Approved For Release 2003/01/09 : CIA-RDP96-00789R002200480001-5 II EXECUTIVE SUMMARY We have conducted a review and analysis of the psychoenergetic research conducted at SRI International from 1 October 1973 to 30 September 1988. The database comprises 117 documents with a total of 5,025 pages. A total of 25,449 trials were conducted under a variety of protocols. Analysis indicates that the odds that our results are not due to simple statistical fluctuations alone are better than 2 x 102°to 1 (i.e., 2 followed by 20 zeros). Using accepted criteria set forth in the standard behavioral sciences, we conclude that this constitutes convincing, if not conclusive, evidence for the existence of psychoenergetic functioning. The main results are summarized below: ® Remote viewing (RV) can provide useful information. ® Laboratory remote viewing show the greatest potential for practical applications. @ Experienced viewers are significantly better than the general population. ® Approximately 1% of the general population possess a natural remote viewing ability. @” Remote viewing ability does not degrade over time. ® At this time, there is no quantitative evidence to support a training hypothesis. ® Natural scenes are significantly better than symbols as targets for remote viewing. ® Remote viewing quality is independent of target distance and/or size. @ There is no evidence to support that a psychoenergetic interaction with the physical world exists. ® Electromagnetic shielding is not effective against psychoenergetic acquisition of information. ® A potential central nervous system correlate to remote viewing has recently been identified. Approved For Release 2003/01/09 : CIA-RDP96-00789R002200480001-5
Approved For Release 2003/01/09 : CIA-RDP96-00789R002200480001-5 III INTRODUCTION Until recently, the task of assessing any general body of published knowledge was formidable. Most of the attempts included review articles that were based primarily upon the informed opinions of the reviewers. It was recognized, however, that in the behavioral sciences specific problems arose that were unique to those disciplines. For example, many of the behavioral results are based on a statistical rejection of a null hypothesis, and, using accepted practices,'" a successful outcome is declared if the odds that the result is not due to a chance statistical fluctuation are better than 20 to 1. A major problem for reviewers is created when the behavioral sciences’ technical journals refuse to publish results that fail to meet this statistical criterion. For example, if only one-in-20 studies is published, then the literature may appear to provide evidence for a phenomenon, but taken with the 19 unpublished studies for every published one, there is no evidence for a phenomenon. This particular difficulty is called “the file drawer problem.” This and other problems resulting from the diversity and difficulty of the behavioral sciences have been addressed in a new review technique known as meta-analysis.2~4 Meta-analytical procedures are most useful when a large number of diverse studies is under consideration. Meta-analysis provides techniques to clarify the impact of the file drawer problem and to enable us to combine diverse experiments in a meaningful manner. » The results of SRI’s psychoenergetic research encompass a wide variety of experiments and thus can be addressed with these techniques. The analysis of the SRI data, however, is simplified because there is no file drawer problem. All experiments that were conducted have been reported, and thus are included in the analysis. This report describes the database, the analysis techniques, and the results of 16 years of psychoenergetic research conducted at SRI International. * References may be found at the end of this report. Approved For Release 2003/01/09 : CIA-RDP96-00789R002200480001-5
Approved For Release 2003/01/09 : CIA-RDP96-00789R002200480001-5 IV METHOD OF APPROACH (U) A. Analysis Domain The domain of this meta-analysis includes all government-sponsored intelligence applications and psychoenergetic research conducted at SRI International, or under the auspices of its subcontractors, from 1 October 1973 to 30 September 1988. A priori declared demonstrations or other activities that were not under the control of SRI International were not included in the documentation. All other forms of experimentation were included in SRI International technical reports, unclassified journals, or publications, and thus were part of this analysis. This database comprises 117 documents with a total of 5,025 pages. By definition, there is no file drawer problem in this analysis; all items that met the above criteria were included regardless of their results. Care was exercised to avoid multiple entries of the same data. All psychoenergetic phenomena fall broadly into two classes: (1) Information Processes—those phenomena that involve a passive transfer of information (e.g., remote viewing, search), (2) Causal Processes—those putative phenomena that involve an anomalous interaction with matter (e.g., remote action). The psychoenergetic effort has been divided into various categories within these processes. The various categories within this domain are defined as follows: (1) Eorced-Choice—remote viewing where the targets are drawn from a limited (and known) set of potential symbols (e.g., the integers 0, 1). (2) RV-Lab—remote viewing where the targets are drawn from a large set of potential material (e.g., photographs of natural scenes, natural physical locations), and the experiments are conducted under strict laboratory conditions. (3) RY-Ops—remote viewing where the targets are drawn from specific targets of interest (4) Search—remote viewing where the targets are generally known but their location is unknown (e.g., a specific military aircraft is known to have crashed—where is it?). Approved For Release 2003/01/09 : CIA-RDP96-00789R002200480001-5
Approved For Release 2003/01/09 : CIA-RDP96-00789R002200480001-5 For the purpose of this analysis, all putative causal-process experiments are considered under the general heading of remote action. Figure 1 shows a schematic representation of these categories and the total number of individual! trials that were conducted within each category. Psychoenergetics 26,074 : Informational | Causal 25,045 1,029 Search FIGURE 1 CATEGORIES AND NUMBER OF TRIALS The total number of psychoenergetic trials (26,074) was collected in 154 different experiments involving 227 different subjects.* All the data were entered into a computer ‘database management system (DBMS). B, Database Management System 1. Database Requirements One of the main purposes of performing a meta-analysis is to be able to look at data gathered from multiple studies conducted under a wide variety of circumstances. In order to collect and store the data in a meaningful way, one must know what kind of data manipulations will be performed. To evaluate the effect of certain parameters on psychoenergetic functioning, we needed to focus our attention on the conditions of a wide array of potentially important variables. As a result, the database design is primarily determined by the data and provides for the selection of information, by experiment, given parameter specifications. . The number of subjects does not include the preliminary mass screening partici- pants. The formal screening participants were, however, included in the analysis. Approved For Release 2003/01/09 : CIA-RDP96-00789R002200480001-5