Approved For Release 2003/09/1 0
: CIA-RDP96-00788R001 70021 001 0-1
*:Behavior
\
, /
Back From Beyond
By Antoinette May
When
Ingo Swann was
a
small
child
he
would sometimes float from his bed at night,
soaring out of his body and slipping into the'
earth of his native Rocky Mountains where he
would follow the veins of metal ore through the
ground
until they emerged on the mountain
surface.
A
childhood
fantasy?
Perhaps.
But
consider the many today,
still floating—only
this time at the direction of Stanford Research
Institute in Menlo Park.
Again and again, Swann has demonstrat-
ed the ability to "see" a distant object without
leaving
his
body.
Dr.
Harold
Puthoff and
Russell Targ, physicists at Stanford Research
Institute (SRI) call this phenomenon "remote
viewing.”
Swann calls it out-of-body-experience or
OOBE.
Swann’s OOBE
began
in
the
most
common manner, a stress situation. The classic'
OOBE
happens
spontaneously
during
an
accident or surgical operation. The individual,'
generally after being terrified by the prospect
of death,
is amazed
to find himself hovering
above
his
body
watching
the
surrounding
activity with a new detachment.
Ingo Swann experienced
this phenome-
non when
he was
three years old during
a
tonsillectomy. Gliding up above his small body,
the
child
watched
with
fascination
as
the
'
doctor performed the operation. Hearing the
doctor say a forbidden word as his knife slipped
brought a sense of shocked
pleasure to the
small voyeur. Then Ingo Swann says that he
looked down
his own open mouth and saw
blood oozing from the accidental wound. He
noted with interest that the doctor placed the
tonsils behind two
rolls
of paper
in a
side
cabinet.
“When I awakened from the anesthetic,
I
began to cry because my throat had been cut—
though
I couldn’t possibly
feel
it, everything
was numb. The
doctor couldn’t
understand
.
how I knew. Then
I asked him for my tonsils. A
souvenir was
the
very
least
he
could
do,
I
thought, but he insisted that he’d thrown them
away.
I wouldn't let him get away with thatl
‘No, you didn't/ I contradicted him. ‘You put
them over there behind those things/ ”
From this point on, out-of-body rambles
A stagtat gets iastnictioas via headphones in the
M-5000 program, designed to help achieve
OOBE experiences.
•
“The classic OOBE happens
spontaneously during an
accident or operation.”
added a dazzling dimension to Swann’s life. He
grew
up, was graduated
from
Westminster
College in Salt Lake City with degrees in art
and biology, served three years
In the army,
and became a critically acclaimed artist. Then,
thirty years after his initial experience, Swann
volunteered
as
a
subject
for
a
series
of
controlled
experiments
demonstrating
his
unique ability to view remote objects. This was
the procedure:
Swann would sit or lie quietly in a cubicle
or isolation booth. Several electrodes connect-
ed to an EEG were secured to his head. The
machine would be disconnected if he moved his
head more than minimally—providing proof of
a floorbound body. Far above Swann, a small
platform was suspended. On the platform, out
of sight, were the targets.
Swann’s task was to "float up out of his
body" and observe the objects. After examin-
ing these targets from a point some ten' feet
above
his
body, Swann
floated down and
proceeded to sketch what he had seen.
The experiment over, he waa unplugged
from the machine. A ladder was brought and
'
the
targets taken down
from
the
platform.
These were then compared to the sketches.
Later
both
targets and
drawings were
submitted
to
an
independent
judge
who
correctly matched each copy with
its original.
.
At a series of eight such tests conducted by the
-American Society of Psychical
Research
In
New York all were easily matched. Statistical-
ly, this could happen by chance once in 40,000
trys.
Did success spoil Ingo Swann?
No, but it bored him. “One day," be says,
“life at SRI reached an apex of boredom."
Swann was tired of earthly targets. He’d had
enough of objects on platforms or in adjoining
labs or even outside the building. He wanted a
target that was literally out of this world.
It was March 1973, nine months prior to
the scheduled bypass of NASA’s Pioneer 10
spacecraft with Jupiter. Swann decided to float
up and observe the planet for himself. His own
sightings
could
then
be
compared
to
the
eventual feedback from Pioneer 10.
To
make
the
experiment
even
more
interesting, Swann invited the psychic Harold
Sherman
to make
the
trip
with
him. The
OOBE probe took place on the evening of April
27,
1973.
Sherman
“took
ofP’
from
his
Mountain View, Arkansas home at eight p.m.
Central Standard Time, Swann's probe com-
“
menced at six p.m. Pacific Standard Time from
SRI. The simultaneous Journeys wore recorded
by Dr. Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ, who
recorded
the
data
and
then
relayed
It
to
scientific colleagues around the country.
The
two
subjects
separated by
nearly
2,300
miles
described
the
same
things,
observed the same environmental conditions on
Jupiter. Each spoke of glittering ice crystals,
winds
of
terrific
velocity,
great
mountain
ranges and powerful magnetic forces.
The same conditions were later confirmed
bytbe Pioneer 10 probe.
Nearly a year later a similar entrasensory
probe was undertaken. This time the target was
the
planet
Mercury,
Despite
the
prevailing
theory that the planet would have neither an
.atmosphere- nor a magnetic field, both subjects
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continued