WASHINGTON (Reuter) - Some people may have a paranormal
ability to visualize hidden or distant objects without actually
seeing them, a CIA-commissioned study made public Tuesday
reported.
But both the Central Intelligence Agency and the academic
authors of the study said that the possible extrasensory
perception, called remote viewing, had not been shown to be
useful for intelligence gathering.
The study, by the American Institutes for Research, a
private Washington social science research firm, said
'statistically significant' results had been observed in
laboratory experiments to test remote viewing.
The CIA commissioned the study at the request of the Senate
Appropriations Committee, keen to know whether more government
research into parapsychology was warranted to give U.S. spy
agencies an extra arrow in their quiver.
But the study, dated Sept. 29 and made public by the CIA
after it was cited by ABC News, found that remote viewing had
not been shown to help in collecting secrets for national
security purposes.
Quoting unidentified 'users' of images generated by
supposed remote viewers, the study's authors said the material
had never provided data 'sufficiently valuable or compelling so
that action was taken as a result' by U.S. officials.
David Christian, a CIA spokesman, said the spy agency, like
the authors of the report, had concluded that no further
official U.S. research into remote viewing was warranted.
'We think the intelligence community shouldn't pursue
research on this and that it is best left to the private
sector,' he said.
Christian said the CIA had carried out research into remote
viewing in the 1970s but had determined it to be unpromising and
dropped the idea.
The CIA program, codenamed 'Stargate,' was initiated in
response to concerns about a 'psychic gap' with the old Soviet
Union, according to Jessica Utts, a University of California,
Davis, statistics professor who worked on the CIA-commissioned
study.
ABC News reported that the CIA and other U.S. intelligence
outfits had hired supposed remote viewers 'to spy on hundreds
of political and military targets,' including the holding of 52
American hostages for 444 days in Iran after the embassy
takeover in November, 1979.
ABC said people claiming to be capable of remote viewing
also had been hired by U.S. spy agencies to pinpoint downed U.S.
and Soviet aircraft, as well as to communicate with submerged
submarines.
Christian declined to discuss examples of CIA use of
so-called psychic spying, but said most of its research in the
1970s was 'experimental.' The Defense Intelligence Agency,
which coordinates military intelligence, had no comment.
Utts, who specializes in evaluating parapsychology research,
said the data she reviewed for the CIA study had produced the
most credible evidence to date that humans were capable of
paranormal psychic feats.
'At this stage, using the standards applied to any other
area of science, the case for psychic functioning has been
scientifically proven,' she said in a telephone interview.
^REUTER@