Remote Viewing: A Brief History

Scanning by Coordinates

Remote Viewing's genus according to Swann in his on line book Remote Viewing The Real Story was at the American Society of Psychical Research in New York city. A venerable institute of psychic research established in 1885 by such luminaries as William James Professor of Philosophy and Harvard Psychologist and Chestor Carlson inventor of the Xerox.

According to Swann after becoming bored with their clinical approach and in order to break the monotony and “burn out” he was experiencing convinced them, that instead of using Zener cards to use actual geographical targets as an impromptu test of psychic ability, in this case randomly selected US cities then having him describe the weather conditions at these locations. Many targets were selected and confirmed by calling the Weather Bureau of each city but the most spectacular hit occurred when the monitor called out Tucson Arizona and Swann replied:

“Am over a wet highway, buildings nearby and in the distance. The wind is blowing. It's cold. And it is raining hard.”

“That's it! Tucson's having a fucking big rainstorm,”

which turned out to be true, Tucson at that exact moment was experiencing such a meteorological anomaly.

Also at ASPR, we have the progenitor of what would become known as the Outbounder Experiments at SRI, with Vera Feldman acting as the “beacon”, later known as Outbounder at SRI and the target location being the Museum of Natural History

“Swann - 2/22/72 - Responses (taken from record) First Museum Trip

“10:35 AM - She's there already.

“(FEEDBACK: Unexpected, approximate time of arrival correct.)

“10:45 AM - I think she's in a room that's round with a hallway and a flight of stairs to the south. There are large paintings on the wall.

“(Almost correct. Vera was in a large octagon-shaped room. The walls were lined with glassed exhibits of monkeys and so forth - but the specimens were displayed against very large backdrop paintings. I didn't discriminate between the painted backdrop display and the specimens just in front of them.)

“10:50 AM - She's in a large room that is darkened. There are lots of animals.

“(Correct. She was in one of the great Animal Exhibit Halls, which were darkened.)

“10:55 AM - I guess that must be a long corridor and there is a telephone booth nearby.

“(Correct. Vera was a little behind her schedule, and at 10:55 was rushing through a long corridor. She first said that there was no telephone booth. But when we later I went to the museum to photograph the targets for the record, there was not a telephone booth there. But there WAS a telephone hanging on the wall near a doorway.

I was particularly pleased with this one result. It consisted of a telephone I had seen, but which Vera had not. This, then, was NOT telepathy, but a traveling form of clairvoyance proper. This meant I was scanning the surroundings, not Vera herself, or her own impressions. THIS aspect was to be extremely important in the years ahead when doing operational sites for you-know-who.)”

Of course by “you know who” Swann is referring to our friends on the dark side in Langley also known as an “east coast scientist”.

“11:00 AM - That's the room with the dinosaurs in it.

“(Correct. Vera was in a room with big dinosaur bones.)

“11:05 AM - I see something red. Maybe it's a series of stones of some sort. That one seems confused, whatever it is. Lots of cases filled with things.

“(Correct. Prior to the Museum's later construction of more dramatic displays for its gemstone collections, the stones had been placed in dozens of large glassed-over cases in a tremendous room. Other larger crystals and stones, some of them very large, were displayed without glass and separately or in large collections.)

“11:10 AM - I guess she's outside on the steps. There are steps anyway.

“(This was an apparent miss, although Vera said she was thinking about how to get out of the Museum.).”

As you can see the outbounder method or the use of a beacon would be of limited value in espionage. First you'd have to insert an agent into hostile territory a considerable feat in itself according to Joseph Trento and Victor Marchetti it had never been done with any success against their primary target the USSR, then they would have to find their way to a sensitive military or research facility. Any one that's ever had a hankering to check out Groom Lake may be familiar with term “Deadly Force”, but let's say our agent's a real James Bond and actually infiltrates the facility. It's likely that a Minox camera would probably more useful than a psychic at this point.

However Outbounding had its uses in convincing skeptics, some who became true believers themselves after acting as Remote Viewers in Outbound experiments and also because the targets could easily be judged and verified.

Remote Viewing by location had its draw back as well. Even an astral traveller riding on some kind of extraterrestrial ultradimensional highway is still going to require some kind of road map.

Swann attributes that cartography to computer scientist Jacque Vallee more famous as an aficionado of Unexplained Aerial Phenomenon who suggested the idea of addresses, which in the strictest cybernetic sense is a location for data, each with a unique identifying number assigned to it much like a home address.

It was after this recommendation that Swann says that he came up with the idea of using geographical coordinates. This procedure became known as Scanning by Coordinates and was given project name Scanate by the CIA.

As an aside its interesting to note that true to the computerized analogy of out of body perception, it was found that when Coordinated Remote Viewing was transferred to INSCOM that encrypted coordinates seemed to work just as well.

The Stanford Research Institute

Swann's encounter with the esteemed UFOlogist Vallee was not merely by chance. Both men happened to be in the periphery of the Stanford Research Institute, located in Menlo Park California.

Next to the famous Rand Corporation, SRI is the biggest “think tank” on the West Coast, probably the reason for Vallee's presence wasn't UFO related but likely had to do with R & D of the ARPAnet.

The reason Swann was there was that Harold better known as Hal Puthoff, had requested a demonstration of his psychic ability.

Puthoff himself had received funding through Science Unlimited Research out of San Antonio Texas a possible cutout for the CIA, much like the Human Ecology Fund owned by millionaire Frank Church Jr owner of the Church's Chicken Franchise.

Harold Puthoff is another interesting character amongst an interesting caste of characters bound by a common thread. A Quantum Physicist, who with his research assistant Russell Targ developed the tunable laser and also contributed theories on tachyons (particles that allegedly move faster than light). Even more interesting is the fact that Puthoff was a former employee of the super secret NSA.

It was Puthoff, who with the assistance of Swann gave Kress the following demonstration of psychokinetics or PK:

“In April of 1972, Targ met with CIA personnel from the Office of Strategic Intelligence (OSI) and discussed the subject of paranormal abilities. Targ revealed that he had contacts with people who purported to have seen and documented some Soviet investigations of psychokinesis. Films of Soviets moving inanimate objects by “mental powers” were made available to analysts from OSI. They, in turn, contacted personnel from the Office of Research and Development (ORD) and OTS. An ORD Project Officer then visited Targ who had recently joined the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). Targ proposed that some psychokinetic verification investigations could be done at SRI in conjunction with Puthoff.

These proposals were quickly followed by a laboratory demonstration. A man was found by Targ and Puthoff who apparently had psychokinetic abilities. He was taken on a surprise visit to a superconducting shielded magnetometer being used in quark (high energy particle) experiments by Dr. A. Hebbard of Stanford University Physics Department. The quark experiment required that the magnetometer be as well shielded as technology would allow. Nevertheless, when the subject placed his attention on the interior of the magnetometer, the output signal was visibly disturbed, indicating a change in the internal magnetic field. Several other correlations of his mental efforts with signal variations were observed. These variations were never seen before or after the visit. The event was summarized and transmitted to the Agency in the form of a letter to an OSI analyst and as discussions with OTS and ORD officers.”

Though the demonstration was impressive. Kress had doubts about turning Swann over to the “Dark Side”. As noted in Secret Reflections, however there was a third member who was more than willing to be a contracted Company psychic asset.

Pat Price, The Third Man

The late Pat Price is probably considered one of the most naturally talented Remote Viewers. A former Police Commissioner for Burbank California, who had semi retired to Lake Tahoe to raise Christmas Trees and sold them in the bay area, which according to legend is where he met Swann with Puthoff, whom he had met earlier at a lecture.

Ingo Swann, was originally targeted with the coordinates to the following site, however according to Jim Schnabel's book Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America's Psychic Spies, Price had called Puthoff on the phone telling him that he too had empathic ability, so Puthoff gave Price the coordinates as well as a test.

What occurred is described in Kress’ article:

“During the summer of 1973, SRI continued working informally with an OSI officer on a remote viewing experiment which eventually stimulated more CIA-sponsored investigations of parapsychology. The target was a vacation property in the eastern United States. The experiment began with the passing of nothing more than the geographic coordinates of the vacation property to the SRI physicists who, in turn, passed them to the two subjects, one of whom was Pat Price. No maps were permitted, and the subjects were asked to give an immediate response of what they remotely viewed at these coordinates. The subject came back with descriptions which were apparent misses. They both talked about a military-like facility. Nevertheless, a striking correlation of the two independent descriptions was noted. The correlation caused the OSI officer to drive to the site and investigate in more detail.

To the surprise of the OSI officer, he soon discovered a sensitive government installation a few miles from the vacation property. This discovery led to a request to have Price provide information concerning the interior workings of this particular site. All the data produced by the two subjects were reviewed in CIA and the Agency concerned.

The evaluation was, as usual, mixed. Pat Price, who had no military or intelligence background, provided a list of project titles associated with current and past activities including one of extreme sensitivity. Also, the codename of the site was provided. Other information concerning the physical layout of the site was accurate. Some information, such as the names of the people at the site, proved incorrect.

These experiments took several months to be analyzed and reviewed within the Agency. Now Mr. Colby was DCI, and the new directors of OTS and ORD were favorably impressed by the data.”

The codename was Haystack a satellite interrogation facility in Sugar Grove Virginia at the time one of the NSA's most secret Sigint complex's. 

Not only was the OTS suitably impressed but all those involved in this little Remote Viewing exercise were investigated by counterintelligence to find out if any one had leaked this information to them!

Price seemed to have exceptional ability as a Remote Viewer, however he also had a tendency to be more unconventional than Swann, who restricted his out of body voyages to terrestrial and even extraterrestrial targets that could be easily verified as we shall see, while Price had a fascination with the UFO enigma particularly alleged underground bases, as did many of the Military Remote Viewers later on according to Jim Marrs.

There seems to be a symbiotic relationship here between Unexplained Aerial Phenomena and remote viewing or psychic phenomena in general. Probably due to the milieu involved, that even a superficial study reveals.

Again another contentious battlefield in the battle lines drawn between the “skeptics” and the “believers”, but even more controversial is the area of religion, a virtual no mans land!

The Nexus Between Religion and Remote Viewing

It's almost counterintuitive to say that many sciences are derived from mysticism or religion. However,one obvious example is the science of astronomy, as any astrologer knows and any astronomer tries to evade. Another is nuclear physics and chemistry derived directly from Alchemy.

There are still scientists who still believe that earth is the center of the universe, as far as sentient life is concerned, which is pretty much in accord with the view of the Church prior to Copernicus.

Though it may be disputed that Remote Viewing is a scientific technique. There is no dispute that it is based at least in part on religion.

My allusion earlier to a common thread is also noted by Steven Aftergood spokesman for the Federation of American Scientists on security and intelligence issues:

“The initial research program, called SCANATE [scan by coordinate] was funded by CIA beginning in 1970. Remote viewing research began in 1972 at the Stanford Research Institute [SRI] in Menlo Park, CA. This work was conducted by Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff, once with the NSA and at the time a Scientologist. The effort initially focused on a few “gifted individuals” such as New York artist Ingo Swann, an OT Level VII Scientologist. Many of the SRI “empaths” were from the Church of Scientology.”

In fact Ingo Swann considered the father of Coordinate Remote Viewing published a paper Scientological Techniques: A Modern Paradigm for the Exploration of Consciousness and Psychic Integration which he presented to the First Psychotronic Congress in Prague in 1973.

Techniques developed by the founder of religion of Scientology, L Ron Hubbard. Hubbard himself is an interesting character, a writer of many genres but best known as a science fiction writer, who himself dabbled in the occult acting as scribe for Jack Parsons’ Babalon Working. Some time after this writing a popular text explaining a cognitive therapeutic procedure he calls Dianetics based in part on Freudian analysis according to a lecture giving a historical background of the subject and what would later be called Scientology.

Coincidentally, although Hubbard does not claim to be a contactee like Van Tassel and Admanski in an interesting lecture giving in 1952 called The Role of Earth, he talks about underground UFO bases. One in particular in the Pyrenees. An area where the Price claimed one was as well.  

In The Journal of Scientology Issue 23-G 15 January 1954 Hubbard describes Scientology as “the science of knowing how to know”, yet that same year a J. Burton Farber of Glendale California incorporates the subject as a religion, causing some consternation of its members according to the Aberree a satirical magazine published by two Scientologists by the name of Alphia and Agnes Hart Issue 1 Volume 1:

“The news was received with mixed emotions. Some were outspokenly antagonistic to the idea. Some who'd nursed the glories of self-determinism since Book One couldn't subscribe to the new idea that the best way to win is to BECOME the enemy.”

A controversy that still rages today.

However, Scientology is said to address the spirit or in Scientologese the “thetan”. In the early 1950's most techniques were directed toward exteriorization what parapsychologists refer to as OBE or Out of Body Experiences called astral projection in eastern philosophies.

The purpose of these techniques is to achieve Operating Thetan which according to The Journal of Scientology Issue 24-G written 31 January 1954 “means that the person does not need a body to communicate or work.”

One of particular interest appears in the publication Creation of Human Ability published in 1954 known as the “Grand Tour”:

“The commands of the Grand Tour are as follows: ‘Be near Earth’, ‘Be near the Moon’, ‘Be near the Sun’, ‘Earth’, ‘Moon’, ‘Sun’, giving the last three commands many times. Each time the auditor must wait until the preclear signifies that he has completed the command. The preclear is supposed to move near these bodies or simply be near them, it does not matter which.”

Could this be a possible prelude to Remote Viewing?

Many such exercises or processes later became part of the OT Levels or the Advanced Courses, which Puthoff, Swann and Price were all graduates of, at the time.

Yet some time after the US Government became involved in remote viewing, these same courses were no longer being offered to the general public. Having been replaced by “New” OT levels.

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The Mole

Inside Project Scanate was a “mole”, not a foreign agent sent by the KGB, though it is possible that the Mossad had a man on the inside by the name of Uri Geller. One who by his own admission was involved in Israeli Intelligence prior to his testing at SRI.

Another organization was involved in its own Intelligence operation against the US Government. An account accurately summarized by the late investigative journalist Omar Garrison in his book Playing Dirty the Secret War Against Beliefs.

What wasn't known then was that Pat Price was part of this covert op run against the CIA and other Government Agencies. Again according to Kress in an addendum to Parapsychology in Intelligence:

“In the late 1970s,several years after the project was terminated, I got a secure line call from a person who identified himself as an FBI agent. He suggested that I should be prepared for a spate of publicity about the remote viewings of Pat Price. Pat had died a few years before and I was surprised that somebody had leaked in-formation about these defunct activities.The FBI agent proceeded to explain that Pat Price was a member of an organization that was recently raided for documents indicative of illegal activity.The organization was vigorously resisting the government investigation but the raid produced hundreds of files and papers that supported the government's allegations. These documents were now in the public domain as part of the discovery process in the legal proceedings.

“One such file included debriefings of Pat Price about his CIA remote viewing projects. The debriefings were a detailed record of the intelligence objectives I had given Pat and results that Pat provided to me. The files revealed the meeting places as well as all the names of those present. My esteem instantly rose for my colleagues who had used first names only with all meetings with Pat! As the file made clear, Pat, who had signed an official secrecy agreement,would immediately go to his superior in the organization after sessions with me and divulge everything. As far as I know, the documents were never read by anybody who publicized them and the organization never used them.”

Of course the “organization” in question was the Church of Scientology. No discovery was attempted since those charged with espionage against the US Government pled Nolo Contentre based on a Stipulation of Evidence which delicately side stepped the issue of “Methods and Sources”. An issue the US Government was diligently avoiding when the Church had sought legal remedies earlier, against what they claimed were unconstitutional harassment and surveillance.

As we now know the Church of Scientology was one of many “subversive” organizations that were being “investigated” by the FBI in a broad program known as COINTELPRO.

However, it seems in this case the Church fought fire with fire by launching a counterintelligence program of their own.

Meanwhile as armed Federal Agents were storming the citadels of the Scientology Organization in Washington and Los Angeles. The US Government's psychic spying program based in part at least on the works of L Ron Hubbard, became Gondola Wish, when it joined the Army.

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