EXPERIMENT WITH HELLA HAMMID

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00787R000200070002-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 17, 1998
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: November 1, 1974
• Content Type: PAPER

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1. Experiments With Hella Hammid
My assessment of Hella, based on my reading of her earlier results
and an observation of those described here, is summarized by the following
points:
Hella is very alert and outgoing; although not insightful.
She is very concerned with her performance, although she
does not argue with the analysis of it. Her aim seems to be
pleasing the experimenters rather than proving anything to herself.
Although the quality of her results varies greatly, she has
had some outstanding successes, including one which I witnessed.
Certain features of all her results may be generalized: She
does very badly on absolute size estimates. She does very well
on indicating lighting conditions, including the presence of steady
or pulsing lights. She does not often describe colors, but is very
accurate when she does. She apparently cannot assess her own
performance, although she is more pessimistic when she knows the
target is technical.
She is very willing to try new experiments or to follow new
suggestions, including working along with someone else. In fact,
there are indications that she gets at least a psychological boost
from such interaction.
There can be no question that Hella can repeatably, although
not reliably, produce information not available through normal
means. As yet she has not shown an ability to assess or increase
that reliability.
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Hella's Remote Viewing of
Scientific Apparatus
Experiment
I was to witness Hella's attempts to perform a remote viewing experiment
on some piece of technical equipment. The standard procedures were followed
except that I selected the target, which was not drawn from the safe but
selected arbitrarily by me at the last possible moment before she was to begin.
Hal Puthoff accompanied me, and Russell Targ remained with Hella as
inquisitor.
The target selected was an electric typewriter. I sat at it for 10 minutes
typing the words "Hella", "Mustang", after which Hal sat and
typed "typing". We then returned and listened to Hella's tape and saw her
drawing.
The results were disappointing. Although elements of the drawing and
certain of her verbal descriptions were excellent, an overall analysis must
rate her results as a miss.
Critique
Hella is not confident of her ability to perform on the apparatus tests;
and that attitude may be detrimental to her performance.
My presence may have had some effect on her. Also, the use of two
experimenters at the sending end had not previously been tried with her.
The most significant results of the experiment were the fact that Russell
gave a nearly perfect account of the target when I asked, although he had
been engaged in actively questioning Hella during the entire experiment.
This result brings into question the whole process of interrogation, with its
potential for leading the subject.
In addition, the fact that Russell perceived only Hal and not me doing the
typing indicates the existence of a strong preferential bond between Puthoff
and Targ which must not be allowed to influence any further results. Later
experiments, described elsewhere, eliminated the use of the inquisitor, and
sent both Puthoff and Targ to the site. Results were quite good, and indicated
that the established link between those two is not responsible for the phenomena
involved in such experiments, although it may alter the specific results.
Hella's performance at the church is another justification for that conclusion.
SG1I
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Hella at Stanford Chapel
Background
Due to the sensitive nature of my attendance at this event, it is necessary
to justify that attendance and to assure anyone concerned that such attendance
was not officially documented nor was I specifically identified to the participants.
A major goal of my trip was the witnessing of Hella Hammid's performance,
and an assessment of that performance. Another goal was duplication of my
analysis efforts with her past remote viewings of technical targets.
It was important for me to establish a rapport with her, and I began that
when she arrived for the day at SRI. I had been introduced to her merely as
an interested party who happened to be at SRI and wanted to meet her. We
discussed the fact that I had listened to her tape of the drill press, and from
those results we (meaning Hal, Russ, and I) were interested in whether or
not such combined effort could work in general. She enjoys the experiments
and enjoyed talking with me about them. She is particularly impressed that
they are not tiring to her, but quite the opposite.
SG1I I was attempting to establish a rapport with her, since she had done badly
when observed by the previous days. She was
disappointed in that performance, and talked .(without provocation) about the
"two men from DOD" who had made her "tense".
During the middle of those discussions, I accompanied Puthoff, Targ,
Hammid, and Police lieutenant Walt Konar to Stanford chapel because it would
have appeared unusual for me to have left the group at this point, and because
it presented a unique opportunity to observe Hella in a totally unfamiliar task
and setting.
Experiment
Lt. Konar was in charge of investigating the murder of a young girl in
the Stanford chapel some weeks before. When he had exhausted all available
leads, he contacted SRI and asked for Puthoff and Targ's assistance, having
read the recent publicity associated with their work. They had called Hella,
who indicated she was willing to give it a try, although she was skeptical of
her ability to help. I was introduced by name (not spelled out) to the lieutenant
as an interested observer, and was invited along. Tape recordings were made
of the entire activity, including during the car rides and during later discussion.
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She had never tried such a task before. Apparently the presence of the
policeman and myself, as non-hostile witnesses, was not noticeably dis-
tracting to her.
Hella performed extremely well, giving much information that was later
corroborated, as well as specific information beyond that known to the police.
In particular, she gave details of the crime location, described the victim
and her assailent, indicated the exact location of the fatal wound, alluded to
the ritualistic tone of the crime, and traced the victim's movements before
the crime as well as the relocation of the body afterwards. Of the wealth of
detail given, the only information known to be incorrect was Hella's state-
ment that the victim was wearing earrings. The overall excellence of Hella's
performance has been attested to by a letter sent from Lt. Konar to SRI, and
by the fact that they are following up leads she provided.
Critique
This is Hella's only performance to date in which neither Puthoff nor Targ
were actively involved. For this reason alone, it is important to note the
excellence of her results as occurring independent of any SRI involvement.
were stronger than when she is playing games with experiments.
She was very earnest in her desire to help, and she stated that her impressions
around, and every word Hella said was recorded. _
This was definitely Hella's best performance of those I am acquainted with.
The results show the durability of the phenomena involved. No special
environment or preconditioning was used. There were many people (tourists) 'jam"
r
The independent assessment by Lt. Konar should therefore be considered in
any assessment of operational feasibility for such activities.
The conditions of this experiment were much closer to operational utility
than those of the routine experiments. As such, the results are more pertinent.
None of the data that Hella generated that has been verified,was unknown
to Lt. Konar at the time of this experiment. Therefore, it is possible that
Hella received all of her information from the Lt., by some unknown means.
Only when the additional facts have been verified,can the conclusion be reached
that some technique akin to remote viewing was involved.
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Interpretation of Hell~a's RV Tape
SG1I
Before my trip to SRI, I had been reviewing Help's performance on
remote viewing of technical equipment. After hearing her description and
seeing her drawings from the experiment with a CRT graphics terminal as
target, I mentioned that I could possibly have guessed the actual equipment
from her descriptions. suggested I try to do that with another tape
she had made, which was thought to be loss good than the CRT results. After
two runs through the tape, my guess of a vertical boreing machine was close
to the actual target of a drill press.
That result was considered significant, since it indicated that more
information might be present in the data than had been supposed. Two factors
seemed important to me: One, I was very familiar with both CRT's and
vertical milling machines, and was currently working with both. Two, I had
been briefed on Hella's background and personality. In particular, I knew
that she was basically untechnically oriented, that she was capable of detailed
description of anything she had seen, that she was not prone to fabricate
details, and that she was employed in photography.
After having spent several hours with her at SRI, I expected that my
familiarity with her RV performances had very much increased. My attempt
to process another of her tapes, however, was not a success. In this case,
the target was the ESP teaching machine, with which she was quite familiar.
I had spent my first hour on it just before I left with her tape for the evening.
My guess of a view graph projector was based on arbitrary selections from
seemingly ambiguous and contradictory sets of statements. For instance, I
was not certain if light were shining into or out of the box. Some of her
terminology, such as "burning in" had -specific meaning for me based on my
background. I had to decide, in those cases, whether another meaning fit
her background, or whether she had picked up the terminology along with
the target.
Although it is probably helpful to have a calibration on the original subject
(such as realizing that Hella's sizes are generally overestimated, and her
drawings are often better than her descriptions), it does seem that familiarity
of the interpreter with the possible target set is the crucial aspect of such an
interpretation attempt. This may be considered analogous to giving raw
intelligence data to an analyst who is well grounded in the pertinent fields.
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Both from the standpoint of reliability assessment and information production,
the analyst must know his field as well as his source.
Unfortunately, there was no chance to work along with Hella as she
performed a technical RV experiment, due to time constriants.
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II. Critique of Protocols and Analysis
Necessary experimental constraints depend to a great extent on what is
being constrained from occurring. If the wish is to prevent manufacture of
apparently paranormal results through covert use of normal techniques, then
the experimental constraints must be sufficiently tight that any such attempt
will be detected. Under those conditions, the following are valid criticisms:
Documentation of the outbound experimenter's movements,
destination, and perceptions should be generated, by tape
recording and photographs, during the experiment. This avoids
the possibility of manufacturing a site to suit the subject's
description, or of describing movements and perceptions to
match the subject's descriptions, after his data has been heard.
To avoid collusion between experimenters, no interrogator
should be used, and no one should be present with the subject.
To avoid use of subliminal cueing to the subject, he should
be free to roam during the experiment, and should be encouraged
to randomly select his own locations.
To avoid any use of suggestion, the subject should not first
appear at SRI; but should go directly to his experiment location,
and begin the experiment at a time selected well in advance and
sent to him in writing or via a third party.
5
I" idU,
Having concluded that the phenomena do exist, which believe has been
justifiably concluded, the constraints should now be shifted so as to enhance
the reliability of the data and make more meaningful its analysis. Under
those conditions, the following criticisms are presented:
There exists an unconscious preferential link between
Puthoff and Targ which must be eliminated from any experiments.
There are two reasons why existence of this link should not be
considered grounds for dismissing further work with these two.
First, there are indications that any pair of people involved in
such experiments establish an increasingly strong link of this
type, so the problem will reoccur. Secondly, Puthoff and Targ
probably represent the strongest link of this sort we have yet
found; so that, in some sense, they may be of unique value in
evaluating the individual-dependent aspects of the phenomena.
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The process of debriefing has been shown to be useful in
some cases. Analysis of the debriefing data would be much
simpler if the debriefer were not witting as to the target.
There is no strong evidence that an interrogator is needed.
Again, the analysis could be much simpler if no one is leading
the subject in either correct or incorrect directions. By
moving an unwitting interrogator to the debriefing process, any
additional information can be eaked out, without confusing the
primary analysis.
"Symbolism" is an incorrect word to use in analyzing the
data; since it connotes repressions or associations involving the
subject's psychological make-up; or the subject's unconscious
desire to sublimate impressions. None of the experiments I have
studied here involved either the need to probe the subject's
psyche, or the need to translate from one level of abstration to
a lower.level. Rather, the processes that occur are simple
extrapolations and analogies. The need is for an understanding
of the subject's vocabulary background and speech patterns,
rather than an assessment of his values and attitudes. Obviously,
for a more emotional set of targets, the psychological assessment
may be necessary.
Analysis of the drawings should be done both alone and in
conjunction with the verbal report. Any inconsistencies should
be noted, and followed up during debriefing.
The subject's satisfaction with both his drawing and his
description should be recorded before and after he receives
feedback. This would be needed to compute trends in the
subject's performance, as well as leading to calibration of
future results.
A simple analysis scheme would involve having the subject
select a site or object from a set of 10 or 50 to match his impressions;
after he has been debriefed. Most real-life uses for these
phenomena would probably involve such limited possibilities.
The effects of the size of the set would also be of interest.
The targets chosen are of such a complexity that analysis
is difficult. The possible range for ambiguous results is very
large. Use of simpler targets for assessing a subject's capa-
bilities, or calibrating his performance would provide for more
consistent assessments.
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Repetition of targets should be used for assessment of the
subject's learning, as well as for an indication of the role that
familiarity plays in performance.
More real-world problems should be attempted, both to
provide independent assessments and to introduce the emotional
involvement which seems to enhance performance.
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III. Recommendations
The operational utility of the phenomena and of the SRI d to-h not been
addressed in this assessment of their results, since that wa not jI purpose
of this current contract. Any further effort in support of O -must, however,
address that point.
I would suggest that a follow-on be in two parts: 1) Identification of
methods for increasing the signal-to-noise of RV data, and for estimating
attainable SNR. This implies a need for meaningful definition of SNR.
2) Design and running of tightly constrained experiments to demonstrate
the use of redundant coding techniques to telepathically transmit coded
messages, with a pre-determined degree of reliability.
In the first section, the effects of calibration, training, repetition,
multiple outbounders, groupings of subjects, and combination or de-
composition of targets should be considered. An analysis of the phenomena
should be performed similar to that done on an unknown machine in order
to draw its state diagram.
In the second section, the basic utility of paranormal communication
can be quickly and directly assessed in an operationally useful context.
The possibility that the utility does exist has already been demonstrated
on a number of occassions.
It is important to indicate the alternatives available at this point;
although that is not my task. I do want to emphasize one alternative which
is not available. Given we do not continue to fund SRI research in this.
field without interruption, we will probably not have a later chance. Both
Puthoff and Targ are sufficiently dedicated to this work that they will publish
everything they have generated if they are forced to seek funding. At
present, they are counting on our continued support, and so have not
actively pursued other sources.
If they do dump their data on the open market, this may include
publishing their association with unreliable subjects, as well as the pre-
sentation of unanalyzed data. Already there are many people contacting SRI
from the outside, and the number of newsmen and radicals soliciting SRI
for time and information would definitely get out of hand - to the point where
the agency could not risk involvement. At present, SRI represents the most
advanced center for paranormal research, with an excellent reputation for
credibility. Although the directors of the Institute would certain y t allow
its reputation to suffer due to Puthoff and Targ's publication; the future
interests of this agency may suffer, and so should be considered in the
current decision.
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