New revelations today that the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) investigated the efficacy of remote viewing (also known as ‘travelling clairvoyance…that is, the ability to see things at a remote location via some supranormal sense). As most readers will know, the US Army and various intelligence agencies also utilised remote viewing during the 1970s and 1980s under a variety of programs, best known under the rubric of Project Stargate (see the video I posted last week about Stargate for extra information).
Ufologist and former MoD staffer Nick Pope broke the news to the UFO Updates mailing list giving details of how the information came to light:
The study was undertaken in 2001 – 2002 and the document was formerly classified Secret UK Eyes Only.
The document was obtained by author Timothy Good under the Freedom of Information Act, and with his consent I broke the story in the media today.
You can download the MoD project documentation directly from their website (two PDFs, around 4mb each). The conclusion of the investigation was largely negative, with the document saying results were “undoubtedly disappointing with no one achieving any useful performance as a RV subject”. On the other hand, it is also of note that untrained novices were used as viewers, and the method did not adhere to the well known Controlled Remote Viewing (CRV) protocol which was developed by Ingo Swann and utilised in Stargate.
Update: The BBC’s flagship news program Newsnight has covered the story, the video is currently available here (not sure if it will last) – the segment is about 4/5 of the way through the program, so move the slider. A little bit of a parallel to the coverage of the Stargate program on Nightline with Ted Koppel when the program was declassified in 1995.
