A DYNAMIC PK EXPERIMENT WITH INGO SWANN

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Body:  Approved For Releaoe'2003/09/04: CIA-RDP96-00787R0002130005-3
 A DYNAMIC PK EXPERIMENT WITH INGO SWANN
 Edwin C. Mayl and Charles Honorton
 Maimonides Medical Center
 We report a preliminary study of psychokinetic influence on a
 noise-driven binary random generator with Ingo Swann.  Mr..Swann
 .has produced significant psi effects in a variety of controlled
 tests in three different laboratories.  He may, without exaggeration,
 be called an applied specialist in this area.  Our primary objective,
 therefore, was not merely to provide another demonstration of PK, or
 of Mr. Swann's abilities, but rather, to introduce him to this form
 of psychokinetic task,in order to assess the feasibility of develop-
 ing a systematic research effort that would utilize Mr. Swann's in
 sight and ability to maximum advantage.
 One of us  (ECM) had described the instrument, which we call
 PSIFI,  in detail to Mr. Swann and it appeared appropriate that we
 should take a "physics" approach to the PK task.  Before the experi-
 ment began, we explained the internal workings of the instrument and
 the basic physics principles involved to Mr. Swann.  We partially
 dismantled the sensitive sections of the instrument for his inspection,
 pointing out internal data paths and the source of the random noise.
 1
 Present address:   Physics Dept., City College of San Francisco..
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 May and IIonorton/2
 These were marked with tape.  Further, we explained two possible
 physics-type phenomena that would dramatically alter the behavior
 of the instrument.
 While Mr. Swann frequently peered into the open top of the
 instrument and took frequent notes, we took data for runs of 103
 trials at a generation rate of 50/sec.  Mr. Swann operated the
 instrument by manually depressing the reset button at the beginning
 of each run.  Feedback was provided via a scaler reading of the
 run score.  We informed Mr. Swann that chance expectation was 500/
 run and that a significant influence on the instrument would be
 reflected by consistent deviations from this mean.
 Overall, 29 runs of 103 trials were completed.  The mean run
 score of 493 is statistically significant (t = 2.71, 28 df, p = .011,
 2-tailed).  The. mean run score for the first 10 runs was 495.4 (n.s.)
 for the second set of 9 runs the mean was 493.1  (n.s.).   The last
 set of 10 runs was taken while Mr. Swann's EEG was being monitored.
 During these runs, he was in a sound-attenuated room, adjacent to
 the instrument room. 'These runs were independently significant,
 with a mean of 491.8  (t = 2.630 9 df, p = .027).
 One hour after Mr.. Swann's departure from the. laboratory,  C.H.
 ran a control series of 3 x 105 trials  (i.e., 30 runs of 104 trials).
 The control runs showed excellent approximation to theoretical
 chance expectation, with a mean of 499.7 (t = 0.11, 29 df, p = .91).
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 May and Honorton/3
 We conclude that Mr. Swann was successful in exerting a psycho-
 kinetic influence on the instrument.  We also regard the.following
 trends as provocative and highly suggestive of directions for
 further collaborative research with Mr. Swann:
 ?  Performance improved (and was independently significant)
 with increased distance from the instrument.  During the
 last 10 runs, Mr. Swann was separated from the instrument
 by distance and by two double steel walls.
 ?  Performance showed steady improvement from the beginning
 to end of session.
 ? Variability of performance decreased from the first to
 the last 10 runs of the session (F10,10= 1.86, p = .16).
 These latter two trends, while not in themselves significant,
 suggest the advisability of further research relating to Mr. Swann's
 belief that his performance in psi tasks is susceptible to learning.
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 Approved For ReleW 663/  /0~'    t    96-00787R000   130005-3
 for'the New York Meeting of the
 American Physical Society
 2 - 5 February 1976
 Physics and Astronomy
 Classification Scheme
 Number 05
 Bulletin Subject Heading in
 Which Paper Should Be Placed:
 General Physics
 Possible Detection of Experimenter-Instrument
 Interaction with.a Selected Subject.  E. C. MAY and
 C. HONORTON, Maimonides Medical Center---An experiment
 was performed with an individual who claims to influ-
 ence remote physical systems by non-physical means.
 Prior experimental tests in 3 other laboratories pro-
 vided encouraging results.   In the present experiment
 the subject was tested with a noise driven binary ran-
 dom event generator in which each event is compared to
 a "target" alternating between '0' and '1' at a rate
 of 50 events/second. The number of events and the num-
 ber of matches  (events corresponding to targets) were
 recorded.   Data were taken for 29 runs of 103 events
 during which the subject attempted to influence the
 binary output of events. The results corresponded to a
 probability against chance of p