vault backup: 2026-09-22 17:42:28

10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Harry Snyder.md

@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ Harry L. Snyder, professor of industrial engineering and operations research at
 
 ### The Report
 
-The report's chronology of the [[Stanford Research Institute|SRI]] work ran from [[Hal Puthoff]]'s arrival in 1971 and [[Ingo Swann]]'s first visit in June 1972 to [[Pat Price]]'s call of June 4, 1973, and his departure in June 1974, keyed to the subject numbers of SRI's publications (S1 Price, S2 [[Duane Elgin]], S3 Swann, S4 [[Hella Hammid]], S6 [[Marshall Pease]], S8 [[Phyllis Cole]]). Of the SCANATE island target: "the coordinates of this target were given by a scientist (unnamed) challenging the SRI work. Puthoff gave Swann the coordinates... Response indicated an island, which was confirmed by experimenter. [Thus, experimenter knew nature of target prior to subject's response.]" Of a target at the Sylvania laser laboratory: "[[Russell Targ]], who selected the coordinates, had also worked for Sylvania. After five years of research effort together, it is difficult to believe that some sort of information did not flow between the two experimenters, and therefore, this target can hardly be considered 'double-blind.'" Of the West Virginia site: "It is alleged, although unverified by the authors, that Price had once worked for the organization that had control over that particular site." Of the judging of the alphabet-letter experiments: "Puthoff did the judging in this experiment"; the chosen judge "did significantly better, at odds of 500:1, than the backup judges. No reason for this difference (or acknowledgement of its existence) is given by the authors"; and [[Arthur Hastings]] "is an SRI employee, perhaps an SRI scientist, certainly a consultant, and also a coauthor. In addition, we understand (R. Hyman, personal communication) that he is a professional magician and the sole judge used in the latter SRI local target studies." Of Targ: "That this type of behavior is used is not unremarkable considering that Targ was an accomplished amateur magician," followed by Targ's own pages on "sleights" and "illusions" from Mind-Reach. Of a published transcript set against the computer log: "'RUSSEL... I SAW A TREE ON YOUR LEFT IN A BRICK PLAZA - IT SEEMED TO BE IN FRONT OF A WRONG BUTTON - BUILDING YOU WERE ENTERING' has become 'A brick plaza seemed to be in front of a building you were entering.'" Of an airport drawing: "Where was the drawing made? Was it drawn by Russell Targ? When was it made? How does it happen that the vantage point of the subject's sketch corresponds so well to the (previously taken?) photograph of the airport from an airplane window." Of the unpublished trials: "'We have carried out more than one hundred experiments of this sort, most of them successful, as determined by independent judging.' (Mind-Reach, pp. 9-10) If so, one might assume that these total results would be published. As of this writing, we cannot account for 100 such experiments." Its summary found that "research reports are of behavioral data, yet are not presented with sufficient, rigorous experimental detail," that "conflicting, inaccurate reporting of experimental 'facts' detracts from the acceptability of the results," and that "methodological weaknesses in the local target and long-distance U.S. target procedures provide alternate (i.e., nonparanormal) possibilities of explanation."[^1]
+The report's chronology of the [[Stanford Research Institute|SRI]] work ran from [[Hal Puthoff]]'s arrival in 1971 and [[Ingo Swann]]'s first visit in June 1972 to [[Pat Price]]'s call of June 4, 1973, and his departure in June 1974, keyed to the subject numbers of SRI's publications (S1 Price, S2 [[Duane Elgin]], S3 Swann, S4 [[Hella Hammid]], S6 [[Marshall Pease]], S8 [[Phyllis Cole]]). Of the SCANATE island target: "the coordinates of this target were given by a scientist (unnamed) challenging the SRI work. Puthoff gave Swann the coordinates... Response indicated an island, which was confirmed by experimenter. [Thus, experimenter knew nature of target prior to subject's response.]" Of a target at the Sylvania laser laboratory: "[[Russell Targ]], who selected the coordinates, had also worked for Sylvania. After five years of research effort together, it is difficult to believe that some sort of information did not flow between the two experimenters, and therefore, this target can hardly be considered 'double-blind.'" Of the [[West Virginia]] site: "It is alleged, although unverified by the authors, that Price had once worked for the organization that had control over that particular site." Of the judging of the alphabet-letter experiments: "Puthoff did the judging in this experiment"; the chosen judge "did significantly better, at odds of 500:1, than the backup judges. No reason for this difference (or acknowledgement of its existence) is given by the authors"; and [[Arthur Hastings]] "is an SRI employee, perhaps an SRI scientist, certainly a consultant, and also a coauthor. In addition, we understand (R. Hyman, personal communication) that he is a professional magician and the sole judge used in the latter SRI local target studies." Of Targ: "That this type of behavior is used is not unremarkable considering that Targ was an accomplished amateur magician," followed by Targ's own pages on "sleights" and "illusions" from Mind-Reach. Of a published transcript set against the computer log: "'RUSSEL... I SAW A TREE ON YOUR LEFT IN A BRICK PLAZA - IT SEEMED TO BE IN FRONT OF A WRONG BUTTON - BUILDING YOU WERE ENTERING' has become 'A brick plaza seemed to be in front of a building you were entering.'" Of an airport drawing: "Where was the drawing made? Was it drawn by Russell Targ? When was it made? How does it happen that the vantage point of the subject's sketch corresponds so well to the (previously taken?) photograph of the airport from an airplane window." Of the unpublished trials: "'We have carried out more than one hundred experiments of this sort, most of them successful, as determined by independent judging.' (Mind-Reach, pp. 9-10) If so, one might assume that these total results would be published. As of this writing, we cannot account for 100 such experiments." Its summary found that "research reports are of behavioral data, yet are not presented with sufficient, rigorous experimental detail," that "conflicting, inaccurate reporting of experimental 'facts' detracts from the acceptability of the results," and that "methodological weaknesses in the local target and long-distance U.S. target procedures provide alternate (i.e., nonparanormal) possibilities of explanation."[^1]
 
 Part 2 reviewed twelve other studies, among them Bisaha and Dunne in [[Chicago]], Hastings and Hurt, Karnes and Susman in [[Denver]] (with Puthoff's letter to them of March 28, 1978: "We have found remote viewing to be extremely sensitive to the feedback parameters"), Rauscher, Sarfatti and others, [[Charles Tart]], and Vallee, Hastings and Askevold; took Puthoff's paper "Potential Criticisms and Responses" ("It is well done, although our reservations tend to disagree with some of his 'responses'"), finding "the 7000+ experiments run with Swann" unreported, "the authors use the term 'double-blind' frequently. Yet, they are quite naive as to the behavioral science meaning of this term," and "the authors have 'in five years of self- and other criticism, not found a way to fault either the experimental protocols or the conclusions derived therefrom.' We do not agree"; and set out a protocol under headings from target pool to reporting: the pool "selected by someone not involved with the experiment and unknown to the experimenters, investigators, subjects, or judges," an investigator who "remains 'hands off,'" judges who "should not be magicians, consultants to the project, coauthors, fellow researchers, etc.," and "for geographical-coordinate scanning" a list "greater than 5000" of "worldwide targets of interest." "If all figures are accepted without question, on balance the fidelity of the remote viewing channel appears to be of limited intelligence value, however that conclusion may be totally premature due to the insufficient methodologies used." Appendix B reproduced Puthoff's own protocol "as described in a written communication from H. Puthoff to a sponsor in late 1977." The section "Overall Summary of SRI Studies to Date" was circulated separately within the Army's Grill Flame files, and the report of the Army's [[Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee]] of December 1979 reproduces the Snyders' chapter on SRI, their nine criticisms and replies, and their protocol as its chapter 9 and annexes 8 to 10, unsigned.[^1][^2]