SAIC Final Report: Psi-Spy is Real, Maybe

STAR GATE ended in 1995. Prior to the CIA takeover and the death of the program, SAIC issued a report to the government on their research into the nature of AMP: Anomalous Mental Phenomena, including remote viewing and mind over matter psychokinesis.

Here are some of the key results, from the STAR GATE Files:

Phenomenological Research and Analysis
Authors: Edwin C. May, Ph.D., Wanda L. W Luke, and Christine L. James
29 September 1994

Science Applications International Corporation
An Employee-Owned Company
Presented to: U. S. Government
This report constitutes our final deliverable under contact number MDA908-93-C-WO4.




EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Our research has advanced our understanding of applying anomalous mental phenomena to practical problems and lead us toward a comprehensive theoretical model for the phenomena.

During the contract period ending-29 July 1994, we have:

Successfully verified a claim from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) and from the U.S. that it is possible to influence the physiology of an isolated individual exclusively by anomalous mental phenomena. Furthermore, we were able to demonstrate in our analysis of previous work that the mechanism of such influence is most likely causal. That is, the mental intention of a distant agent appears to cause physiological changes in an isolated person.

Identified an intrinsic property of an AC target (i.e., the gradient of Shannon's entropy). This result is a break-through in our understanding of the mechanisms of AC. We have shown that detecting AC [anomalous cognition] is not unlike how our other sensory systems detect their particular inputs (e.g., how the eye detects light). In the future, all practical applications and laboratory experiments can be significantly improved by choosing targets that possess the largest possible value of this particular parameter.

Provided a proven method for the detailed evaluation of individual AC-performance in practical applications, in the laboratory and as a certification procedure.

Set a lower limit for the response of the central nervous system (i.e., brain) to anomalous cognition (AC) signals. [Note: Here the report clearly identifies a 'signal line' in anomalous perception, which we interpret to mean that a physical connection exits.] If we could be successful at identifying a brain response, then practical applications and laboratory research would be sharply improved, even though the estimate for the lower limit is only 0.2 percent change in brain activity.

Developed and calibrated instrumentation to replicate a physics-type experiment from the FSU [Former Soviet Union] that suggests a new form of energy can be detected. Researchers there speculate that this form of energy might be responsible as the carrier of anomalous mental phenomena signals. Preliminary results are encouraging -- and the final results will be available before 30 September 1994.

All of the experiments that we conducted for this year produced highly significant evidence for anomalous mental phenomena. We interpret this success, which is 20 times chance, to our expanding understanding of the protocols, mechanisms, and psychology that are responsible for a high level of functioning. The magnitude of our AC effects exceed the value that is considered robust by the psychology research community.

Biophysical Measurements

These tasks were to search for possible physiological correlates to anomalous cognition (AQ functioning. If such correlations could be found, they would directly lead to improved application and laboratory results.

We conducted two experiments with regard to biophysical measurements that were replications of previous work.

The first of these was an attempt to replicate a finding in the U.S and in the Former Soviet Union that claimed that some aspect of human physiology can be influenced by an isolated and remote observer (Schlitz and LaBerge, 1994).

The second was an improved experiment to determine if and how the central nervous system (i.e., the brain) responds to "signals" that are sensorially isolated from a receiver.

Remote Observation Experiment

A series of experiments has been conducted in the U.S. in which it is claimed that a receiver's electrical properties of the skin (i.e., electrodermal response) can be influenced by a remote observer. This is a laboratory example of a frequently reported anecdote: after entering a crowded room, you "sense" that you are being stared at and discover that you are correct.

Two experiments were conducted to measure the extent to which people are able to unconsciously detect another person staring at them from a distance. A close-circuit television set-up was employed in which a video camera was focused on the experimental volunteer (Observee) while a person in another room (Observer) concentrated on the image of the distant person as displayed on a color monitor; this procedure was used to preclude any conventional sensory contact between the two people. During the experimental session, the Observee's galvanic skin responses were monitored. An automated and computerized system was programmed to record and average the physiological responses of the Observee during 32 30-second monitoring periods. A random sequence was used to schedule 16 periods of remote observation and 16 control periods when no observation efforts were attempted. A within-subjects evaluation was made for each experimental session with a comparison between the mean amount of autonomic nervous system activity during the experimental and control conditions. Twenty four sessions were conducted in each of two experiments. As predicted, both experiments yielded significantly more autonomic activity during the remote observation periods as compared to control periods.

There are two competing anomalous mental phenomena descriptions for these results. Given that this experiment represents successful replication of a number of such experiments, we do not include the possibility that these results are a rare or chance statistical deviation. The question we pose for future experiments is: Is this effect causal (i.e., the Observer forces the skin parameters to be different than they would otherwise be) or informational (i.e., the Observee is AC-sensifive to know when he/she is been stared at and responds accordingly)? The methodology we used in our experiment was primarily designed to replicate both US and FSU similar experiments rather than to answer this particular question. Although most of our analyses of so-called anomalous perturbation (AP) experiments demonstrate informational mechanisms, we have recently analyzed a bio-AP experiment that statistically favored the causal explanation. Determining the mechanism is very important because it will dictate the
potential applications for this type of phenomenon.

Central Nervous System Response to AC Signals

The objective of this effort was to test the hypothesis that physiological responses to AC stimuli resemble those which occur in response to identical direct visual stimuli.

As part of the research tasking for FY 1993, we had been asked to conduct an investigation of the relationship between the central and/or the peripheral nervous system and AC.

As part of our FY 1991-1992 effort, we were asked to use magnetoencephalography (MEG) to investigate how, or if, the central nervous system (CNS) responds to "visual" stimuli that are physically and sensorially isolated from a receiver. The reasoning behind this request was that during an earlier investigation in FY 1988, we observed, what was suspected to be, instantaneous phase shifts of the dominant alpha rhythm concomitant with such stimuli. That study itself was originally thought of as a conceptual replication of even earlier work in which alphapower changes were putatively induced with remote visual stimuli (Rebert and lbrner, 1974; May, Targ, and Puthoff, 1977).

As we stated in our final report (May, Luke, and Lantz, 1992), the FY 1992 study did not replicate the FY 1988 finding (May, Luke, Uask, and Frivold, 1990b). Because of our technical and methodological improvements, we concluded that the 1988 results were likely to be spurious. We can, however, specify a number of possible arguments why the 1988 study failed to replicate:

~ AC does not exist.
~ AC exists, but the conditions were not conducive for quality AC functioning.
~ AC exists, but the target system (i.e., 100 millisecond sinusoidal gratings in the lower left visual field of the receiver) did not constitute an appropriate stimulus.

Another primary activity in this category was to assess the role of a sender in an AC experiment. We subcontracted to the Psychology Department at the University of Edinburgh to conduct a detailed test using the methodology of the Ganzfeld.

The Ganzfeld methodology differs in three fundamental ways from our usual AC experiment:

(1) A mild altered state is used to elicit AC functioning.
(2) Senders are used in a "telepathic" modality.
(3) The receivers perform their own the rank-order judging in the analysis of the data.

Otherwise the Ganzfeld protocol is similar to ours. A receiver is asked to register his/her impression of an isolated target that is randomly selected from a pre-defined set. We asked Dr. Robert L. Morris to use this methodology to determine the role of the sender. As they will be reporting at the next Parapsychological Association Annual Convention, they found, as we did, that a sender is not a necessary participant in successful AC experiments. In addition, they were able to show that the sender may not participate in any significant way in the process. As a consequence of this experiment, they are considering dropping the sender in all of their future experiments.

While it is agreed that perhaps for psychological reasons, some receivers may produce better results with a sender, there appear to be no mechanistic arguments favoring the use of a sender.

Theoretical Issues

The objective was to identify models for physical mechanisms for AC and to develop protocols for testable experiments using select individuals. We reported our theoretical approach in an interim technical report; however, we include it here for completeness.

Probable Futures

Since the dawn of history, mankind has been fascinated by the "what ifs" associated with the probabilistic paths that form the future and form the myriad worlds of "what might have been." Mankind's fascination with predicting the ftiture evolved into the mathematical science of probability theory. However, classical probability theory is a description which is overlaid on an assumed physical reality. With the advent of quantum theory, alternative paths to the same end took on a physical reality. The very fact that alternative paths exist change the probability of the outcome. There is no classical equivalent. Suddenly the world of "what ifs" has become co-mingled with the worlds of "what might have been."

This idea has been experimentally verified in recent experiments conducted at Rochester University. It has been shown that the physical outcome of a quantum mechanical experiment depends not only upon what is being measured, but also on what could be measured, even though it wasn't.

The implication for AC mechanisms is that precognition may be the underlying mechanism. If, for some yet unknown reason, humans have access to probable futures rather than actual futures, then the perception appears not to contradict the rules of physics.

[Note: Quantum computing theorist David Deutsch states that "other times are special cases of other universes" meaning that information sent via a time machine from the future will not come from the future of the past universe in which it has arrived.]

Einstein, Poldasky, Rosen Paradox (EPR)

The paradox suggest possible information transport during the collapse of a wave function. It arises naturally when considering two-particle correlations and the effects of measuring the state of one particle which gives rise to unambiguous knowledge of the state of the correlated particle even though it may be very far from the measured particle at the time the measurement is made. While no one any longer questions the validity of the predictions of quantum mechanics for correlated systems, the very fact of their validity has caused a philosophical revolution. There is no underlying reality, no absolute reality. There is only reality as defined by measurements made by an observer.

There is substantial anomalous mental phenomena (AMP) literature on what are called Observational Theories (OT). It is possible that the EPR paradox and its implications may serve as a physics base for the OU. There is a major problem both with the OTs and EPR as models for perception. Brain functioning at room temperature appears not to be a quantum system; therefore, care must be exercised before we can demonstrate the value of EPR for AMP mechanisms.

General Relativity

The recent resurgence of interest in Einstein's general theory of relativity has lead to some startling theoretical conclusions about the nature of space-time again bringing to the forefront the fact that science has not unveiled all the secrets associated with time. One such piece of work is Matt Visser's paper on traversable wormholes (Visser, 1989). This paper predicts that it is physically possible to transport energy (and, therefore, information) between remote space-time points without traversing the classical distance between the space-time points.
For sometime it has been known that even according to Einstein's special theory of relativity, it is possible to describe mathematically a fully consistent universe in which everything moves faster than the speed of light. The particles inhabiting such a universe have been given the name tachyons while, in contrast, the particles with which we are familiar are named tardyons. The important fact is that neither ow particle can ever travel at the speed of light. Photons, of course, are common to both universes. More over, this is a non-quantum mechanical description. We know that in quantum theory it is possible to violate such constraints providing that we do so for short enough periods. The question of whether a tardyon can exist as a tachyon for a short period of time merits investigation.

From a heuristic perspective, reverse information flow (i.e., precognition) appears to describe much of the AMP data. While Visser's calculations are not a theory of precognition, at a minimum they demonstrate that physics may allow for the macroscopic, but statistical, breach of causality. We anticipate that a continuation of these ideas may lead to a law for causality similar to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. That is, on the average causality must hold, but locally there may be a slight statistical reversal that is compensated for elsewhere such that the average is correct.

Time and Entropy

The relationship between time and entropy is once more open to question. For nearly two hundred years, scientists have taken the position that the entropy of a closed system can never decrease with time and that, on the scale of the universe, entropy always increases with increasing time. Recently however, Steven Hawking raised the possibility that macroscopic time or psychological time, the time that we perceive, is actually determined by the change of entropy (Hawking, 1988). Similar conclusions were reached at about the same time by Tony Rothman from the Center for Relativity at the University of Texas (Rothman, 1987). Rothman discusses the seven arrows of time that represent the distinction between microscopic reversible time and the macroscopic time as experienced by intelligent life. This concept was first proposed by Szilard (1929) in the paper, "On the decrease of entropy in a thermody
namic system by the intervention of intelligent beings."

Given that we showed experimentally that the total change of entropy is related to the quality of AC, this theoretical approach seems most promising (May, Spottiswoode and James, 1994).

Novel Potentials

Classical mechanics and, for the most part, quantum mechanics have treated potentials as convenient mathematical descriptions for which there was no physical instantiation. Recently a series of clever experiments have dispelled that view by showing that a potential can have an effect on a particle even when there was no corresponding force present. The electromagnetic vector and scalar potentials or torsion fields are examples of such novel potentials. At this time, the existence of anomalous perturbation (AP) remains open. While there are intriguing experiments, the database for A-P is substantially less than for AC. A theoretical approach for AP using novel potentials is probably premature; however, it may be possible that such potentials could act as a "carrier" of AC information.

SOURCE: SAIC report