Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R002200170001-9 UNCLASSIFIED B, (U) The Atocha Experiment (U) Results for the search for the Atocha are given in Table 2. None of the subjects attained a significant result in either experiment. The overall significance level for the experiment, based on the minimum p-value (0.368), is 0.99. This indicates that the results were extremely close to chance. In fact, results this close to chance or closer, using the minimum p-value as a measure, would be expected to occur only 1% of the time. For the two experiments taken individually, the minimum p-values were 0.371 and 0.368, each of which gives an overall experiment significance level of 0.90. (U) On the average, there would have been an increase of 4% in search time using the information provided by this group of subjects. ‘Table 2 (U) RESULTS FOR THE ATOCHA EXPERIMENT | EXPERIMENT 1 | EXPERIMENT 2 af Average proportion Average proportion of squares searched p-value of squares searched p-value — ST 0.368 UNCLASSIFIED 13 Approved For Release ob NGdAS2 FEED 00789R002200170001-9
{ Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R002200170001-9 f IV DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS (VU) é 74 The experiments discussed in this report were designed to replicate and extend earlier findings which indicated that selected participants could use psychic means to help search for a hidden target. The computer-assisted search experiment, which served as a direct replication of the experiments conducted in FY 1984 and FY 1986, once again showed promising results. As in the earlier experiments, no subject was able to produce significant results independently in both the time and the space conditions. Further, the two subjects who produced the best results did so: in the space condition, which replicated their performance in the earlier experiments. The best subject in the time condition had scored significantly in the time condition in FY 1986, but not in space. In general, those who did well in this experiment (excluding one novice) did so in the same condition for which they had previously scored Significantly. i _j Even though n is small, we were able to speculate that subjects bifurcate into those who can search for fixed targets (space) and those who can identify when to register a guess (time). It would appear that each subject would do best in an experiment which “contained only the preferred condition. A study done this year to test that notion produced completely chance results. Thus, it appears that even if this bifurcation does exist, it is best to present subjects with randomly scrambled conditions. Perhaps the knowledge of exactly what the task requires adds an analytical component which is hard to overcome. This has been observed in other psychic functioning, such as forced choice guessing of targets in remote viewing. { This is the third year in which a computer-assisted search ———ag experiment has provided evidence that psychic functioning may be of some _ cea em use in: “ searching for hidden or lost targets. Although such functioning is not completely predictable, it appears to be robust enough, when selected subjects are used, to Approved For Release 2000/08/08 :,¢IA-RDP96-00789R002200170001-9 ‘ t
- Approved For Release 2o00ipar0e : CIA-RDP96-00789R002200170001-9 Significantly reduce the average search time from what it would be if ‘on randomly located starting points were used. (U) The Atocha experiment, which was designed to see if self-proclaimed “dowsers” _ would be able to locate a lost object using a grid overlaid on a map, did not produce a significant finding, although a preliminary experiment showed very promising results. It is difficult to base a conclusions on one experiment with a small sample size. However, it appears that whatever produced the functioning with selected subjects in the computer-assisted search in the laboratory did not carry over to the conditions of the Atocha experiment. 15 | =o Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R002200170001-9
REFERENCES (UV) 1.  Puthoff, H. E., and May, E. C., “Target Search Techniques (U),” Final Report, Project 6600, SRI International, Menlo Park, California (December 1984) SECRET. - 2. Hedges, L. V., and Olkin, I., Statistical Methods for Meta-Analysis, p. 34, Academic Press, Inc., Orlando, Florida (1985) UNCLASSIFIED 3. Lewis, T. G., and Payne, W. H., “Generalized Feedback Shift Register Pseudorandom Number Algorithm,” Journal of the Association for Computer Machinery, Vol. 20, No. 3, pp. 456-468 (uly 1973) UNCLASSIFIED. 4. Radin, D. 1., “Evaluating Geometric Distance Scores in a Perceptual Task,” in Research in Parapsychology, 1981, pp. 163-164, Scarecrow Press, Inc., Metuchen, New Jersey (1982) UNCLASSIFIED. CLASSIFIED Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R002200170001-9