HOME | ARTICLES | CUNNING LINGUIST | LINGUISTICS | SKEPTICISM ABOUT ME | EMAIL Remote Viewing? Remote Chance... Karen Stollznow - The Naked Skeptic Imagine having the ability to perceive far beyond your immediate environment, to focus on a person, place or object and view the target from a distance, in real time. You could check the weather and the traffic. You could locate that missing piece of jewellery. You could ensure that your kids went to the library instead of the cinema, and confirm that your husband or wife is indeed working late... This phenomenon is called Remote Viewing, the alleged possession of perception beyond the normal range of the senses. Proponents claim that the ‘Viewer’ or ‘Perceiver’ can describe a remote target across time and space, including buried or hidden targets. Reputedly, Remote Viewing combines the use of visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory and even gustatory faculties. Add to this a cognitive element, referred to as ‘intuition’ or ‘knowing’. Depending on the camp to which you belong, Remote Viewing is a form of Anomalous Mental Phenomena, or Extra Sensory Perception. Overall, it is a paranormal soup of clairvoyance, mental telepathy, out-of-body experiences and divination. Is Remote Viewing possible? According to some, this is not merely the stuff of comic books and movies. Indeed, at one time, both the United States government and the prestigious Stanford University conducted research into this phenomenon. Why? Consider the practical applications of Remote Viewing. The skill could be used to locate the whereabouts of fugitives and missing persons. This could have military uses for surveillance and intelligence. This could have scientific applications for geology, anthropology, astronomy, medicine and more. In a display of wishful (not critical) thinking, a number of research programs were initiated in the 1970s. Suggesting that ‘military intelligence’ is indeed an oxymoron, the Central Intelligence Agency and the United States Army initiated the unsuccessful Stargate program (amongst other projects), dedicating two decades and a multi-million dollar budget to investigate Remote Viewing and develop it into a more scientific process. To achieve ‘scientific structure’, at least 16 psychics were on the payroll, and mediums, witches and tarot card readers were further enlisted. A core team member was a former soldier who had suffered a head wound on duty, and claimed this triggered his psychic abilities. Even Universities were in on the act. The West Coast ‘Ivy League’ Stanford University created the Stanford Research Institute (1973-1989) to test Remote Viewing. Overall, the subjects did not perform better than chance, and tests that were considered ‘successful’ were later reported as vague, general or simply wrong. Psychologist and skeptic Ray Hyman was enlisted to evaluate these projects and eventually concluded that the research provided a null result, commenting “the case for the existence of anomalous cognition is still shaky, at best.” Today, there aren’t any scientific projects that research the phenomenon, although there is an organisation dedicated to its promotion, the International Remote Viewing Association . On a usual diet of academic and skeptical conferences, I finally sampled a paranormal conference in Santa Cruz, California. I participated in an experiment, “An Interactive Study on Remote Viewing”, presented by Michael Cline of the Bay Area Psychic Investigators. Michael cited results different to the ones above, claiming that the Viewers performed three times better than chance, with about 80% accuracy. According to Michael, we all have “innate psychic ability”. To prepare for the session we were provided with the real name of the subject (a psychic – could others in the room know her?), her general location in Texas, US (Couldn’t we make assumptions based on this knowledge? Could we be certain that the subject was there?) and that she would either be “outside or inside” (a 50/50 chance of accuracy). Of course, this test was highly uncontrolled. Before we began, Michael told us to give ourselves “permission to be psychic” and asked us to chant “I am going to allow myself to be psychic”. We were instructed to “hone in” (also called ‘beaconing’) on the subject (‘beacon’), to establish a ‘direct connection’, and to describe or sketch any images that came to mind. I gave the experiment an honest attempt. I listed “San Antonio”, “River Walk”, “tea”, “wreath”, and “cannon”. Then the location of the subject was announced. Ironically, I was correct! Was this proof of remote viewing? No. Am I psychic? No. I simply mapped my own travel experiences onto the information provided. Instead of “beaconing”, I recalled places that I had been to, such as the River Walk and the Alamo. Other audience members also seemed to play word association with the key words, guessing major cities and landmarks. Many were probably influenced by visual cues. In an act of confirmation bias, it is easy to logically connect words with places and concepts, after the fact, to make them ‘fit’ the reading. It seems that there is barely a remote chance that Remote Viewing exists. Stollznow, Karen. 2007. Remote Viewing? Remote Chance. Australasian Science. Vol.28, No.5.

#$%@! and Welcome to Bad Language I'm Karen Stollznow ...(Cunning) Linguist, Author, Skeptic and Investigator of the paranormal and pseudo-scientific. The Psychic Skeptic… Ghost Mining: Investigating a Haunted Hotel…

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