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
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
1020 to
(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
HI
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,
1 " 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
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
October
1973
to
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),
A'
(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)
Forced -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
w'here
the
targets
are
drawn
from
a
large
set
of
potential
material
(e.gM
photographs
of
natural
scenes,
natural
physical
locations),
and
the
experiments
are
conducted
under
strict
laboratory
conditions.
(3)
RV-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