Reality Uncovered Network

Featured Writer Series - Mike Jamieson

We are pleased to announce the second in a series of articles by Mike Jamieson, the well known researcher and former MUFON state section director for Napa County in California.
Mike is a valued member of the REALITY uncovered forums and this article is the second part of his enthralling "History of Remote Viewing" feature.

Part 1 - Adoption of the term "Remote Viewing"
Part 2 - The CIA Gets Hip To A New Intelligence Tool
Part 3 - All You Really Need Is An Address

A History of Remote Viewing

Part 2 - THE CIA GETS HIP TO A NEW INTELLIGENCE TOOL
First published 8th August 2007

Less than a year after Ingo Swann "remote viewed" weather conditions in Tucson, Arizona as part of experiments conducted at the New York City offices of the American Society of Psychical Research, the CIA would be giving an independent research organization, formerly a part of Stanford University until divested to its nuclear research projects, an "exploratory contract" of $49,909 to do classified research into the viability and potential of remote viewing.

The person at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) chosen to oversee this initial eight month project (called Biofield Measurements Program) was Hal Puthoff, at that time working on laser research at SRI. Joining him later would be a colleague (from laser research and also with an interest in parapsychology), Russell Targ.

Puthoff in a 1996 paper recounts the history of "CIA-Initiated Remote Viewing at Stanford Research Institute". That paper could be written (see http://www.militaryremoteviewers.com/cia_remote_viewing_sri.htm) because in July 1995 the CIA declassified papers and reports generated by SRI's research and use of remote viewing for the benefit of the CIA.

Another detailed account, in the form of an online book (see http://www.biomindsuperpowers.com
 and the link there), was written by Ingo Swann (who along with a man named Pat Price would be the remote viewing participants in this initial remote viewing project on the CIA's behalf).

And, perhaps most valuable of all due to the author's access to not only his own notes of involvement in an unit of the government's remote viewing operations since 1983 but also his interviews with most of the key figures (including Puthoff and Swann), is the book "Reading the Enemy's Mind: America's Psychic Espionage Program" by Paul H. Smith. Famed Pulitzer Prize journalist Jack Anderson wrote the forward to this book and summarizes his own history of examining and reporting on this long secret program.
(People can see Smith's website, http://www.rviewer.com, for more information.)

In March 1972, Swann saw some intriguing correspondence, a paper on "quantum biology" by Hal Puthoff, at Cleve Backster's home in New York. (During this time Swann was still doing experiments at the American Society of Psychical Research.) Swann soon wrote to Puthoff, sharing his experiences with the early experiments that attempted a PK influence over organic matter. Puthoff responded not longer after by phone and the stage was being set for Swann to visit SRI early in June 1972.

Puthoff prepared a surprise test for Swann on this first visit, involving getting access to a shielded, quark detecting magnetometer at Stanford University's Physics Department. On his visit, it appeared Swann was able to disturb the operation of the magnetometer (while located on the floor above the vault). He further went on to impress Puthoff by drawing details of the the complex interior of the magnetometer. (No such schematics had been published prior to this.)

All this so impressed Puthoff that he wrote a paper about it and circulated it among scientific colleagues. What in particular impressed Puthoff were Swann's detailed drawings of the magnetometer's make-up. And, this is what also what impressed the two CIA representatives who showed up shortly after Puthoff sending his report out. They also had a copy of the report. (After this visit, Puthoff did write to Dr. Christopher "Kit" Green about the experiment. Green was then at the Life Science Desk, part of the CIA's Office of Strategic Intelligence. Puthoff's contact with him begin their many years of association.)

No one writing the history of remote viewing seems to know how these two CIA visitors came across Puthoff's paper, but they were aware that Puthoff had worked as a Naval Intelligence Officer and then later as a civilian employee with the National Security Agency (NSA).

And, Puthoff reports in his account of this meeting that these representatives from the CIA expressed concern about Soviet parapsychological research and utilization of psychic skills as an intelligence tool. (Puthoff references a later-1978-paper by the Defense Intelligence Agency, identified as DST-18105-202-78 and entitled "Paraphysics R and D--Warsaw Pact U.)
The visitors explained that they had been looking for a research laboratory that was unconnected formally with an academic institution and that could serve as a quiet, low-profile place for classified research and investigation. SRI seemed to fit the bill. So, as a result, they gave SRI a small amount of money to fly Ingo Swann out to Stanford and have him participate in some tests to observe and evaluate his remote viewing skills.

This testing and evaluation happened in August 1972. CIA scientists came out to participating in testing and evaluating Swann's potential enhanced perceptual abilities. Basically, Swann was asked to remote view the contents of sealed containers. In three cases, the CIA visitors placed items in three sealed boxes (contents picked and known only by them). Swann did well altogether, though he was very puzzled by what he saw in one of the boxes prepared by the CIA visitors. He thought he saw a "brown leaf" floating up by the underside of the lid. In fact, the CIA guys had placed a large brown moth in the box.

These trials were sufficient to move the CIA to fund on October 1, 1972 (the first day of the government's fiscal year for 1973) a contract with SRI in the amount of $49,909 for exploratory research into parapsychology. This contract would fund the research for eight months (which began in January 1973).

Discuss this story in the forums