LETTER FROM NRC
CIA-STARGATE
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The National Research Council (NRC) declines the offer to evaluate the CIA's remote viewing studies, stating that the existing literature on remote viewing is weak and virtually nonexistent. They recommend that the CIA make use of their own recent report to guide their assessment of remote viewing studies.
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Body: Approved For Release 2003/04/18 : CIA-RDP96-00791R000100170001-9
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
COMMISSION ON BEHAVIORAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES AND EDUCATION
2101 Constitution Avenue Washington, D.C. 20418
May 5, 1995
Fax:
Office of Research and Development, CIA
Ames Building, Room 846
Washington, D.C. 20505
TELEPI-IONE: (202) 334-2300
FAX: (202) 334-2201
We appreciate your thinking of the National Research Council (NRC) in
terms of evaluating your remote viewing studies. As you know, we did a very
thorough look at a number of paranormal phenomena in a study entitled
Enhancing Human Performance, Issues Theories and Techniques published by the
National Academy Press in 1988.
One section of that-report was entitled "Scientific Assessment of Remote
Viewing" beginning on p. 178. The report reviewed the major studies and
concluded:
"In summary, after approximately 15 years of claims and sometimes bitter
controversy, the literature on remote viewing has managed to produce
only one possibly successful experiment that is not seriously flawed in
its methodology - and that one experiment provides only marginal
evidence for the existence of ESP. By both scientific and
parapsychological standards, then, the case for remote viewing is not
just very weak, but virtually nonexistent. It seems that the preeminent
position that remote viewing occupies in the minds of many proponents
results from the highly exaggerated claims made for the early
experiments, as well as the subjectively compelling, but illusory,
correspondences that experimenters and participants find between
components of the descriptions and the target sites."
The comparative advantage of the NRC is in evaluating a field of
research. To put the machinery of the NRC committee process into place for
the evaluation of a limited set of studies does not seem warranted so soon
after the last report. What I hope is that our recent report will be helpful
in guiding your own assessment of remote viewing studies.
Please let me know if I can be of help.
cc: John Swets
Sandy Wigdor
Dan Druckman
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