REQUIREMENTS RELATING TO PARANORMAL RESEARCH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00787R000400070009-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 29, 2000
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: March 13, 1973
• Content Type: MF

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S G1I MEMORANDUM FOR:
SUBJECT: Requirements Relating to Paranormal Research
1. Phenomenology:
A. I would recommend that research in this area be directed
toward ascertaining for each mode or kind of phenomena
the limits, or limiting factors, associated with operational
range, sensitivity, and selectivity. Associated with the
range question Is the nature of impedance and whether
range varies linearly, nonlinearly--or perhaps nonrationally.
B. In addition to these basic characteristics, their relation-
ships should be considered in terms of mode dependence.
For example, sensitivity might have one kind of meaning
with respect to telepathy and a different connotation in
psychokenesis. In the case of selectivity, to what extent
can the activities of an individual be differentiated from
a group--at what range?
C. A variety of factors would intuitively seem to be important
in this research including: age, sex, other physiological
characteristics, psychological characteristics, heredity,
cultural background, etc. In addition, a variety of
temporal relationships should be investigated, e.g. when
performance in one mode is at a high level, is performance
in other modes exceptional, unaffected, or downgraded?
If learning is evident in some mode, are other modes also
enhanced?
D. All of the above are intended to illustrate only the
wide spectrum of relationships which should be considered
in the design of any experiments and in data gathering and
processing.
E. At present it would seem that many tests would have to be
tailored to the particular subject and that the test for
limits of capability in one individual might be different
than for others.
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INW
SUBJECT: Requirements Relating to Paranormal Research
F. A particularly important consideration to be kept in mind
in investigating the phenomena is that information is
weightless. (?)
2. Application:
This area of research is strongly dependent, of course, on
what can be learned about the phenomenolo, al
limiting factors in range, sensitivity, etc eMostioflthehpotential
applications are obvious. In some cases, however, it might be
possible to do entirely new things, such as locating some kinds
of mineral deposits, etc.
3. Elucidation:
A. To the extent possible it would seem advisable to employ
the maximum possible instrumentation in any test. It`would be
important, of course, to determine whether this instrumentation
had any effect on the performance of any of the several modes.
Even with lots of time, lots of money, and lots of instrumentation,
as well as a reasonable number of subjects, it should not be
anticipated that anything approaching a comprehensive theory
could be quickly developed. The most ambitious approach would be
to associate the paranormal phenomena with physical phenomena in
such a way as to lead to the development of a general field theory.
Since this remains to be done in well-behaved areas such as physics,
success along these lines would seem highly unlikely--but, on the
other hand, experimental data from paranormal tests might provide
new and helpful Insights in older, well-established fields.
B. At most it might be possible to develop a few equations
or rules over the next few years to relate the modes of performance
and the observed performance limits.
SG1I
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 SG1I
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