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HOW DID REMOTE VIEWING BEGIN?

Though remote viewing traces its roots years into the past, its immediate history dates from a number of pioneering experiments performed under the auspices of the American Society for Psychical Research by New York artist and psychical researcher Ingo Swann. With the remarkable successes enjoyed at the ASPR, Swann teamed up with Dr. Hal Puthoff at SRI-International's Radio Physics Laboratory in Menlo Park, California. Working together, Puthoff and Swann—and soon a number of others—conducted a series of ever-more sophisticated experiments, developing the approach that they ultimately dubbed "remote viewing."

The successes they enjoyed soon attracted the attention of the Central Intelligence Agency. It was an era during which disturbing revelations from behind the Iron Curtain indicated that the Soviets were not only heavily financing experiments in various psychic phenomena, but that they were experiencing considerable success with their research program. The CIA needed to know if there really was anything to the sorts of things the Soviets were researching with such enthusiasm. If there was, it could pose a significant threat to national security. It might also be useful to our own defense establishment.

Representatives from the Agency brought a select few projects for which it wanted answers, and tasked Swann and one of his colleagues—another man with impressive remote viewing talents named Pat Price. The results in some cases were spectacular, and in all cases sufficiently intriguing that the CIA kept coming back for more. However, in the mid-70s a number of scandals involving the CIA forced it to divest itself of any sort of controversial activities in which it was at that time engaged.

Oversight for the small but growing program passed to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) under the program name "Grill Flame." A few still smaller programs administered by military services and other agencies nestled under the Grill Flame umbrella. Among them by 1978 was the Army's program, which was originally begun as a counter-intelligence effort, with the mission to evaluate through "reverse engineering" how vulnerable to psychic spying US secrets were.

So successful was this effort, that Department of Defense and Army officials decided to change the emphasis from assessing friendly vulnerabilities to actively collecting against America's Cold War adversaries. However, psychic spies were not especially popular among many generals, upper-level bureaucrats, and politicians. By the early 1980s most of the Army program's cousins in the other military Services were moribund, and DIA had scaled back its Grill Flame effort.

In 1980, the Army itself lost all funding for the program. However, Major General Bert Stubblebine, commander of the Army's Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM)—parent headquarters for the organization controlling the RV unit—took a personal and active interest in the psychic program. In 1983 he directed that the program be redesignated the "INSCOM Center Lane Program," and be funded directly from INSCOM's budget: "out-of-hide," in military parlance.

Serendipitously, Swann and the SRI team had developed a prototype, product-improved version of remote viewing known as "coordinate remote viewing." Around the time of Center Lane's debut, the Army and SRI-International signed training contracts which led to five military and DoD civilian personnel being trained in the new remote viewing technique at SRI facilities.

In 1986, INSCOM transferred the unit to DIA, and changed its name to "Sun Streak." Early in the 1990s it went through yet another name change—this time to "Star Gate," the name by which it became known to world when the program was declassified in 1995. During its lifetime, the remote viewing unit collected intelligence against a broad range of targets: strategic missile forces, political leaders, narcotics operations, research and development facilities, hostage situations, military weapons systems, secret installations, technology developments, terrorist groups; the list was staggering, and the successes were many—in some cases, even spectacular.

But Congress directed that CIA take back responsibility for the program from DIA in 1995—and the CIA didn't want it. Under the guise of an "objective" study by the American Institutes for Research (AIR), a reputable Washington DC think tank, the CIA commissioned the services of one of the most prominent anti-psi skeptics in the country, and contrived to skew the assessment such that the RV program would seem to have been useless as an intelligence resource. Critical reviews of the AIR/CIA report can be found in the Background Reading section on this website.

In its final "Star Gate" incarnation, the RV program was cancelled by the CIA in mid-1995. The Agency conveniently kept for itself all the personnel spaces that were transferred from DIA with the program (in a time of pandemic downsizing, even a dozen or so additional personnel slots can be a bureaucratic godsend). But while the details of this story are fascinating, they merely set the stage for something much more interesting: the exploration of what remote viewing is, and how it is done.

http://www.rviewer.com/main/history.html

WHAT IS REMOTE VIEWING?

Remote viewing (RV) is a skill by which a person (a "viewer") can perceive objects, persons, or events at a location removed from him or her by either space or time. In other words, one does not actually have to be there, nor does one need any so-called "physical" connections, such as television, telephone, etc., to gain information about the target. RV exploits and improves upon what is more commonly called "psychic" ability (an overused word that has accrued unfortunate connotations), and works whether the target is in the next room or on the other side of the planet. Neither time nor any known type of shielding can prevent a properly-trained remote viewer from gaining access to the desired target.

WHAT REMOTE VIEWING IS NOT

Remote viewing is not "being psychic" in the way commonly understood by the media and many practitioners of "paranormal" arts—though thanks to recent incomplete or inaccurate reports many have been led to believe otherwise. Remote viewers are not the typical "clairvoyants," "fortune tellers," or "psychics" we often hear about on TV or read about in the papers. Many of these more traditional psychics often do have amazing talents and abilities, but there is a qualitative difference between the average "natural" psychic, and a properly-trained remote viewer.

DO YOU HAVE TO BE "GIFTED" TO LEARN RV?

One of the wonderful things about RV is that virtually anyone can learn to do it. Much like studying the piano or art, nearly all of us have the capability to acquire the techniques and put them into practice. There are those who might not believe this. You often hear people say they can't learn to play the piano or even to "draw a straight line"—or to remote view—because they don't have "the talent." But what really gets in the way is almost always merely a simple a lack of time, motivation, or energy to devote to learning the principles and then practicing them enough to become proficient.

The bottom line is that, unless there is some sort of physical or mental handicap that prevents it, almost anyone can learn to play piano at least competently, can learn to draw aesthetically, and can learn to remote view reasonably effectively. It just takes desire, time, the right teacher, and the belief that it is at least possible.

HOW WELL DOES IT WORK?

Lately, we've heard two extreme claims about remote viewing. One says that it doesn't work. The other says it works all the time. The truth is really in between—although closer to the positive end of the scale. After long practice, experienced viewers can access a target nearly one hundred percent of the time. This does not mean their data is 100% accurate, nor does it necessarily mean they get all the data they were looking for. All it means is that they retrieve information indicating that they were "there." However, these experienced viewers regularly obtain extremely accurate, often error-free information from the target.

Even novice viewers may surprise themselves at the accuracy of some of their sessions. Though we anticipate beginners will perform less consistently than those who are more accomplished, we also expect them to frequently turn out commendable results.

FMI: http://www.rviewer.com/main/aboutrv.html

 

This is only a brief chronology of events in remote viewing history. Many more details could be added, and many more names included. But this will serve as a starting place to record the major events and some of the important personalities in relation to one another. Certainly, important events and personalities remain to be added. This chronology will become more complete over time.

Readers should be aware that there are two parallel remote viewing timelines: the operational, military-run program at Ft. Meade, Maryland, and the civilian-led, military-funded research program in California. External civilian research and applications were also taking place. In the chronology below, the operational and military lines are intermingled with a few references to the RV-related activities in the civilian sector.

---

Copyright © 2002 by Paul H. Smith.
Permission granted to quote in full or part with proper attribution.

 

REMOTE VIEWING (RV) FACT SHEET

In December of 1995 the CIA effectively declassified the government’s connection to and use of “remote viewing (RV)” and the existence of the military unit known as STAR GATE and other project code names, including SCANNATE, GONDOLA WISH, GRILL FLAME, CENTER LANE and SUN STREAK.

The program had been variously coordinated by Army intelligence, the Defense Intelligence Agency, Air Force, and in the end, the CIA.

WEB RESOURCES:

International Remote Viewing Association
www.irva.org

 

The Farsight Intstitute - Scientific Remote Viewing

http://www.farsight.org

Hawai’i Remote Viewers’ Guild (HRVG)
www.hrvg.org

 

[ “The methodology adopted by HRVG is descended from techniques initiated by the United States Army Special Forces intelligence and taught to selected individuals within the special operations community.” – HRVG Web site

Interesting account of the start-up of the Ft. Meade RV program by former Army officer Skip Atwater in HRVG online library at:
http://www.hrvg2.org/newsletter/2001-02/feature.html ]

 

Dr. Angela Thompson Smith

www.nevadarvgroup-inc.com

 

PSI TECH

http://www.psitech.net/  

 

RVIS, Inc.  Paul Smith

http://www.rviewer.com/  

 

Controlled Remote Viewing, Lyn Buchanan

http://www.crviewer.com/  

 

CRV Training in Canada

http://www.crvc.ca/

 

The Western Institute of Remote Viewing

http://www.remoteviewers.com/

Remote Viewing - Joseph W. McMoneagle

http://www.mceagle.com/remote-viewing/  

THE FT. MEADE UNIT:
The original unit consisted of between 6-8 commissioned military intelligence officers. Although personnel changed over the years as different personnel rotated in and out of the project, some of the more well-known project participants are:

Paul H. Smith, Remote Viewing Instructional Services, www.rviewer.com
Joe McMoneagle, Intuitive Intelligence Applications, www.mceagle.com
Lyn Buchanan, Problems Solutions Innovations www.crviewer.com
Dale Graff, Baycliff Psi Seminars, www.dalegraff.com
F. Holmes “Skip” Atwater, http://satwater.www9.50megs.com/skipatwater.htm


RV TIMELINES FROM ‘70S TO ‘90S, http://www.irva.org/papers/RVTimeline.shtml

71: Experiments in remote viewing at Stanford Research Institute (SRI). CIA
conducts evaluations. CIA gives SRI $50K experimental contract.

71-73: Various experiments conducted.

74: Research article on remote viewing published in journal Nature.

75: CIA terminates funding and involvement, officially-overtly. Air Force Foreign Technology Division becomes primary funding source.

76-77: Research and operations continue.

77: Army intelligence command forms RV unit at Ft. Meade, MD, code-named
Project GONDOLA WISH, then changed to Project GRILL FLAME.

78-79: Army intelligence selects RV candidates from within Army and civilians.

80: Air Force RV involvement terminated, officially, overtly.

80-82: Research and operations cont.

82: Project name changed to CENTER LANE.

84: Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) takes temporary control of project.

86: DIA takes formal control of project. Project name changed to SUN STREAK.

90: Project name changed to STARGATE.

91: Operations involving Stanford Research Institute are transferred to Science
Applications International Corp. (SAIC), headquartered in San Diego.

94: Project control is transferred from DIA to CIA.

95: CIA officially, overtly cancels STARGATE.