Approved For Release 2003/09/10
: CIA-RDP96-00788R001 200230033-9
AMSAA RV Experiment
(1)
Independent replication of SRI
experiments
in RV with targeting
by coordinates,
is
in advanced planning stages
at AMSAA.
Initial assessment
of the AMSAA experimental plan is reported here.
In general,
the integrity
of the experiment appears good.
Also an improved means of providing assurance
of unequivocal experimental results
is being attempted.
In spite of such an
attempt,
however,
the initial
assessment
is
that maintaining the SRI protocol
in evaluating the raw trial results will present
a severe limit to the
credibility of the ultimate results.
(2)
The contribution to confidence
in the results of these tests should
be high as regards the integrity of the experiment.
Different viewers and
experimenters and a new .target pool,,
together with double blind control executed
by an independent group
(AMSAA management)
should provide certitude that the
tests represent an unbiased independent replication of RV testing.
(3)
Two aspects of the experiment cause some concern,
and are discussed
below:
the target characteristics,
and the continued use of the basic
SRI
trial
judging technique
(or "protocol").
(4)
Target Characteristics:
The utilization of a large area
(100 mile radius)
for selection of some
forty targets provides an opportunity, being exploited by AMSAA,
for a target
pool of fairly distinct and different target characteristics.
However,
the uniqueness of each of the targets
is an order of magnitude
less than that obtainable by utilizing simpler artificial
targets,
such as
alphanumerics,
geometric shapes,
etc.
The impediment
to the use of such
artificially created targets
is the often cited deleterious effect on the
viewer of simplistic "non-interesting" target objects.
The success rate of
remote viewer "hits"
is averred
to bs greatly degraded when boredom is induced
by attempting to view such simple targets.
This effect is apparently repeatedly
observed in parapsychology experiments and presents the scientific experi-
mentalist with a psychological analogue to Heisenberg’s Principle:
The more
precise
is
the measurement of the quality of an RV performance,
the
less
likely is the probability of an RV occurrence.
Unless this effect
is,
indeed,
a natural principle,
other means of measurement of RV performance quality
should be created,
to permit unequivocal
RV evaluation.
(One suggested set
of "interesting targets" which are well
defined,
are moon topographical
features.
These are well defined photographically,
and unexamined in the
experience of most of the population)
.
It
is
to be observed that
the AMSAA target selection criteria are specifically
aimed at choosing each individual
target with features,
or combinations of
features
(geometry,
color,
action,
materials,
etc.)
which are unique:
i.e.—
any given "state vector"
is "orthogonal"
to all
others.
Unfortunately,
the
features that are selected as
the uniqueness-defining elements are subjectively
Approved For Release 2003/09/10
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Approved For Release 2003/09/10
: CIA-RDP96-00788R001 200230033-9
arrived
at.
The viewer
("subject") may well
define a target
("state vector")
without using many of the uniqueness-defining elements selected a priori.
Thus
complete orthogonality of targets
is
lost,
requiring a posteriori subjective
judgment to be employed to evaluate the RV performance,
(and deciding from
amongst all
targets
that one which most closely matches the viewer's des-
cription)
.
Comments concerning the judging procedure
follow in the next section.
The observation to be emphasized here concerns
the doubt expressed by the
committee about
the attempt by the AMSAA target selection/description group
to orthogonalize the targets
in the face of a measuring device
(the viewer,
or "subject")
that doesn't use the same target parameters
to render
a description
(measurement)
as the "target describers".
Putting numerical weighting factors
on each of the target features,
as
is being planned by AMSAA,
is regarded as
a doubtful means
to orthogonalize what
is probably a non-orthogonal
set of
targets
as discerned by the remote viewer.
We just don't know the transfer
function that characterizes
the viewer well enough to be sure that heavily
weighted features are not regarded by the viewer as unimportant— and
conversely .
Thus,
in spite of a thoughtful
and creative attempt
to provide
a. set of
unambigious,
and unambiguously describable,
unique targets,
the committee
presently feels that the authentication of Remote Viewing will depend on
post trial
subjective
judgment.
(5)
Judging Procedure:
There
is
little planned departure from the SRI post trial
judging procedure.
The principal difference
is
the employment of several
target descriptors
to be
utilized in comparing the remote viewer's "state vector" description with
a
priori descriptors
("state vector coordinates")
.
The appropriateness of heavy
dependence on descriptor matching
(and weighting)
is questioned,
as elucidated
in section
(4),
above.
In
a pretrial
exercise this problem was illustrated
by failure of the judge
to match any of the targets
(in a limited trial pool)
to the remote viewer's description.
By dissecting the viewer's description
and subjectively arriving at specific descriptors,
the judge was able
to
arrive at a match based on a sum of very low correlations of each individual
descriptor with characteristics of the true target.
(The correlation of these
descriptors with the other targets were
lower)
.
This matching success was
regarded by the judge as an achievement.
The committee,
on the other hand,
felt that this means of pulling the
signal
out of the noise may well have
demonstrated that an apparent high numerical
correlation was produced that
did not
in fact exist.
Thus we are concerned that the praiseworthy effort
to devise an objective
and quantitative measure of RV performance quality may well generate apparent
high correlations,
reported with a precision which the subjective raw input
does not justify.
Approved For Release 2003/09/10
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Approved For Release 2003/09/10
: CIA-RDP96-00788R001 200230033-9
In any case,
if the experiment proceeds
as presently planned,
the committee
suggests
that the
(subjective)
raw as well
as derived "quantitative" data and
analyses be reported for each trial and its subsequent evaluation.
(6)
Quantitative Analysis Techniques
The quantization,
weighting,
and statistical
treatment of the target
features and remote viewer descriptions contain some techniques which
should be further scrutinized.
One
is
the target feature weighting approach,
which although structured to provide consistency,
is highly subjective.
The
'
other
is the excessive resolution expected of human judges
in deciding the
degree of agreement between target features and viewer descriptions of
target features.
A scale of seven
is
a clinically demonstrated limit of
human resolution.
The planned resolution has
a scale of ten.
As subjective
as the evaluation procedure
is,
a scale of
levels or less
is probably
as
large
as
is justified.
Approved For Release 2003/09/10
: CIA-RDP96-00788R001 200230033-9