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10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Charles Tart.md
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---
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category: "Scientists & Researchers"
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tags:
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- Person
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- CharlesTart
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- Parapsychology
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- SRI
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- UCDavis
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alias:
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- Charles T. Tart
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summary: "University of California, Davis, psychologist of altered states and consultant to SRI's government-funded remote-viewing program who rejudged the Price series in 1979 against the Marks-Kammann critique."
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born: 1937-04-29
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died: 2025-03-05
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location: "Davis, California"
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created: 2026-09-22
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updated: 2026-09-22
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---
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Charles T. Tart was born in Morrisville, [[Pennsylvania]], on April 29, 1937, "but grew up mostly in [[New Jersey]]," a teenage radio engineer who entered the engineering program at [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]] and, "after several personal experiences" of drugs "that produced altered states of consciousness" and after reading [[J. B. Rhine]], "transferred from MIT to [[Duke University]] in order to meet and be mentored by Rhine." He took his doctorate in psychology at the University of North Carolina in 1963 on "post-hypnotic suggestions to influence dreaming," did post-doctoral work with [[Ernest Hilgard]] at [[Stanford University]], and served 28 years on the psychology faculty of the [[University of California, Davis]], holding concurrently a senior research fellowship at the [[Institute of Noetic Sciences]], the Bigelow Chair of Consciousness Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, a visiting professorship at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and a post as "a consultant on government funded parapsychological research at the [[Stanford Research Institute]]." His *Altered States of Consciousness* appeared in 1969 and *Transpersonal Psychologies* in 1975; he was president of the Parapsychological Association. He died on March 5, 2025.[^1]
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### The Rejudging
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With Whitson, Bogart and [[John Palmer]] he published "Preliminary experiments in group 'remote viewing'" in the Proceedings of the IEEE in 1976. When [[David Marks]] and [[Richard Kammann]] argued in Nature in 1978 that cues in the transcripts explained the [[Pat Price]] series, [[Hal Puthoff]] and [[Russell Targ]] turned the nine transcripts over to "an independent research psychologist," Tart, "for rejudging on the basis of the criteria implied by the Marks-Kammann criticism." By his own account he first tested two candidate judges on transcripts from "another successful remote-viewing series," disqualifying the one who scored at chance, "edited them to delete all references that could conceivably give any indication as to the order of the experiments," and had the judge, [[Phyllis Matson]], rate each transcript at each site; "for seven of the nine target sites the highest correspondence rating was given to the correct transcript." "I would hypothesize that Marks and Kammann were unable to obtain significant results in their reanalysis of the subset of the Price series because their judges either lacked the necessary discriminative skills and/or were not sufficiently motivated to use them effectively." The Army's [[Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee]] met "Mr. Targ/Dr. Puthoff/Dr. Tart" at SRI on July 24 and 25, 1979.[^2]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Schwartz, Stephan A. "Charles T. Tart Obituary, 29 April 1937 - 5 March 2025." Institut Metapsychique International, April 2025. https://www.metapsychique.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Tart-VO.pdf The obituary gives his age at death as 86, which its own dates do not support.
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[^2]: Puthoff, H. E., and Russell Targ, "Information Transmission in Remote Viewing Experiments: II," and Tart, Charles T., "Reanalysis of SRI Remote Viewing Experiments," January 1979, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200090017-5. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. *Report by the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee,* December 1979, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300120001-5; Stoner, William L., memorandum of conversation, January 14, 1980, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230017-7; Jachim, Robert J., "Information Briefing for Senator Clairborne Pell," October 6, 1982, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100320001-5. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Snyder, Harry L., and Arlene G. Snyder. *Summary and Critical Evaluation of Research in Remote Viewing,* Report RV-79-1, June 1, 1979, part 2, CIA-RDP96-00787R000100260003-2. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
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10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Douglas Tang.md
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---
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category: "Scientists & Researchers"
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tags:
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- Person
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- DouglasTang
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- GrillFlame
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- RemoteViewing
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- WalterReed
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alias:
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- Douglas B. Tang
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summary: "Chief of biostatistics at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research who sat on the 1979 Gale Committee and joined its minority opinion against operational remote viewing."
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location: "Washington, D.C."
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created: 2026-09-22
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updated: 2026-09-22
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---
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Douglas B. Tang, chief of the department of biostatistics and mathematics in the division of biometrics at the [[Walter Reed Army Institute of Research]], served on the [[Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee]] under [[Manfred Gale]] in 1979. With [[Jesse Orlansky]] and [[Harry Holloway]] he signed the minority opinion: "Full evaluation of operational tests of 'Remote Viewing' would require valid ground truth data, reliable scoring procedures, preliminary trials to establish adequate experimental procedures and whatever lead times are needed to conduct adequate tests," and "a minority of the Committee believes that a test program in an operation-like environment is not likely to provide useful or reliable data."[^1]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: *Report by the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee,* December 1979, Manfred Gale, chairman, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300120001-5. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. The annex is unsigned.
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@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ aliases:
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- Ed Thompson
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- E. R. Thompson
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created: 2026-05-17
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updated: 2026-09-21
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updated: 2026-09-22
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category: "Key Figures"
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tags:
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- Person
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@ -31,6 +31,10 @@ Major General Edmund R. Thompson was the [[United States Army|Army]]'s assistant
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His eyes-only memorandum on the steering committee warned that Representative Charles Rose had an "oft-repeated desire to be kept up to date on a continuing basis" and that "a situation as before in which the last briefing was done at his instigation, forcing us to be reactors rather than action takers, should be avoided." By January 1980 he "has briefed the DDO on the INSCOM program." On April 16, 1981, he sat with Lieutenant Colonel Murray Watt to brief Rose, assuring him that the Army wished to keep working with SRI, and on May 8, 1981, asked the Secretary of the Army to approve work with civilian contractors under Procedure 18 of the Defense Department's rules on human subjects, granted on May 27 on condition that it serve "an important foreign intelligence or counterintelligence purpose." In 1981 his office transferred management of the project to INSCOM.[^4][^5]
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Thompson received a copy of [[Ruth Davis]]'s memorandum of November 20, 1978, on the oversight of the remote-viewing project; the report of the [[Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee]] records that in the spring of 1978 "the Army ACSI was designated focal point to develop a DA program" of "moderate intensity, low profile," that he sat on the steering committee at its first meeting on February 13, 1979, and that in 1979 "MG Thompson requested the Surgeon General designate, by name, a fully qualified behavioral scientist to act as consultant during protocol development." According to Major [[William Stoner]], [[Ray Hyman]]'s candidacy for the committee ended "because of a protest memo from MG Thompson to Dr [[Walter LaBerge|LaBerge]]," and at the briefing of January 14, 1980, "when quizzed by MG Thompson on what the word 'proof' in the report findings meant, Gale responded with a flurry of scientific buzzwords and jargon, the bottom line of which is that SCIENTIFIC PROOF has not been demonstrated."[^900]
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At Watt's briefing of Representative Rose on January 16, 1980, "Page 3 of Incl 1 was not provided to the audience at the direction of MG Thompson," and Thompson "had no objections to taping the briefing" for the subcommittee. An undated note of his to Lieutenant General [[Eugene Tighe|Tighe]] reads: "Reference my 3 October memo discussing the GRILL FLAME Steering Committee, Dr. LaBerge agreed that the principals should meet soon. My office was asked to coordinate."[^901]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Schnabel, Jim. *Remote Viewers*. Dell, 1997.
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@ -38,3 +42,5 @@ His eyes-only memorandum on the steering committee warned that Representative Ch
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[^3]: US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "INSCOM Project Grill Flame: Progress Report #1," February 21, 1979, with enclosures, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100070001-3. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
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[^4]: Thompson, E. R., Major General, memorandum "GRILL FLAME Steering Committee" to Dr. La Berge, eyes only, undated, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000250013-0. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Defense Intelligence Agency, minutes of the DoD Grill Flame Committee, November 28, 1978 (enclosed in Progress Report #1), July 12, 1979 (CIA-RDP96-00788R002000130008-9), November 27, 1979 (CIA-RDP96-00788R002000130015-1), and January 10, 1980 (CIA-RDP96-00788R002000100009-1). Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Watt, Murray B., memorandum for the record, "INSCOM GRILL FLAME Briefing for Congressman Rose, 16 April 1981," April 17, 1981, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100190007-4. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
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[^5]: Defense Intelligence Agency, "Grill Flame - Action Memorandum," December 11, 1981, with the memorandum of Major General E. R. Thompson of May 8, 1981, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100240001-4. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
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[^900]: Davis, Ruth M., Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (Research and Advanced Technology), memorandum for Dr. Jack Vorona, "'Remote Viewing' Project," November 20, 1978, with the letter of Charlie Rose, Chairman, Subcommittee on Evaluation, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, to Davis, October 25, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00787R000500240017-5. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. *Report by the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee,* December 1979, Manfred Gale, chairman, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300120001-5. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Stoner, William L., Major, GS, "Memorandum of Conversation, Subject: Gale Briefing to ZA, Science Evaluation Group Final Report on GRILL FLAME, 14 Jan 80," CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230017-7. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
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[^901]: Watt, Murray B., memorandum for the record, "INSCOM GRILL FLAME Briefing for Congressman Rose, 16 January 1980," CIA-RDP96-00788R001100190001-0. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Thompson, E. R., "Note for: LTG Tighe," undated, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000250008-6. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
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@ -35,7 +35,7 @@ Thiel's support ended in disillusionment. He later said the researchers he had f
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By the early 2020s Yudkowsky had concluded that the AI-alignment problem would not be solved before the technology became dangerous, and he shifted to public advocacy for halting frontier AI development. The *Time* essay, published March 29, 2023, was written as an explanation of why he had declined to sign the [[Future of Life Institute]]'s "Pause Giant AI Experiments" open letter earlier that month: he regarded its call for a six-month pause as understating the danger and asking for too little. He called instead for an indefinite, internationally enforced moratorium on large training runs, the shutting down of all large GPU clusters, a cap on computing power any single actor could assemble, and a willingness to "destroy a rogue datacenter by airstrike," writing that nations should run "some risk of nuclear exchange" rather than allow an unaligned superintelligence to be built.[^6]
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In September 2025 Yudkowsky and Nate Soares published *If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All* through Little, Brown and Company, arguing that the default outcome of building superhuman AI is loss of human control and extinction because modern systems are opaque trained neural networks rather than hand-written code. The book reached the *New York Times* best-seller list on October 5, 2025, carried endorsements ranging from the actor Stephen Fry to a former senior director of the White House National Security Council, and was cited in the United States Congress and the House of Lords.[^9]
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In September 2025 Yudkowsky and Nate Soares published *If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All* through Little, Brown and Company, arguing that the default outcome of building superhuman AI is loss of human control and extinction because modern systems are opaque trained neural networks rather than hand-written code. The book reached the *New York Times* best-seller list on October 5, 2025, carried endorsements ranging from the actor Stephen Fry to a former senior director of the White House National Security Council, and was cited in the [[United States Congress]] and the House of Lords.[^9]
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### Thiel's "Antichrist" Denunciation
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---
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category: "Intelligence & Government"
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tags:
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- Person
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- EugeneTighe
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- DIA
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- USAF
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- GrillFlame
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- POWMIA
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alias:
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- Eugene F. Tighe Jr.
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- Gene Tighe
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summary: "Air Force intelligence officer who directed the Defense Intelligence Agency from 1977 to 1981, during the Grill Flame program's oversight fights, and led a 1986 review of DIA's handling of POW/MIA reports."
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born: 1921
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died: 1994-01-29
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location: "Los Angeles, California"
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created: 2026-09-22
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updated: 2026-09-22
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---
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Eugene F. Tighe Jr. was born in 1921 in New Raymer, [[Colorado]], grew up in [[Los Angeles]], enlisted in the Army in September 1942, was commissioned from the artillery officer candidate school at Camp Columbia, Australia, in 1944 and served as an anti-aircraft adviser with the 43rd Bombardment Group in New Guinea, the Netherlands East Indies, the Philippines and the Ryukyus. He graduated from Loyola University, Los Angeles, in 1949 and entered the [[United States Air Force|Air Force]] in August 1950 as an intelligence officer, serving in Korea, at Carswell, with the 497th Reconnaissance Technical Squadron in Germany, and from 1960 to 1965 as chief of the research center of the 544th Aerospace Reconnaissance Technical Wing at Offutt. After the Air War College he was director of targets at Seventh Air Force in Vietnam, then at Air Force headquarters director of estimates and of intelligence applications, and from 1972 director for intelligence at [[United States Pacific Command|Pacific Command]]. He was deputy director of the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] from September 1974 to August 1976, acting director from December 1975 to May 1976, assistant chief of staff for intelligence of the Air Force from January 1977, and, appointed by the president in June 1977, director of DIA from September 1977 to August 1981, promoted lieutenant general on September 1, 1977. He retired on September 1, 1981, and died on January 29, 1994.[^1][^2]
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### Grill Flame
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Under Tighe DIA carried out the 1978-79 reorganization that "established five major directorates," and his deputy for scientific and technical intelligence, [[Jack Vorona]], chaired the Defense Department's committee on the Army's remote-viewing program. An Army memorandum of July 10, 1978, records "the 23 June meeting with VORONA and LTG TIGHE," "at which time VORONA said that Congressman [[Charlie Rose|ROSE]] has agreed to sign some sort of letter that DOD could pull out and use in a contigency situation," and that "LTG TIGHE is not fully supportive, or at least enthusiastic, about the military jumping in on Parapsychology R&D"; Vorona sat on the Grill Flame steering committee at its first meeting in February 1979 "standing in for LTG Tighe." When the [[Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee|Gale Committee]] briefed the working group on January 10, 1980, "it was suggested that General Tighe contact Dr. Laberge to obtain copies of the report and to stop any further distribution," and Major [[William Stoner]] recorded that "Dr Vorona sent a memo to LTG Tighe (11 Jan). It urged the Director to intercede with Dr LaBerge on the report"; Lieutenant Colonel [[Murray Watt]] wrote his comments the next month for "Dr Vorona's letter to LTG Tighe," whose "tone... will be rather general." An undated note from Major General [[Edmund Thompson]] asked him to meet as one of the Grill Flame steering committee's "principals."[^3]
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### After DIA
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The Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs reported in 1993 that DIA's handling of live-sighting reports had been reviewed in "Task Force reports conducted in 1986 by Gen. Eugene Tighe (USAF-Ret.) and Col. [[Kimball Gaines]] (USAF-Ret.)," among reviews that found the agency's POW/MIA office "defensive toward criticism" and "slow to follow-up on live-sighting and other reports," with "a 'mindset to debunk.'"[^4]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: "Lieutenant General Eugene F. Tighe Jr.," U.S. Air Force biography, current as of April 1981, af.mil, Wayback Machine capture of September 24, 2018. The biography gives the birth year only.
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[^2]: "Lt Gen Eugene Tighe Jr., USAF, September 1977 - August 1981," Defense Intelligence Agency, Directors of DIA, Wayback Machine capture of January 20, 2022; "Directors of the Defense Intelligence Agency," DIA history mirrored at irp.fas.org/dia/product/present/dia-history_dr.html. The DIA list dates the acting directorship from January 1976.
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[^3]: *Report by the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee,* December 1979, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300120001-5; Stoner, William L., memorandum of conversation, January 14, 1980, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230017-7; Defense Intelligence Agency, minutes of the DoD Grill Flame Committee, January 10, 1980, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000100009-1; Watt, Murray B., comments on the report, February 1980, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000130025-0; Thompson, E. R., "Note for: LTG Tighe," undated, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000250008-6; Stoner, memorandum of conversation with Mehuron, July 10, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700230007-3. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
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[^4]: *Report of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs,* S. Rept. 103-1, January 13, 1993, executive summary. https://fas.org/irp/congress/1993_rpt/pow-exec.html
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- SRI
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- Soviet
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summary: "Hartleigh Trent was a former Navy petty officer and one of the original six remote viewers in the STARGATE PROJECT."
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updated: 2026-09-22
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---
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Hartleigh Trent was a former Navy petty officer and one of the original six remote viewers in the [[STARGATE PROJECT]]. He was recruited into the program, then codenamed [[STARGATE PROJECT|Gondola Wish]], in 1977 by [[Frederick Atwater|Skip Atwater]] and [[Murray Watt|Scotty Watt]].[^1]
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Hartleigh Trent was a former Navy petty officer and one of the original six remote viewers in the [[STARGATE PROJECT]]. He was recruited into the program, then codenamed Gondola Wish, in 1977 by [[Frederick Atwater|Skip Atwater]] and [[Murray Watt|Scotty Watt]].[^1]
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Trent was the oldest of the initial group of remote viewers, in his fifties, and had a background as a photo-interpreter. He was described as a "restless tinkerer and inventor," having built a large solar-powered hot-water heater at his home. He was also a close friend of [[Mel Riley]] and [[Joe McMoneagle]].[^1]
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Trent was one of the six most promising members of the team selected to travel to [[Stanford Research Institute]] (SRI) for further evaluation of their talents. He participated in the intense, round-the-clock remote viewing sessions during the Iran hostage crisis, and was present when [[Jackie Keith]] suffered a fatal heart attack.[^1]
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### The Documents
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Trent signed four memoranda for the record from HQ INSCOM (IAFM-OPS-HU-SA) between May 23 and 27, 1980, as "GS-12, Analyst," each headed "Summary of Unconfirmed Source Information" and each recording a remote-viewing session against a redacted subject: one "in compliance with a request for information on a target of interest to USI," a source described as "an expert or professional, an analyst" and believed to work "as an Analyst who's office is in the South side of the Pentagon"; another "someone in middle management in an industrial complex" and "a shirt-sleeved 'orator'"; another a subject "fearful and restricting himself to his hotel like apartment" amid "a great deal of subterfuge." On June 30, 1980, he wrote "Possible Compromise of a Relationship Between Two SRI Scientists (Puthoff & Targ) and the U.S. Government": at "a two day conference on camouflage, concealment and deception" at the Foreign Technology Division at [[Wright-Patterson Air Force Base]] on June 25 and 26, "I, Hartleigh Trent, heard a briefer mention a contract the government has with SRI on psychic research"; the briefer, "after indicating by expression and gesture that the encounter was strange and somewhat unbelievable," said that SRI "had a large contract with the U.S. Government on psychic research"; asked afterward "does it really work?," "he asked if I knew that [[Hal Puthoff|Puthoff]] and [[Russell Targ|Targ]] were scientologists. I said I had heard that this was probably true. He then said that if they belong to that group there is a possibility that they are pulling the greatest hoax on the U.S. Government and the American public that has ever been perpetrated." "At no time was the U.S. Army or Grill Flame mentioned."[^2]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Schnabel, Jim. *Remote Viewers*. Dell, 1997.
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[^2]: Trent, Hartleigh N., memoranda for the record, HQ INSCOM (IAFM-OPS-HU-SA): "Summary of Unconfirmed Source Information," May 23 to 27, 1980, CIA-RDP96-00788R000300100003-6, R000300520001-2, R000300540001-0, R000300570001-7; "Possible Compromise of a Relationship Between Two SRI Scientists (Puthoff & Targ) and the U.S. Government," June 30, 1980, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000250038-3. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
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- RemoteViewer
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- DIA
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summary: "Jack Vorona was the Assistant Director for Scientific and Technical Intelligence at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and served as the overall manager of the Grill Flame program."
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updated: 2026-09-22
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---
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Jack Vorona was the Assistant Director for Scientific and Technical Intelligence at the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] (DIA) and served as the overall manager of the [[STARGATE PROJECT|Grill Flame]] program. He played a crucial role in the continuation and restructuring of the U.S. government's psychic research programs after the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] scaled back its involvement[^1][^2].
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@ -30,13 +31,26 @@ Jack Vorona retired after twenty-five years of service at DIA and was inducted i
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### The Committee
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Vorona chaired the Defense Department's Grill Flame committee from its first meeting at DIA on November 28, 1978, where he "cautioned the Committee to maintain a low profile with minimal fanfare," "urged the development of experimental protocol and methods for validating experiments," and saw it agree "that all documents originating as a result of the GRILL FLAME program would undergo downgrading review only after 20 years." He missed the meeting of July 12, 1979, because he "was briefing Congressman Rose on DoD efforts and interest in parapsychology." In November 1979 the committee asked him to demand sight of the "Gale Committee's" outside report before anyone else saw it, the working group holding it "misleading and inadequate." INSCOM's chronology records that in 1983 (the chronology's date reads as March 31 or August 3), "the Honorable [[George H.W. Bush|George Bush]], Vice President of the United States, was briefed for thirty minutes concerning CENTER LANE related activities by Dr. Vorona, DIA," "Adm. Murphy, C/S," and "Mr. Gregg, Assistant to the Vice President, National Security Affairs," present: "The briefing was well received and the Vice President was interested and impressed."[^3]
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Vorona chaired the Defense Department's Grill Flame committee, which grew out of the meeting he held in his conference room on August 24, 1978, from its meeting at DIA on November 28, 1978, where he "cautioned the Committee to maintain a low profile with minimal fanfare," "urged the development of experimental protocol and methods for validating experiments," and saw it agree "that all documents originating as a result of the GRILL FLAME program would undergo downgrading review only after 20 years." He missed the meeting of July 12, 1979, because he "was briefing Congressman Rose on DoD efforts and interest in parapsychology." In November 1979 the committee asked him to demand sight of the "Gale Committee's" outside report before anyone else saw it, the working group holding it "misleading and inadequate." INSCOM's chronology records that in 1983 (the chronology's date reads as March 31 or August 3), "the Honorable [[George H.W. Bush|George Bush]], Vice President of the United States, was briefed for thirty minutes concerning CENTER LANE related activities by Dr. Vorona, DIA," "Adm. Murphy, C/S," and "Mr. Gregg, Assistant to the Vice President, National Security Affairs," present: "The briefing was well received and the Vice President was interested and impressed."[^3]
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Vorona arranged the briefing of Senator [[Claiborne Pell]] on September 29, 1982, two days before Congress ended the Army's funding; "Senator Pell had had previous briefings concerning parapsychology from Dr. Vorona." On October 5, 1983, with Hal Puthoff and the [[Center Lane]] officers, he briefed Senator [[Malcolm Wallop]], "the individual who was responsible for the project being eliminated," and asked him "to insert language in the Congressional Conference Report that would permit the program to be included in the FY 85 GDIP submission"; Wallop "replied that he is only one person." On October 7 the committees' staff asked "what is the benefit of placing the program back in the NFIP since DIA has Program 6 (P-6) money," and when he answered "security," told him "that there was no security in the NFIP, and since P-6 money is available, it could be dangerous to reintroduce the subject to the Congressional Committees. Dr. Vorona did not continue the debate and terminated the briefing." As chairman of the working group he had answered the [[Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee]]'s report of December 1979 with a memorandum supporting its finding that "unexplained observations of human capabilities to generate data of potential utility to intelligence have been documented" and objecting that "many of the difficulties in the report, especially those of fact and incompleteness, could have been avoided if the report had been collectively reviewed in draft."[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
In the report of the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee, "in August 1978, Dr. Vorona, DIA, chaired a meeting to develop a coordinated DOD program," and he sat at the first meeting of the Grill Flame steering committee on February 13, 1979, "standing in for LTG [[Eugene Tighe|Tighe]]." The committee visited him at DIA on September 26, 1979. On November 27, 1979, his working group moved that he "contact Mr. Gale and inform him of the working group's desire and need to see and be briefed on the Gale Committee's report prior to it being given to any other party or group," a discussion held "while the committee chairman was not present," after which "consultation with him reveals that his view of the Committee's goal and function is not one of oversight but one of coordination and liaison." His minutes of January 10, 1980, record that Gale's briefing "was not received favorably" and that the report was "misleading and inadequate"; according to Major [[William Stoner]], he wrote to Tighe on January 11 urging him "to intercede with Dr [[Walter LaBerge|LaBerge]] on the report" so that it "be put on hold until the Working Group, as part of its responsibilities, could provide a clear analysis of what the report says." His signed comments as chairman of the working group followed.[^900]
|
||||
|
||||
The minutes of the meeting of August 24, 1978, in his conference room record him opening "with comments about the extreme sensitivity of the subject," that "the program will be established specifically to investigate the remote viewing phenomenon and the extraordinary collection potential it offers," and his decision "against the establishment of a restricted access list and a special codeword for the program, since this would only generate more paperwork"; his letters of September 6 to the service intelligence chiefs asked for "funding levels you might be able to sustain over the next five years."[^901]
|
||||
|
||||
### Career in the Documents
|
||||
|
||||
A "Project Contacts" list of August 1, 1995, in the CIA's files, its author redacted: "From 1975 to his retirement from DIA as DDS&TI in 1990, Jack had principal responsibility for the operational use of the phenomena. He has a list of contacts both active and retired of end-users who have already testified to a number of important governmental committees as to the utility of anomalous cognition. Since 1991, Jack has served as the chair of our Policy Oversight Committee." A "Key Players" list gives him as "Dr. Jack Vorona (GS-18)"; an oversight roster as "Jack Vorona, Ph.D."; his title is printed variously as Deputy Director, Assistant Vice Director and Assistant Deputy Director for Scientific and Technical Intelligence, office symbol DT. He testified to the House Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee on April 12, 1983, in a GDIP budget overview. At an Army meeting of April 13, 1982, "it was decided that Dr. Vorona would be the 'point person' in defending the GRILL FLAME Program to Congress"; [[Lincoln D. Faurer|Lincoln Faurer]] of NSA "had been exposed to GRILL FLAME some time ago by Dr. Jack Vorona, DIA, who knew LTG Faurer when he was assigned at DIA"; [[Edwin May]] wrote in 1995 that "Senator [[William S. Cohen|Cohen]] first learned of the program from Jack Vorona." He signed the DIA information memorandum of December 22, 1981, on "Special Intelligence Support Relating to the Kidnapping of BG [[James L. Dozier|Dozier]]." In February 1983 he "has either obtained or received commitment for $200K from DARPA," "the amount that Dr Vorona stated was needed to keep SRI intact for FY 83," and after briefing [[Richard DeLauer|Richard De Lauer]] on October 3, 1983, "received $600,000 Program 6 money to continue his program."[^900]
|
||||
|
||||
On August 27, 1981, he met Brigadier General [[Garrison Rapmund]] of the Army Medical Research and Development Command, who "stated that as long as the Perry letter... remained as DoD policy, R&D funds could not be spent in the field of parapsychology," and "solicited BG Rapmund's assistance in getting the Perry letter rescinded." Visiting the Center Lane office on August 31, 1984, he "said that he would like to see psychoenergetics turn into a major discipline. He envisions expanding the current program in a manner similar to that of the disciplines of ELINT, SIGINT, COMINT, etc.," "would like to expand the current program to include PK and medical/psychological assessment," and reported that he and Rapmund "has signed an MOU" under which Rapmund "will provide one million dollars during FY85, two million during FY86, and four million during FY87," besides "TIARA funds and another $600K of P6 funds"; "he will be the central manager of the program under DIA and we will work for him." On March 11, 1985, four days after the DIA memorandum of agreement, "Dr. Vorona granted approval to continue with the training," an approval that fell to him "because of the human use implications" once the project was DIA's. The Sun Streak Oversight Panel met first in January 1986 with "Mr. D. Latham (Asst SecDef, C3I)" as chairman, "Lt Gen L. Perroots" of DIA as member, and "Dr. J. Vorona (DIA/DT), advisory member"; the unit's training reports and annual reports of 1985 to 1988 are addressed "TO: DT (Dr. Vorona)."[^900]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Schnabel, Jim. *Remote Viewers*. Dell, 1997.
|
||||
[^2]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis*. Little, Brown and Company, 2017.
|
||||
[^3]: Defense Intelligence Agency, minutes of the DoD Grill Flame Committee, November 28, 1978 (enclosed in Progress Report #1), July 12, 1979 (CIA-RDP96-00788R002000130008-9), November 27, 1979 (CIA-RDP96-00788R002000130015-1), and January 10, 1980 (CIA-RDP96-00788R002000100009-1). Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "List of Events from September 1977 to January 1986," CIA-RDP96-00788R001100020001-8. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
|
||||
[^4]: Jachim, Robert J., memorandum "Information Briefing for Senator Clairborne Pell," October 6, 1982, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100320001-5; Buzby, Brian, information paper "GRILL FLAME Briefing Presented to Senator Pell," February 6, 1985, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100320004-2. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Buzby, Brian, memorandum "Briefing to Senator Wallop, 5 October 1983," October 14, 1983, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700270015-0. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Buzby, Brian, memorandum on the briefing of Congressional intelligence committee staff of October 7, 1983, October 14, 1983, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700270017-8; "ITAOPS Fact Sheet, Inputs for MG Stubblebine," April 10, 1981, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220021-8. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. *Report by the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee,* December 1979, Manfred Gale, chairman, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300120001-5; Vorona, J., "Comments on 'Report By: The GRILLFLAME Scientific Evaluation Committee,'" memorandum of the Grill Flame Working Group, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300060001-2. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
|
||||
[^900]: *Report by the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee,* December 1979, Manfred Gale, chairman, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300120001-5. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Defense Intelligence Agency, "Minutes of the DoD Grill Flame Committee Meeting, 27 November 1979," S-1168/DT-1, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000130015-1, and "Minutes of the DoD Grill Flame Committee Meeting, 10 January 1980," S-1008/DT-1, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000100009-1, both signed Jack Vorona, chairman. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Stoner, William L., Major, GS, "Memorandum of Conversation, Subject: Gale Briefing to ZA, Science Evaluation Group Final Report on GRILL FLAME, 14 Jan 80," CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230017-7. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
|
||||
[^901]: Defense Intelligence Agency, "Minutes of the Meeting of the DoD Committee on Remote Viewing Activities," August 24, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000140009-7; Vorona to the Army assistant chief of staff for intelligence, S-1862/DT-1, September 6, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200410015-9; Commander, Naval Intelligence Command, to DIA, September 14, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200410025-8; DIA to the 902d Military Intelligence Group, September 22, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000140015-0; James L. Brown, Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence, USAF, to Vorona, September 29, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200410026-7; Army ACSI (DAMI-ISH) to Vorona, October 4, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200410024-9. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
|
||||
[^900]: "Project Contacts," August 1, 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000200190048-5; "Key Players," CIA-RDP96-00788R001200270002-9; "Scientific Oversight Committee," CIA-RDP96-00789R003200130001-2; bibliography citing Vorona's testimony to the House Appropriations Committee defense subcommittee of April 12, 1983, in "RV Reliability Enhancement and Evaluation," 1984, CIA-RDP96-00788R001800150001-7; "OACSI Meeting About Grill Flame," April 13, 1982, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200060003-1; "Recent Actions Concerning Project Grill Flame," February 21, 1983, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100350001-2; "Center Lane Briefing 3-7 October 1983," CIA-RDP96-00788R001700270013-2; "Discussion with Dr. Jack Vorona," August 31, 1984, CIA-RDP96-00788R001500090055-8; "Meeting With Dr. Vorona, 11 March 1985," CIA-RDP96-00788R001700290007-7; "Sun Streak Oversight Panel, Minutes of First Meeting," January 1986, CIA-RDP96-00789R002100200001-6; "Special Intelligence Support Relating to the Kidnapping of BG Dozier," December 22, 1981, CIA-RDP96-00789R002600180016-8; "Grill Flame Briefing for Director, NSA," June and July 1982, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700230004-6; May, Edwin C., memorandum "Contacts," February 23, 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000200190073-7; Jachim, R. J., "Meeting Between BG Rapmund and Dr. Jack Vorona," September 1, 1981, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100440071-5. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ Utts became involved in parapsychology research assessment through her statistic
|
|||
|
||||
### 1995 AIR Evaluation
|
||||
|
||||
In June 1995 the CIA contracted the American Institutes for Research to review the DIA's Star Gate program, and AIR engaged Utts, then statistical editor of the *Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research*, and Ray Hyman as its two research reviewers, with Lincoln Moses of Stanford advising on statistics. The CIA supplied about 80 publications; the principal investigator, [[Edwin May]], was asked to name the studies he thought strongest. Utts's report of September 1, 1995, concluded: "Using the standards applied to any other area of science, it is concluded that psychic functioning has been well established. The statistical results of the studies examined are far beyond what is expected by chance. Arguments that these results could be due to methodological flaws in the experiments are soundly refuted. Effects of similar magnitude to those found in government-sponsored research at SRI and SAIC have been replicated at a number of laboratories across the world." She placed the effect "in the range between what social scientists call a small and medium effect," explained that with five-choice rank-order judging "the effect size for a series of remote viewings is (3.0 - average rank)/2," cited the 1988 analysis of 154 SRI experiments and 26,000 trials with a p-value below 10^-20, tabulated May's ten SAIC experiments (Entropy II: 90 trials, effect size 0.550), and compared novice and experienced viewers at SRI (0.164 and 0.385) with the ganzfeld results at the [[Psychophysical Research Laboratories]] (0.17 and 0.35). "It is recommended that future experiments focus on understanding how this phenomenon works," she wrote; "there is little benefit to continuing experiments designed to offer proof."[^2]
|
||||
In June 1995 the CIA contracted the American Institutes for Research to review the DIA's Star Gate program, and AIR engaged Utts, then statistical editor of the *Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research*, and Ray Hyman as its two research reviewers, with [[Lincoln Moses]] of Stanford advising on statistics. The CIA supplied about 80 publications; the principal investigator, [[Edwin May]], was asked to name the studies he thought strongest. Utts's report of September 1, 1995, concluded: "Using the standards applied to any other area of science, it is concluded that psychic functioning has been well established. The statistical results of the studies examined are far beyond what is expected by chance. Arguments that these results could be due to methodological flaws in the experiments are soundly refuted. Effects of similar magnitude to those found in government-sponsored research at SRI and SAIC have been replicated at a number of laboratories across the world." She placed the effect "in the range between what social scientists call a small and medium effect," explained that with five-choice rank-order judging "the effect size for a series of remote viewings is (3.0 - average rank)/2," cited the 1988 analysis of 154 SRI experiments and 26,000 trials with a p-value below 10^-20, tabulated May's ten SAIC experiments (Entropy II: 90 trials, effect size 0.550), and compared novice and experienced viewers at SRI (0.164 and 0.385) with the ganzfeld results at the [[Psychophysical Research Laboratories]] (0.17 and 0.35). "It is recommended that future experiments focus on understanding how this phenomenon works," she wrote; "there is little benefit to continuing experiments designed to offer proof."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Hyman Disagreement
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -1,25 +0,0 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
aliases:
|
||||
- Leonid L. Vasilev
|
||||
- L. L. Vasilev
|
||||
category: "Scientists & Researchers"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- Researcher
|
||||
- Parapsychology
|
||||
summary: "Vasilev asserted that the publication of articles like Jacques Bergier's 'Thought Transfer, Weapon of War' and 'The Secret of the Nautilus' in French journals stimulated Soviet parapsychology research."
|
||||
born: 1891-04-12
|
||||
died: 1966-02-08
|
||||
location: "Russia"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Leonid L. Vasilev was a leading Russian [[Parapsychology|parapsychology]] researcher who played a significant role in the [[Soviet Union]]'s efforts to investigate [[Extrasensory Perception|ESP]]. He is noted for his statements in April 1960, where he claimed that Soviet scientists had conducted extensive, unreported investigations into telepathy under the Stalin regime, predating American efforts[^1].
|
||||
|
||||
Vasilev asserted that the publication of articles like [[Jacques Bergier]]'s "Thought Transfer, Weapon of War" and "The Secret of the Nautilus" in French journals stimulated Soviet parapsychology research. He used these reports to advocate for increased Soviet investment in the field, stating, "Today the American Navy is testing telepathy on their atomic submarines. Soviet scientists conducted a great many successful telepathy tests over a quarter of a century ago. It’s urgent that we throw off our prejudices. We must plunge into the exploration of this vital field"[^1].
|
||||
|
||||
In a 1963 Kremlin edict, the Soviet minister of defense, R. J. Malinosky, declared [[Telepathy]] to be science- and technology-based, leading to the creation of the Special Laboratory for Biocommunications Phenomena at the University of Leningrad, with Vasilev in charge. The laboratory's goals included establishing "scientific proof of telepathic communications" and identifying the nature of the brain energy that produces it. Vasilev proclaimed that "The discovery of the energy underlying telepathic communication will be equivalent to the discovery of atomic energy"[^1].
|
||||
|
||||
Vasilev's work contributed to the Soviet nomenclature around ESP being rewritten to sound technical, severing ties with its occult past. Mental telepathy became "long-distance biological signal transmission," and [[Psychokinesis|psychokinesis]] was termed "non-ionizing, in particular electromagnetic, emissions from humans"[^1].
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
[^1]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis*. Little, Brown and Company, 2017.
|
||||
|
|
@ -1,22 +1,30 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
aliases:
|
||||
- Leonid L. Vasilev
|
||||
- L. L. Vasilev
|
||||
- L. L. Vasil'yev
|
||||
category: "Scientists & Researchers"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- Researcher
|
||||
- Parapsychology
|
||||
summary: "By the early 1960s, Vasiliev was heading a well-funded parapsychology laboratory, and his work soon concentrated on 'remote-influencing' experiments, such as attempting to telepathically induce sleep in a distant receiver."
|
||||
summary: "Leningrad physiologist who led the Soviet Union's telepathy research from the 1930s and, after 1960, the state laboratory whose work American intelligence tracked for decades."
|
||||
born: 1891-04-12
|
||||
died: 1966-02-08
|
||||
location: "Russia"
|
||||
location: "Leningrad, Soviet Union"
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-22
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Leonid Vasiliev was a [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] parapsychologist and chairman of the physiology department at the University of Leningrad, a past winner of the Lenin Prize and a key figure in the resurgence of Soviet [[Parapsychology|psi]] research following the publication of [[The Nautilus (Telepathy Project)|"The Secret of the Nautilus"]] article in 1960. He argued that "the discovery of the energy underlying ESP will be equivalent to the discovery of atomic energy."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Leonid Vasiliev]] was a prominent [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] parapsychologist and chairman of the physiology department at the University of Leningrad. A past winner of the Lenin Prize, Vasiliev was a key figure in the resurgence of Soviet [[Parapsychology|psi]] research following the publication of [[The Nautilus (Telepathy Project)|"The Secret of the Nautilus"]] article in 1960. He argued that "the discovery of the energy underlying ESP will be equivalent to the discovery of atomic energy."[^1]
|
||||
He stated in April 1960 that Soviet scientists had conducted extensive, unreported investigations into telepathy under the Stalin regime, predating American efforts, and that they had successfully performed telepathy tests over a quarter-century before the alleged U.S. Nautilus tests. He held that the publication of articles like [[Jacques Bergier]]'s "Thought Transfer, Weapon of War" and "The Secret of the Nautilus" in French journals stimulated Soviet research, and used them to advocate for increased Soviet investment in the field: "Today the American Navy is testing telepathy on their atomic submarines. Soviet scientists conducted a great many successful telepathy tests over a quarter of a century ago. It's urgent that we throw off our prejudices. We must plunge into the exploration of this vital field."[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
By the early 1960s, Vasiliev was heading a well-funded parapsychology laboratory, and his work soon concentrated on "remote-influencing" experiments, such as attempting to telepathically induce sleep in a distant receiver. His efforts, along with those of other Soviet researchers like [[I. M. Kogan]], contributed to the establishment of numerous other psi research centers in the Soviet Union.[^1]
|
||||
By the early 1960s Vasiliev was heading a well-funded parapsychology laboratory, and his work soon concentrated on "remote-influencing" experiments, such as attempting to telepathically induce sleep in a distant receiver. In a 1963 Kremlin edict, the Soviet minister of defense, R. J. Malinosky, declared [[Telepathy]] to be science- and technology-based, leading to the creation of the Special Laboratory for Biocommunications Phenomena at the University of Leningrad, with Vasiliev in charge; its goals included establishing "scientific proof of telepathic communications" and identifying the nature of the brain energy that produces it. His efforts, along with those of other Soviet researchers like [[I. M. Kogan]], contributed to the establishment of numerous other psi research centers in the Soviet Union, and to the Soviet nomenclature around ESP being rewritten to sound technical, severing ties with its occult past: mental telepathy became "long-distance biological signal transmission," and [[Psychokinesis|psychokinesis]] "non-ionizing, in particular electromagnetic, emissions from humans."[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
Vasiliev publicly stated in April 1960 that the Soviets had conducted extensive and unreported investigations into telepathy under the Stalin regime, and that they had successfully performed telepathy tests over a quarter-century prior to the alleged U.S. Nautilus tests. He urged Soviet scientists to overcome their prejudices against such research and to explore this vital field, which he believed had the potential to be as significant as the discovery of atomic energy.[^2]
|
||||
A [[Defense Intelligence Agency|DIA]] briefing on "Soviet Activities in Psychoenergetics," given to the Air Force in July 1987, opened its timeline with [[Vladimir Bekhterev|V. M. Bekhterev]] and "L. L. Vasil'yev (1919-)," under the headings "hypnosis," "automatic responses" and "long distance (1700 km)," and dated his "open publications" and "new lab, Leningrad Univ." to 1959-1965, with [[Genady Sergeyev|G. A. Sergeyev]] working in "Vasil'yev's lab" from 1965 to 1970.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Schnabel, Jim. *Remote Viewers*. Dell, 1997.
|
||||
[^2]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis*. Little, Brown and Company, 2017.
|
||||
[^3]: Henry E. Shinol, Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff, Studies and Analyses, Headquarters USAF, to the Defense Intelligence Agency, "Soviet Parapsychology Research Briefing," June 12, 1987, and cover note of July 14, 1987, with paper briefing slides "Soviet Activities in Psychoenergetics," CIA-RDP96-00789R002600320001-8 to -004-5. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ summary: "Watt, along with Atwater, was responsible for selecting and training t
|
|||
alias:
|
||||
- Murray B. Watt
|
||||
- Scotty Watt
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-22
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Murray B. "Scotty" Watt was a U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel and the first commander of the [[STARGATE PROJECT|Gondola Wish]] (later Grill Flame) remote viewing unit. He was two decades older than [[Frederick Atwater|Skip Atwater]], described as a tall and husky man with a bulbous nose and a Boston accent. Watt had a reputation for a volcanic temper, which was said to have hindered his career progression after an incident in Panama where he struck a fellow officer. He was chosen for this obscure and potentially controversial assignment because it was felt he had "little to lose."[^1]
|
||||
|
|
@ -27,8 +28,11 @@ Murray B. Watt, called Scotty, was a major of military intelligence in the human
|
|||
|
||||
Watt briefed the committee on "INSCOM training and operational application of the remote viewing phenomenon" on November 27, 1979, and, as a lieutenant colonel, briefed Representative [[Charlie Rose|Charles Rose]] with General [[Edmund Thompson]] on April 16, 1981, writing the record of it. On June 30, 1981, as "outgoing project manager," he gave the first Grill Flame briefing to the new commander of INSCOM, [[Albert Stubblebine]], alongside his successor, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Jachim.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
Watt wrote INSCOM's record of the first meeting of "the DoD Committee on Special Sensors" on November 28, 1978, as "MAJ, MI, GRILL FLAME Project Officer, INSCOM," listing himself and Major [[William Stoner]] among thirteen present with [[Jack Vorona]], Dailey of the Under Secretary's office, [[Dale Graff]], [[John Kramar]] and Colonel Al DeProspero of AMSAA, Bill Mehuron of the Navy and a redacted name from NSA, and noting that "DIA will have 'Intelligence Oversight' responsibility; local IG cannot inspect without approval." On January 16, 1980, "I briefed Congressman Charlie Rose... on the INSCOM GRILL FLAME Project," with Thompson, Vorona, "Jake Stewart, NSC Staff Member" and "Dick Giza, Office of Congressman Rose" present; "Page 3 of Incl 1 was not provided to the audience at the direction of MG Thompson," and Rose "encouraged us to continue with our program." His comments on the [[Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee|Gale report]] in February 1980 called it "very shallow in nature," noted "after all, we provided the committee with most of the data contained in the Annex," and asked of its handwriting passage, "Did they, in fact, question Targ on this handwriting issue?"; "at the working meeting held 30-31 Jan I outlined most of our major objections."[^900]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Schnabel, Jim. *Remote Viewers*. Dell, 1997.
|
||||
[^2]: US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "INSCOM Project Grill Flame: Progress Report #1," February 21, 1979, with enclosures, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100070001-3. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "List of Events from September 1977 to January 1986," CIA-RDP96-00788R001100020001-8. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
|
||||
[^3]: Defense Intelligence Agency, minutes of the DoD Grill Flame Committee, November 28, 1978 (enclosed in Progress Report #1), July 12, 1979 (CIA-RDP96-00788R002000130008-9), November 27, 1979 (CIA-RDP96-00788R002000130015-1), and January 10, 1980 (CIA-RDP96-00788R002000100009-1). Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Watt, Murray B., memorandum for the record, "INSCOM GRILL FLAME Briefing for Congressman Rose, 16 April 1981," April 17, 1981, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100190007-4. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Buzby, Brian, memoranda for the record, "Initial Grill Flame Briefing to MG Stubblebine as CG, INSCOM, 30 June 1981" (CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220001-0), "Meeting With MG Stubblebine on 30 November 1983" (CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220010-0), and "Meeting with MG Stubblebine on 6 January 1984" (CIA-RDP96-00788R001700220009-2). Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
|
||||
[^900]: Defense Intelligence Agency, S-1004/DT-1, "Minutes of the Meeting, DoD Grill Flame Committee," November 28, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000140013-2; Watt, Murray B., "Summary of Working Group Meeting, DoD Committee on Special Sensors (C), 28 Nov 78," November 29, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200240006-8. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Watt, Murray B., memorandum for the record, "INSCOM GRILL FLAME Briefing for Congressman Rose, 16 January 1980," CIA-RDP96-00788R001100190001-0. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Watt, Murray B., "Comments Concerning 'GRILL FLAME SCIENTIFIC EVALUATION COMMITTEE REPORT,' dated December 1979," catalogued February 13, 1980, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000130025-0. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
|
||||
|
|
|
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@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ born: 1932-07-16
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died: 2020-12-31
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location: "Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania"
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---
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Richard Lewis Thornburgh was born July 16, 1932, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He earned a B.S. in engineering from Yale University in 1954 and an LL.B. from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 1957. He served as [[United States Attorney]] for the Western District of Pennsylvania from 1969 to 1975, appointed by President Nixon, and as Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division under President Ford from 1975 to 1977. He was elected Governor of Pennsylvania in 1978, serving two successive terms from January 16, 1979 to January 20, 1987 -- the first Republican to serve consecutive terms as Pennsylvania governor -- managing the March 1979 [[Three Mile Island]] nuclear incident during his first term. Richard Thornburgh died December 31, 2020, in Oakmont, Pennsylvania, at age 88.[^1]
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Richard Lewis Thornburgh was born July 16, 1932, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He earned a B.S. in engineering from [[Yale University]] in 1954 and an LL.B. from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 1957. He served as [[United States Attorney]] for the Western District of Pennsylvania from 1969 to 1975, appointed by President Nixon, and as Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division under President Ford from 1975 to 1977. He was elected Governor of Pennsylvania in 1978, serving two successive terms from January 16, 1979 to January 20, 1987 -- the first Republican to serve consecutive terms as Pennsylvania governor -- managing the March 1979 [[Three Mile Island]] nuclear incident during his first term. Richard Thornburgh died December 31, 2020, in Oakmont, Pennsylvania, at age 88.[^1]
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### Attorney General
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@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
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---
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created: 2026-05-17
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updated: 2026-09-21
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updated: 2026-09-22
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title: Russell Targ
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aliases:
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- Russell Targ
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@ -29,7 +29,11 @@ Despite the personality conflicts and the controversial nature of the research,
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### The Nature Paper
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The paper he and Puthoff published in *Nature* on October 18, 1974, "Information Transmission under Conditions of Sensory Shielding," reported thirteen drawing experiments with Uri Geller in "a double-walled steel room" and later "a double-walled, copper-screen Faraday cage," in which two judges "each matched the target data to the response data with no error"; a hundred-picture series on which Geller "passed" every day, with results that "do not depart significantly from what would be expected by chance"; a die in a steel box called correctly eight times of eight; nine double-blind remote-viewing trials with Pat Price against Bay Area sites chosen by the division director with a random-number calculator, of which five judges matched six of nine; and an EEG series in which one subject of six, "H.H.," showed "a consistent alpha blocking effect" when a distant light flashed. It concluded that "a channel exists whereby information about a remote location can be obtained by means of an as yet unidentified perceptual modality," that "the information channel appears to be imperfect, containing noise along with the signal," and that the ability "may be widely distributed in the general population." The acknowledged sponsor was "The Foundation for Parasensory Investigation, New York City," with thanks to Judith Skutch and [[Edgar Mitchell]] of the [[Institute of Noetic Sciences]]. In 1978 [[David Marks]] and Richard Kammann reported in *Nature* that they had failed to replicate the work and argued that the Price transcripts held cues such as "second place of the day" that let judges match them; Targ, Puthoff, and [[Charles Tart]] answered in January 1979 with re-edited transcripts and a new judge who matched seven of nine.[^2]
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The paper he and Puthoff published in *Nature* on October 18, 1974, "Information Transmission under Conditions of Sensory Shielding," reported thirteen drawing experiments with Uri Geller in "a double-walled steel room" and later "a double-walled, copper-screen Faraday cage," in which two judges "each matched the target data to the response data with no error"; a hundred-picture series on which Geller "passed" every day, with results that "do not depart significantly from what would be expected by chance"; a die in a steel box called correctly eight times of eight; nine double-blind remote-viewing trials with Pat Price against Bay Area sites chosen by the division director with a random-number calculator, of which five judges matched six of nine; and an EEG series in which one subject of six, "H.H.," showed "a consistent alpha blocking effect" when a distant light flashed. It concluded that "a channel exists whereby information about a remote location can be obtained by means of an as yet unidentified perceptual modality," that "the information channel appears to be imperfect, containing noise along with the signal," and that the ability "may be widely distributed in the general population." The acknowledged sponsor was "The Foundation for Parasensory Investigation, New York City," with thanks to Judith Skutch and [[Edgar Mitchell]] of the [[Institute of Noetic Sciences]]. In 1978 [[David Marks]] and [[Richard Kammann]] reported in *Nature* that they had failed to replicate the work and argued that the Price transcripts held cues such as "second place of the day" that let judges match them; Targ, Puthoff, and [[Charles Tart]] answered in January 1979 with re-edited transcripts and a new judge who matched seven of nine.[^2]
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The Army's [[Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee]], which met Targ, Puthoff and Charles Tart at SRI on July 24 and 25, 1979, wrote of the long-distance series that a drawing of the San Andres airport, in the Costa Rica series, had been made by "one of the experimenters who substituted his time for that of" the designated subject, and in its protocol annex: "The lack of repeated use of Targ as a Subject is thus supported, even though he provided an excellent response to the San Andres airport. (One must wonder why he wasn't used again in view of this highly accurate response!)" Its summary of the SRI work: "The only way that their concepts will be accepted by the scientific community is for non-reproachable experimenters to conduct similar research, using improved methods, without any possible intrusion by persons (such as Puthoff and Targ) having a vested interest in the results."[^900]
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The Snyders' evaluation of 1979 wrote of one SRI target that "Targ, who selected the coordinates, had also worked for Sylvania," that "Targ was an accomplished amateur magician," quoting his pages in Mind-Reach on "sleights" and "illusions," and of an airport drawing, "Was it drawn by Russell Targ?"; David Marks found in the fourth Price transcript Targ's remark to the subject, "Nothing like having three successes behind you," on a page missing from the copy SRI gave John Wilhelm.[^901]
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### The 1996 Memoir
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@ -40,3 +44,5 @@ Targ requested his CIA files in May 1994, "moved from number 540 in line to numb
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[^1]: Schnabel, Jim. *Remote Viewers*. Dell, 1997.
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[^2]: Targ, Russell, and Harold Puthoff. "Information Transmission under Conditions of Sensory Shielding," *Nature,* vol. 251, October 18, 1974, pp. 602-607, read in the CIA Reading Room copy CIA-RDP96-00787R000100220001-8 on archive.org. Marks, David, and Richard Kammann. "Information Transmission in Remote Viewing Experiments," *Nature,* vol. 274, 1978, pp. 680-681, not obtained; quoted from Puthoff, Targ, and Tart, "Information Transmission in Remote Viewing Experiments: II," with Tart, "Reanalysis of SRI Remote Viewing Experiments," submitted to *Nature,* January 1979, CIA-RDP96-00787R000200090017-5, archive.org mirror.
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[^3]: Targ, Russell. "Remote Viewing at Stanford Research Institute in the 1970s: A Memoir," *Journal of Scientific Exploration,* vol. 10, no. 1, 1996, pp. 77-88, reprinted from Targ and Katra, *Mind-to-Mind* (1996); read in a Wayback Machine copy of the journal's PDF.
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[^900]: *Report by the Grill Flame Scientific Evaluation Committee,* December 1979, Manfred Gale, chairman, CIA-RDP96-00788R001300120001-5. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
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[^901]: Snyder, Harry L., and Arlene G. Snyder. *Summary and Critical Evaluation of Research in Remote Viewing,* Report RV-79-1, final technical report, contract 77F104420, Systemetrics, Inc., Blacksburg, Virginia, June 1, 1979, parts 1 and 2, CIA-RDP96-00791R000100440001-9 and CIA-RDP96-00787R000100260003-2. The sponsor of the contract is not named in the report. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Marks, David F. "Remote Viewing Revisited." *Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 6, no. 4, Summer 1982, pp. 18-29. https://cdn.centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/1982/07/22165420/p20.pdf
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