Experiment one of the SAIC remote viewing program: a critical re-evaluation - Science Applications International Corporation

Journal of Parapsychology, The, Dec, 1998 by Richard Wiseman, Julie Milton

For over 20 years, the US government has funded experiments that examine the possible existence of "remote viewing," the ability to psychically acquire information from a distant location. During the early 1970s, this work was carried out at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). The program was transferred to SRI International (formerly SRI) in 1973, and then continued between 1992 and 1994 at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC).

In September 1995, the American Institutes for Research (AIR), contracted by the Central Intelligence Agency, assembled a "blue ribbon" panel to evaluate this research (Mumford, Rose, & Goslin, 1995). This panel included two reviewers chosen for their familiarity with parapsychological research: Dr. Jessica Utts, a professor of statistics at the University of California at Davis and Dr. Ray Hyman, a psychologist at the University of Oregon.

Utts (1995) used eight methodological criteria to assess ten of the SAIC studies, and chose one of the experiments - Experiment One - to demonstrate the use of the criteria; the experiment appeared to satisfy all eight and obtained statistically significant results. Hyman (1995) also stated that he could find no obvious problems with the experiments.

The publication of this report prompted the first author (henceforth referred to as R. W.) to become interested in attempting to replicate some of the SAIC research on remote viewing, and, in February 1996, he contacted Edwin May regarding this plan. May was enthusiastic about the idea and asked R. W. to propose an experimental protocol. Before doing so, R. W. thought it would be useful to examine the protocol used in Experiment One as a potential template for the replication. He chose this study for three reasons. First, it was the one study that had been discussed in detail by Utts (1995) in her AIR report. Second, it was one of the few SAIC studies that had been published in a peer-reviewed journal (Lantz, Luke, & May, 1994). Third, as for all of the SAIC experiments, several pitfalls to be avoided in remote viewing methodology had already been identified in critiques of the SRI work upon which it built,(1) and its design had been examined before the study began by a "Scientific Oversight Committee" that included a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and internationally known professors of statistics and psychology.

Because the information in Lantz et al.'s (1994) paper and the AIR report was not sufficient to fully evaluate the experiment's protocol, R. W. asked May for additional details. As the assessment of the protocol progressed, it became apparent that Experiment One's methodology contained some problems. R. W. therefore decided to examine the protocol in detail, both to reassess the validity of the experiment and to help ensure that future studies, including his own replication attempt, would avoid similar pitfalls. May agreed to provide the necessary unpublished information concerning Experiment One's procedure, in order that R. W. could conduct a detailed critique for publication. All personal communications cited from May are electronic mail messages provided for the purpose of the critique, following this agreement.(2) We are indebted to May for taking the time to address the issues raised. The outcome of this critical reevaluation is presented here.

SUMMARY OF EXPERIMENT ONE

Lantz et al. (1994) describe three experimental roles for SAIC personnel in Experiment One without identifying the holders of those roles by name. May (personal communication to R. W., April 29, 1996) informed R. W. that the Principal Investigator was Nevin Lantz, the Experiment Coordinator was Wanda Luke, and the Analyst (independent judge) was May himself. To clarify later discussion, these experimenters are referred to by name instead of by title in the following account of Experiment One, which is summarized from Lantz et al.

Experiment One was carried out in 1992 and employed a 2 x 2 design to explore whether receivers' psychic performance was affected by (a) the presence or absence of a sender and/or (b) the type of target used during a trial. Half of the trials, therefore, involved a sender while the other half had no sender, and half of the trials involved "static" targets (photographs of outdoor scenes taken from National Geographic magazine) while the other half used "dynamic" targets (a varied selection of video clips from popular movies). Prior to the experiment, the targets had been grouped into sets of five, each set composed of only static targets or only dynamic targets. Targets within any one set were chosen to be as different from one another as possible.

Five receivers were involved in the experiment, each doing 10 trials in each of the 4 conditions. Two of the viewers lived in California and the others resided in Kansas, New York, and Virginia, respectively. Lantz, who acted as sender, was in Lititz, Pennsylvania. May and Luke were at SAIC in Menlo Park, California.

Prior to the study, Luke randomly selected 40 targets (20 static, 20 dynamic) for each participant. A copy of each target was placed into an envelope and a trial number (1 to 40) was written on the outside of the envelope. Half of the static targets and half of the dynamic targets were randomly assigned to the "no-sender" condition and the envelopes containing these targets were sealed. The remaining targets were assigned to the "sender" condition and these envelopes were left unsealed.