PSI OPERATIONAL CAPABILITY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00792R000600220001-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 28, 1998
• Sequence Number: 1
• Content Type: RP

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PSI OPERATIONAL CAPABILITY
Since the DoD became involved with supporting psi research in 1978, a large num-
ber of attempts have been made to apply remote viewing to solve intelligence problems.
The DIA has regularly tasked SRI to gather information on real events that were of intel-
ligence interest. The Army has had an "operational unit" at Fort Meade since
They received many requests for intelligence information and responded to many and
varied customers. All of this has been done without any attention being placed on the
problem of how do you go from a research program to an operational capability? Until
this is investigated, we should not expect huge successes on operational tasks. A prime
example of the difficulty you encounter is that many of the operational tasks required
search remote viewing (where is the object) while all of the research was on site remote
viewing (what is at this location).
The purpose of this paper is to look at the problems of going from an R&D
program to operations and to suggest solutions to the problems. In addition a structure
for doing operational remote viewing will be included in this paper.
The principle pitfall of doing operational remote viewing the way it is currently done
is that we present a facade of a capability that we do not have. We are then judged, by
the customer, on this basis. Never is it explained that we are responding due to the ur-
gence of the situation (Beirut hostages) and that we are not claiming to have a proven, in
place operational capability.
In addition when we attempt to apply psi abilities there is often not enough research
to support our efforts. For instance, the Army puts their remote viewers through a train-
ing program and then calls them operational remote viewers. However, they have no
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evidence that the training program accomplishes what it claims. They also train their
operational viewers, in-house. They provide this training without conducting any research
on the numerous and varied aspects of psi ability or training techniques.
Existing Problems
At present there are two groups who do operational remote viewing. They will be
discussed individually as their problems are unique.
The first group is a rather diffuse unit. It consists of a variety of people who are
associated with SRI. It includes consultants, sub-contractors and people with good per-
formance records in remote viewing. The problems are that they are widely scattered
(coast to coast), they may not be available, it requires time to assemble them (time is
often very critical) and there is no facility in which to work. So what happens is we
scurry around, pull in whoever we can as fast as we can and present the problem. If
maps or documents are needed, they may or may not be available. In addition, funds to
mount an operational effort must be taken from other tasks. In summary, this group is
not a group standing by to do operational remote viewing and SRI is not set up to ac-
quire intelligence information. This is all thrown together using whatever resources are
available whenever a problem arises. This is certainly admirable on the part of both SRI
and the various remote viewers but it is not the best way to acquire accurate data through
application of remote viewing.
The second operational group is the unit at Ft. Meade. It consists of Army person-
nel who were selected and trained to do remote viewing. Their problems are that no
selection criteria were available and they were submitted to an unevaluated training
program which was completed by only one member who has now left the unit. Whereas
the SRI group is managed by scientists with extensive experience in understanding and
researching psi phenomena, the Army group has no one associated with it who has any
understanding of psi phenomena or experience in researching or utilizing remote viewing.
Since they are unaware of what can or cannot be done they over sell their capability and
attempt any problem presented to them by customers. They also have no method by
which to evaluate what they have done and therefore are not in a position to direct ap-
plications research. While they have mounds of data it has not been synthesized in a
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manner that can depict their success or failure in the mission they are charter to per-
form. Essentially what you have is a group of amateurs, led by another amateur and
being trained by yet another amateur. Success in any science is rarely achieved by an
amateur, hence it is not surprising that the results produced by their group have not been
astounding.
To have a successful operational unit several research problems must be solved.
First, you must be able to select a few individuals from a large population who possess an
aptitude for performing psi tasks. After being selected they must be trained to sharpen
their abilities in a tested and proved training program. Then, a way of extracting infor-
mation from the remote viewer and a way of presenting the data to an analyst must be
developed. A method of evaluating and storing data also must be researched before an
operational capability exist.
Until now the term remote viewing has included several skills. The one receiving
the greatest amount of research time is coordinate remote viewing and this form of
remote viewing is well understood. However, there exists a number of ways to target a
remote viewer, beacons, photographs, abstract, etc. Much remains to be known about
these alternate ways of targeting a remote viewer. Also, as mentioned previously, the
search form of remote viewing is just now beginning to be understood.
To summarize, we now receive a task, give it to whatever remote viewers are avail-
able and then hand the data to whichever viewers are available, then hand the viewers
data to the analysts and consider the job done. A system I would propose would require
a series of decisions be made on the basis of research findings.
A flow chart for operational remote viewing is included in Figure 1. The most criti-
cal element is whether a requirement is accepted. Remote viewing has in the past been
touted as the answer to any and every problem. It is not true. There are many
problems where much better methods exist. There are also areas where we know that
remote viewing has little hope of succeeding. These need to be recognized and not at-
tempted. Another important decision is which remote viewers should be given a par-
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ticular task. This would depend upon the type of targeting (requirement controlled) and
the remote viewers success with that form of targeting. Raw data should never be given
to a customer. An analyst, with the help of an RVer, should prepare a report from the
raw data and this report would be provided to the source of the requirement. To
monitor the success of an operational unit the requestor must evaluate the report and this
evaluation and report would be stored in an automated data storage system. This infor-
mation would allow us to monitor the success of the unit and to decide which RVer
would be used on a specific task.
This is an area that has received little or no research. It has been assumed that the
only problem was that we know the coordinates of a particular site and we want a
description of what is there. There are, however, many more kinds of problems. It
could be, for instance, that remote viewing can be used to reduce a search area by some
percentage. It may be that an event of a certain and quantifiable magnitude can be
detected but nothing below that limit. We certainly need to know which problems we
should attempt before a unit is considered operational. If all requirements are attempted
and a low level of accuracy achieved the unit would be placed in undeserving jeopardy.
Training
An operational remote viewer should have received two kinds of training. First, he
must have been trained to do several kinds of remote viewing. This has been discussed
in a number of publications. However, little consideration has been given to intelligence
training for remote viewers. The viewer receives a task that requires him to respond with
new information about a site etc. But he is unaware of what features he should describe
or look for. Therefore, several lectures by a P.I. would improve the quality of the data
as the RVer would now know the kind of features that are important to the P.I. Lec-
tures on foreign technology and what things are important to an S&T analyst could im-
prove the quality of the remote viewing output. Simply knowing the goals and missions
of the intelligence community and what our major problems are could also generate an
improved output.
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Additional training for intelligence analysts may also be needed. How and when to
use RV data requires some knowledge of psi abilities. Without some basic knowledge of
how the data are acquired incorrect inferences may be drawn. These same trained
analysts would be mobilized to assist in preparing the reports which are based on RV
derived information. They would also assist customers in preparing their requirement in a
manner that can be addressed by psi abilities.
Any operational RV unit must have a research budget. This to be independent of
R&D being undertaken to understand the phenomena and its physical basis. In addition
to exploring the many interesting facets of the phenomena, there are additional topics
which must be investigated that are critical to applying remote viewing to gathering in-
tellligence information. These same topics may or may not be of interest to those con-
ducting basic research on the various psi phenomena. Training people to do remote
viewing, how to search remote viewing and converting psi derived data into a coherent
report to a customer are examples. While application needs should drive all R&D, a suc-
cessful operational unit must have a research budget to insure that its needs are met on
an immediate basis.
Organization
There are several ways to organize an operational unit. Each has advantages and
disadvantages. First, an operational unit lilke the existing one should be considered. Its
principle advantage is that it exists. Some potential disadvantages are that it is composed
of mostly military personnel, who have time limited assignments, and that there is little to
do during periods when there are no operational requirements. Also, as currently staffed
there is no one with a background in parapsychology, science or statistics and it is impor-
tant to have all these capabilities in a group responding to a variety of tasks.
A second possibility would be to rely on a consultant team to gathers real opera-
tional information. This would have the obvious advantage of relieving DIA of the
responsibility for forming and supporting an in-house unit. Its disadvantages include the
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time needed to assemble
the
. .t.e group anc~ maintaini
n
of SRI viewers would have the same strengths and weaknessessasor them. Using a cadre
a DIA consultant group.
Another way to organize such a group would be to train a number of DIA
to do remote viewing then call together one or a group of them
tional need. With this organization the remote vi when there is an opera -
ewers wood have other jobs there are no operational requirements and you would have a much larger group av when
a
r
which would permit you to chose which ones are most likely to succeed on the he rticulaicular
problem. particular
Additional organizational models could also be listed but it is not the intent
paper to explore them all. The intent is rather to encourage that before we claim t this
have a functioning operational unit man to
should be organized is only one them. y problems need to be solved. How such a unit
Central Control
An extremely important facet of any operationally active unit is central conol
requests for data must be reviewed by this central control and all data produced b All
a group must pass through this same control. Critical to being a successful unit i by such
problem selection. That is, many requests for information must be ret s
urned to
tomer without going to; the operational unit. There are a variety of rea
sons forthe cus-
instance, it may involve doing something that has not been researched. this. For
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