from
PSIExplorer Website
recovered through
WayBackMachine Website
The remote viewing (RV) work at SRI
(1972-1990) and at SAIC (1990-1995) is unique in the history of the
field of parapsychology. For one thing, it is the only long-term psi-
research program known to have been funded by the U.S. government
(specifically, the Department of Defense and different intelligence
agencies, such as the CIA); second, its raison d'괲e was, from the
outset, driven by an interest in applications, i.e., the use of psi
for intelligence operations; third, because of its sensitive nature,
a majority of this work has been - and still is - classified.
Nevertheless, a recent Congressionally Directed Action induced a
declassification of a small portion of the documents, as well as
leading to an evaluation of the 24-year government-sponsored
program, known as STARGATE.
The early SRI work, initiated by physicists
Hal Puthoff and
Russell Targ, focused on a few
gifted individuals, such as New York artist
Ingo Swann, and former police
commissioner
Pat Price. Pilot trials with
these individuals produced some truly astonishing results. For
example, Swann suggested trying to remote view the planet Jupiter
before the NASA Pioneer 10 spacecraft would photograph the planet.
To his surprise, he reported seeing a ring around the planet - which
seemed quite contradictory with all that was known about Jupiter;
nevertheless, Targ & Puthoff mentioned Swann's statement in their
report, and, soon afterwards, the photos taken by Pioneer 10 indeed
revealed an unexpected ring around the planet.
Pat Price, in his first task for "psychic spying" on the Soviets,
was simply given the coordinates of an "R & D facility" in the
Soviet Union. Price went on to describe and draw, with amazing
detail, a major structure at the site.
The first public (i.e., unclassified) reports of the RV experiments
at
SRI, including over 50 trials with
Price, Swann and a few other subjects, yielded solid qualitative and
quantitative evidence for the reality of RV. Following report of
these results in the interdisciplinary journal Nature, considerable
controversy arose, as critics questioned both protocol and
statistics. Nevertheless, even using conservative estimates of
success, and independent evaluations, the SRI data seemed clearly
supportive of the psi hypothesis.
A number of other experiments followed seeking to determine what, if
any, were the limitations of RV. In one experiment, for example, the
targets were small objects placed in metal film-containers (which
exclude light), while in another they consisted of microdots (images
shrunk to the size of a dot, and demanding a microscope to be seen).
RV seemed to work just as well as ever.
Even more interesting was a short
experiment which involved not only considerable distances between
sender and receiver, but also the tremendous physical barrier of the
ocean depths, known to block almost all electromagnetic radiation.
Two sessions were conducted, each involving a gifted subject (Hella
Hammid and Ingo Swann) who was in a submersible, in the depths of
the Pacific; the sender was located at a randomly selected site in
the San Francisco Bay Area.
Despite distance and the filtering
action of the ocean, both sessions were successful, with each
subject describing their targets with high precision, and the
quantitative results being statistically significant.
PROJECT
STARGATE
Also worthy of note is some of the later work of Puthoff and Targ,
attempting to enhance the accuracy and reliability of RV by using
different error-correcting techniques (i.e., majority vote and
Associational Remote Viewing).
The STARGATE project continued well into the 1990s, under the
direction of physicist
Edwin May, first at SRI and
then at SAIC (Science Applications International Corp.).
Extending earlier work of Puthoff and Targ, May and his colleagues
conducted a number of studies exploring the potential of RV for
intelligence-gathering, while also attempting to understand some of
its underlying mechanisms. Working with a small, select group of
"expert" remote viewers, the SRI/SAIC researchers continued to
produce some very striking examples of the applied potential of
remote viewing, while also exploring certain fundamental questions
about the nature of this skill.
In its totality, the STARGATE work provides some of the most solid
evidence for psi to date - as can be witnessed by the recently
declassified documents. Nevertheless, an agency contracted by the
CIA to evaluate the 24-year program (American Institutes for
Research or AIR) managed to give a mixed review, with a
positive assessment by statistician Jessica Utts, a negative one by
psychologist Ray Hyman, and an overall recommendation by the
AIR staff to terminate the STARGATE program.
Although accepting that a significant
effect had been shown under scientifically rigorous conditions,
the AIR report suggests that there is no need to accept the
reality of RV, and that, in any event, its pragmatic utility for
intelligence-gathering had not been demonstrated. Following this,
Edwin May made several public appearances strongly challenging the
objectivity of the AIR, and questioning the true motives driving its
report.
An article by May, detailing
some of the more objectionable aspects of this affair, has appeared
in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, along with articles by SRI
researchers Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ and AIR consultants Jessica
Utts and Ray Hyman.
For more detailed information on Stargate, go to
HERE.
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