WITH NATURE ARTICLE QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00787R000100220004-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 1, 2000
• Sequence Number: 4
• Content Type: PREL

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WITH NATURE ARTICLE
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
CONTACTS:
Ronald I. Deutsch, Ext. 3754
Home: [phone]
Elizabeth deAtley, Ext. 3450
Home: [phone]
Stan DeVaughn, Ext. 3034
Home: [phone]
(The following material is provided in anticipation of the most
common questions asked about SRI'S research on paranormal
phenomena. Dr. Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ provided
the answers to the questions. )
Question: Is this the first time that such phenomena have been scientifically
documented?
Answer: These phenomena have been studied and documented under widely
varying degrees of scientific rigor for almost a century, both in
the U. S. and England.
Question: Would you describe Geller and Price as "psychics"? What about
claims of charlatanism and fakery?
Answer: Geller, Price, and others that we have studied exhibit the ability
to view remote objects and events shielded from their ordinary
sensory inputs. We have under consideration the hypothesis that
all people have this ability to a greater or lesser extent, and we
therefore tend to minimize the uniqueness of these subjects with
regard to their inherent ability, while emphasizing the degree
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to which they have developed it. We have designed our experiments
to be a cheat-proof as possible and we have no evidence of trickery
under our experimental conditions. We have consulted with
professional magicians as to both techniques and equipment that
could be employed by magicians in performing some of the tasks
that we have given our test subjects.
Question: What is the significance of this study?
Answer: The significance of our study lies in the fact that we have
presented evidence for the existence of a perceptual ability (remote
viewing) which appears to function under conditions where the
ordinary sensory channels are shielded.
Question: What, in your opinion, is the most significant experiment conducted
in this study?
Answer: We consider the EEG experiments to be the most signficant
because they show that a person can perceive a remote state of affairs,
even though this perception might be below the level of awareness.
We consider it possible that people who have no present awareness
of any paranormal perceptual ability might learn to bring it to
conscious awareness with appropriate training techniques.
Question: Do you believe that all or mostly all people possess some type of
"paranormal" ability?
Answer: We believe that many people have a latent ability and the necessary
(more)
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willingness that may enable them to develop paranormal perceptual
abilities to some degree.
Question: Does SRI now maintain a regular facility for psychic research?
Will it conduct more studies in the future?
Answer: SRI has a very limited experimental program in this area. This
program will continue to function as determined by expressions
of client interest and support.
Question: Where does your research on Geller and Price go from here?
Answer: The Institute's contract with Mr. Geller has expired and we do
not have any plans to renew it. Our work with Mr. Price and
other subjects in the area of remote viewing continues. In general,
we will attempt to make as many physical and physiological
measures on our test subjects as is practicable in the attempt to try
to uncover any extraordinary biological function. Particular
attention is being paid to those measurements that tend to indicate
state of consciousness and emotion, such as polygraphic measure-
ments, including galvanic skin response, EEG, and other types
of physiological measurements.
Question: What about your personal views on psychic phenomena, outside of
the laboratory- -could a private bias either for or against this area
of study have affected or prejudiced your research?
(more)
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Answer: We have indicated that we attempt to make our experiments as
cheat-proof as possible. We also attempt to make our experiments
independent of any bias that may exist in the minds of the experimenters
and test subjects. Where appropriate, a panel of judges is used to
evaluate the experimental results. These judges are selected by SRI
management, and an attempt is made to use judges with no known
bias in this field of research. In scientific research, experiments
are not conducted unless the experimenter believes in the possibility
of a successful outcome. The experiments conducted here were
not different--both the experimenters and the test subjects believed
that successful results were possible.
In general, there are a great many ways for an experiment
to fail, while there are only a few ways for it to succeed. One could
demonstrate the non-existence of many known physical laws by
carelessly performing one of the classical experiments from this
history of physics. Commitment to the successful outcome of an
experiment and belief in the possibility of success will not affect
the validity of the results if the experiment has been designed to
be independent of these beliefs and commitments.
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