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daily descriptions were collected before
the
traveler's return:
six re-
sponses
from one
subject,
five
from another,
and
one
from
a
third.
The
third subject who
submitted
the
single response
supplied
a
draw-
ing
for
a day
in
the middle of
the
series.
(The
subject's response,
to-
gether with
the photographs
taken at
the
site,
are
shown
in Figure
1.)
Although Costa Rica
is
a mountainous
country,
the
subject unexpectedly
perceived
the
traveler
at
a beach and ocean
setting.
With
some misgiving,
he described an airport on
a
sandy beach and an airstrip with
the ocean
at
the
end
(correct).
An airport building also was
drawn,
and
shown
to
have
a
large
rectangular overhang
(correct).
The
traveler had
taken
a
one-day,
unplanned
side-trip
to
an offshore
island and at
the
time
of
the
experiment had just disembarked from
a plane
at
a
small
island airport
as
described by
the
subject 4000 km away.
The
sole discrepancy was
that
the
subject's drawing showed
a Quonset-hut
type
of building
in place
of
the
rectangular
structure.
The above description was
chosen as
an example
to
illustrate
a major
point observed
a number
of
times
throughout
the program
to
be described.
Contrary
to what may
be
expected,
a
subject's description does
not neces-
sarily portray what may reasonably be expected
to be correct
(an educated
or
"safe"
guess),
but often runs
counter even
to
the
subject
' s, own expec-
tations.
We wish
to
stress
again
that
a result
such as
the above
is
not unusual.
The remaining submissions
in
this experiment provided
further examples
of
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AIRPORT
IN SAN ANDRES, COLOMBIA, USED AS REMOTE VIEWING TARGET
FIGURE
AIRPORT
IN SAN ANDRES, COLOMBIA, USED AS REMOTE VIEWING TARGET
ALONG WITH SKETCH PRODUCED BY SUBJECT
IN CALIFORNIA
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I
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excellent correspondences between
target and response.
(A
target period
of poolside relaxation was
identified;
a drive
through
a
tropical
forest
at
the
base of
a
truncated volcano was
described
as
a drive
through
a
jungle
below
a
large bare
table mountain;
a hotel room target description,
including such details
as
rug
color,
was
correct;
and
so
on.)
So
as
to
determine whether
such matches were
simply
fortuitous --that
is,
could
reasonably be expected on
the
basis
of chance
alone,
Dr,
Puthoff was
asked after he had returned
to
blind match
the
twelve descriptions
to
his
seven
target
locations.
On
the basis
of
this
conservative evaluation
procedure,
which vastly underestimates
the
statistical
significance of the
individual
descriptions,
five correct matches were obtained.
This
number
of npatches
is
significant
at
p
=
0.02
by exact binomial calculation.
The observation of
such unexpectedly high-quality descriptions
early
in our program
led
to
a
large-scale
study of
the phenomenon at
SRI under
secure,
double-blind conditions
(i.e.,
target unknown
to experimenters
as
well
as
subjects),
with independent random target selection and blind judg-
ing,
The
results,
presented
in Sections
III and
IV,
provide
strong evi-
dence
for
the robustness
of
this phenomenon whereby
a human perceptual
modallity of extreme
sensitivity can detect complex remote
stimuli.
•k
The probability of
a
correct daily match by chance
for any given tran-
script
is
p =
1/7.
Therefore,
the probability of at
least
five correct
matches
by chance
out
of
twelve
tries
can be calculated
from
y*
12 J
/ 1
\L
/ 6
\ (12 ~ i)
P =
££
il (12 - i):
\7 )
\7
I
0.02
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II
BACKGROUND
Although we
are approaching
the
study
of
these phenomena
as physicists,
it
is
not yet possible
to
separate ourselves entirely
from the
language
of
the nineteenth century when
the
laboratory
study of
the paranormal was
begun.
Consequently,
we
continue
to
use
terms
such as
"paranormal,
"telep-
athy,"
and
the
like.
However,
we
intend only
to
indicate
a process
of
information transfer under conditions
generally accepted
as
secure against
such
transfer
and with
no prejudice
or occult assumptions
as
to
the mecha-
nisms
involved.
As
in any other
scientific pursuit,
the purpose
is
to
collect
the observables
that result
from experiments
and
to
try
to deter-
mine
the
functional relationships between
these observables
and
the
laws
of physics
as
they are currently understood.
Organized research
into
so-called psychic
functioning began roughly
in
the
time of
J.
J.
Thomson,
Sir Oliver Lodge,
and
Sir William Crookes,
all of whom took part
in
the
founding of
the
Society
for Psychical Research
(SPR)
in
1882
in England.
Crookes,
for example,
carried
out
his principal
investigations with
D.
D.
Home,
a Scotsman who grew up
in America and re-
turned
to England
in
1855
[3].
According
to
the notebooks
and published
reports
of Crookes,
Home had demonstrated
the ability
to cause objects
to
move without
touching
them.
We
should note
in passing
that,
Home,
unlike
most
subjects,
worked only
in
the
light
and spoke
out
in
the
strongest
possible
terms
against
the darkened
seance
rooms popular at
the
time
[5].
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Sir William Crookes was
a pioneer
in
the study of electrical discharge
in gases and
in
the development of vacuum
tubes,
some
types of which
still
bear his
name.
Although everything Crookes
said about electron beams and
plasmas was accepted,
nothing he
said about
the achievements of D.
D.
Home
ever achieved
that
status.
Many of his colleagues,
who had not observed
the experiments with Home,
stated publicly
that
they thought Crookes had
been deceived,
to which Crookes angrily responded:
Will
not my critics
give me credit
for
some amount of common
sense?
Do
they not
imagine
that
the obvious precautions,
which
occur
to
them as
soon as
they
sit down
to pick holes
in my ex-
periments,
have occurred
to me also
in
the
course of my prolonged
and patient investigation?
The answer
to
this,
as
to
all other
objections
is,
prove
it
to be an error,
by showing where
the
error
lies,
or
if
a
trick,
by showing how
the
trick
is performed.
Try
the experiment
fully and
fairly.
If
then fraud
be
found,
expose
it;
if
it
be
a
truth,
proclaim
it.
This
is
the only
scientific procedure,
and
it
is
that
I propose
steadily
to
pursue
[3].
In
the United
States,
scientific
interest
in the paranormal was cen-
tered
in
the universities.
In
1912 John Coover
[6]
was established
in
the
endpwed Chair of Psychical Research at Stanford University.
In
the
1920s,
Haryard University
set
up research programs with George Estabrooks and
L.
T .
Troland
[7], [8].
It was
in this
framework
that
in
1930 William
McDbugall
invited Drs.
J.
B.
and Louisa Rhine
to
join
the Psychology
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