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An Evaluation of the Remote Vewing Program
Research and Operational Applications
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DRAFT REPORT
Prepared by:
The American Institutes for Research
September 22, 1995
Note: The page sequence in this document has been corrected from the original
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Executive Summary
Studies of paranormal phenomena have nearly always been associated with
controversy.
Despite the controversy concerning their nature and existence,
many individuals
and organizations continue to be avidly interested in these phenomena.
The intelligence
community is no exception:
beginning in the 1970s,
it has conducted a program intended to
investigate the application of one paranormal phenomenon — remote viewing, or the ability
to describe locations one has not visited.
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Conceptually, remote viewing would seem to have tremendous potential
utility for the
intelligence community.
Accordingly, a three-component program involving basic research,
operations, and foreign assessment has been in place for some time.
Prior to transferring this
program to a new sponsoring organization within the intelligence community, a thorough
program review was initiated.
The part of the program review conducted by the American Institutes for Research
(AIR), a nonprofit, private research organization, consisted of two main components.
The
first component was a review of the research program.
The second component was a review
of the operational application of the remote viewing phenomenon in intelligence gathering.
Evaluation of the foreign assessment component of'the program was not within the scope of
the present effort.
Research Evaluation
To evaluate the research program, a "blue ribbon" panel was assembled.
The panel
included two noted experts in the area of parapsychology: Dr
. Jessica Utts, a Professor of
Statistics at the University of California/Davis, and Dr. Raymond Hyman, a Professor of
Psychology at the University of Oregon.
In addition to their extensive credentials, they were
selected to represent both sides of the paranormal controversy: Dr. Utts has published articles
that view paranormal interpretations positively, while Dr. Hyman was selected to represent a
more skeptical position.
Both, however, are viewed as fair and open-minded scientists.
In
addition to these experts, this panel included two Senior Scientists from AIR; both have
recognized methodological expertise, and both had no prior background in parapsychological
research.
They were included in the review panel to provide an unbiased methodological
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Fxecutlvo Summary
perspective.
In addition, Dr. Lincoln Moses, an Emeritus Professor at Stanford University,
provided statistical advice, while Dr. David A. Goslin , President of AIR, served as coordinator
of the research effort.
Panel members were asked to review all laboratory experiments and meta-analytic
reviews conducted as part of the research program; this consisted of approximately 80
separate publications, many of which are summary reports of multiple experiments.
In the
course of this review, special attention was given to those studies that (a) provided the
strongest evidence for the remote viewing phenomenon, and
( b) represented new experiments
controlling for methodological artifacts identified in earlier reviews.
Separate written reviews
were prepared by Dr. Utts and
Dr. Hyman.
They exchanged reviews with other panel
members who then tried to reach a consensus.
In the typical remote viewing experiment in the laboratory, a remote viewer is asked
to visualize a place, location, or object being viewed by a "beacon" or sender. A judge then
examines the viewer's report and determines if this report matches the target or, alternatively,
a set of decoys.
In most recent laboratory experiments reviewed for the present evaluation.
National Geographic photographs provided the target pool.
If the viewer's reports match the
target, as opposed to the decoys, a hit is said to have occurred.
Alternatively, accuracy of a
set of remote viewing reports is assessed by rank-ordering the similarity of each remote
viewing report to each photograph in the target set (usually five photographs).
A better-than-
chance score is presumed to represent the occurrence of the paranormal phenomenon of
remote viewing, sin'ce the remote viewers had not seen the photographs they had described (or
did not know which photographs had been randomly selected for a particular remote viewing
trial).
In evaluating the various laboratory studies conducted to date, the reviewers reached the
following conclusions:
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A statistically significant laboratory effort has been demonstrated in the sense
/
that hits occur more often than chance.
It IS unclear whether the observed effects can unambiguously be attributed to the
paranormal ability of the remote viewers as opposed to characteristics of the
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—Executive Summary
judges or of the target or some other characteristic of the methods used.
Use of
the same remote viewers, the same judge, and the same target photographs makes
it impossible to identify their independent effects.
*
Evidence has not been provided that clearly demonstrates that the causes of hits
are due to the operation of paranormal phenomena; the laboratory experiments have not
1/
identified the sources or origins of the remote viewing phenomenon.
Operational Evaluation
The second component of the program involved the use of remote viewing in
gathering intelligence information.
Here, representatives of various intelligence groups
"end users" of intelligence information — presented targets to remote viewers, who were
asked to describe the target.
Typically, the remote viewers described the results of their
experiences in written reports, which were forwarded to the end users for evaluation and, if
warranted, action.
To assess the operational value of remote viewing in intelligence gathering, a
multifaceted evaluation strategy was employed.
First, the relevant research literature was
reviewed to identify whether the conditions applying during intelligence gathering would
reasonably permit application of the remote viewing paradigm.
Second, members of three
groups involved in 'the program were interviewed:
(1) end users of the information; (2) the
remote viewers providing the reports, and (3) the program manager.
Third, feedback
information obtained from end user judgments of the accuracy and value of the remote
viewing reports were assessed.
This multifaceted evaluation effort led to the following conclusions:
•
The conditions under which the remote viewing phenomenon is observed in
laboratory settings do not apply in intelligence gathering situations.
For example,
viewers cannot be provided with feedback and targets may not display the
^
characteristics needed to produce hits.
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