Caryn Anscomb's

Trickster Tales

An Exploration of Boundary Merging Between the UFO Culture, Parapsychology, and Intelligence Agencies

The UFO arena fast became a platform for gathering and disseminating information to and from a variety of sources, and wherein the trickster runs riot. Paranoia, suspicion and allegations abound and that’s just between the pro-UFO lobbyists; when Intel and parapsychology are thrown into the mix the heat reaches boiling point. 

UFO Tales Part Four:

Psychic Spies

"Several sources involved directly with the Remote Viewing programs, in one capacity or another, have confirmed to me that the technique is still being utilized and further developed within specialized operational military organizations."

The ORD funds were used extensively for studies into the identification of measurable physiological and psychological characteristics of psychic individuals, and the establishment of experimental protocols for validating paranormal abilities. The OTS funds were used to evaluate the operational utility of psychic subjects.

Problems soon developed between ORD and SRI (Stanford Research Institute).

Kress writes:

“Our tasking in the basic research area proved to be more “extensive than time and funds would allow. The contractors wanted to compromise by doing all of the tasks with less completeness. The ORD scientists insisted that with such a controversial topic, fewer but more rigorous results would be of more value. The rigor of the research became a serious issue between the ORD project officers and SRI. with myself generally taking a position between the righteousness of the contractor and indignation of the researchers. Several meetings occurred over that issue.”[1a]

The relationship between ORD and SRI continued to deteriorate, exasperated further by the appointments of new Directors of ORD and OTS, neither Director having any background or experience in paranormal research. Kress requested a meeting with the new ORD Director during which the Director informed Kress that he could not accept the reality of paranormal functioning, but would follow the advice of his staff. However, the ORD Project Officers were experiencing their own uncertainties about the research and now had to contend with the skepticism of their new Director. This skepticism adversely affected the opinions of the OTS staff and support for the project diminished further.

In an attempt to ascertain whether there was any workable function to the claims coming out of SRI, the first intelligence collection operation using parapsychology was attempted. The target was the URDF-3 facility (Unidentified Research and Development Facility-3 formerly known as PNUTS). Pat Price was chosen for the experiment.

Kress writes:

“From experience it was obvious that Price produced bad data as well as good. Borrowing from classical communication theory concepts, this “noisy channel” of information could nevertheless be useful if it were characterized. An elaborate protocol was designed which would accomplish two characterization measurements. First, we needed assurance the channel was collecting useful data. I reviewed the photos of URDF-3 and chose two features which, if Price described them, would show the channel at least partially working. Referring to Figure la, these features were the tall crane and the four structures resembling oil well derricks. It was agreed that if Price described these structures, I would be prepared to have him sign a secrecy agreement, making him witting, and collect more relevant intelligence details. Secondly, after a working channel was thus established, a signal-to-noise or quality characterization was ‘required. This would be done by periodic tests of the channel—that is, periodically Price would be asked to describe features of URDF-3 which were known. The accuracy of these descriptions would be used to estimate the quality of the data we had no obvious way of verifying.”[1b]

The experiment began with Kress and his branch chief briefing Targ and Puthoff in a motel room. Later, back at SRI, Targ and Puthoff briefed Pat Price. Price was given only the geographic coordinates, a world atlas map marked with the approximate location of URDF-3. and informed it was a Soviet RD&E test site. During the night Price produced a drawing of a large crane which caught the attention of Kress, and although the derricks weren’t mentioned the sketch of the crane was significant enough for Kress and his branch manager to make the decision to continue.

Kress and his branch manger set up a meeting with Price through Targ and Puthoff. Kress was introduced to Price as the projects sponsor. Price was asked to sign a secrecy agreement, and after further discussion Kress inquired why Price hadn’t seen the four derricks at the target site. Price informed Kress that the derricks were no longer there. Since Kress’s data was some four months old in wasn’t in a position to argue the point. A few weeks after the meeting with Price the latest URDF-3 reconnaissance was checked. Two derricks were partially dismantled, but all four were still visible. Kress comments that most of Price’s data were wrong or could not be evaluated but he did produce some amazing descriptions of buildings then under construction, spherical tank sections, and the crane.

Two analysts were consulted, one a photo interpreter, the second a nuclear analyst at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratories and both agreed that Price’s description of the crane was accurate. The nuclear analyst concluded that, “One: he, the subject, actually saw it through remote viewing, or Two: he was informed what to draw by someone
knowledgeable of URDF-3.”[1c]

Due to the high levels of bad information mixed in with the good, the ORD officers concluded that since there were no control experiments to compare with, the positive data were likely nothing but lucky guesswork, and Kress began to doubt his own objectivity in evaluating the significance of paranormal abilities to intelligence gathering. SRI on the other hand continued to assert that the results obtained to date were highly significant.
Kress decided to engage an independent analyst to look at the data. The analysts first task was to evaluate the field of parapsychology without knowledge of the CIA data. This produced a genuine interest in paranormal functioning as a valid research area. He was then tasked with looking through the CIA data and requested to reassess his critique. His conclusion was that: “a large body of reliable experimental evidence points to the inescapable conclusion that extrasensory perception does exist as a real phenomenon, albeit characterized by rarity and lack of reliability.” This gave Kress the renewed confidence he needed to proceed.

A final challenge was issued by OTS management, and Price was chosen again to perform the task. A request for suggestions was placed with the operational personnel in both OTS and the DDO.

 Kress writes:

“An intriguing idea was selected from audio operational applications: the difficult and dangerous job of targeting and installing audio collection systems. A test to determine if remote viewing could help was suggested. The interiors of two foreign embassies were known to the audio teams who had made entries several years previously. Price was to visit these embassies by his remote viewing capability, locate the coderooms, and come up with information that might allow a member of the audio team to determine whether Price was likely to be of operational use in subsequent operations. Price was given operationally acceptable data such as the exterior photographs and the geographical coordinates of the embassies. [1d]

In both cases, Price correctly located the coderooms. He produced copious amounts of data, such as the location of interior doors and colors of marble stairs and fireplaces that were accurate and specific. As usual, much was also vague and incorrect. Regardless, the operations officer involved concluded, “It is my considered opinion that this technique—whatever it is—offers definite operational possibilities.”[1e]

The OTS and the DDO reviewed the results and suggestions for potential follow-on activities were formulated. Since Kress was judged to be positively biased towards paranormal functioning, it was decided that the testing and evaluation of Price should be transferred to a more pragmatic OTS operations psychologist.

The OTS psychologist chose to complete an unfinished DDO requirement from 1974, wherein several OTS engineers had volunteered to attempt remote viewing and had passed the initial remote viewing tests at SRI with some considerable successes. Kress, wanting to test the engineers further suggested the obtaining of information about a Libyan site described only by its geographic coordinates. The OTS engineers described a new construction, possibly an SA-5 missile training site. The Libyan Desk officer revealed to Kress that an agent had reported essentially the same story. A second set of Libyan geographic coordinates was passed to Price by the OTS psychologist. Price provided a report describing a guerrilla training site and a detailed sketch of the complex. Price also described an underwater sabotage training facility several hundred kilometers away, along the coast. The information was passed to the Libyan Desk, some of the data were evaluated immediately, some after ordering special reconnaissance coverage of the area which verified the information produced by Price.

Kress writes:

“The underwater sabotage training facility description was similar to a collateral agent’s report. The Libyan Desk officer quickly escalated the requirement to what was going on inside those buildings, the plans and intentions, etc. The second requirements list was passed to Pat Price. Price died of a heart attack a few days later, and the program stopped.”[1f]

At the time of writing his report Kress states that since July, 1975, there had been only modest CIA and Intelligence Community Staff interest in parapsychology. The OSI (Office of Scientific Intelligence) had completed a study about Soviet military and KGB applied parapsychology. During November, 1976, Director George Bush was made aware that official Soviets were visiting SRI and questioning Puthoff and Targ about their work in parapsychology. Mr. Bush requested a briefing on the CIA’s investigations into parapsychology, but left the Agency before making any official comment.

Kress also notes that in August, 1973, parapsychology was discussed with several members of DIA. He writes:

“The DIA people were basically interested in the Soviet activities in this area and expressed considerable interest in our own fledgling results. Numerous meetings have occurred during the past several years. DIA remains interested on a low priority basis. The Army Materiel Command learned of CIA interest in the paranormal. We discovered the Army interest was generated by data which emerged from Vietnam. Apparently certain individuals called point men, who led patrols into hostile territory, had far fewer casualties from booby traps and ambushes than the average. These point men, needless to say, had a loyal following of men and, in general, greatly helped the morale of their troops under a brutal, stressful situation. The Army gave extensive physical and psychological tests to a group of unusually successful point men and came to no conclusion other than perhaps that paranormal capabilities may be the explanation! The Army was most interested in CIA results and wanted to stay closely informed.” [1g]

Kress writes that after a few follow-up meetings the Army interest went quiet and they were never heard from again.

DARPA (The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) had displayed some initial interest in the work being carried out at SRI, but relations became strained. Kress reports that during a briefing with SRI contractors, himself, and DARPA, they endured a several-hour confrontational debate with hostile DARPA people who had been convened especially to debunk their results.

The Navy then approached SRI and provided a small amount of funding to replicate one of their earlier experiments. The results were positive. The Navy requested a repeat experiment under a different set conditions. Although an effect was observed it was not as successful as the previous experiments, and the funding was cut.

Kress writes: “The active funding for parapsychology now has shifted to the Air Force’s Foreign Technology Division with the addition of modest testing being completed by another group at DARPA. These investigations are not yet completed, but a second phase is funded by the Air Force. The Air Force project is attempting to evaluate whether signals and communications can be sent and received by paranormal functioning. Also aircraft and missile intelligence which can be verified is being gathered and evaluated. To date the results are more consistent than those seen during the CIA research, but still they are mixed. Some simple experiments seemed very impressive and conclusive. The more complex experiments are difficult to assess.” [1h]

Kress states that the experimental observations, such as the original magnetic experiments at Stanford University, the OSI remote viewing, the OTS-coderoom experiments, and others tasked by the DOD, certainly defy explanation and goes on to further state that coincidence is not likely, and that fraud has not been discovered.

He concludes his report with the following:

“Past and current support of parapsychology comes from applications-oriented intelligence and military agencies. The people managing such agencies demand quick and relevant results. The intelligence and military agencies, therefore, press for results before there is sufficient experimental reproducibility or understanding of the physical mechanisms. Unless there is a major breakthrough in understanding, the situation is not likely to change as long as applications-oriented agencies are funding parapsychology. Agencies must commit long-term basic research funds and learn to confine attention to testing only abilities which at least appear reproducible enough to be used to augment other hard collection techniques (example: use parapsychology to help target hard intelligence collection techniques and determine if the take is thereby increased). Parapsychology, like other technical issues, can then rise or fall on its merits and not stumble over bureaucratic charters and conjectures proposed by people who are irrevocably on one side or the other in the controversial area.”[1i]

In an article titled CIA-Initiated Remote Viewing At Stanford University [2] Dr Hal Puthoff discusses the history of the Remote Viewing program. He writes:
“As a result of the material being generated by both SRI and CIA remote viewers, interest in the program in government circles, especially within the intelligence community, intensified considerably and led to an ever-increasing briefing schedule. This in turn led to an ever-increasing number of clients, contracts and tasking, and therefore expansion of the program to a multi-client base, and eventually to an integrated joint-services program under single-agency (DIA) leadership. To meet the demand for the increased level of effort we first increased our professional staff by inviting Ed May to join the program in 1976, then screened and added to the program a cadre of remote viewers as consultants, and let subcontracts to increase our scope of activity.”

Further development of Remote Viewing work was directed towards assessing the threat potential of its use against the U.S.A. by adversaries. Experiments were carried out under conditions where a priori was known or could be determined in order to calculate success rates. Puthoff notes that there were some “brilliant successes, many total failures”, the full details of which are still to be released. However, over the years the SRI team have managed to publish summaries pertaining to the overall characteristics of Remote Viewing, both in the positive and negative.

Dr Puthoff concludes his paper with the following:

“Regardless of one's a priori position, however, an unimpassioned observer cannot help but attest to the following fact. Despite the ambiguities inherent in the type of exploration covered in these programs, the integrated results appear to provide unequivocal evidence of a human capacity to access events remote in space and time, however falteringly, by some cognitive process not yet understood. My years of involvement as a research manager in these programs have left me with the conviction that this fact must be taken into account in any attempt to develop an unbiased picture of the structure of reality.”

Dr Russell Targ offers similar conclusions when he writes:

“Hundreds of remote viewing experiments were carried out at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) from 1972 to 1986. The purpose of some of these trials was to elucidate the physical and psychological properties of psi abilities, while others were conducted to provide information for our CIA sponsor about current events in far off places. We learned that the accuracy and reliability of remote viewing was not in any way affected by distance, size, or electromagnetic shielding, and we discovered that the more exciting or demanding the task, the more likely we were to be successful. Above all, we became utterly convinced of the reality of psi abilities.”[3]

An official request was issued to the Central Intelligence Agency to conduct an evaluation of the 24-year government-sponsored RV program and its potential use within the Intelligence Community. The CIA tasked the American Institutes for Research (AIR) to conduct the review of both research and operations. Their final report was released to the public on 28th November, 1995.
The 183 page report details the programs efforts and the findings are primarily split into two areas of relevance:

1: Research Evaluation – concentrating on evaluating the various Laboratory studies

2: Operational Evaluation – assessing the operational value of remote viewing for use in intelligence gathering.

The reviewers conclusions are found on page 4 of the report and reproduced here:

As a result of AIR's report, the CIA concluded that a statistically significant effect had been demonstrated in the laboratory, but that there was no case in which ESP had provided data that had ever been used to guide intelligence operations. The program was officially terminated as a result of these conclusions.

It’s probably little surprise that there was a good degree of bitterness emanating from the long-standing researchers within the program, several raising strongly worded objections regarding AIR’s methodology and conclusions. They indicated that the report was accomplished by limiting the research and operations data sets to the exclusion of significant positive findings, by purposefully not interviewing historically significant participants, and by ignoring previous DOD extensive program reviews.

Edwin May details his objections in a commentary written for The Journal of Parapsychology, 1996. [5]

A recent article written for bbc.co.uk [6] highlights the UK’s MoD’s interest in psychic ability. In 2002 the MoD conducted tests to verify whether there was any truth to claims of psychic ability coming from the academic community, and if true, could there be any applied use for psychics within National Defense.

The MoD had originally attempted to recruit reputed psychics for the tests, but the psychics declined the offer, so ‘novice’ volunteers were recruited. In what sounds like a truly ‘scientific examination’, the volunteers were blindfolded and tasked with revealing the contents of sealed envelopes. The results, perhaps not too surprisingly, were not very encouraging. Only around 28% of the volunteers came anywhere near close to revealing the contents accurately.
The MoD study concluded that Remote Viewing theories had little value to the MoD in defense of the nation. [7]

This fairly archaic approach by the MoD seems a bit shabby in comparison to research being conducted elsewhere over the past 30 years. I find it difficult to believe that interest wasn’t sparked earlier in the UK, considering the request for information made by the Chief of CIA’s Office of the Technical Service Division way back in 1961, to Dr Stephen Abrams, then Director of the Parapsychology Laboratory at Oxford University. Although Abrams wrote a review paper in which he stated that ESP was demonstrated but not understood or controllable, and wasn’t taken up seriously in the USA until Dr. Russell Targ and Dr. Harold Puthoff re-awakened CIA interest a decade later (see Trickster Tales part 3), I’m pretty sure the request wouldn’t have escaped the attention of the UK Intel community. Ok, I’m a Brit – I’m slightly biased and ever hopeful.

There has been a considerable amount of speculation on what course the military establishments did in fact take as a result of experiments at SRI. The declassified Star Gate files indicate USAF had tasked several of its own experiments with Remote Viewing, though to date the bulk of USAF files appear to be missing, or yet to be declassified.

Several sources involved directly with the Remote Viewing programs, in one capacity or another, have confirmed to me that the technique is still being utilized and further developed within specialized operational military organizations.

For further reading: In his excellent and darkly humorous book: The Men Who Stare At Goats, Jon Ronson takes up the trail of USA military funded research into psychic ability and it’s potential use in the field. [8] Some of which we’ll be exploring in part 6.
 

To be continued ...

REFERENCES:

[2] http://www.biomindsuperpowers.com/Pages/CIA-InitiatedRV.html

[4] http://psiland.free.fr/dossiers/parapsy/psi_defense/remote.pdf

[5] http://www.lfr.org/LFR/csl/media/air_mayresponse.html

[6] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6388575.stm

[7] http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/FreedomOfInformation/

DisclosureLog/SearchDisclosureLog/RemoteViewing.htm

[8] http://www.jonronson.com/goats_04.html

Copyright (c) 2007 Caryn Anscomb. All rights reserved.