stanford Research Institute (1972).
[4] H. E. Puthoff and R. Targ, "Physics, Entropy and Psychokinesis,"
in Proc. Conf. Quantum Physics and Parapsychology (Geneva, Switzerland);
(New York: Parapsychology Foundation, 1975).
[5] Documented in "Paraphysics R&D - Warsaw Pact (U),"
DST-1810S-202-78, Defense Intelligence Agency (30 March 1978).
[6] R. Targ and H. E. Puthoff, "Information Transfer under
Conditions of Sensory Shielding," Nature 252, 602 (1974).
[7] H. E. Puthoff and R. Targ, "A Perceptual Channel for
Information Transfer over Kilometer Distances: Historical Perspective
and Recent Research," Proc. IEEE 64, 329 (1976).
[8] H. E. Puthoff, R. Targ and E. C. May, "Experimental Psi
Research: Implications for Physics," in The Role of Consciousness
in the Physical World, edited by R. G. Jahn (AAAS Selected Symposium
57, Westview Press, Boulder, 1981).
[9] R. Targ and H. E. Puthoff, Mind Reach (Delacorte Press, New
York, 1977).
[10] J. P. Bisaha and B. J. Dunne, "Multiple Subject and
Long-Distance Precognitive Remote Viewing of Geographical Locations,"
in Mind at Large, edited by C. T. Tart, H. E. Puthoff and R. Targ
(Praeger, New York, 1979), p. 107.
[11] B. J. Dunne and J. P. Bisaha, "Precognitive Remote Viewing
in the Chicago Area: a Replication of the Stanford Experiment,"
J. Parapsychology 43, 17 (1979).
[12] R. G. Jahn, "The Persistent Paradox of Psychic Phenomena:
An Engineering Perspective," Proc. IEEE 70, 136 (1982).
[13] R. G. Jahn and B. J. Dunne, "On the Quantum Mechanics
of Consciousness with Application to Anomalous Phenomena,"
Found. Phys. 16, 721 (1986).
[14] R. G. Jahn and B. J. Dunne, Margins of Reality (Harcourt,
Brace and Jovanovich, New York, 1987).
[15] J. Bamford, The Puzzle Palace (Penguin Books, New York, 1983)
pp. 218-222.
[16] R. Targ, P. Cole and H. E. Puthoff, "Techniques to Enhance
Man/Machine Communication," Stanford Research Institute Final
Report on NASA Project NAS7-100 (August 1974).
[17] R. Targ, E. C. May, H. E. Puthoff, D. Galin and R. Ornstein,
"Sensing of Remote EM Sources (Physiological Correlates),"
SRI Intern'l Final Report on Naval Electronics Systems Command
Project N00039-76-C-0077, covering the period November 1975 -
to October 1976 (April 1978).
[18] H. E. Puthoff, "Feasibility Study on the Vulnerability
of the MPS System to RV Detection Techniques," SRI Internal
Report, 15 April 1979; revised 2 May 1979.
[19] H. E. Puthoff, "Calculator-Assisted Psi Amplification,"
Research in Parapsychology 1984, edited by Rhea White and J. Solfvin
(Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, NJ, 1985), p. 48.
[20] H. E. Puthoff, "Calculator-Assisted Psi Amplification
II: Use of the Sequential-Sampling Technique as a Variable-Length
Majority-Vote Code," Research in Parapsychology 1985, edited
by D. Weiner and D. Radin (Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, NJ, 1986),
p. 73.
[21] H. E. Puthoff, "ARV (Associational Remote Viewing) Applications,"
Research in Parapsychology 1984, edited by Rhea White and J. Solfvin
(Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, NJ, 1985), p. 121.
[22] "The Real X-Files," Independent Channel 4, England
(shown 27 August 1995); to be shown in the U.S. on the Discovery
Channel.
[23] M. D. Mumford, A. M. Rose and D. Goslin, "An Evaluation
of Remote Viewing: Research and Applications," American Institutes
for Research (September 29, 1995).
Copyright 1996 by H.E. Puthoff.
Permission to redistribute granted, but only in complete and unaltered form.
Following are abstracts from the Journal of Scientific Exploration,
Volume 10, Number 1, in which this article first appeared... To
read articles from past issues, and/or for subscription information,
click here to visit their Website.
An Assessment of the Evidence for Psychic Functioning
by Jessica Utts
Division of Statistics, University of California, Davis, CA 95616
Volume 10 Number 1: Page 3.
Research on psychic functioning, conducted over a two decade period,
is examined to determine whether or not the phenomenon has been
scientifically established. A secondary question is whether or
not it is useful for government purposes. The primary work examined
in this report was government sponsored research conducted at
Stanford Research Institute, later known as SRI International,
and at Science Applications International Corporation, known as
SAIC. Using the standards applied to any other area of science,
it is concluded that psychic functioning has been well established.
The statistical results of the studies examined are far beyond
what is expected by chance. Arguments that these results could
be due to methodological flaws in the experiments are soundly
refuted. Effects of similar magnitude to those found in government-sponsored
research at SRI and SAIC have been replicated at a number of laboratories
across the world. Such consistency cannot be readily explained
by claims of flaws or fraud. The magnitude of psychic functioning
exhibited appears to be in the range between what social scientists
call a small and medium effect. That means that it is reliable
enough to be replicated in properly conducted experiments, with
sufficient trials to achieve the long-run statistical results
needed for replicability. A number of other patterns have been
found, suggestive of how to conduct more productive experiments
and applied psychic functioning. For instance, it doesn't appear
that a sender is needed. Precognition, in which the answer is
known to no one until a future time, appears to work quite well.
Recent experiments suggest that if there is a psychic sense then
it works much like our other five senses, by detecting change.
Given that physicists are currently grappling with an understanding
of time, it may be that a psychic sense exists that scans the
future for major change, much as our eyes scan the environment
for visual change or our ears allow us to respond to sudden changes
in sound. It is recommended that future experiments focus on understanding
how this phenomenon works, and on how to make it as useful as
possible. There is little benefit to continuing experiments designed
to offer proof, since there is little more to be offered to anyone
who does not accept the current collection of data.
Evaluation of a Program on Anomalous Mental Phenomena
by Ray Hyman
1227 University of Oregon, Department of Psychology, Eugene, OR
97403
Volume 10 Number 1: Page 31.
Jessica Utts and I were commissioned to evaluate the research
on remote viewing and related phenomena which was carried out
at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) and Scientific Applications
International Corporation (SAIC) during the years from 1973 through
1994. We focussed on the ten most recent experiments which were
conducted at SAIC from 1992 through 1994. These were not only
the most recent but also the most methodologically sound. We evaluated
these experiments in the context of contemporary parapsychological
research. Professor Utts concluded that the SAIC results, taken
in conjunction with other parapsychological research, proved the
existence of ESP, especially precognition. My report argues that
Professor Utts' conclusion is premature, to say the least. The
reports of the SAIC experiments have become accessible for public
scrutiny too recently for adequate evaluation. Moreover, their
findings have yet to be independently replicated. My report also
argues that the apparent consistencies between the SAIC results
and those of other parapsychological experiments may be illusory.
Many important inconsistencies are emphasized. Even if the observed
effects can be independently replicated, much more theoretical
and empirical investigation would be needed before one could legitimately
claim the existence of paranormal functioning. Note: This article
is followed by a response from Jessica Utts.
Remote Viewing at Stanford Research Institute in the 1970s:
A Memoir
by Russell Targ
Bay Research Institute, 1010 Harriet Street, Palo Alto, CA 94301
Volume 10 Number 1: Page 77.
Hundreds of remote viewing experiments were carried out at Stanford
Research Institute (SRI) from 1972 to 1986. The purpose of some
of these trials was to elucidate the physical and psychological
properties of psi abilities, while others were conducted to provide
information for our CIA sponsor about current events in far off
places. We learned that the accuracy and reliability of remote
viewing was not in any way affected by distance, size, or electromagnetic
shielding, and we discovered that the more exciting or demanding
the task, the more likely we were to be successful. Above all,
we became utterly convinced of the reality of psi abilities. This
article focuses on two outstanding examples: One is an exceptional,
map-like drawing of a Palo Alto swimming pool complex, and the
other is an architecturally accurate drawing of a gantry crane
located at a Soviet weapons laboratory, and verified by satellite
photography. The percipient for both of these experiments was
Pat Price, a retired police commissioner who was one of the most
outstanding remote viewers to walk through the doors of SRI.
The American Institutes for Research Review of
the
Department of Defense's STAR GATE Program: A Commentary
by Edwin C. May
Cognitive Sciences Laboratory, 330 Cowper Street, Suite 200, Palo
Alto, CA 94301
Volume 10 Number 1: Page 89.
As a result of a Congressionally Directed Activity, the Central
Intelligence Agency conducted an evaluation of a 24-year, government-sponsored
program to investigate ESP and its potential use within the Intelligence
Community. The American Institutes for Research was contracted
to conduct the review of both research and operations. Their 29
September 1995 final report was released to the public 28 November
1995. As a result of AIR's assessment, the CIA concluded that
a statistically significant effect had been demonstrated in the
laboratory, but that there was no case in which ESP had provided
data that had ever been used to guide intelligence operations.
This paper is a critical review of AIR's methodology and conclusions.
It will be shown that there is compelling evidence that the CIA
set the outcome with regard to intelligence usage before the evaluation
had begun. This was accomplished by limiting the research and
operations data sets to exclude positive findings, by purposefully
not interviewing historically significant participants, by ignoring
previous DOD extensive program reviews, and by using the discredited
National Research Council's investigation of parapsychology as
the starting point for their review. While there may have been
political and administrative justification for the CIA not to
accept the government's in-house program for the operational use
of anomalous cognition, this appeared to drive the outcome of
the evaluation. As a result, they have come to the wrong conclusion
with regard to the use of anomalous cognition in intelligence
operations and significantly underestimated the robustness of
the basic phenomenon.
FieldREG Anomalies in Group Situations
by R. D. Nelson, G. J. Bradish, Y. H. Dobyns, B. J. Dunne, and
R. G. Jahn
Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research, School of Engineering/Applied
Science,
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544
Volume 10 Number 1: Page 111.
Portable random event generators with software to record and index
continuous sequences of binary data in field situations are found
to produce anomalous outputs when deployed in various group environments.
These "FieldREG" systems have been operated under formal
protocols in ten separate venues, all of which subdivide naturally
into temporal segments, such as sessions, presentations, or days.
The most extreme data segments from each of the ten applications,
after appropriate correction for multiple sampling, compound to
a collective probability against chance expectation of 2 X 10^-4.
Interpretation remains speculative at this point, but logbook
notes and anecdotal reports from participants suggest that high
degrees of attention, intellectual cohesiveness, shared emotion,
or other coherent qualities of the groups tend to correlate with
the statistically unusual deviations from theoretical expectation
in the FieldREG sequences. If sustained over more extensive experiments,
such effects could add credence to the concept of a consciousness
"field" as an agency for creating order in random physical
processes.
Anomalous Organization of Random Events by Group Consciousness:
Two Exploratory Experiments
by Dean I. Radin, Jannine M. Rebman, and Maikwe P. Cross
Consciousness Research Laboratory, Harry Reid Center,
University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV 89154-4009
Volume 10 Number 1: Page 143.
Two experiments explored the hypothesis that when a group of people
focus their attention on a common object of interest, order will
arise in the environment. An electronic random number generator
was used to detect these changes in order. Events judged to be
interesting to the group were called periods of high coherence
and were predicted to cause corresponding moments of order in
the random samples collected during those events; uninteresting
events were predicted to cause chance levels of order in the random
samples. The first experiment was conducted during an all-day
Holotropic Breathwork workshop. The predictions were confirmed,
with a significant degree of order observed in the random samples
during high group coherence periods (p = 0.002), and chance order
observed during low group coherence periods (p = 0.43). The second
experiment was conducted during the live television broadcast
of the 67th Annual Academy Awards. Two random binary generators,
located 12 miles apart, were used to independently measure order.
The predictions were confirmed for about half of the broadcast
period, but the terminal cumulative probabilities were not significant.
A post-hoc analysis showed that the strength of the correlation
between the output of the two random generators was significantly
related (r = 0.94) to the decline in the television viewing audience.