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response.
However, until 1994, the results from this tasking were not evaluated by the
tasking organizations by any numerical method that would identify the accuracy and value of
the provided information (for a few cases in prior years narrative comments were provided by
some organizations).
In 1994, this situation changed when the Program Office developed a methodology for
obtaining numerical evaluations from the tasking organizations of the Star Gate inputs; this
methodology is described briefly in Section 3.0. By May
1, 1995, 40 tasks assigned by five
operational organizations had been evaluated under this process.' Section 4.0 describes the
numerical evaluations performed by evaluators from the tasking organizations.
The
descriptions presented below regarding the tasking and the related targets refer principally to
the operational tasks that were numerically evaluated.
The process for a typical tasking, RV response and subsequent evaluation is as follows:
The tasking organization provides information to the Star Gate Program
Manager (PM) describing the problem to be addressed.
The PM provides a Tasking Form delineating only the most rudimentary
information to one or more of the three Star-Gate RV’s
2 for their use during the
RV session (a typical Tasking Form is presented in Figure 2-1).
In addition,
the RV's are appraised of the identity of the tasking organization.
Subsequently the RV's hold individual "viewing" sessions recording their
comments, observations, feelings, etc. and including line drawings or sketches
of things, places, or other items "observed" during the session.
The individual RV inputs are collected and provided to the tasking organization
for their review with a request for completing a numerical evaluation of the
individual RV inputs for accuracy and for value.
Finally, for those organization who comply with the request, the evaluation
scores are returned to the Star Gate Program Office.
'Evaluation of additional 1994-95 tasks continued after 5/1/95; three tasks since evaluated were
reviewed. They caused only insignificant changes to the statistical information provided in Table 4-1 and
did not alter any of the Conclusions and Recommendations in Section 7.0.
( U) All three RV’s were full time government employees.
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FIGURE 2-1
TASKING SHEET
SOURCE 140:
079
DATE:
IS Jul 94
SUSPENSE:
18 Jul 94
1600 Hrs
1. PROJECT NUMBER:
94-252-0
2. METHOD/TECHNIQUE:
Method of Choice
3.
BACKGROUND:
4 .
ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF INFORMATION: Access and describeJarget,
S. COMMENTS:
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Twenty-six (26) of the 40 operational tasks originated from DIA in support of two joint Task
Forces, Org. B and Org.
C, (see Section 4.0). Typical tasking targets for these organizations
comprised the name of a person or thing (e.g., vessel) with a generic request to describe the
target, his/herAts activities, location, associations, etc. as appropriate. No specific information
(e.g., what is the height/weight/age of the target?) was requested in the tasking. As noted
above, the identity of the supported organizations also was provided.
For these tasks that
identification provides the RV's with knowledge regarding the specific operational interests of
these organizations.
Thus, any information provided by the RV’s which describes or relates to
those interests "could be" relevant; and, therefore, could be interpreted by the evaluators as
having some level of "accuracy" and "value" depending upon the information described and
the evaluator's interests and beliefs.
The tasking provided by the organization denoted as Org. A comprised targets that were
"places" visited by "beacons",
i.e., an individual from Org. A who visited and
,’viewed" the
site of interest to assist the RV in "visualizing" and describing the site.
Targets could be a
general vista in or around a particular location, a particular facility at a selected location or,
perhaps, a particular item at a location (in the one case where this type of target was used, the
item was a particular kind of boat).
Usually, no specifics regarding the type of target or its
location were provided.
Tasking by Org.
I) comprised two generic types of targets that related to military
interests/concems current at the time of the tasking, e.g.. North Korean (NK) capabilities and
leadership.
The first type of target focused upon then-current military concerns while the
second type required "precognitive" (predictive) capabilities since it required a prognoses of
future intentions and actions.
The tasking from Org. E was similar in scope, albeit quite different in context, from the
tasks noted earlier for Org. B and Org. C
,
i.e., describe a person, his activities, location,
etc..
As mentioned at the beginning of this section, the descriptions noted above relate to
operational tasks that were numerically scored.
During the summer/fall period of 1993, eight
operational tasks were levied on the program pertaining to North Korean (NK) tunnels.
The
target information provided to the RV's typically comprised a map of a large section of NK
with a request to identify tunnels within the map area.
Evaluation of the results from these
tasks was in narrative form only; discussion regarding this narration is presented at the end of
Section 3.0.
3Some operational tasks from the period Oct. 1 990 to Jan 1 991 regarding Middle East issues were
of a similar types, albeit these were not numerically evaluated. They would provide some data for an after-
the-fact check of the accuracy of the RV predictions - see Section 7.0 for a discussion of this possibility.
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3.0 EVALUATION MEASURES
The numerical evaluation measures that were given to the evaluators of the tasking
organizations to score the accuracy and value of the Star Gate inputs were extracted from the
Defense Intelligence Agency Manual (DIAM) 58-13.
These measures are shown in Table 3-
1.
Most of the stipulated measures include modifiers such as "may", "possibly’, "high",
"low", etc. which are subjective and open to individual interpretation by each evaluator.
The
DIAM 58-13 definitions for the ratings under "Value" are presented in Table 3-2; whether the
individual evaluators reviewed these definitions prior to their scoring is unknown.
There was
no clarification of what was intended by the generic headings of "Accuracy" and "Value",
e g., in the evaluator's estimation how much of the RV's response to the tasking had to qualify
for a particular measure,
1 10%, 90%, to be granted the related score?
I
Table.3-1J^jmerical.Evaluation_Me.asur.es
*
I
Category
Score
I
I
I
I
Accuracy
- is the information accurate?
I
I
I
I
Yes (true)
I
I
May be true
I
I
Possible true
I
I
No
I
Possibly not true'*
I
I
Unsure
I
I
Value
- what is the value of the sources’ information?
I
I
I
I
Major significance
I
I
High Value
I
I
Of Value
I
I
Low Value
I
I
No Value
I
I
I
As noted in Section 2.0, one series of tasks were evaluated by a narrative discussion only.
While much of the final narrative evaluation for this series was complimentary,
it lacked any
real specifics regarding the usefulness or relevance of the Star Gate inputs and much of the
narrative was replete with modifiers and other hedges. A sanitized extract from the final
evaluation report for these tasks is presented in Appendix A illustrating the subjective,
"uncertain" nature of the comments.
'’Note that Accuracy scores 5 and 6 actually rank "higher" than 4 since both imply that there may
be something accurate in the information. Changing the scoring order to accommodate this observation
causes insignificant changes to both the averages and the standard deviations shown on Table 4-1.
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TABLE 3-2 - VALUE RATING DEFINITIONS FROM DIAM 58-13
MAJOR SIGNIFICANCE
- Intelligence Information Report (HR) provided information which will
alter or significantly influence national policy, perceptions, or analysis; or provided unique or
timely indications and warning of impending significant foreign military or political actions having
a national impact.
HIGH VALUE - IIR(s) was best report to date or first report on this important topic, but did not
significantly influence policy or change analyses.
OF VALUE
- IIR(s) provided information which supplements, updates, confirms, or aids in the
interpretation of information in data bases, intelligence production, policy research and analysis,
or military operations and plans; most DoD HUMINT System reporting falls into this category.
LOW VALUE
- HR was not a good report because the information was not reported in a timely
manner, or was of poor quality/of little substance.
Nevertheless,
it satisfied some of the
consumer’s informational needs.
NO VALUE
- HR provided no worthwhile information to support data base maintenance,
intelligence production, policy research and analysis, or military operations and planning; or its
information had no
utility, was erroneous, or misleading.
4.0 EVALUATION SUMMARY AND COMMENTS
Thirty-nine (39) of the 40 numerically evaluated, operational tasks were performed in
1 994
and one in 1995.
The information provided by the Star Gate RV's for each task was
evaluated by staff of the tasking organization.
The complete compilation of evaluated scores
is presented in Table 4-1 which includes a designation of the tasking organization and, where
known, a numerical designator for the individual from that organization who signed the
response to the evaluation request (in some instances, this was also an evaluator).
Also
presented are the individual and collective scores for Accuracy (A) and Value (V) for each of
the three RV's and the related average and standard deviations for the compiled scores. (Note
that the total number of scoring entries for either Accuracy or Value is not equal to the
maximum of 120, i.e., 3x40, since all three RV's did not participated in all tasks).
Table 4-2
presents the same scoring data by tasking organization.
Histograms of the scores from Table 4-1 are shown below.
Note that "Accuracy" scores tend
to cluster around 2's and 3's (55 of the 99 entries) while "Value" scores cluster around 3's and
4's (80 of the
1 00 entries).
This is not too surprising as the nonspecific, nebulous nature of
the individual task)target requests permits the RV to "free associate" and permits the evaluator
to pick and choose from the RV commentary anything that he thinks "may" or "possibly" is
related to his problem (and score accordingly) regardless of how much of the RVcommentary
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OPERATIONAL TASKS THAT HAVE
NUMERICAL EVALUATIONS
III
Date ifctnua jEvaluatorfRemote Viewer & Scores
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No. of entries"*
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may satisfy the particular measure.
If the Accuracy of the information is somewhat uncertain,
its Value must be vaguer still,
i.e., scored lower.
This presumption is supported by review of
the scored "pairs" for all cases, e.g.,
1 A and
1 V; only rarely does the "V" score equal or
exceed the "A" score for a specific RV and target.
Note further that of the
1 00 "V" scores
shown on Table 4-1, there are no "1" scores
, while the 99 "A" scores include 13
"l's".
Regarding the latter, a detailed review of the evaluator comments and/or the tasking suggests
that the importance of these
l's is less than the score would imply in all but four cases since:
the evaluator of Document 243 stated that the RV 3A score "...though vague, is
probably correct."
the tasking and targets for Documents 245,247, 248, 249 and 2656 concern
topics widely publicized in the open media during the same, period, hence the
"source" of the RV
1 A and 3A comments, intended or not, is suspect, and
for Documents 230, 239 and 244, the evaluator's supporting narrative is
between the RV(s) and the evaluator:
has a very narrow information bandwidth,
i.e., the RV-derived information
cannot be embellished by a dialogue with
the
evaluator
without
substantially
telegraphing the evaluator's needs and interests, thereby biasing any
RV information subsequently derived
, and
is extremely "noisy” as a result of the unidentifiable beliefs, intentions,
knowledge, biases, etc. that reside in the subconsciousness of the RV(s) and/or
the evaluator
.
As a result, the potential for self-deception on the part of the evaluator exists,
i.e, he/she
"reads" into the RV information a degree of validity that in truth is based upon fragmentary,
generalized information and which may have little real applicability to his/her problem.
The
relevant question in the overall evaluation process is who and what is being evaluated,
i.e., is
the score a measure of the RV's paranormal capabilities or of the evaluators views, beliefs
and concepts?
•1The significance of this omission is further enhanced
if one assumes that the evaluators were
familiar with the definitions in Table 3-2 since even those 1 1 instances scored as #2 (“High value") merely
require that the input be the "best report to date or
first report on this important topic, but
[it] did not
significantly influence policy or change analyses."
<l(U) The evaluation of Document 265
is actually a second evaluation
of the same RV inputs
provided many months
after the
first evaluation
of Document 248 and probably done by a
different
evaluator.
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One of the RV's expressed a concern to the author that the protocols that were followed in
conducting the RV process in response to the operational tasking were not consistent with
those that are generally specified for the study of paranormal phenomena.
Whether the
claimed discrepancy was detrimental to the information derived by the RV's,or to its
subsequent evaluation or use cannot be determined from the available data.
The operational tasking noted earlier concerning activities in North Korea which required
precognitive abilities on the part of the RV's provides an opportunity for a post-analysis by
comparing the RV predictions against subsequent realities.
Additional comparative data of
this type is available from operational tasking during the period 11/90 through 1/91 regarding
the Middle East situation (this tasking was not numerically evaluated).
6.0 SUMMARY FROM USER INTERVIEWS (U)
Subsequent to the review and analysis of the numerically scored tasking described in the
previous sections of this report, the author participated in interviews with representatives of
all of the tasking organizations presented in Table 4-1 except Org.
I). Only a brief summary
of the results from those interviews is presented here; more detailed synopses are presented in
Appendix B. In all cases except for Org.
C, the interviewees were the actual personnel who
had participated directly in the tasking and evaluation of the Star Gate program.
For Org.
C,
the sole interviewee was the Chief of the Analysis Branch; the staff who defined the tasking
and performed the evaluations was comprised of his lead analysts.
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A brief summary of the salient points which appeared consistently throughout these interviews
follows:
the principal motivation for using Star Gate services was the hope that
something useful might result; the problems being addressed were very difficult
and the users were justifiably (and admittedly) "grasping at straws" for
anything that might be beneficial.
the information provided by the Star Gate program was never specific enough
to cause any operational user to task other intelligence assets to specifically
corroborate the Star Gate information.
while information that was provided did occasionally contain portions that were
accurate, albeit general, it was - without exception - never specific enough to
offer substantial intelligence value for the problem at hand,
two of the operational user organizations would be willing to pay for this
service if that was required and if it was not too expensive (although one user
noted that his organization head would not agree).
However, the fact that Star
Gate service was free acted as an incentive to obtain
"it might be useful
- who
knows" support for the program from the user organizations.
The reader is referred to Appendix B for additional information resulting from these
interviews.
However, two inconsistencies noted during the discussion of the numerical
evaluations in Section 4.0 were supported by information obtained fiom the interviews.
On the average, the Org. C evaluators scored higher that those of Org.
B. One cause for this
discrepancy may be due to the fact that the Org. B evaluators were, in general, skeptical of
the process while the lead person at Org. C claimed to be a believer in parapsychology and,
in addition, had the last say in any evaluations that were promulgated back to the Star Gate
PM.
This comment is in no way intended to impugn the honesty or motivation of any of
these personnel, merely to point out that this difference in the belief-structure of the staff at
these two organizations may have resulted in the perceived scoring bias.
As noted above, the
subjectivity inherent in the entire process is impossible to eliminate or to account for in the
results.
The higher average scoring, especially Accuracy scores, from the Org. A evaluators appears
to be explained by the procedure they used to task and evaluate the experiments they were
performing with the Star Gate program.
Namely, they used a staff member as a "beacon" to
"assist" the RV's in "viewing" the beacon’s location.
Subsequently, the same Org. A staff
member evaluated the RV inputs.
However, since he/she had been at the site, he/she could
interpret anything the appeared to be related to the actual site as accurate. When asked if the
information from the multiple RV's was sufficiently accurate and consistent such that a
"blind" evaluator,
i.e., one who did not know the characteristics of the site, would have been
able to identify information from the RV inputs that they could interpret to be accurate, they
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all answered in the negative and agreed that the score would have been lower.
Again the
subjectivity of the process appears
- the evaluator could interpret the admittedly general
comments from any RV that seemed to relate to the actual site as "accurate", e.g., consider an
RV input "there is water nearby", the evaluator knows this it true of almost anyplace
especially if one does not or cannot define what kind of water, i.e., is
it a lake, a water line, a
commode, a puddle?
7.0
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
7.1
CONCLUSIONS
The single conclusion that can be drawn from an evaluation of the 40 operational tasks is that
the value and utility to the Intelligence Community of the information provided by the
process cannot be readily discerned.
This conclusion was initially based solely upon the
analysis of the numerical evaluations presented in Section 4.0, but strong confirmation was
provided by the results of the subsequent interviews with the tasking organizations (Ref.
Section 6.0 and Appendix B).
While, if one believes the validity of parapsychological
phenomena, the potential for value exists in principal, there is, nonetheless, an alternative
view of the phenomenology that would disavow any such value and, in fact, could claim that
the ambiguous and subjective nature of the process actually creates a need for additional
efforts with questionable operational return on the part of the intelligence analyst.
Normally, much of the data provided by the RV(s) is either wrong or irrelevant although one
cannot always tell which is which without further investigation.
Whether this reality reduces
or eliminates the overall value of the totality of the information can only be assessed by the
intelligence analyst.
It clearly complicates his/her problem in two ways:
1)
it adds to the
overburden of unrelated data which every analyst already receives on a daily basis,
i.e., the
receipt of information of dubious authenticity and accuracy is not an uncommon occurrence
for intelligence analysts, and 2) since the analyst does not n(Jrmally know which information
is wrong or irrelevant, some of it is actually "disinformation" and can result in wasted effort
as the analyst attempts to verify or discount those data from other sources.
The review of the operational tasking and its subsequent evaluation does not provide any
succinct conclusions regarding the validity of the process (or the information provided by
it).
First and foremost, as discussed in Section 5.0, the entire process, from beginning to end, is
highly subjective.
Further, as noted in Section 3.0, the degree of consistency in applying the
scoring measures, any guidance or training provided to the evaluators by any of the tasking
organizations and/or the motivation of the evaluators are either unknown or, in the case of the
latter, may be highly polarized (see Appendix B) The lack of information regarding these
items could account for some of the variability in the scores across organizations noted in
Table 4-2, but this cannot be certified and
is, at most, a suspicion.
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Whether the information provided by the Star Gate source is of sufficient value to overcome
the obvious detriment of accommodating the irrelevant information included therein is an
open question? More precisely, whether the Star Gate information is of sufficient value to
continue this program - vis-a-vis other sources of information and other uses of resources
- is
an important question for the Intelligence Community to address, irrespective of one's
personal views and/or beliefs regarding this field of endeavor,
i.e., does the information
provided justify the required resource investment?
One method that might assist this evaluation is to develop a means for scoring the complete
input from the RV process,
i.e., evaluate all information and determine how much is truly
relevant, how much is of undeterminable value and how much is completely irrelevant.
One
could then analyze how much information is being handled to achieve the relevant
information (along with some measure of the relevancy) and make judgments on its value vis-
a-vis the investment in time and money.
Other, less technical methods, for adjudicating this
issue also exist.
7.2 RECOMMENDATIONS
Considering the statements above, the only sensible recommendation in this author's mind is
to bring some "scientific method" into this process (if it is continued). As evidenced by more
than 20 years of research into paranormal psychology, much of it done by institutions of
higher education or others with excellent credentials in related fields, validation of
parapsychological phenomena may never be accredited in the sense that is understood in other
scientific and technical fields of endeavor
. Control in any rigorous scientific sense of the
multitude of human and physical variables which could, and probably do, influence this
process is difficult - perhaps impossible
- for any except the most mundane types of
experiments, e.g., blind "reading" of playing cards.
Even these restricted experiments have
led to controversy among those schooled in the related arts.
One of the foundation precepts of scientific endeavor is the ability to obtain repeatable data
from independent researchers.
Given the subjective nature of RV activities,
it is difficult to
believe that this aspect of parapsychology will ever be achieved.
As an admitted neophyte in
this area of endeavor, I categorize the field as a kind of religion,
i.e., you either have "faith"
that
it indeed is something real, albeit fleeting and unique, or you "disbelieve" and attribute
all positive results to either chicanery or pure chance.
‘Practicioners in the field, including those funded under government contracts, would argue with
these observations, perhaps vehemently; some would argue further that the phenomenology has been
verified beyond question already. This reviewer disagrees; albeit, these observations are not intended to
discard the possibility of such phenomena.
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Thus, one must recognize at the start that any attempt to bring scientific method into the
operational tasking aspects of this project may not succeed.
Others with serious motives and
intentions have attempted to do this with the results noted above.
However, as a minimum,
one could try to assure that the scoring measures are succinctly defined and promulgated such
that different organizations and evaluators would have a better understanding of what is
intended and, perhaps could be more consistent in their scoring.
The use of independent,
multiple evaluators on each task could aid in reducing some of the effects of the subjective
nature of the evaluation process and the possible personal biases (intentional or otherwise) of
the evaluators.
Since, according to some parapsychologists, the time of the remote viewing is not relevant to
the attainment of the desired information, controlled "blind tests" could be run by requesting
tasking for which the accurate and valuable information is already known to determine
statistics on RV performance (clearly one key issue in such tests is what information is given
to the RV in the task description to avoid any semblance of compromise, not a casual
problem).
Controlled laboratory experiments of parapsychology have done this type of testing
and the results, usually expressed in terms of probability numbers that claim to validate the
parapsychological results, have done little to quell the controversy that surrounds this field.
Thus
it may be naive and optimistic to believe that such additional testing would help resolve
the question of the"value of the process" (or its utility for operational intelligence
applications), but
it might assist in either developing "faith" in those who use
it, or conversely
"disbelief
.
Before additional operational tasks are conceived, some thought could be given to how and
what one defines as a "target'.
Broad generic target descriptions permit unstructured discourse
by the RV which
- especially if there is a knowledge (or even a hint) of the general area of
interest - leads to data-open to very subjective, perhaps illusionary, interpretation regarding
both accuracy and value.
If some specificity regarding the target could be defined such that
the relevance and accuracy of the RVderived data could be evaluated more readily, some of
the uncertainties might be eliminated.
In this context, note that the cases where targets were
more specific, e.g., the North Korean targets
, the resulting scores were generally higher.
Finally,
it was noted in Section 5.0 that some of the RV information obtained from
operational tasks regarding North Korea (and others concerning the Middle East) depended
upon the precognitive ability of the RV's in predicting events yet to occur.
These data
provide an opportunity for a post-analysis of the accuracy of these predictions by making a
comparison with subsequent information regarding actual events (some data for this
comparison might require access to classified information from other sources).
Such a post-
anaiysis would provide data for evaluating the ability of the RV's to perform precognitive
tasks and of the related operational value of the predictions.
Performance of this post-
analysis lies beyond the scope of this paper, but is a topic for a subsequent study if any
sponsor is interested.
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Appendix D:
Stargate Operational User Interviews
APPENDIX D
STAR GATE OPERATIONAL USER INTERVIEWS
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APPENDIX D:
STAR GATE OPERATIONAL USER INTERVIEW
ORGANIZATION: A
USER POC: #7
DATE: 3 August 1995
OPERATIONAL TASK: SG was asked to participate in a series of experiments to determine
if their paranormal service could assist in locating someone who wns at m unknown
oca
and had no radio or other conventional method for communicating.
Members of the use
organization acted as "beacons” for the RV's by visiting sites unknown to the RVsat
specified times.
The RV’s were requested to identify any information that would
determining the site location by "envisioning" what the beacons were seeing.
MOTIVATION FOR EMPLOYING STAR GATE:
The previous head of the user's group
was aware of the program from other sources and requested that SG participate in
ese
experiments in the hopes that some information might be obtained to assist in locating th
JJ, and/or people given the scenario above This situation is similar to that noted from other
user interviews, namely, the difficulty of obtaining relevant information from any other source
renders the use of the paranormal approach as a worthwhile endeavor from the user s
perspective "just in case”
it provides something of value
USER ATTITUDE: All of the interviewees were positive regarding the application of
this phenomenology to their problem, albeit they all agreed that the RV infomation
provided from the experiments performed to date were inadequate to defi
ty
of the phenomena and that additional experiments were needed.
RpeijLTS - VALUE/UTILITY: For each user task, the evaluator was the same individual
who had acted as the beacon, i.e., the person who had actually been at the candidate
Each evaluator noted that some of the information provided by the RV s C0U
!d be C^
d
^ h
to be accurate
When asked if the accuracy of the information would be ranked as high if the
evaluaTor dM not know the specifics of the site,
i.,e., had not be the "beacon which is the real
"operational situation", all answered in the negative.
Several interviewees mdicateti
hat their
interpretation of the RV data led them to believe that the RV's had witnessed other items
actions the beacon was engaged in but not related to the site of interest.
As a result of the
experiments done to date, the user decided that the approach being pursued was not providing
information of operational utility since it was too general.
However, the user was convinced
of the possible value of the paranormal phenomena and was planning a new set ot
experiments using a substantially modified approach in the hope of obtaining use u
resu
FUTURE USE OF SG SERVICES: As inferred above, the user would continue to use SG-
type services, albeit in a new set of experiments.
The user would be willing to P^j°r *is
service if it was not too expensive and requested that they be contacted if the p
g
reinitiated.
When advised that they could obtain services of this type from commercial
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Appendix D:
Stargate Operational User Interviews
sources, they noted that this would be difficult due to the highly classified nature of some of
their activities.
STAR GATE OPERATIONAL USER INTERVIEW
ORGANIZATION: B
USER POC: #3, et al
DATE: 14 July 1995
other relevant information about an individual m hope of obtaining useful informa 10
his activities.
MOTIVATION FOR EMPLOYING STAR GATE: Gate- SG PM briefed RV activities and
his desire to expand customer base.
User was willing to "try" using SG capabilities since
there was no cost to the user and, given the very difficult nature
straws" in the hope of receiving some help is not unreasonable.
Note that this orgamzati
had tasked the program in the '91 time frame but had not continued tasking m 92- 93 un
briefed by the new Star Gate PM.
USER ATTITUDE: D1A POC was openly skeptical, but was willing to try objectively.
Membere of the organization be supports (Org.
B) had varied levels of belief, one individual
appear very supportive noting the successful use of psychics by law erforcemcnt grou^
(based upon media reporting).
Evaluation of the tasking was accomplished collectively by the
DIA POC and three other Org. B members.
RESULTS - VALUE/UTILITY: None of the information provided in response to any of the
tasks was specific enough to be of value or to warrant tasking other assets. SG data was
oo
vaeue and generic
information from individual RV's regarding the same task were
conflicting
contained many known inaccuracies and required too much personal interpretation
toISsubsequent action.
User would be more supportive of process if data provided was
more specific and/or closely identified with known information.
In one instance, a drawing
was provided which appeared to have similarity with a known vessel, but information was not
adequate to act on.
FUTURE USE OF SG SERVICES:
User would be willing to use SG-type services in
future.
However, in current budget environment, demonstrated value and utility are not
adequatetojustifyfundingfromuserresources.
Wouldnotfundinanycaseun^
demonstrate a history of successful and useful product.
User believes that R
g
directly with his analysts on specific problems would be beneficial in spite o
t e o vious
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Appendix D: Stargate Operational User Interviews
drawbacks
Individual quoted above suggested recruiting RV’s from other sources, noting his
S tot^'the government RVs may no. be beat qualified, i.e., have best psychic capab.ht.ee.
STAR GATE OPERATIONAL USER INTERVIEW
ORGANIZATION: C
USER POC: #4
DATE: 26 July 1995
OPERATIONAL TASK: Most tasking requested information describing a person, a location
orTthing
e g.
a vessel.
Occasionally, the tasking would provide some relevant information
about the target or "his/herfits" associates in hope of obtaining useful information about its
activities,
MOTIVATION FOR EMPLOYING STAR GATE: In circa 1993, the SG PM briefed RV
activities and his desire to expand the customer base.
This desire conjoined with the use
belief that it provided an alternate source of information led to the subsequent task^ ^
was willing to "try” using SO capabilities since there was no cost to the user and, as noted m
XrtSilws! given l very difficult nature of the user’s business, "grasping a. shaws
in
the hope of receiving some help
is not unreasonable.
Thisorganization had tasked the
program in th e (circa) ’86-’90 time frame but had terminated tasking since there was no
feedback mechanism.
USER ATTITUDE: User was a believer in the phenomena based upon his ’^knowledge of
what the Soviets were doing" and his perceptions from the media regarding**** ** ™
enforcement agencies. He noted that his lead analysts, who generated the tasking, were
ry
skeptical
as was his management.
User insisted that analysts be objective m spite of their
skepticism.
In general,numerical evaluation of the task was performed by the individual who
had defined
it.
RESULTS - VALUE/UTILITY: This interviewee claimed value and utility for the
information provided by the RV’s, noting that information regarding historical events was
_
always more accurate that information requiring predictions.
RV's were
fairly consistent m
identifying the "nature" of the target, e.g., is
it a person or a thing, but not always
On
occasions where RV inputs were corroborated, additional data were requested, but these data
usually could not be corroborated.
User commented that all reports had some accurate
'Only one person provided
all
of the
information
at
this
review.
Where
the
"user"
or
"interviewee"
is cited,
it reflects the remarks of that single individual.
—
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Appendix D: Stargate Operational User Interviews
information
, 2 however, the SO data provided was either not specific.enough^orm*
timelv enough to task other assets for additional information.
Some SO data was incma
•’target packages" given to field operatves- however, there was no audit trail so there is
fto
evTdenCrSding the accuracy or use of these data.
User also noted that classification
prohibited data domination as did concerns about skepticism of others regarding the sourc
and the potential for a subsequent negative impact on his organization.
FUTURE USE OF SG SERVICES: User desires to continue using SG-type service if the
nroLaS continues
In addition, tire user stated that he would be willing to pay for the s«vrce
If necessary
However, subsequent discussion indicated that his management would not fund
ae activiqTunless the credibility could be demonstrated better mid the phenomenology
legitimized.
User went on to claim that only the sponsorship of a 80v^“
t..^“
c
£
|“RV's
"legibmize " this activity and its application to operational problems.
User bel
working directly with his analysts on specific problems would not be beneficulI due to the
skepticism of his analysts and the deleterious impact that would have on the ^
s;™ev™
orovided by the user - note none of the actual evaluators were present - appeared to be unique
Kmlndh* belief in the phenomenology, i.e., his remarks indicated that..her« of this
process was not actively supported by anyone else in his orgamza ion.
evaluations of the 19 tasks performed in 1994/95 certainly do not indicate, on the average,
either a high degree of accuracy or value of the data provided.
2User was unaware that the tasking organization and
its primary mission were known to the RVs.
Portions of the data provided by the RV’s could have been predicted from this knowledge.
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Appendix D:
Stargate Operational User Interviews
STAR GATE OPERATIONAL USER INTERVIEW
ORGANIZATION-. E
USER POC: #9
DATE: 7 July 1995
OPERATIONAL TASK: Request to assist in determining if a suspect was engaged in
espionage activities, e.g., who is he meeting? where? about what? are these activities related
to espionage or criminal actions? Tasking comprised a senes of four sequential tasks, each
time a bit more information was provided to the RV's, including at one point the name of the
suspect. (Note-, this "sequential tasking" is unique.
Each of the tasks assigned from other
operational organizations was a "singular" or "stand alone" event.)
MOTIVATION FOR EMPLOYING STAR GATE: SG PMO briefed RV activities and his
desire to expand customer base.
User was willing to "try" using SG capabilities since there
was no cost to the user and, given the very difficult nature of user business,
grasping at
straws" in the hope of receiving some help is not unreasonable.
USER ATTITUDE:
„
.
,
.
„
..
Pm-Rfl pyperience
- User (#9) had a perception of beneficial assistance allegedly
_
provided to domestic police by parapsychologists; thereby he was encouraged to try using the
SG capabilities and hopeful of success.
...
c „
Pnst-SG experience - Still very positive in spite of the lack of value or utility from SG
efforts (see below).
User is "willing to try anything" to obtain assistance in working his very
difficult problems.
RESULTS - VALUE/UTILITY: None of the information provided in any of the four
sequential tasks was specific enough to be of value or to warrant tasking his surveillance
_
assets to collect on-site information as a result of SG information. SG data was too generic
and while
it may have contained accurate information,
it required too much personal
interpretation to warrant subsequent actions by his assets. Much of the SG information was
clearly wrong so there was no way to ascertain the validity of the rest.
One major deficiency
noted in the SG responses was the lack of any RV data regarding large fund transfers that the
suspect was known to be engaged in and which the user believes would have been uppermost
in the suspect's mind.
User would be more supportive of process if data provided was more
specific and/or closely identified with known information.
FUTURE USE OF SG SERVICES: User would be willing to use SG-type services in
future.
However, in current budget environment, demonstrated value and utility are not
adequate to justify funding from user resources.
User would be willing to have a joint
activity whereby RV's work directly with his analysts on specific problems
if: a) user did not
pay for RV services and b) commitment for joint RV’s services was long term
,
i.e., several
years.
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