SRI STUDIES IN REMOTE VIEWING: A PROGRAM REVIEW

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Body:  Approved For Release 2000/08/S:` RfTP96-00792R000600230001-6
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 SCIENCE PANEL REPORT
 SRI STUDIES IN REMO  VIEWING:
 A--PROGRAM-REVIEW
 1 MARCH 1984
 Approved For Release 2000 0" 9ftill-RDP96-00792R000600230001-6
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 SRI STUDIES IN REMOTE VIEWING:  A PROGRAM REVIEW
 For the past eleven years, a small group headed by Dr. H. Puthoff has
 sought evidence that would support the case for extrasensory perception.  In
 recent years, the focus of these studies has centered on "remote viewing" by
 subjects claiming to visualize the scene at a point beyond the field of vision,
 and in many cases, in a remote part of the world, typically not known to them
 by actual experience.  The implication of success in remote viewing, if it
 exists, are revolutionary; since as described to the review team, it is mani-
 festly, incompatible with currently accepted scientific principles.  Remote view-
 ing of future events-- "precognition"--evidently violates causality; real time
 remote viewing clearly requires a transmission mechanism other than any known
 process:  electromagnetic, gravitational, etc.
 The lack of a physical model should not be taken to preclude the existence
 of the capability to view a remote location.  However, this circumstance has
 thus far limited application of the classic methods of scientific investiga-
 tion to less cogent issues, such as controls for inadvertent cueing, statistical
 evaluation of the incidence of positive findings, estimation of false-positive
 and false-negative responses, and in particular, the design of experiments that
 would limit as far as possible intrusion of extraneous factors relating to
 personal interaction and observer biases.
 The evidence shown to us is too impressive to dismiss as mere coincidence.
 Certain similarities between the SRI and Princeton results, obtained in very
 different circumstances by unrelated investigators, are particularly compelling.
 The Princeton work is somewhat more quantitative than that at SRI and leads to
 an estivate by Dr. R. Jahn that the phenomena he has observed could be
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 Approved For Release 2000/08/09 Eexplained by a transfer of information above noise at a level of about one bit
 per thousand.  This of course raises the question of how much information is
 required to construct the impressions gained by remote viewing, a question
 which the investigators cannot presently answer.  Therefore, the review team
 feels that remote viewing is either real or due to some sort of experimental
 interference from one or some of the participants; something one might describe
 as "inadvertent cueing."  Although, on the basis of our brief exposure to the
 SRI program, we found no obvious evidence of cueing or collusion between the
 viewer and the experiment monitors.
 The briefings strongly emphasized the investigator's ability to train
 others in their techniques.  This training program has developed over the past
 five years through the dedicated participation of Mr. Ingo Swann.  His diverse
 talents have been devoted to self-training which he now feels competent to
 impart to others.  Approximately a dozen trainees have completed instruction to
 various levels of claimed competence.  An important aspect of Swann's contribu-
 tions relates to his dissection of separate elements in the perceptual process.
 Under his guidance, the technique centers around the use of a coordinate method
 to describe the remote location, expressed in degrees of latitude and longitude.
 It is here that any attempt at a rational understanding of the perceptual
 process is lost.  Since the significance of the coordinates so expressed is
 unknown to the viewer in most instances, it is impossible to understand why
 such a method should be translated in the viewing process into a precise delin-
 eation of geographic characteristics of the target site.  The arbitrariness of
 this approach has not escaped the investigators, but repeated attempts to
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 elicit a rational basis for this procedure, or to secure definitive informa-
 tion about possible success or failures with other methods that they may have
 tried, were uniformly unsuccessful.  The investigators' attitude was that since
 they had found the coordinate method to work, they were not disposed to query
 the mechanistic basis of its applications, nor to seek an appraisal of other
 potentially successful methods.
 Mr. Swann has distinguished three phases in his subjective interpretation
 of his viewing capabilities.  The initial percept appears very rapidly with a
 latency stated to be as short as 1/50 of a second.  Thereafter, for a period
 that may persist for several minutes, increasing detail may be added.  There-
 after, and only after as much material has been added to the initial percept as
 possible, is the subject encouraged to examine his subjective image in a crit-
 ical way, or to make syntheses or judgments about the significance of the
 perceived material.  Swann pointed out that intrusion of a judgmental or inter-
 pretive attitude too early in the building of the percept was generally
 destructive, and to be discouraged in the course of training others.
 A considerable variety of material was presented with photographic backup
 in support of the validity of the perceptual method.  Much of this was highly
 impressive.  The data showed the effects of training on the success rate,
 which typically reached a sustained plateau at a level higher than prior to
 training, both for groups of subjects as well as for individual trainees.
 What then may be anticipated if the program is continued?  In the absence
 of a physical model for the perceptual process, no predictions are possible
 about higher success rates in larger groups of viewers concentrating on the
 same target, nor about the effect on success rates to be expected if the
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 technique were extended to those with special intellectual abilities or
 professional backgrounds.
 Exploration of the phenomenon should not be restricted to specific
 applications.  Rather, remote viewing should be studied as a scientific
 research program aimed at establishing the existence or non-existence of the
 phenomenon.  In this way, a comprehensive and credible evaluation of the
 phenomenon should be available from continuing effort over the next five
 to ten years.  The potential impact of this phenomenon is clearly profound.
 Therefore, a mandatory requirement would be the existence of independent but
 related programs conducted by others, with the free exchange of techniques
 and results.  Only through independent reproducibility can a phenomenon.so
 unconventional ever become accepted.
 It is our conclusion that Dr. Puthoff's team warrants cautious continued
 fiscal support, and that the research should be conducted as much as possible
 in an open unclassified mode so that its reproducibility and accuracy can be
 independently verified by others.
 W. ROSS ADEY
 DONALD M. KER     1A
 1 Marsh .1IJ84
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