vault backup: 2026-05-15 11:55:33

10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Hal Puthoff.md

@@ -9,7 +9,6 @@ summary: "American engineer and parapsychologist who led the SRI remote viewing
 born: 1936-06-20
 location: "Chicago, Illinois, USA"
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 Harold E. "Hal" Puthoff is an American engineer and parapsychologist. In the early 1950s, as a junior high school student in Miami, he was a shy and quiet kid who loved tinkering with electronics, building gadgets, and operating a ham radio. He played the electric steel Hawaiian guitar in a band and dreamed of becoming a radio deejay. His father had passed away, and he lived with his mother and aunt, with limited financial resources. He attended a vocational high school.[^1]
 
 Two decades later, Puthoff earned a Ph.D. from Stanford University and became a lecturer in its electrical engineering department. He held a patent for a tunable infrared laser and co-authored an influential textbook, *Fundamentals of Quantum Electronics*. By his early thirties, he was a recognized figure in laser physics and engineering. Despite his technical prowess, he had a creative and energetic reputation, but also a quiet concern for deeper meanings, having explored Gestalt psychology and visited the Esalen Institute. He became bored with academia and his first marriage was failing. In 1969, Puthoff left Stanford and joined [[Stanford Research Institute]] (SRI), a scientific think tank with close ties to Stanford and significant government contracts. Initially working on laser-related projects, he soon developed an interest in conducting psi experiments to explore quantum theory. He secured initial funding of ten thousand dollars from philanthropist Bill Church, co-owner of Church's Fried Chicken.[^1]