Approved For Release
5=3
IA-RDP96-00792R000500350001 -4
CovihngThe Perfo/iVctober 1988 to 15 February 1989
March 1989
REVIEW
OF
THE
PSYCHOENERGETIC
RESEARCH
CONDUCTED AT SRI INTERNATIONAL (1973-1988)
(U)
Edwin C. May
Jessica M
. Utts
Virginia V. Trask
Wanda W. Luke
Thane J. Frlvold
Beverly S. Humphrey
Prepared for:
CONTRACTING OFFICER’S TECHNICAL REPRESENTATIVE
SRI Project 1291
WARNING NOTICE
RESTRICTED nifiSEMlNATION TO THOSE WITH VERIFIED ACCESS
TO THE
PROJECT
V
/
/
J
I
NOT RELEASABLE TO
^ J
\
J
FOREIGN NATIONALS
SRIlnferrMtonal
|)
enj|\
333 Ravenswood Av^B^3^
C
.
A
Tetex: 334-486
Irl^nation^/Approved
CIA-RDP96-00792R00059935,0001
stttass4/8i
25 pages
]
Approved For Release 20'
IA-RDP96-00792R000500350001 -4
[
me to 15 F.t,rom me
March 1989
REVIEW
OF
THE
PSYCHOENERGETIC
RESEARCH
CONDUCTED AT SRI INTERNATIONAL (1973-1988)
(U)
Edwin C. May
Jessica M. Utts
Virginia V. Trask
Thane J. Frlvold
Wanda W. Luke
Beverly S. Humphrey
Prepared for:
CONTRACTING OFFICER’S TECHNICAL REPRESENTATIVE
SRI Project 1291
WARNING NOTICE
ESTRICTED DISSEMINATION TO THOSE WITH VERIFIED ACCESS
TO THE
I
IPROJECT
Approved by:
MURRAY J. BARON, Director
Geoscience and Engineering Center
Copy
of fS Copies
This document consists of 24 pages
SRI/GF-0320
CLASSIFIED BY:
HQ, USAMRDC (SGRD ZA)
DECLASSIFY ON: OADR
NOT RELEASABLE TO
FOREIGN NATIONALS
333 Ravenswood Av< EGRET ca 94025
••
c.
*
"T qIpv
pproved ^miW^^Q0^^M
0^A-RDP96%
e
0792R00050035000^-4
SGI
B
'96-00792R000500350001-4
Approved For Release 20031^91^9.
(U) TABLE OF CONTENTS
iv
LIST OF
’TABLES
V
LIST OF FIGURE!
i
I
OBJEC
II
EXEC
III
INTR<
IV
METI
A.
Analysis Domain
B.
Database Management System
*
C.
Statistical Methods
V
RESULTS AND
A.
B.
Results for Categories Within the Informational process
REFERE
C.
:nces
.
Specific Results for Remote Viewing
iii
UNCLASSIFIED
Approved For Releas^OO^/OM)9
: CIA-RDP96-00792R000500350001-4
Approved For Rele4§JiNGbaAiSSlFiEO-00792R000500350001-4
(U)
LIST OF TABLES
1.
Definitions And Meta-analysis Formalism (U)
2.
Statistical Results For Major Classes (U)
3.
Statistical Results For Informational Categories (U)
.
.
iv
UNCLASSIFIED
Approved For Release 2003/09/09
: CIA-RDP96-00792R000500350001-4
Approved For Release 2AQWM/|firttA-RDP96-00792R000500350001-4
II
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (U)
(S/NF) 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.
(S/NF) 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.
(S/NF)
The main results are summarized below:
•
Remote viewing (RV) can provide useful intelligence information.
•
Laboratory and
operational 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.
SECRET
Approved For Release 2003/09/09
: CIA-RDP96-00792R000500350001-4
Approved For Rel|^J^|/^(£^l^f§f^-00792R000500350001-4
III INTRODUCTION (U)
(U)
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.”
(U)
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
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.
(U)
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.
(U)
This report describes the database, the analysis techniques, and the results of 16 years
of psychoenergetic research conducted at SRI International.
*
(U)
References may be found at the end of this report.
UNCLASSIFIED
Approved For Release 2003/09/09
: CIA-RDP96-00792R000500350001-4
Approved For Release 2j(g/g|^g(jA-RDP96-00792R000500350001-4
IV METHOD OF APPROACH (U)
A.
(U)
Analysis Domain
(S/NF)
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.
(U) 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.
(S/NF)
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)
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 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)
RV-Ons—remote viewing where the targets are drawn from specific targets of
interest to the intelligence community.
(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?).
SECRET
Approved For Release 2003/09/09
; CIA-RDP96-00792R000500350001-4
Approved For Release 2g)f(3/|^|-c|A-RDP96-00792R000500350001-4
(U) For
the
purpose
of
this
analysis,
all
putative
causal-process
experiments
are
considered under the general heading of remote action.
(U)
Figure
1 shows a schematic representation of these categories and the total number of
individual trials that were conducted within each category.
SECRET
FIGURE
(U) CATEGORIES AND NUMBER OF TRIALS
(S/NF)
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.
(U) Database Management System
1.
(U) Database Requirements
(U) 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.
*
(U) The number of subjects does not include the preliminary mass screening partici-
pants.
The formal screening participants were, however, included in the analysis.
SECRET
Approved For Release 2003/09/09
: CIA-RDP96-00792R000500350001-4