EXPERIMENTAL PSI RESEARCH: IMPLICATIONS FOR PHYSICS
Declassified Document
Document Type: CREST
Collection: STARGATE
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00788R001300090002-8
Release Decision: RIFPUB
Original Classification: U
Document Page Count: 44
Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
Document Release Date: April 5, 2000
Sequence Number: 2
Case Number:
Publication Date: July 1, 1979
Content Type: REPORT
Abstract
Experimental laboratory work continues to provide evidence for the existence of so-called psi processes, a class of interactions between consciousness and the physical world as yet unexplained. These include:
the acquisition of information not presented to any obvious sense, and
the production of physical effects not mediated by any obvious mechanism.
At SRI we have concentrated primarily on the former, investigating a phenomenon we call "remote viewing," the ability of certain individuals to access and describe, by means of mental processes, information blocked from ordinary perception by distance or shielding.1-6 Our data base consists of more than 100 experiments in the remote viewing of targets ranging from objects in nearby light-tight cannisters to geographic sites at transcontinental distances, viewed from locations which include shielded Faraday cages and a submerged submarine. Data from these observations indicate that models put forward to explain psi processes must account for bit rates on the order of 0.1 bits/s, resolution of approximately 1 mm, apparent ineffectiveness of ordinary electrical shielding, and relative insensitivity to distance up to at least 10,000 km.
Although such phenomena might appear to be in conflict with the laws of physics, we anticipate that with further work much of the data will be accounted for either within the framework of physics as presently understood, or on the basis of extrapolations that have been proposed to account for other (non-psi) data, and that, conversely, the psi data base may shed light on some of the current problems in physics, e.g., with regards to the foundations of quantum theory.
