In another set of remote viewing experiments, an SRI scientist made 100 target drawings, which were placed in double envelopes with black cardboard. Each day, twenty target drawings were selected for the experiment. Geller again had to try to make drawings that corresponded with the targets. The experiment was run once a day for three days. Targ and Puthoff (1974, p. 604) said, “The drawings resulting from this experiment do not depart significantly from what would be expected by chance.” In a final set of ten experiments, Geller was presented with a closed metal box containing a die. Before presentation to Geller, the box was vigorously shaken. In each trial, Geller would write down which surface of the die was facing up. In two of the trials, Geller declined to write an answer. Targ and Puthoff reported (1974, p. 604): “In the eight times in which he gave a response, he was correct each time. The distribution of responses consisted of three 2’s, one 4, two 5’s, and two 6’s. The probability of this occurring by chance is approximately one in 106 [1 in 1,000,000].”
In another set of experiments with a new subject, Targ and Puthoff attempted to determine whether the subject, Pat Price (a former city councilman and police commissioner in california), could identify geographical features several miles distant. Twelve locations within 30 minutes driving time of SRI were chosen by the director of the SRI Information Science and Engineering division. The director also prepared travel directions for each of the selected locations. The set of locations and directions was not known to the experimenters and was kept under the director’s control. for each trial, the director would give one of the sets of travel directions to a team of two to four experimenters, who would then proceed to the site. Price and another experimenter remained behind at SRI, and Price would provide a description of the target site to the experimenter. The descriptions were recorded on audio tape. Price took part in nine such trials. Targ and Puthoff (1974, p.605) stated: “Several descriptions yielded significantly correct data pertaining to and descriptive of the target location . . . Price’s ability to describe correctly buildings, docks, roads, gardens and so on, including structural materials, colour, ambience and activity, sometimes in great detail, indicated the functioning of a remote perceptual ability.” five independent judges from SRI visited the sites and examined transcripts of Price’s descriptions. They then attempted to match the descriptions to the target sites they had visited. Targ and Puthoff (1974, p. 606) reported: “By plurality vote, six of the nine descriptions and locations were correctly matched.” The probability of this occurring by chance was P =5.6 × 10-4.
In a final set of experiments, subjects (receivers) were tested to see if their brain wave activity could be correlated with that of persons (senders) being subjected to flashing lights at remote locations. In each trial, the sender would be subjected to ten seconds of flashing lights (at six or sixteen flashes per second) or ten seconds of no flashing lights. The receiver, in a visually and electrically isolated room, would hear a tone, indicating that a trial had begun. But the receiver would not know whether the trial involved flashing lights or not. The sequence of flashing or not flashing trials was random. The degree of correlation between the brain of the sender and the brain of the receiver was judged by measuring alpha waves in the brain of the receiver. Under normal circumstances, persons subjected to flashing lights show a decrease in the amplitude of alpha brain waves. So if the sender was exposed to flashing lights, the brain of the receiver should also show a decrease in the amplitude of alpha waves. One receiver’s brain did show alpha waves that decreased in amplitude each time the sender was exposed to flashing lights. This subject was then selected for further testing, with the same result. The average power and peak power of alpha waves was consistently less in this receiver when the sender was being exposed to lights flashing sixteen times per second (Targ and Puthoff 1974, p. 607).
from all of these experiments, Targ and Puthoff (1974, p. 607) concluded: “A channel exists whereby information about a remote location can be obtained by means of an as yet unidentified perceptual modality.” They also suggested that “remote perceptual ability is widely distributed in the general population, but because the perception is generally below an individual’s level of awareness, it is repressed or not noticed.” finally, they stated, “Our observation of the phenomena leads us to conclude that experiments in the area of so-called paranormal phenomena can be scientifically conducted, and it is our hope that other laboratories will initiate additional research to attempt to replicate these findings.” Nature (1974, pp. 559–560) published an editorial along with the article by Targ and Puthoff. According to the referees who reviewed the article before publication, the descriptions about the precise manner in which experiments were carried out, including precautions taken to prevent unconscious or conscious leakage of information to the subjects, were “vague.” I did not find this to be so, but readers can judge for themselves. The referees also thought that more care could have been taken in the target selection process. Again, I found the methods, as described, to be adequate. favoring publication of the paper, said nature, was the fact that the authors were “two qualified scientists, writing from a major research establishment.” nature found the phenomena worthy of investigation, even if many scientists were skeptical about their reality. As nature put it, “If scientists dispute and debate the reality of extra-sensory perception, then the subject is clearly a matter for scientific study and reportage.” nature also recognized that failure to publish the article might add fuel to rumours circulating among scientists that “the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) was engaged in a major research programme into parapsychological matters and had even been the scene of a remarkable breakthrough in this field.” It was felt that “publication of this paper, with its muted claims, suggestions of a limited research programme, and modest data, is . . . likely to put the whole matter in more reasonable perspective.” The editorial concluded (1974, p. 560): “nature, although seen by some as one of the world’s most respected journals cannot afford to live on respectability. We believe that our readers expect us to be a home for the occasional ‘high-risk’ type of paper . . . Publishing in a scientific journal is not a process of receiving a seal of approval from the establishment; rather it is the serving of notice on the community that there is something worthy of their attention and scrutiny.”
But much more was happening at SRI than the experiments reported in nature. The SRI experimenters were not only carrying out basic research establishing the reality of remote viewing but were actually carrying out remote viewing missions on behalf of the intelligence gathering agencies of the United States government and military. These programs involved substantial recruiting efforts. during screenings of large numbers of candidates, it turned out that about one percent possessed good remote viewing abilities (Radin 1997, p. 101).
On July 10, 1974, a physicist working for the cIA came to SRI with a test assignment. Analysts at the cIA were interested in a certain building complex in the Soviet Union. The physicist gave Targ the coordinates of a location in the Soviet Union, about ten thousand miles away from the SRI in Menlo Park, california. Targ and one of SRI’s remote viewers, Pat Price, went into one of the electrically shielded rooms they used for their experiments. Price focused on the coordinates and began describing a site with buildings and a gantry moving back and forth on a track with one rail. He sketched the layout of the buildings and crane. He later drew a detailed picture of the crane. Over the next few days, additional details were added. “We were astonished,” said Targ, “when we were told [later] that the site was the super-secret Soviet atomic bomb laboratory at Semiplatinsk, where they were also testing particle beam weapons . . . The accuracy of Price’s drawing is the sort of thing that I, as a physicist, would never have believed, if I had not seen it for myself” (Targ 1996, pp. 81–82; in Radin 1997, p. 26).