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“CPYRGH pe Pr eo pproved For Release 2000/08/09 : cia-RpP96-00792R0008003100Kh NCLASS: Fi cl) PUTHOFF AND TARG: PERCEPTUAL CHANNEL FOR INFORMATION TRA Fig. 13. Subject (S4) drawing of drill press showing belt drive, stool, and a “vertical graph that goes up and down.” Thus the primary achievement of the SRI program was the elicitation of high-quality remote viewing from individuals who agreed to act as subjects. Criticism of this claim could in principle be put forward on the basis of three potential flaws. 1) The study could involve naiveté in protocol that permits various forms of cueing, intentional or unintentional, 2) The experiments discussed could be selected out of a larger pool of experiments of which many are of poorer quality. 3) Data for the reported experiments could be edited to show only the matching elements, the nonmatching elements being discarded. All three criticisms, however, are invalid. First, with regard to cueing, the use of double-blind protocols ensures that none of the persons in contact with the subject can be aware of the target. Second, selection of experiments for reporting did not take place; every experiment was entered as performed on a master log and is included in the statistical evaluations. Third, data associated with a given experiment remain unedited; all experiments are tape recorded and all data are included un- In the process of judging—attempting to match transcripts against targets on the basis of the information in the transcripts—some patterns and regularities in the transcript descriptions became evident, particularly regarding individual styles in remote viewing and in the perceptual form of the descriptions given by the subjects. These patterns and the judging procedure are discussed below. a} Styles of response: The fifty-one transcripts were taken from nine different subjects. Comparing the tran- scripts of one subject with those of another revealed that each pattern tended to focus on certain aspects of the remote target complex and to exclude others, so that each had an individual pattern of response, like a signature. Subject $3, for example, frequently responded with topo- graphical descriptions, maps, and architectural features of the target locations. Subject S2 often focused on the behavior of the remote experimenter or the sequence of actions he carried out at the target. The transcripts of subject $4, more than those of other subjects, had descriptions of the feel of the lo- cation, and experiential or sensory gestalts-for example, light/dark elements in the scene and indoor/outdoor and enclosed/open distinctions, Prominent features of $1’s tran- scripts were detailed descriptions of what the target persons were concretely experiencing, seeing, or doing~for example, standing on asphalty blacktop overlooking water; looking at a purple iris. : The range of any individual subject’s responses was wide. Anyone might draw a map or describe the mood of the remote experimenter, but the consistency of each subject’s overall approach suggests that just as individual descriptions of a directly viewed scene would differ, so these differences also occur in remote-viewing processes, b) Nature of the description: The concrete descriptions that appear most commonly in transcripts are at the level of subunits of the overall scene. For example, when the target was a Xerox copy machine, the responses included (S2) a rolling object (the moving light) or dials and a cover that is lifted (S3), but the machine as a whole was not identified by name or function. In a few transcripts, the subjects correctly identified and named the target. In the case of a computer terminal, the subject (V2) apparently perceived the terminal and the relay racks behind it. In the case of targets which were Hoover Tower and White Plaza, the subjects (S1 and S6, respectively) seemed to identify the locations through analysis of their initial images of the elements of the target. There were also occasional incorrect identifications. Gestalts were incorrectly named; for example, swimming pools in a park were identified as water storage tanks at a water filtration plant (S1). The most common perceptual level was thus an intermediate one—the individual elements and items that make up the tar- get. This is suggestive of a scanning process that takes sample perceptions from within the overall environment. When the subjects tried to make sense out of these fragmen- tary impressions, they often resorted to metaphors or con- structed an image with a kind of perceptual inference. From a feeling of the target as an ‘‘august” and “solemn” building, a subject (S4) said it might be a library; it was a church. A pedestrian overpass above a freeway was described as a conduit (84). A rapid transit station, elevated above the countryside, was associated with an observatory (S2). These responses seem to be the result of attempts to process partial informa- UNCLASSIFIED