Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500020001-6 VI CONCLUSIONS For the past three years, the Electronics and Bioengineering Lab- oratory of SRI has had a program to investigate those facets of human perception that appear to fall outside the range of well-understood perceptual or processing capabilities. The primary achievement of this program has been the elicitation of high-quality "remote viewing;" the ability of both experienced subjects and inexperienced volunteers to view, by means of innate mental processes, remote geographical or technical targets such as roads, buildings, and laboratory apparatus. Our accumulated data from over 50 experiments with more than a half dozen subjects indicates the following: the phenomenon is not a sensitive function of distance over a several-km range; Faraday cage shielding does not appear to de- grade the quality or accuracy of perception; most of the correct infor- mation that subjects relate is of a nonanalytic nature pertaining to shape, form, color, and material rather than to function or name (this aspect suggests a hypothesis that information transmission under con- ditions of sensory shielding may be mediated primarily by the brain's right hemisphere); and the principal difference between experienced subjects and inexperienced volunteers isnot that the latter never exhibit the faculty, but rather that their results are simply less reliable (this observation suggests the hypothesis that remote viewing may be a latent and widely distributed perceptual ability). 89 Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500020001-6
Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500020001-6 Although the precise nature of the information channel coupling remote events and human perception is not yet understood, certain concepts in information theory, quantum theory, and neurophysiological research appear to bear directly on the issue. As a result, the working assump- tion among researchers in the field is that the phenomenon of interest is consistent with modern scientific thought and can therefore be expected to yield to the scientific method. Further, it is recognized that com- munication theory provides powerful techniques, such as the use of re- dundancy coding to improve signal-to-noise ratio, that can be used to pursue special-purpose application of the remote sensing channel inde- pendent of an understanding of the underlying mechanisms. We therefore congider that it is important to continue data collection and to encourage others to do likewise; investigations such as those reported here need replication and extension under as wide a variety of rigorously controlled conditions as possible. 90 Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500020001-6
Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500020001-6 Appendix A SIGNAL ENHANCEMENT IN A PARANORMAL COMMUNICATION CHANNEL BY APPLICATION OF REDUNDANCY CODING Independent of the mechanisms that may be involved in remote sensing, observation of the phenomenon implies the existence of an information channel in the information-theoretic sense. As we have seen from the work of Ryzl discussed in Section 11 ** itis even possible to use such a (noisy) channel for error-free transmission of information if sufficient redundancy coding is used [30], [31]. Following is a general procedure that’ we have used successfully for signal enhancement. We shall assume that the "message" consists of a stream of binary digits (0,1) of equal probability (e.g., binary sort of green/white cards as in Ryzl's case; English text encoded as in Table Al and sent long distance by strobe light on/off, and so on). To combat channel noise, each binary digit to be sent through the channel requires the addition of redundancy bits (coding). Efficient coding requires a compromise between the desire to maximize reliability and to minimize redundancy. One efficient coding scheme for such a channel is obtained by application of a sequential sampling procedure of the type used in production line quality control [80]. The adaptation of such a procedure to paranormal * See also footnote on successful work by Carpenter. 91 Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500020001-6
Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500020001-6 Table Al 5-Bit Code for Alphanumeric Characters an OMAN DUP WNYC DTK E T N R I 6) A 5 D H L C F P U M Note: Alphabet characters listed in order of decreasing frequency in English text. See, for example, A. Sinkov, Elementary Cryptanalysis-~- A Mathematical Approach {79}. (The low frequency letters, X,Z,K,Q, and J have been grouped with similar characters to provide space for numerics in a 5-bit code.) In consideration of the uneven distribution of letter frequencies in English text, this code is chosen such that 0 and 1 have equal probability. 92 Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500020001-6
Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500020001-6 communication channels, which we now discuss, was considered first by Taetzsch [81]. The sequential method gives a rule of procedure for making one of three possible decisions following the receipt of each bit: accept 1 as the bit being transmitted; reject 1 as the bit being trans- mitted (i.e., accept 0); or continue transmission of the bit under con- sideration. The sequential sampling procedure differs from fixed-length coding in that the number of bits required to reach a final decision on a message bit is not fixed before transmission, but depends on the results accumulated with each transmission. The principal advantage of the se- quential sampling procedure as compared with the other methods is that, on the average, fewer bits per final decision are required for an equiva- lent degree of reliability. Use of the sequential sampling procedure requires the specification of parameters that are determined on the basis of the following considera- tions. Assume that a message bit (0 or 1) is being transmitted. In the absence of a priori knowledge, we may assume equal probability (p = 0.5) for the two possibilities (0,1). Therefore, from the standpoint of the receiver, the probability of correctly identifying the bit being trans- mitted is p = 0.5 because of chance alone. An operative remote sensing channel could then be expected to alter the probability of correct identification to a value p = 0.5 + t, where the parameter { satisfies 0O< ly | < 0.5. (The quantity may be positive or negative depending on whether the paranormal channel results in so-called psi-hitting or 93 Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500020001-6
Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500020001-6 Appendix B REMOTE VIEWING TRANSCRIPT Following is the unedited transcript of the first experiment with an SRI volunteer (S86), a mathematician in the computer science laboratory, with no previous experience in remote viewing. The target, determined by random procedure, was White's Plaza, a plaza with fountain at Stanford University (shown in Figure 8). The capital letters correspond to the experimenter's statements and questions. As is our standard protocol, the experimenter with the subject is kept ignorant of the specific target visited as well as of the contents of the target pool. 101 Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500020001-6
Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500020001-6 TODAY IS MONDAY, OCTOBER 7TH. IT 1S 11:00 AND THIS IS A REMOTE VIEWING EXPERIMENT WITH RUSS TARG, PHYLLIS COLE, AND HAL PUTHOFF. IN THIS EX- PERIMENT HAL WILL DRIVE TO A REMOTE SITE CHOSEN BY A RANDOM PROCESS. PHYLLIS COLE WILL BE THE REMOTE VIEWER, AND RUSS TARG IS THE MONITOR. WE EXPECT THIS EXPERIMENT TO START AT TWENTY MINUTES AFTER ELEVEN AND . RUN. FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES. | IS IS JUST ABOUT TWENTY MINUTES AFTER ELEVEN AND HAL SHOULD BE AT HIS TARGET LOCATION BY NOW. WHY DON'T YOU TELL ME WHAT KIND OF PICTURES YOU SEE AND WHAT YOU THINK HE MIGHT BE DOING OR EXPERIENCING. The first thing that came to mind was some sort of a large, square kind of a shape. Like Hal was in front of it, It was a... nota building or something, it was a square. I don't know if it was a window, but some- thing like that so that the bottom line of it was not at the ground. About where his waist was, at least, That's what it seemed to me, It seems outdoors somehow, Tree. DOES HAL SEEM TO BE LOOKING AT THAT SQUARE? i don't know, The first impression was that he wasn't, but I have a sense that whatever it was was something one might look at. I don't know if it would be a sign, but something that one might look at, CAN YOU TELL IF IT IS ON THE GROUND OR VERTICAL? It seemed vertical. I don't have a sense that it was part of anything particular. It might be on a building or part of a building, but I don't know, There was a 102 Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500020001-6
Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500020001-6 tree outside, but I also got the impression of cement, I don't have the impression of very many people or traffic either. JI have the sense that he is sort of walking back and forth, I don't have any more explicit picture than that, CAN YOU MOVE INTO WHERE HE IS STANDING AND TRY TO SEE WHAT HE IS LOOKING AT? I picked up he was touching something--something rough. Maybe warm and rough, Something possibly like cement, IT IS TWENTY-FOUR MINUTES AFTER ELEVEN, CAN YOU CHANGE YOUR POINT OF VIEW AND MOVE ABOVE THE SCENE SO YOU CAN GET A BIGGER PICTURE OF WHAT'S THERE? I still see some trees and some sort of pavement or something like that. Might be a courtyard, The thing that came to mind was it might be one of the plazas at Stanford campus or something like that, cement. Some kinds of landscaping, I said Stanford campus when I started to see some things in White Plaza, but I think that is misleading. I have the sense that he's not moving around too much, That it's in a small area, I guess I'll go ahead and say it, but I'm afraid I'm just putting on my impressions from Stanford campus. I had the impression of a fountain. There are two in the plaza, and it seemed that Hal was possibly near the, what they call Mem Claw, 103 Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500020001-6
Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500020001-6 WHAT IS THAT? It's a fountain that looks rather like a claw, It's a black sculpture, And it has benches around it made of cement. ARE THERE ANY BUILDINGS AT THE PLACE YOU ARE LOOKING AT? ARE THERE ANY BUILDINGS? YOU DESCRIBED A KIND OF A COURTYARD, USUALLY AT SOME PLACES THERE SHOULD BE A BUILDING, LARGE OR SMALL THAT THE COURTYARD IS ABOUT. LOOK! AT THE END OR THE SIDES OF THE COURTYARD, IS THERE ANYTHING TO BE SEEN? I have a sense that there are buildings, It's not solid buildings. I mean there are some around the periphery and I have a sense that none of them are very tall, Maybe mostly one story, maybe an occasional two story one. DO YOU HAVE ANY BETTER IDEA OF WHAT YOUR SQUARE WAS THAT YOU SAW AT THE OUT SET? No. 1 could hazard different kinds of guesses, DOES IT SEEM PART OF THIS SCENE? It... I think it could be. It could almost be a bulletin board or some- thing with notices on it maybe, Or something that people are expected to look at, Maybe a window with things in it that people were expected to look at, WHAT KIND OF TREES DO YOU SEE IN THIS PLACE? I don't know what kind they are, The impression was that they were shade trees and not terribly big. Maybe 12 feet of trunk and then a certain 104 Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500020001-6
Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500020001-6 amount of branches above that. So that the branches have maybe a 12 foot diameter, or something, Not real big trees. NEW TREES RATHER THAN OLD TREES? Yeah, maybe 5 or 10 years old, but not real old ones, IS THERE ANYTHING INTERESTING ABOUT THE PAVEMENT? No, It seems to be not terribly new or terribly old. Not very interesting, There seems to be some bits of landscaping around, Little patches of grass around the edges and peripheries. Maybe some flowers, But, not lush. YOU SAW SOME BENCHES. DO YOU WANT TO TELL ME ABOUT THEM? Well, that's my unsure feeling about this fountain. There was some kind of benches of cement, Curved benches, it felt like. They were of rough cement, WHAT DO YOU THINK HAL IS DOING WHILE HE IS THERE? I have a sense that he is looking at things trying to project them, Looking at different things and sort of walking back and forth not cover- ing a whole lot of territory. Sometimes standing still while he looks around, I just had the impression of him talking, and I almost sense that it was being recorded or something. I don't know if he has a tape recorder, but if it's not that, then he is saying something because it needed to be remembered, IT'S 11:33, HE'S JUST PROBABLY GETTING READY TO COME BACK, 105 Approved For Release 2002/05/17 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000500020001-6
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