NO GUESSWORK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79-00999A000200010080-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 9, 2014
• Sequence Number: 80
• Publication Date: October 1, 1974
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2014/01/09: CIA-RDP79-00999A000200010080-7
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Right on: SRI researchers' targets and Geller's telepathic responses to them
No Guesswork
Parapsychology is the fledgling science
(or pseudo science, depending on one's
point of view) which explores such phe-
nomena as telepathy, clairvoyance, psy-
chokinesis and precognition. In the past
the critics of parapsychology have usual-
ly outshouted its supporters, but in re-
cent months the trend has been running
the other way (NEwswEEK, March 4).
Last week, the field of parapsychology
took a major step toward further re-
spectability with the publication in the
prestigious and notably conservative Brit-
ish journal Nature of a new paper on ex-
trasensory experiments. "In publishing
the paper," said Nature editor David Da-
vies, "we are serving notice to the sci-
entific community that there is something
here worthy of their scrutiny."
The experiments published in Nature
were conducted at the Stanford Re-
search Institute in Menlo Park, Calif., by
laser physicists Dr. Harold Puthoff and
Russell Targ. They involve two psy-
chics: 27-year-old Uri Geller, who for
the last year has been displaying his
paranormal abilities on television talk
shows, and 55-year-old Pat Price, a for-
eter Burbank, Calif., police commissioner.
" a series of carefully controlled ex-
ents, Geller was locked in an
tically shielded room. His task was
etch his impressions of "target" pie-
Declassified and Approved
tures that were randomly selected by
scientists in a nearby room. In two in-
stances his drawings bore only a vague
symbolic resemblance to the target, but
when the target was a suspension bridge,
Geller drew a remarkable abstract ver-
sion of it. And his impressions-of a bunch
of grapes, a camel and a seagull in flight
were amazingly accurate. The SRI re-
searchers calculate that the odds against
Geller's performing as well as he did are
more than 1 million to one.
In a more difficult experiment, con-
ducted before a group of scientists and
filmed by a camera to check for any
sleight of hand, Geller on eight successive
occasions correctly called the uppermost
face of a die that had been shaken in a
steel box (again, a million-to-one shot).
ESP: Despite the precautions taken by
the scientists to prevent cheating, the
experiments involving Geller have many
critics. Martin Gardner, a mathematics
writer for Scientific American, argues
that Geller (who was a stage performer
in his native Israel) is "so skillful a magi-
cian that only another magician, and not
a group of scientists, can determine
whether Geller uses trickery or not."
Ex-cop Pat Price had parasensorily to
"see" locations in the San Francisco area
that were visited by researchers, while
he remained locked in a shielded room
at SRI. His impressions of buildings and
the natural landscape were accurate
For Release 2014/01/09:
against odds of about 2,000 to one.
Even so, the publication of the paper
by Nature does not put a final seal of
approval on the SRI work?or place it
above all challenge, whether of possible
fraud on the part of the two psychics or
of oversights on the part of Puthoff and
Targ. "What we are saying to scientists,"
says Nature's Davies, "is: Here is what
has been done in the name of science.
Here are the accusations. Now go back
and have another look."
The Smoke Detective
In the aftermath of any major fire in
Salt Lake City, 46-year-old Irving EM-
horn can usually be found poking around
in the rubble, picking up strips of
scorched clothing, pieces of charred
wood and distorted chunks of plastic. Un-
like most of the buffs who follow the
fire engines, Einhorn has a professional
interest in the smoldering remains. He
heads the University of Utah's Flamma-
bility Research Center, and his gruesome
souvenirs, together with computerized
records that contain details on more than
12,000 Salt Lake City fires, are the raw
materials for a concerted scientific effort
to reduce the toll of fires.
The primary goal of the Utah center,
whose staff includes organic chemists,
physiologists, toxicologists, neuropatholo-
gists and plastic surgeons, is to under-
stand just how fires start, spread and kill
their victims. The center's areas of inves-
tigation include the effects of season, cli-
mate and time of day on the probability
that fires will occur in specific locations;
the sequence in which different materials
ignite; and the mechanism whereby
smoke can maim or kill. The need for
such detailed research is pressing. The
U.S. now has the highest per-capita rates
of death and property loss from fire of all
the world's major industrialized nations:
there are 12,000 deaths, 300,000 injuries
and $3 billion in property damage each
year. Yet at present basic research into
fires is minimal.
Kill: The lethal effects of such neglect
were pointed up in an investigation by
the center into the flammability of
fabrics. This showed that some blends of
synthetic fibers and cottons used in per-
manent-press garments can be virtual
deathtraps if they catch fire. In one
experiment, a shirt consisting of 80 per
cent polyester and 20 per cent cotton was
totally destroyed by fire in fifteen seconds.
As a result of the center's findings, EM-
horn has lobbied for legislation to re-
quire that garments --woven from such
materials must be treated with fire re-
tardants. In fact, the fourteen major
U.S. synthetic-fiber producers have spent
more than $20 million during the past
year on research and development of
materials with lower flammability.
Other studies by the Flammability Re-
search Center suggest that smoke can kill
more quickly than flames. One dramatic
example occurred three years ago in a
fire in a Salt Lake City nursing home.
Newsweek
CIA-RDP79-00999A000200010080-7