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CPYRGHT
Journal of Communication, Winter 1975
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j
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J.
G., and
J. L. Woodruff.
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of Blind and
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Bruce
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in
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and Trance
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J.
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of Sensory Cues and
the
Evidence.” Journal
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1, 1937, pp. 276-291.
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J.
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1938,
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CPYRGH PROCEEDINGAPpirew edit OiLRal ease 2000/08108 : 329 CIA-RDP96-00789R003100120001-4 A Perceptual Channel for Information Transfer over Kilometer Distances: Historical Perspective and Recent Research HAROLD E. PUTHOFF, MEMBER, IEEE, AND RUSSELL TARG, senior MEMBER, IEEE Abstract—For more than 100 years, scientists have attempted to determine the truth or falsity of claims for the existence of a perceptual channel whereby certain individuals are able to perceive and describe remote data not presented to any known sense. This paper presents an outline of the history of scientific inquiry into such so-called paranor- mal perception and surveys the current state of the art in parapsycho- logical research in the United States and abroad. The nature of this perceptual channel is examined in a series of experiments carried out in the Electronics and Bioengineering Laboratory of Stanford Research Institute. The perceptual modality most extensively investigated is the ability of both experienced subjects and inexperienced volunteers to view, by innate mental processes, remote geographical or technical targets including buildings, roads, and laboratory apparatus. The ac- cumulated data indicate that the phenomenon is not a sensitive func- tion of distance, and Faraday cage shielding does not in any apparent way degrade the quality and accuracy of perception. On the basis of this research, some areas of physics are suggested from which a descrip- tion or peeeation of the phenomenon could be forthcoming. nature, impartially and without prejudice” [1]. Nowhere in scientific inquiry has this dictum met as great a chal- lenge as in the area of so-called extrasensory perception (ESP), |: IS THE PROVINCE of natural science to investigate the detection of remote stimuli not mediated by the usual: sensory processes. Such phenomena, although under scientific consideration for over a century, have historically been fraught with unreliability and controversy, and validation of the phe- nomena by accepted scientific methodology has been slow in coming. Even so, a recent survey conducted by the British publication New Scientist revealed that 67 percent of nearly 1500 responding readers (the majority of whom are working scientists and technologists) considered ESP to be an estab- lished fact or a likely possibility, and 88 percent held the investigation of ESP to be a legitimate scientific undertaking [2]. A review of the literature reveals that although experiments by reputable researchers yielding positive results were begun over a century ago (e.g., Sir William Crookes’ study of D. D. Home, 1860's) [3], many consider the study of these phe- nomena as only recently emerging from the realm of quasi- science. One reason for this is that, despite experimental results, no satisfactory theoretical construct had been advanced to correlate data or to predict new experimental outcomes. Consequently, the area in question remained for a long time in the recipe stage reminiscent of electrodynamics before the Manuscript received July 25, 1975; revised November 7, 1975. The submission of this paper was encouraged after review of an advance Proposal. This work was supported by the Foundation for Parasensory Investigation and the Parapsychology Foundation, New York, NY; the Institute of Noetic Sciences, Palo Alto, CA; and the National Aero- the authors AAME OVE PAE RE IBAS E20 OLO8/08, : Stanford Research Institute, Menlo Park, CA 94025. CPYRGHT unification brought about by the work of Ampere, Faraday, and Maxwell. Since the early work, however, we have seen the development of information theory, quantum theory, and neurophysiological research, and these disciplines provide powerful conceptual tools that appear to bear directly on the issue. In fact, several physicists (Section V) are now of the opinion that these phenomena are not at all inconsistent with the framework of modern physics: the often-held view that observations of this type are a priori incompatible with known laws is erroneous in that such a concept is based on the naive realism prevalent before the development of quantum theory. In the emerging view, it is accepted that research in this area can be conducted so as to uncover not just a catalog of inter- esting events, but rather patterns of cause-effect relationships of the type that lend themselves to analysis and hypothesis in the forms with which we are familiar in the physical conditions of sensory shielding is mediated by extremely low-frequency (ELF) electromagnetic waves, a proposal that does not seem to be ruled out by any obvious physical or “biological facts. Further, the development of information theory makes it possible to characterize and quantify the performance of a communications channel regardless of the underlying mechanism. For the past three years, we have had a program in the Electronics and Bioengineering Laboratory of the Stan- ford Research Institute (SRI) to investigate those facets of human perception that appear to fall outside the range of well- understood perceptual/processing capabilities. Of particular interest is a human information-accessing capability that we call “remote viewing.” This phenomenon pertains to the ability of certain individuals to access and describe, by means of mental processes, information sources blocked from ordi- nary perception, and generally accepted as secure against such access. In particular, the phenomenon we have investigated most extensively is the ability of a subject to view remote geograph- ical locations up to several thousand kilometers distant from his physical location (given only a known person on whom to target).' We have carried out more than fifty experiments under controlled laboratory conditions with several individuals whose remote perceptual abilities have been developed suf- ficiently to allow them at times to describe correctly—often in great detail—geographical or technical material such as build- ings, roads, laboratory apparatus, and the like. As observed in the laboratory, the basic phenomenon appears to cover a range of subjective experiences variously referred to Cc MM:RRP9G-0 0782 RQQ34 201.400 01:4 [4], and re- printed in the JEEE Commun. Soc. Newsletter, vol. 13, Jan. 1975. 10
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Fig.
1.
Airport in San Andres, Colombia, used as remote-viewing target, along with sketch produced by subject
in California.
I
in the literature as autoscopy (in the medical literature); exteri-
orization
or
disassociation
(psychological
literature);
simple
clairvoyance, traveling clairvoyance, or out-of-body experience
(parapsychological literature); or astral projection (occult liter-
ature).
We
choose
the term “remote viewing” as
a
neutral
descriptive term
free from
prior associations and
bias
as
to
mechanisms.
The development
at SRI of
a
successful experimental pro-
cedure to
elicit this capability has evolved to the point where
persons
such
as
visiting government
scientists and
contract
monitors, with no previous exposure
to such concepts, have
learned to perform well; and subjects who have trained over a
one-year period have performed excellently under a variety of
experimental conditions.
Our accumulated data thus indicate
that
both
specially
selected
and
unselected
persons
can
be
assisted
in
developing
remote
perceptual
abilities
up
to
a
level of useful information transfer.
In experiments of this type, we have three principal findings.
First, we have established that
it
is possible to obtain signifi-
cant amounts of accurate descriptive information about remote
locations.
Second,
an
increase
in
the
distance from
a few
meters up to 4000 km
separating the subject from the scene
to
be
perceived
does not
in any apparent way degrade
the
quality or accuracy of perception.
Finally j the use of Faraday
cage electrical shielding does not prevent high-quality descrip-
tions from being obtained.
To
build
a
coherent
theory
for
the
explanation
of these
phenomena,
it
is necessary to have a
clear understanding of
what constitutes the phenomena.
In this paper, we first briefly
summarize previous efforts in this field nL&ejCtiqaJJ
We then
present
than
fifty experiments
with nine subjects
carried out
in our
own laboratory, which represent a sufficiently stable data base
to
permit
testing of various hypotheses concerning the func-
tioning
of
this
channel.
Finally,
in
Section
V, we
indicate
those areas of physics and information theory that appear to
be
relevant
to
an
bnderstanding
of
certain
aspects
of
the
phenomena.
First, however, wejpresent an illustrative example generated
in an
early
pilot experiment.
As will be clear from our later
discussion,
this
is
not
a
“best-ever”
example, but
rather
a
typical sample of the
level of proficiency that can be reached
and that we have corr e to expect in our research.
Three
subjects
participated
in
a
long-distance
experiment
focusing on
a
series of targets in Costa Rica.
These subjects
said they had never been to Costa Rica.
In this experiment,
one of the experimenters (Dr. Puthoff) spent ten days traveling
through Costa
Rica 0n
a combination business/pleasure
trip.
This information was! all that was known to the subjects about
the
traveler's itinerari.
The experiment called for Dr, Puthoff
to keep a detailed record of his location and activities, includ-
ing
photographs
of each of seven
target days
at
1330 PDT.
A
total of twelve daily descriptions were collected before the
traveler's
return:
six
j responses from
one
subject,
five from
another, and one fronj a third.
The third subject who submitted the single response supplied
a drawing for a day
iiji the middle of the series. (The subject’s
response, together witjh the photographs taken at the site, are
shown
in
Fig.
1).
Although
Costa
Rica
is
a mountainous
country,
the
subject jinexpectedly perceived the traveler at a
he described an
airport on a sanay be$cn ana an airstrip with the ocean at the
puthoff ^]^^pQf^jf^^QQQmm^T€mmp9s-oo789RoozA ocQgdfffiQHir
331
end (correct).
An airport building also was drawn, and shown
to have
a large rectangular overhang (correct).
The
traveler
had taken an unplanned one-day side trip to an offshore island
and at the time of the experiment had just disembarked from a
plane
at
a
small
island
airport
as
described by
the
subject
4000 km away.
The
sole discrepancy was
that the subject’s
drawing showed a Quonset-hut type of building in place of the
rectangular structure.
The above description was chosen as an example to illustrate
a
major
point
observed
a number
of times throughout
the
program to be described.
Contrary to what may be expected,
a subject’s description does not necessarily portray what may
reasonably be expected
to be correct (an educated or “safe”
guess),
but
often
runs
counter
even
to
the
subject’s own
expectations.
We wish to stress again that a result such as the above
is not
unusual.
The remaining submissions
in
this experiment pro-
vided further examples of excellent correspondences between
target and response.
(A
target
period of poolside relaxation
was identified; a drive through a tropical forest at the base of
a truncated volcano was described as a drive through a jungle
below a large bare table mountain; a hotel-room target descrip-
tion, including such
details as rug
color, was correct; and so
on.)
So
as
to determine whether such matches were simply
fortuitous— that
is, could reasonably be expected on the basis
of chance alone— Dr. Puthoff was asked after he had returned
to
blind match
the
twelve
descriptions
to
his
seven
target
locations.
On the basis of this conservative evaluation proce-
dure, which
vastly underestimates the
statistical significance
of the
individual
descriptions,
five correct matches were ob-
tained.
This number of matches
is significant at p ~ 0.02 by
exact binomial calculation. 2
The observation of such unexpectedly high-quality descrip-
tions
early
in our program
led
to
a
large-scale study of the
phenomenon at SRI under secure double-blind conditions (i.e.,
target unknown
to experimenters
as
well
as subjects), with
independent random target
selection and blind judging.
The
results, presented
in Sections
III and
IV, provide strong evi-
dence
for
the
robustness
of
this phenomenon
whereby
a
human perceptual modality of extreme sensitivity can detect
complex remote stimuli.
II. Background
Although we are approaching the study of these phenomena
as physicists, it is not yet possible to separate ourselves entirely
from the language of the nineteenth century when the labora-
tory study of the paranormal was begun.
Consequently, we
continue to use terms such as “paranormal,” “telepathy,” and
the
like.
However, we intend only to indicate
a process of
information
transfer under
conditions
generally accepted
as
secure against such transfer and with no
prejudice or occult
assumptions
as
to the mechanisms involved.
As in any other
scientific pursuit, the purpose is to collect the observables that
result from experiments and to try to determine the functional
relationships between these observables and the laws of physics
as they are currently understood.
2 The
probability of a correct
daily match by chance for any given
transcript
is p = — ,
Therefore, the probability of at
least five correct
matches by chance out of twelve tries can be calculated from
Organized
research into so-called psychic functioning began
roughly in the time of
J.
J. Thomson,
Sir Oliver Lodge, and
Sir William Crookes, all of whom took part in the founding of
the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) in 1882 in England.
Crookes,
for example, carried out
his principal investigations
with D. D. Home, a Scotsman who grew up in America and
returned to England in 1855
[3]
.
According to the notebooks
and
published
reports
of
Crookes, Home had demonstrated
the
ability to
cause objects
to move without touching them.
We should note in
passing
that, Home, unlike most subjects,
worked only in the
light and spoke out in the strongest pos-
sible terms against the darkened seance rooms popular at the
time
[5
]
.
Sir William Crookes was a pioneer in the study of electrical
discharge
in gases and
in the development of vacuum tubes,
some types of which
still bear his name. Although everything
Crookes said about electron beams and plasmas was accepted,
nothing he
said about
the achievements of D. D. Home ever
achieved
that
status.
Many of his colleagues, who had not
observed the experiments with Home, stated publicly that they
thought Crookes had been deceived, to which Crookes angrily
responded:
Will not my critics give me credit for some amount of common
Sense? Do they not imagine that the obvious precautions, which
occur
to them
as soon
as they
sit down
to
pick
holes
in my
experiments, have occurred to me also in the course of my pro-
longed and
patient
investigation?
The answer to this, as to
all
other objections
is, prove
it
to be an
error, by showing where
the
error
lies,
or
if a trick, by showing how the
trick
is per-
formed.
Try the experiment fully and
fairly.
If then fraud be
found, expose
it;
if
it be a truth, proclaim
it.
This
is the only
Scientific procedure, and
it
is that
I propose steadily to pursue
In
the
United
States,
scientific interest
in the paranormal
was centered
in
the
universities.
In
1912, John Coover
[6]
was established in the endowed Chair of Psychical Research at
Stanford University,
In the
1 920’s, Harvard University set up
research programs with George Estabrooks and
L. T. Troland
[7]
,
[8].
It was
in
this framework
that,
in
1930, William
McDougall invited
Dr.
J. B. Rhine and
Dr.
Louisa Rhine
to
join the Psychology Department at Duke University [9].
For
more than 30 years, significant work was carried out at Rhine’s
Duke
University
Laboratory.
To examine the existence of
paranormal
perception,
he
used
the now-famous ESP
cards
containing
a
boldly
printed
picture of a
star,
cross, square,
circle, or wavy
lines.
Subjects were asked to name the order
of these
cards
in
a freshly shuffled deck of twenty-five such
cards.
To
test
for telepathy, an experimenter would look at
the cards one at a time, and a subject suitably separated from
the sender would attempt to determine which card was being
viewed.
Dr.
J.
B.
Rhine
together with Dr.
J. G.
Pratt
carried out
thousands of experiments of this type under widely varying
conditions
[ 10]
.
The statistical results from these experiments
indicated
that some
individuals did indeed possess a paranor-
mal
perceptual
ability
in
that
it was
possible
to obtain an
arbitrarily high degree of improbability by continued testing
of a gifted subject.
The work of Rhine has been challenged on many grounds,
however, including accusations of improper handling of statis-
tics, error, and fraud.
With regard to the statistics, the general
vn
ZjV /a\(i2-0
consensus of statisticians today
is that
if fault
is to be found
i^(^{flele^6°2000/08/08
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statistical
lssS
*
\ /
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/
grounds
[11].
With regard to the accusations of fraud, the
CPYRGHT
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most
celebrated
case of
criticism
of
Rhine’s
work,
that
of
G.
R.
Price
[12], ended
years
after
it began when the
accusation of fraud was retracted by
its author
in an article
entitled “Apology to Rhine and Soal,” published
in the same
journal in which
it was
first put forward [13].
It should also
be
noted
that
parapsycho logical
researchers
themselves
re-
cently
exposed
fraud
in
their own
laboratory when
they
encountered
it
[ 14]
.
At the end of the 1940’s, Prof. S. G. Soal, an English mathe-
matician working with the SPR, had carried out hundreds of
card guessing experiments involving tens of thousands of calls
[15].
Many of these experiments were
carried out over ex-
tended
distances.
One of the most notable experiments was
conducted
with
Mrs.
Gloria
Stewart between
London
and
Antwerp.
This experiment gave
results whose probability of
occurring by chance were less than 10
-8
. With the publication
of Modern Experiments
in
Telepathy by Soal and Bateman
(both of whom were statisticians),
it appeared that card guess-
ing experiments produced significant results, on the average. 3
The most
severe
criticism of all this work, a criticism diffi-
cult to defend against in principle,
is that leveled by the well-
known
British parapsychological
critic C. E. M. Hansel [17],
who began
his examination of the ESP hypothesis with the
stated assumption, “In view of the a priori arguments against
it we know
in advance
that telepathy,
etc., cannot occur.”
Therefore,
based
on
the
“a
priori
unlikelihood”
of
ESP,
Hansel’s examination of the
literature centered
primarily on
the
possibility
of
fraud,
by
subjects
or
investigators.
He
reviewed
in
depth
four
experiments which
he
regarded
as
providing the best evidence of ESP: the Pearce-Pratt distance
series
[18]; the Pratt-Woodruff [19]
series, both conducted
at Duke; and Soal’s work with Mrs. Stewart and Basil Shackle-
ton
[15]
,
as well as a more recent series by Soal and Bowden
[20]
.
Hansel showed, in each case, how fraud could have been
committed
(by the experimenters
in the Pratt-Woodruff and
Soal-Bateman
series,
or by
the
subjects
in
the Pearce-Pratt
and Soal-Bowden experiments).
He gave no direct evidence
that
fraud was committed in these experiments, but said, “If
the
result could have arisen through a
trick, the experiment
must be considered unsatisfactory proof of ESP, whether or
not it is finally decided that such a trick was in fact used ”[17,
p.
18].
As
discussed by Honorton
in a review of the
field
[21]
, Hansel’s conclusion
after 241
pages of careful scrutiny
therefore was that these experiments were not “fraud-proof”
and therefore in principle could not serve as conclusive proof
of ESP.
Even among the supporters of ESP research and
its results,
there remained the consistent problem
that many successful
subjects eventually lost their ability and their scores gradually
drifted toward chance
results.
This decline effect in no way
erased their previous astronomical success; but
it was a disap-
pointment since
if paranormal perception
is a natural ability,
one would like to see subjects improving with practice rather
than getting worse.
One of the
first successful attempts to overcome the decline
effect was in Czechoslovakia in the work of Dr. Milan Ryzl, a
chemist with the Institute of Biology of the Czechoslovakian
Academy
of
Science and
also an amateur
hypnotist
[22],
Through
the
use
of hypnosis,
together with
feedback and
3 Recently, some of the early Soal experiments have been criticized
(16).
However,
his long-distance experiments cited here were judged
in a double-blind fashion of the type that esrtmed
t he. crjtirj^rn of
eany ex^pppoved For Release 20ou/08/u8
: CfA-
reinforcement, he developed several outstanding subjects, one
of whom,
Pavel
Sitepanek,
has worked with
experimenter:
around the world for more than 10 years.
Ryzl’s pioneering work came as an answer to the question:
raised by
the
195$ CIBA
Foundation conference on
extra'
sensory perception.! The CIBA Chemical Company has annual
meetings on
topics! of
biological and chemical
interest, and
that
same
year
they assembled
several prominent
parapsy-
chologists to have 4 state-of-the-art conference on ESP [23].
The conference con|cluded that little progress would be made
in
parapsychology
’research
until
a
repeatable
experiment
could be found; naijnely, an experiment that different experi-
menters could repeat
at
will and
that would
reliably yield
a
statistically significant result.
Ryzl had by 1962j accomplished that goal.
His primary con-
tribution was a decision to interact with the subject as a per-
son, to try to build Up his confidence and ability.
His protocol
depended on “working with” rather than “running” his sub-
jects.
Ryzl’s star subject, Pavel Stepanek, has produced highly
significant results with many contemporary researchers [24]-
[29],
In these experiments, he was able to tell with 60-percent
reliability
whether
a
hidden
card
was
green
side
or white
side
up,
yielding
statistics of
a
million
to one with only
a
thousand trials.
As significant as such results are statistically, the information
channel
is imperfect, containing noise along with the signal.
When considering hdw best to use such a channel, one
is led
to the communication theory concept of the introduction of
redundancy
as
a m^ans of coding a message
to combat the
effects of a noisy channel [30]. A prototype experiment by
Ryzl using such techniques has proved to be successful. Ryzl
had
an
assistant
select randomly
five groups of three
digits
each.
These
1 5 digits were then encoded into binary form and
translated into
a sequence of green and white cards in sealed
envelopes.
By means
of repeated
calling and
an elaborate
majority vote protocol, Ryzl was able
after 19 350
calls by
Stepanek (averaging 9 s per
call)
to correctly identify
all 15
numbers,
a
result
significant
at p = 10~ 15
The
hit
rate
for
individual calls was 6H.9 percent,
1 1 978 hits, and 7372 misses
[31].
i
Note Added in Proof:
It has been brought to our attention
that a similar procedure was recently used to transmit without
error
the word
“pedee”
in
International Morse Code
(J. C.
Carpenter,
“Toward
the
effective
utilization
of
enhanced
weak-signal ESP effects,” presented at the Annual Meeting of
the American
Association
for
the Advancement of Science
New York, NY, Jan. 27, 1975).
The
characteristics! of such
a
channel can be specified
in
accordance with the precepts of communication theory.
The
bit rate associated with the information channel is calculated
from [30]
j
l
l R = H(x)-Hy (x)
(1)
where H{x) is the uncertainty of the source message containing
symbols with a priori probability Pi
:
= - 2
Pi l0S2 Pi
(2)
i~\
and Hy (x)
is the conditional entropy based on the a posteriori
probabilities that a received signal was actually transmitted:
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For Stepanek’s run, with Pj = j, pj(j) = 0.619, and an average
time of 9
s per choice, we have a source uncertainty H{x) =
bit and a calculated bit rate
R « 0.041 bit/symbol
or
R/T* 0.0046 bit/s.
(Since the 15-digit number (49.8 bits) actually was transmitted
at
the
rate
of 2.9 X
10~4
bit/s, an increase
in
bit
rate by
a
factor of about 20 could be expected on the basis of a coding
scheme more optimum than that used in the experiments.
See,
for example, Appendix A.)
Dr. Charles Tart
at the University of California has written
extensively on the so-called decline effect.
He considers that
having subjects attempt
to guess cards, or perform any other
repetitious task
for which they receive no feedback, follows
the
classical technique
for deconditioning any response.
He
thus
considers
card guessing
“a
technique
for extinguishing
psychic functioning in the laboratory” [32]
Tart’s
injunctions
of the mid-sixties were being heeded
at
Maimonides Hospital, Brooklyn, NY, by a team of researchers
that
included
Dr.
Montague
Ullman, who was
director
of
research
for
the
hospital;
Dr.
Stanley
Krippner;
and,
later,
Charles
Honorton.
These three worked
together for several
years on experiments on the occurrence of telepathy in dreams.
In
the course of a half-dozen experimental series, they found
in
their week-long
sessions
a number
of
subjects who
had
dreams
that
consistently were highly descriptive of
pictorial
material that
a remote sender was looking at throughout the
night.
This work
is described in detail in the experimenters’
book Dream Telepathy
[33].
Honorton
is continuing work
of this free-response type in which the subject has no precon-
ceived idea as to what the target may be.
In
his more
recent- work with subjects in the waking state,
Honorton
is providing homogeneous stimulation to the subject
who
is to describe color slides viewed by another person in a
remote room.
In
this new work, the subject listens to white
noise
via
earphones
and
views an homogeneous
visual
field
imposed through the use of Ping-Pong ball halves to cover the
subject’s
eyes
in
conjunction with
diffuse ambient illumina-
tion.
In this so-called Ganzfeld setting, subjects are again able,
now
in
the waking
state,
to
give
correct and
often
highly
accurate
descriptions
of
the
material being viewed by
the
sender [34]
In Honorton’s work and elsewhere,
it apparently has been
the
step away
from the repetitive forced-choice experiment
that has opened the way for a wide variety of ordinary people
to demonstrate significant functioning in the laboratory, with-
out being bored into a decline effect.
This
survey would
be incomplete
if we
did
not
indicate
certain aspects of the
current
state of research in the USSR.
It
is
clear from translated documents and other sources
[35]
that many laboratories in the USSR are engaged in paranormal
research.
Since the 1930’s, in the laboratory of L. Vasiliev (Leningrad
Institute for Brain Research), there has been an interest in the
use of telepathy as a method of influencing the behavior of a
person at a distance.
In Vasiliev’s book Experiments in Mental
Suggestion, he makes
it very clear that the bulk of his labora-
tory’s experiments were aimed
at long-distance communica-
tion
combined
with
a
form
of
behavior
modification;
for
example, puttine people .at-a dis^e Jo sl^u ituaugh Ju:pr ,
Similar behavior modification types of experiments have been
carried out
in recent times by
I. M. Kogan, Chairman of the
Bioinformation
Section
of the Moscow Board of the Popov
Spciety.
He
is
a
Soviet engineer who, until 1969, published
extensively on the theory of telepathic communication [37]-
[40]
He was concerned with three principal kinds of experi-
ments:
mental
suggestion without
hypnosis
over
short
dis-
tances, in which the percipient attempts to identify an object;
mental awakening over short
distances,
in which a subject
is
awakened from a hypnotic sleep at the “beamed” suggestion
from the hypnotist; and long-range (intercity) telepathic com-
munication.
Kogan’s main
interest has been to quantify the
channel capacity of the paranormal channel. He finds that the
bit
rate decreases from 0.1
bit/s
for laboratory experiments
to 0.005 bit/s for his 1000-km intercity experiments.
In the USSR, serious consideration is given to the hypothesis
that telepathy
is mediated by extremely low-frequency (ELF)
electromagnetic
propagation.
(The
pros
and
cons
of
this
hypothesis
are
discussed
in
Section V of
this
paper.)
In
general, the
entire
field of paranormal research in the USSR
is part of a larger one concerned with the interaction between
electromagnetic
fields and
living organisms [41],
[42].
At
thd
First
International
Congress
on
Parapsychology
and
Psychotronics in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in 1973, for example,
Kholodov spoke
at
length about the susceptibility of
living
systems to extremely low-level ac and dc fields. He described
conditioning effects on the behavior of fish resulting from the
application of 10
to 100 jiW of RF to their tank [43],
The
USSR take these data seriously
in
that the Soviet safety re-
quirements
for
steady-state
microwave
exposure
set
limits
atj 10 /iW/cm
, whereas the United States has set a steady-state
limit of 10 mW/cm 2
[44].
Kholodov spoke
also about the
nonthermal effects of microwaves on animals’ central nervous
systems.
His experiments were very carefully carried out and
are characteristic of a new dimension in paranormal research.
The increasing importance of this area in Soviet research was
indicated recently when the Soviet Psychological Association
issued an unprecedented position paper calling on the Soviet
Academy
of
Sciences
to
step
up
efforts
in
this area
[45].
They
recommended
that
the
newly
formed
Psychological
Institute
within
the
Soviet
Academy
of
Sciences
and
the
Psychological Institute of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences
review the area and consider the creation of a new laboratory
within
one
of
the
institutes
to
study persons with unusual
abilities. They also recommended a comprehensive evaluation
of experiments and theory by the Academy of Sciences’ Insti-
tute of Biophysics and Institute for the Problems of Informa-
tion Transmission.
The
Soviet
research,
along
with
other
behavioristically
oriented work,
suggests
that
in
addition
to obtaining overt
responses such as verbalizations or key presses from a subject,
it should be possible to obtain objective evidence of informa-
tion transfer by direct measurement of physiological parame-
ters
of
a
subject.
Kamiya,
Lindsley,
Pribram,
Silverman,
Walter, and others brought together to discuss physiological
methods
to
detect ESP
functioning,
have
suggested
that
a
whole range of electroencephalogram (EEG) responses such as
evoked potentials (EP’s), spontaneous EEG, and the contingent
negative variation (CNV) might be sensitive indicators of the
detection of remote
stimuli
not mediated by usual sensory
processes [46].
..
carried
out
by
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search
for physiological correlates of information transfer, he
used
the
plethysmograph
to
measure
changes
in
the
blood
volume in
a finger, a sensitive indicator of autonomic nervous
system functioning
[47].
A plethysmographic measurement
was made on
the
finger of a subject during telepathy experi-
ments.
A
sender
looked
at randomly
selected
target
cards
consisting of names known to the subject, together with names
unknown to him (selected at random from a telephone book).
The names of the known people were contributed by the sub-
ject and were
to be
of emotional significance to him.
Dean
found
significant
changes
in
the
chart
recording
of
finger
blood volume when
the remote sender was looking
at those
names known
to
the
subject
as compared with those names
randomly chosen.
Three
other experiments
using the
physiological approach
have now been published. The first work by Tart [48]
,
a later
work by
Lloyd
[49],
and
most
recently
the work
by
the
authors
[4]
all follow a similar procedure.
Basically, a subject
is closeted
in an
electrically shielded room
while
his EEG
is
recorded.
Meanwhile,
in another laboratory, a second person
is stimulated from time to time, and the time of that stimulus
is marked on the magnetic-tape recording of the subject’s EEG.
The subject does not know when the remote stimulus periods
are as compared with the nonstimulus periods.
With regard to choice of stimulus for our own experimenta-
tion, we noted
that
in previous work others had attempted,
without success, to detect evoked potential changes in a sub-
ject’s EEG
in response to a single stroboscopic flash stimulus
observed by
another
subject
[50].
In
a
discussion of
that
experiment, Kamiya suggested
that because of the unknown
temporal
characteristics of the information channel,
it might
be more appropriate to use repetitive bursts of light to increase
the probability of detecting information transfer [51].
There-
fore, in our study we chose to use a stroboscopic flash train of
10-s duration as the remote stimulus.
In the design of the study, we assumed that the application
of
the remote
stimulus would
result
in responses similar
to
those
obtained
under conditions of direct stimulation.
For
example,
when
an
individual
is
stimulated
with
a
low-
frequency (< 30 Hz)
flashing
light, the EEG typically shows
a
decrease
in
the
amplitude
of
the
resting rhythm
and
a
driving of the brain waves at the frequency of the flashes [52].
We
hypothesized
that
if we
stimulated
one
subject
in
this
manner
(a
putative sender), the EEG of another subject in a
remote room
with no
flash present
(a
receiver) might show
changes
in
alpha
(9-1
1 Hz)
activity
and
possibly an EEG
driving similar to that of the sender, or other coupling to the
sender’s EEG
[53].
The
receiver was
seated
in
a
visually
opaque,
acoustically and
electrically shielded, double-walled
steel room
about
7 m from the sender.
The
details of the
experiment,
consisting
of seven runs of thirty-six
10-s
trials
each (twelve periods each for 0-Hz, 6-Hz, and 16-Hz stimuli,
randomly intermixed), are presented in
[4].
This experiment
proved to be successful. The receiver’s alpha activity (9-1
1 Hz)
showed a significant reduction in average power (-24 percent,
p < 0.04) and
peak power (-28
percent, p < 0.03)
during
16-Hz
flash
stimuli
as
compared
with
periods
of no-flash
stimulus.
[A similar response was observed
for 6-Hz stimuli
(-12 percent
in average power, -21
percent in peak power),
but
the
latter
result
did
not
reach
statistical
significance.]
Fig. 2 shows an overlay of three averaged EEG spectra from
Fig. 2 .
Occipital EEC& frequency spectra, 0-20 Hz, of one subject (H.H
acting as receiver showing amplitude changes in the 9-1 1-Hz band as
function of strobe jfrequency.
Three cases:
0-,
6-, and 16*Hz flash
(twelve trial averages).
results
were
produced
by
system
artifacts,
electromagnet]
pickup (EMI), or ^ubtle cueing; the results were negative [4]
As part of the experimental protocol, the subject was aske
to indicate a conscious assessment for each trial (via telegrap
key)
as to the nature of the
stimulus; analysis showed thes
guesses to be at chance.
Thus arousal as evidenced by signif
cant alpha blocking occurred only at the noncognitive level o
physiological response.
Hence the experiment provided direc
physiological (EE(j) evidence of perception of remote stimul
even in the absencq of overt cognitive response.
Whereas in our experiments we used a remote light flash as
stimulus,
Tart
[4*j]
in
his work used an electrical shock
t<
himself as sender, land Lloyd
[49] simply told the sender
t<
think
of
a red
triangle each time
a
red warning
light wa
illuminated
withinj
his
view.
Lloyd
observed
a
consisten
evoked
potential
i^i
his subjects; whereas
in our experiment
and
in
Tart’s,
a reduction in amplitude and a desynchroniza
tion of alpha was Observed—an arousal response.
(If a subjec
is
resting
in
an
alpha-dominant
condition
and
he
is
ther
stimulated, for exajmple in any direct manner, one will observe
a desynchronization and
decrease
in alpha power.)
We con
sider that these combined results are evidence for the existence
of noncognitive awareness of remote happenings and that the)
have a profound implication for paranormal research.
i
III. SRI Investigations of Remote Viewing
j
Experimentation
jin
remote
viewing
began
during
studies
carried out
to investigate
the
abilities of a New York
artist,
Ingo Swann, whence expressed the opinion that the insights
gained during experiments at SRI had strengthened his ability
(verified
in other research before he joined the SRI program)
to
view remote
locations
[54].
To
test Mr. Swann’s
asser-
tion, a pilot study y/as set up in which a series of targets from
around
the globe were supplied by SRI personnel to the ex-
perimenters
on
a
cjouble-blind. basis.
Mr. Swann’s apparent
ability
to
describe
correctly
details
of
buildings,
roads,
bridges, and
the
Ii^e
indicated
that
it may
be
possible
for
a subject by meansj of mental imagery to access and describe
randomly
chosen
geographical
sites
located
several
miles
from
the subject’s
jposition and demarcated by some appro-
priate
means.
Therefore, we
set up
a research program
to
test
the
remote-vieyring hypothesis
under
rigidly
controlled
scientific conditions!
^^08^W2WCPf^trated on what we
e our principal responsibility -to resolve under
control
procedures
were
undertaken
to
determine
if
these
unambiguous conditions the basic issue of whether or not this