C00021994

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NOTE FOR:

SUBJECT : Comments

I. I admire these people for their patience in trying for three years to get something definitive. I wonder why they neglected to include reproductior.s of the polygraph charts used for their analyses. It would be real exciting if I could do any better.

2. /called and gave a bibliography reference for parapsychology. I have requested it. He also said a man named Ifrom NIMH called and asked him if he knew of anyone in the US working in parapsychology. referred him to

3. It may be worth considering that psychokinesis occurs via an energy "exchange" or communication between the experimenter and the object. Then assumiag it is some foxn of energy, experiments can be performed to make a systematic investigation into what form of energy (thermal, radiative, etc.) is involved. I suppose a term like "coupling energy" might te introduced when some success is indicazed.

P.S. Would like to file with Plant Sensors File

C00021994

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3 April 1972

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Éxpert Uses Polygraph

Your Plants May Be Perceptive

Dy Ron Shaffer Wesniacton Poat Stell Writer

Cleve Backster, 48, s a lie deteetor specialist who afler years of tests and olservaton, has concleded that plants pereçive more than we might suspect.

For instanee, Backster says. plants are awure of people and sense thoir intentions, and react by sending out signals that ean be recorded by a polygraph maentne (lio detector).

A plant in danger may go into its equivalent of iuman siock, Backster says, On the . otier hand, he says a loved plant will prosper.

Backster is the director of a New York polygraph school for law cnfercement officials and has bcen v,ora !ng with lie detectors for 24 years. During the last six years, he has also been niaking 'polygraph studles of plants.

Hls work wilh plants, which hras been disıissed as implausible by many arca seientists, begaa in 196s, he reealled, when in u moment of divcrsion. he decided to hook polygraph elcctrodes to tie leaves of an offce plant.

Article taken from Washington Post, 18 Apr11 1972, Section A and C.

"Surprisingly, the, contour lines on the chares were similar to typical reaetions of a human," he said in an interview yestcrtiay. He spoke to spiritualist-oriented groups in the metropolitan arca Sunday ant Monday.

"I·thought about testing its reactions and deciced to burn it with a match. At that very instant thc recording pen bounced off the top of the chart'.

Backster said his life hasn't been the same since.

"The initial result indicated that plants have some sort of pereeptivo ability," he said.

In subsequent tests, he said he found that plants emitted à straight Iine on the chart, or went into "nonproductivity" whem a certain botanist entered the room. Tha botarist, he ciscovered, dcstroyed plants in the course of her work.

After uc botanist left, the plant would slow\_y recover and alter 30 minltes would

CLEVE BACKSTER ... "loved plaut prospers"

send, out, norual signals, "he said 4. Anouer tst showed that. Sce PLANTS, CG, CoL .

Your Plants May Be Perceptive

PLANTS, From C1

a plant 'could "identify." with an exaggerated reacton on the graph, one man in a group of six who mínutes before had destroyed another plant in the room,

"I alsò found that whenever I talked about my office plant, no matter what part of the country I was in, the plant would show a corresponding reaction on the charts, at exactly the same monent I was talking about it," Backster said.

Backster sald that these and other of the "thousands" of observations he has made "leads me to beleve that plants have a sensc of pereeption that goes beyond our basic five senses."

He sald he has found that a plant has an "attunement" with Its owner and reects to praise,

When people go on vacations," he said, "I often suggest they take along a picture of a plan: and think about ft." This Insures lts health, he says.

Backster,. who sald he has received lttle criticism from anyone about ais theories, seid that plant perception could someday be used to thwart airplane hiljackers by keeping a plant at the gate to sensc bed latentions, Military personnel, he said, have suggested tlat a plant might be taken on patrois to tip off soldiers of impendlag , ambushes.

Backster sald he receives funds for his rescareh from small grants aad from the profits of his sct col.

." "Private organizations, and the goveinrnent, too, don't want to sponsor rescarch ihey taink night wind up emberrassing to them," he said.

Area scientisis contacted yesterday áid not cguivocate when eskcd about Backster's findings.

Area scientista contacted yesterday did not equivocata when asked about Backster's findings.

"My dear sir, does this research seem rezsonable to you?" asked an increduicus Dr. Robert Krauss, head of the botany deparlment at. the University of Maryland.

Dr. Joseph Graham, an s riculturcl administrator at the U:S. Department of Ag. riculture, said thas the department condueis research only on high priority problemns, and he did not think that Lackster's findings would fall into that category.

"We can't say anything Is imposslble," he said, "but (what Backster suggests) seems highly improbable."