# Remote Viewing in Hawaii: continuation of the Staff Reports thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 25, 2001, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remote-viewing-in-hawaii-continuation-of-the-staff-reports-thread/89612 "2001-10-25T19:08:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Rainfall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/96bed5/32.png) [@Rainfall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rainfall)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2001, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remote-viewing-in-hawaii-continuation-of-the-staff-reports-thread/89612/121 "2001-11-02T09:24:03Z")
Aloha, What you perceive as arrogance is not arrogance but educated confidence. When I read your posts I know that I cannot pass on to you that which I know and have experienced in over 26 years in just a few lines that you will read from me. I did not invent remote viewing. I was trained in remote viewing in the military. To be precise the United States Army. Had it been useless or worthless it would have been abandoned long before I came on board. Your questions somehow imply that it is somehow unexplored. It is not. Initially I listed books and names of references where the History of Remote Viewing is laid out. You have reduced the value of RV to what I or a few of the other remote viewers who have posted here can represent. It is a tall order. If I could do so in a non-hostile environment it would be easier to at least provide a premise for thought on this very important subject. Have you read the Kress Report? Do you think all the Field Grade Officers, Company Grade Officers, and Senior Non-Commissioned Officers from the U.S. Army are pulling your leg? Do you think the Defense Intelligence Agency just did this for a lark? You read what Ray Hyman had to say but have you read what Jessica Utts had to say? It’s always he said she said… It is a curiosity that you think your test parameters are somehow more efficient to prove or disprove RV than what was presented to congress as proof in testing. Do you think the Senate Intelligence subcommittee would approve continued funding over a 20-year period for something that was fake, or did not work? President Jimmy Carter personally reported to the press that Remote Viewers had located a downed Soviet Fighter in Africa when overhead satellite platforms had failed to locate it. No small feat if you ask me. At a minimum you should consider establishing a rapport with the Remote Viewers and collect more information as to how we do it. You want proof in a coarse kind of way that in-fact irritates more than just a few of us. I know you will not believe what I tell you unless I am somehow willing to do it your way, fit it into your paradigm. It is not like that at all. You don’t know me and I don’t know you. I use the same tactics on you that you use on me. You act in some way that you are an injured party when in fact you are not. Your comments do not go unnoticed; in fact they actually generate the response that you get. Aloha Glenn ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2001, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remote-viewing-in-hawaii-continuation-of-the-staff-reports-thread/89612/122 "2001-11-02T14:10:39Z")
_putting on the waders_ Glenn, if you claim that you could pass the overly complicated test that you have devised, what in the _hell_ is your objection to trying the much simpler test put forward here? Believe it or not, “Remote Viewing” is not an established fact outside of the feedback loop of a group you have put together. Frankly your talk of believing in ghosts and being trained to “RV” in the military, which you obviously cannot back up, does nothing to bolster your claims of magical abilities. If you can find specific flaws in the test mentioned beforehand, please state them. Otherwise you sound like every other person who has come here claiming fantastic abilities who, when asked to provide the simplist proof, resort to childish retorts like “You don’t understand me!” and “I don’t have to prove anything to YOU!”. Again, I strongly suggest that people go to [http://www.hrvg.org](http://www.hrvg.org) to see the wide variety of silliness his group is willing to believe in without a shred of evidence. What you won’t find there, however, is any doubt or discussion about any claims made, so don’t bother trying to discuss whether “RV” is possible. This board is for true believers only. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2001, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remote-viewing-in-hawaii-continuation-of-the-staff-reports-thread/89612/123 "2001-11-02T15:37:59Z")
No, DuckDuck, ELF, which I think stands for Extremely Low Frequency, is as it says, in the very very low frequencies, such as a few Hertz. AFAIK, it’s not used for deep space applications. The only application I know of is to communicate with submerged submarines, since the ELF can penetrate the sea. Submarines troll very long wire antennas (like miles long if I’m not mistaken) behind them to receive ELF broadcasts. Since the frequency is so low, they can’t send much data. They might just make an appointment for the sub to pop a satellite antenna above the surface and get the real information. > [@](#): > > _originally posted by DaveW_ > What we want is a test which Glenn believes will result in close to 100% accuracy. I disagree. I’m willing to give them a huge amount of leeway to show success. It seems to me that the two sides of the debate are saying: 1. We use strict but very complex protocols in RV. It’s obvious to us that it works. Proving it in a scientific way would be extremely difficult. But even _government officials_ believe in it, so who are you to question that? 2. There is no decent evidence for RV. The “distance doesn’t matter” argument just shows that the people promoting it lack critical thinking skills (if every view in the universe is a potential target, how do you find the one you want?). If RV were to exist, it would be a cinch to prove. The fact that it hasn’t been done is pretty good evidence against it, what with a million-dollar prize on the line, but we’re willing to do a fun little experiment that gives you an opportunity to prove your point, but we know you’ll fall flat. And learning it this way would be very good for you. Back to the experiment… If you have a pool of twenty possible pictures to choose one that you remote viewed, do you have any ideas about what kind of hit rate you could achieve? A monkey with a dartboard could do 5%. Could you do 50%? 20%? 10%? The reason I ask is that with a lower hit rate, we would need to do more trials to distinguish the results from random noise. For example, if you claim 10%, then we would need about 400 trials (twenty sets of picking twenty pictures would do). We would expect the rate to be between 3% and 7% (a two-sigma spread), and you would claim between 7% and 13%. If you think that your rate would be higher, we could do it with fewer trials. Or, we could do the ranking scheme that someone wrote Randi had come up with. The statistics get a little more complicated, but I’m pretty sure that we could differentiate a success from a failure with fewer trials. So what do you think decent RVers should be able to achieve? Again, we’re proposing that you or your analysts pick or rank the pictures. We skeptics can’t be involved in deciding based on “gestalts,” whatever that means exactly. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2001, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remote-viewing-in-hawaii-continuation-of-the-staff-reports-thread/89612/124 "2001-11-02T16:05:08Z")
> [@](#): > > _originally posted by Rich\_rv:_ > **Not sure how RV got connected to some sort of radio waves.** Just in the interests of clarity: Back on Page 1, Sea Sorbust brought up the Cornell Engineers remote viewing tests. > [@](#): > > _originally posted by Sea Sorbust:_ > \*\*They were studying the hypothesis that ESP (and, in particular, remote viewing) was a straight-forward electrical phenomena via transmission of “long waves” in the EM spectrum. The information content of long waves is small which accounts for the grubbiness of the end-product (as contrasted with, say, a very sharp and detailed video image). \*\* And when Glenn (Rainfall) came back into the thread on Page 2, it was not to say, “No, no, no–remote viewing is not transmitted by radio waves”. Rather, it was to jump on the radio wave bandwagon with enthusiasm. And you, yourself, Rich, 😉 might be taken to be supporting the “remote viewing is transmitted by radio waves” with your comment on Page 3: > [@](#): > > _originally posted by Rich\_rv:_ > **Just a note on distance and RV. There are no restrictions on distance.** –since it seemed to be addressing Page 2’s discussion, which dealt with how far radio frequencies can travel– > [@](#): > > _originally posted by DaveW:_ > **It’s also important to note that at a distance of 1,000 miles, any psi signals would be a million times weaker than those coming from people just a mile away. A person 5 feet from the ‘receiver’ would be sending signals a billion times stronger than someone 1,000 miles away. If the Stanford EEs really did pick up psi signals in this method, there was a fellow student day-dreaming about the beach, in the same building at the time, ‘sending’ them.** And finally, Glenn (Rainfall) in his posts, seems to be carrying right on with the “human beings are radio wave transmitters” discussion. > [@](#): > > _originally posted by Rainfall:_ > **The human receives and emanates RF.** If remote viewing isn’t transmitted by radio waves, why is he talking about them? However, he does eventually clarify his position: > [@](#): > > _originally posted by Rainfall:_ > **I do believe that RV is a propagation of consciousness not ELF lol. I have never stated that I believed that RV was the result of radio wave propagation. > The human body regardless is affected by incoming RF and does in fact emanate RF. Don’t confuse that statement with what we believe RV to be.** He suggests that we go read his article to find out what he really thinks the physical mechanism for remote viewing is. Here’s a [link](http://hrvg.org./newsletter/2001-06/feature.html) to the article. First paragraph: A WWII anecdote about a mother who “knows” when her sons are in danger in war. Second paragraph: Something about the discovery of quantum mechanics, or maybe it’s photons, or maybe it’s donkeys. I dunno, it’s hard to tell what the point of the paragraph is. Third paragraph: Not sure what’s going on here. It seems clear that a Southeast Asian soldier is teleporting out of a tunnel, and there are some foreign journalists, too. Then he starts talking about the electromagnetic spectrum. > [@](#): > > For the human, consciousness is by the grace of the Electromagnetic Wave. > > Remote Viewing is perhaps the most elegant expression of human consciousness. And those statements are not “snipped”, people, they’re back to back in the document–end of one paragraph, beginning of the next paragraph. Eh, Glenn, the logic of that seems pretty clear: Human consciousness is dependent on electromagnetic waves. Remote viewing is an expression of human consciousness. Therefore remote viewing is dependent on electromagnetic waves. From [Page 2](http://hrvg.org./newsletter/2001-06/feature2.html): > [@](#): > > As an RF Engineer I agree with the concept of the signal line. It would seem that it is the most likely scenario. The overall tone of your article sure seems to imply that yes, you do think remote viewing is transmitted by some as yet undiscovered form of electromagnetic waves. And, er, special note to Dopers: this seems pretty clear, too. > [@](#): > > We prefer to cling to the magic of what we think it is in lieu of accepting what the demonstrated performance indicates within the structure of science. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_gargg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b3f665/32.png) [@robert\_gargg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_gargg)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2001, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remote-viewing-in-hawaii-continuation-of-the-staff-reports-thread/89612/125 "2001-11-02T17:42:04Z")
Yes, I have been to the “profile” section. I clicked, “not send me notification,” but I am still getting it. I also note there was no place to correct the spelling of my name. It should be GRAGG not GARGG. No matter. Thanks Robert ---
**Author:** ![Rainfall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/96bed5/32.png) [@Rainfall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rainfall)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2001, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remote-viewing-in-hawaii-continuation-of-the-staff-reports-thread/89612/126 "2001-11-02T19:35:05Z")
Aloha, DDG if you in fact have read the article for which you provided a link and selected excerpts then you know you are mis-representing what was actually said in it. It is a question of context. Consciousness is in fact not possible without the electromagnetic spectrum. RV is an effect of non-locality within consciousness. Strange that you could not understand that. As to Czarcasm, well, it is difficult to respond to someone so angry about something they don’t understand. You take jabs at a great group of people that have been working together for over 4 years. You characterize our light banter on our BBS as sillyness, hmmmm. I believe your comments say far more about you…than us. Somehow that must be important to you. Reminds me of the type of person who cannot feel good about themself unless they are putting someone else down… ALoha Glenn ---
**Author:** ![jab1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ee7513/32.png) [@jab1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jab1)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2001, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remote-viewing-in-hawaii-continuation-of-the-staff-reports-thread/89612/127 "2001-11-02T20:59:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Rainfall \* > **I was trained in remote viewing in the military. To be precise the United States Army.** Your tax dollars in action, folks! > [@](#): > > **Had it been useless or worthless it would have been abandoned long before I came on board.** It wouldn’t be the first time some useless, worthless government program was maintained in spite of all the reasons to stop it. > [@](#): > > **Do you think the Senate Intelligence subcommittee would approve continued funding over a 20-year period for something that was fake, or did not work?** Have you ever heard of a “pork barrel program”? That’s a government program that is run in gratitude to the Senator or Representative who sponsors it in return for his support on some other, more vital program or legislation. It does little more than provide work and money for the voters in the Congressman’s home district. It’s usually something that is not really needed or doesn’t do any damn good at all. > [@](#): > > **President Jimmy Carter personally reported to the press that Remote Viewers had located a downed Soviet Fighter in Africa when overhead satellite platforms had failed to locate it.** I don’t believe it. Tell us where and when he said this. It must be on record somewhere. How did you hear of it? > [@](#): > > **No small feat if you ask me.** Not really. Even if it did happen, it could have been the result of blind chance. If there have been no other successes like this, I’d say it was almost certainly an example of dumb luck. It would be like winning the lottery. ---
**Author:** ![jab1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ee7513/32.png) [@jab1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jab1)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2001, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remote-viewing-in-hawaii-continuation-of-the-staff-reports-thread/89612/128 "2001-11-02T21:34:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Rainfall \* > **You take jabs at a great group of people that have been working together for over 4 years.** You haven’t _been_ jabbed yet… The group had a class on September 10, 2001. They tried to “view” a photo of the late Timothy Leary standing next to a sensory deprivation tank. But they claim their efforts were disrupted by (you can see this coming, I hope) the terrorist attacks that occurred the next day. That’s right, folks, when trying to figure out why they failed to “view” the Leary photo, they decided it was because they were influenced by future events. IOW, they think they have the gift of prophecy. Click [here](http://www.hrvg.org/library/articles/extravagating-non-local-consciousness.htm) to read the ludicrous story yourselves. See how they focus on illegible scribbles and poorly-drawn diagrams that SEEM to predict the attacks, but, in reality, are so vague they can be attributed to nearly ANY image. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2001, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remote-viewing-in-hawaii-continuation-of-the-staff-reports-thread/89612/129 "2001-11-03T00:31:21Z")
Glenn, I read the Kress Report that you wish to provide as evidence. Did you happen to read his conclusions? He concluded that, while a great many amazing things had been claimed by the various governmental agencies, there were two _major_ problems: 1. None of the results could be reproduced by an independent group. 2. He thought that there just might be a “fudge factor” when the competing governmental agencies vied for the limited federal funding available. It is from little projects like these that funds are drawn to operate so-called “black bag” ops. Also, if one governmental agency says that they have advanced in a certain area, other agencies might claim to be getting the same results, so that they don’t look second-rate. Glenn, if you are claiming that you _don’t_ have a ghost in your house, please tell us. If you don’t believe you can use “RV” to manipulate the stock market, please tell us. Of course, it might be nice if you told the true believers on your bulletin board. ---
**Author:** ![Rainfall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/96bed5/32.png) [@Rainfall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rainfall)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2001, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remote-viewing-in-hawaii-continuation-of-the-staff-reports-thread/89612/130 "2001-11-03T00:38:00Z")
ALoha, I knew it would be easy to get you guys to toss off those sheepskins and reveal the critical puesdo-skeptics that you are. Responses that are unreasonable and comments with an undertone of caustic rhetoric. You are not interested in debate or even critique…just wanna attack something. If anyone wants to fairly consider the topic at hand… let me know. ALoha Glenn ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2001, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remote-viewing-in-hawaii-continuation-of-the-staff-reports-thread/89612/131 "2001-11-03T01:10:38Z")
Glenn, you and your group came over to this board and made an incredible claim. Incredible claims require extensive proof, not demands that you be taken at your word. Over and over we have asked for data about the procedures that seem to verify your astounding claims. We have asked what your objections would be to a simple and non-vague test of your abilities. We have pointed out the flaws in your thinking that the human body is some sort of radio reciever capable of recieving RF from _any_ distance. I, personally, have asked you if you believe the incredible claims made about fortune-telling and ghosts made by you on your own bulletin board. I asked you about the results of the Kress Report you yourself used as some sort of verification of you abilities. Got Proof? ---
**Author:** ![Rich\_rv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@Rich\_rv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rich_rv)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2001, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remote-viewing-in-hawaii-continuation-of-the-staff-reports-thread/89612/132 "2001-11-03T02:33:27Z")
OK, I went through the RF stuff. I hadn’t heard about the Cornell work before. I want to be clear that my statement about distance is not related to any RV theory of how it works. The investigations and applications of RV did not find any limitations. A famous case (in RV land) 🙂 … involved Ingo Swann and another person who “RVed” Jupiter before NASA’s first satellite flyby. The task was run to see how their RV info would compare to the data sent back by the probe. Another similar experiment was done with teh planet Mercury. Typically, there are both pro and con analyses of the RV data vs the probe data. ---------------------( I dont know how to do the fancy formatting)---------------------------- Re President Carter’s comments. The Rest Of The Story… One source for the info is the book Remote Viewers by Jim Schnabel…pages 216-219. pocketbook edition. The quote is from a talk Carter gave to some college students 17 years after the event. “She went into a trance. And while she was in a trance, she gave some latitude and longetitude figures. We focused our satellite cameras on that point and the plane was there.” According to Schnabel, Carter’s remembered details were erroneous. According to Schnabel two separate RV attempts were made independently, one by Puthoff via the Pentagon and one by Dale Graff at Wright - Patterson AFB ( the “she” in Carter’s recollections). ## Both viewers produced map-like sketches showing terrain, river and roads. Apparently both were alike enough and detailed enough to match against a map to a specific location in Zaire where the plane crashed. By the time the info was passed to the search team, they were in the area on their way to where they thought they would find the plane. They came across some natives with wreckage pieces and found the plane in the river Graff’s team had indicated within three miles of the given co-ordinates. There are many stories of past successes, told and retold ad nauseum and I have complained loud and often that there are no similar stories, documented or otherwise since Stargate was closed down. Joe McMoneagle , often acclaimed as the best of the military RVers appears fairly often on assorted TV shows/documentaries and has performed “live” for the cameras with varying degrees of “success”. For these shows Joe does not usually use a formal process such as CRV/SRV or HRVG. Although I have seen some excellent examples of RV data, including that from HRVGers, I have also seen some total flops by acknowledged talent…but hey, batting 220 in the majors gets you a $million salary. I have been unable to find any ongoing studies publicly available on any of the various RV methodologies being taught. A supposed scientific online experiment out of U of Texas a couple of years ago turned out to be a less than honest test. Moreover, sorry to say, in two of the last three annual remote viewing conferences, RV experiments were run that were nothing to shout about. I hope some test/ show&tell/ parlor trick/ demonstration/ whatever can be worked out but until then I can only refer you the the Q&A page of the Remote VIewing Roast. Its a few yeasrs old, but nothing has changed. Rich ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2001, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remote-viewing-in-hawaii-continuation-of-the-staff-reports-thread/89612/133 "2001-11-03T04:28:38Z")
Rich, we haven’t even seen _any_ remote viewers bat .220, let alone .500 or higher. We haven’t seen any remote viewers do anything more than strike out, in our opinion. We have serious questions about your analysis procedures, for one thing, which we believe leads to tainted results. What _are_ your analysis procedures, BTW? ---
**Author:** ![Rainfall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/96bed5/32.png) [@Rainfall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rainfall)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2001, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remote-viewing-in-hawaii-continuation-of-the-staff-reports-thread/89612/134 "2001-11-03T04:35:12Z")
ALoha, You should read what you write. I joined a discussion on RV on this board. I did not start it or make wild claims as you claim. I joined it in progress. When asked about procedures I wrote at great length about our proprietary methodology. I did my best to explain RV procedure and analysis. You make ill-remarks about a stock prediction that was made by me on our BBS. Hmmm that stock predict was the result of several ARV targets not some anomalous Nostrodamus factor or mumbo jumbo. Whether there is a ghost in my house is frankly no concern of yours and was not introduced in this forum except by you to attack my credibility. In general you paint your reality very abstractly…nothing at all like the truth. You seem a bit witless when something like RV is discussed. It is obviously beyond your ability to comphrehend or even discuss in a plausible debate. You may find after a while that fewer people will have anything to discuss with you. But then again maybe you know that already. ALoha Glenn ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2001, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remote-viewing-in-hawaii-continuation-of-the-staff-reports-thread/89612/135 "2001-11-03T05:07:03Z")
Glenn, let’s not bring personal attacks into the already-muddled equation, o.k.? Again I ask you if you read the conclusion of the Kress Report. Again I ask you what the problem is with the simplified test proposed in this thread. And again I, and others, ask you how you determine which info is thrown out and which is kept when the analysis is made. Knowing the exact process might remove some fear on our part that the data is being manipulated to produce the effect that your group desires. Your statement that RV is a proven fact might lead us to believe the contradictory data might be ignored or explained away. IMHO, a look into the beliefs of your group as a whole can give us insight into how thoroughly you examine unusual and/or extraordinary claims. Several times members of your group have claimed to be former skeptics until they took your courses, and yet on your website and in your bulletin board a cannot find a hint of skepticism applied to any claims. This leads me to believe one of three things: 1. People in your group were skeptical of RV only, and already believed in things such as ghosts, telekinesis and predicting the future. 2. Your courses teach people to throw out all thoughts of skepticism when it comes all things fantastic. 3. They were never skeptics in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2001, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remote-viewing-in-hawaii-continuation-of-the-staff-reports-thread/89612/136 "2001-11-03T05:36:50Z")
> [@](#): > > A famous case…involved Ingo Swann and another person who “RVed” Jupiter before NASA’s first satellite flyby. The task was run to see how their RV info would compare to the data sent back by the probe. Here is the raw data for Ingo Swann’s remote viewing of Jupiter in 1973. [http://www.webcom.com/way/swann\_19.html](http://www.webcom.com/way/swann_19.html) Swann takes credit for predicting the existence of a ring around Jupiter. A “new kind of dust ring” was actually [discovered](http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/98/glring.html) in 1979. Here is what he actually said, from the raw data (a transcript from a tape recording, evidently): > [@](#): > > “Very high in the atmosphere there are crystals… they glitter. Maybe the stripes are like bands of crystals, maybe like rings of Saturn, though not far out like that. Very close within the atmosphere. [Note: see sketch of ring in the raw data drawing.] (Unintelligible sentence.) I bet you they’ll reflect radio probes. Is that possible if you had a cloud of crystals that were assaulted by different radio waves?” Okay, so he says there’s something like a ring-shaped dust cloud. That’s one for him. But what about all this other stuff that he remote viewed on the surface of Jupiter?: 1. The atmosphere is liquid. Or no, wait, it’s more of the crystals, sort of a crystal cloud cover. 2. The surface of Jupiter is made up of rolling sand dunes. The sand is orange. It’s polished and shiny, like “amber or obsidian”, and the wind rolls it along. 3. It’s windy. 4. There’s a mountain range on his right. 5. He can see the sun and it’s white. 6. "I see something that looks like a tornado. Is there a thermal inversion here? I bet there is. I bet you that the surface of Jupiter will give a very high infrared count (?), reading (?) " 7. He can see liquid like water with icebergs floating in it, only they’re not really icebergs. 8. And finally, he made some drawings. > [@](#): > > Explanation of drawing: This is what appears to be a hydrogen mantle about 100,000 miles off the surface. Those here are bands of crystals, kind of elements. They’re pretty close to the surface. And beneath those are layers of clouds or what seem to be prevailing winds. Beneath that is the surface which I saw was, well, it looked like shifting sands made out of some sort of slippery granulated stuff. And off in the distance, I guess, to the East was a very high mountain chain 30,000 feet or so, quite large mountains. I feel these crystals will probably bounce radio waves. They’re that type. Taking credit for predicting that the “crystals will probably bounce radio waves” and that “they’ll probably reflect radio probes” is just silly, because Jupiter has long been one of the strongest radio sources in the sky. Jupiter’s radio waves were discovered way back in [1955.](http://radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov/library/sci_briefs/discovery.html) As his “confirmation” of all his predictions, he quotes a number of popular press science magazines, most notably _Scientific American_, which as far as I can tell, are just quoting the prevailing theories at the time (early 1970s) about what the surface of Jupiter _might_ be like. So all this proves to me is that Swann was fully up on what scientists thought might be there. And of course he interprets his data to fit the theories. I’m not up on all the Jupiter flybys, and what they found, but I do know that there aren’t any sand dunes or mountain ranges on Jupiter. [http://pittsford.monroe.edu/jefferson/calfieri/space/Jupiter.html](http://pittsford.monroe.edu/jefferson/calfieri/space/Jupiter.html) > [@](#): > > Jupiter has no solid rock surface. One theory is that there is a gradual transition from the outer ammonia clouds to a thick layer of frozen gases and finally to a liquid or solid hydrogen mantle. Beneath that Jupiter probably has a core of rocky material with a mass 10 - 15 times that of the earth. [http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/jupiter/core.html](http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/jupiter/core.html) > [@](#): > > People often ask about Jupiter’s surface. Given what we’re used to with the Earth - iron core, solid layers in between to the surface and then atmosphere - it’s not surprising. But Jupiter is one of the “gas giants” (the others are Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune). The gas planets do not have solid surfaces, their gaseous material simply gets denser with depth - or as we think from the surface of the Earth - less dense with height (“Gee, the air is thin up here”). Swann has this remarkable statement: > [@](#): > > The Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet impacts on Jupiter. Not long ago, a series of twenty or so comets impacted Jupiter one after another. > > The largest of them left impact craters so huge and so high that their circular contours can easily be seen emerging from the cloud cover which is several miles thick. > > Since the impacts, the mountainous craters can still be seen when that side of Jupiter is turned toward Earth. > Well, if there were not mountains on Jupiter back in 1973, there are some there now – huge and big, and well over 30,000 feet high. It is quite clear now that Jupiter does have a solid core some tens of masses the size of Earth’s own mass. Oh, dear, oh, dear…How to reconcile this with NASA’s official version? [http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980804.html](http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980804.html) > [@](#): > > What happens when a comet encounters a planet? If the planet has a rocky surface, a huge impact feature will form. A giant planet like Jupiter, however, is mostly gas. When Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 struck Jupiter in 1994, each piece was swallowed into the vast Jovian atmosphere. Pictured above is a time-lapse sequence of the result of two fragments striking Jupiter. As the comet plunged in, it created large dark marks that gradually faded. The high temperature of gas under Jupiter’s cloud tops surely caused the comet fragment to melt before it plunged very far. Because Jupiter is much more massive than any comet, the orbit of Jupiter around the Sun did not change noticeably. Swann is just wrong. There are no mountains on Jupiter. There are no comet impact craters that may be seen when that side of Jupiter is turned towards Earth. At the end of the article he sums up and takes all kinds of credit for having remote viewed Jupiter, but in reality, he didn’t. All he did was regurgitate what Science’s Best Guess was concerning the surface of Jupiter. And he only quotes articles dating from _after_ his remote viewing, making it appear as though Science has finally caught up with him, but, you know, I was reading sci-fi all through the 1960s, and the theories about Jupiter’s surface were pretty much the same as the mid-1970s articles. He claims credit for predicting the presence of liquid metallic hydrogen on the surface, but in reality that was predicted back in [1935](http://www-phys.llnl.gov/H_Div/GG/Nellis.html), when Eugene Wigner theorized that hydrogen under extreme pressure would conduct electricity like a metal. And, what Swann actually said was: > [@](#): > > I feel that there’s liquid somewhere. If I turn, the whole thing seems enormously flat. I mean, if I get the feeling that if a man stood on those sands, I think he would sink into them (laughs). Maybe that’s where the liquid feeling comes from. Just saying “there’s liquid somewhere” isn’t quite the same thing as predicting the presence of liquid metallic hydrogen. And, how about those “icebergs”, eh? Also, how come he doesn’t mention that if a man did manage to stand there, he’d be instantly crushed into his component molecules by the pressure? I should think there would have been “feelings of pressure”, at the very least. Or “danger”. ---
**Author:** ![DaveW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@DaveW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaveW)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2001, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remote-viewing-in-hawaii-continuation-of-the-staff-reports-thread/89612/137 "2001-11-03T06:51:34Z")
**Glenn** , the idea that the government _only_ funds projects which are scientifically worthwhile is naive, at best. A short list would include the International Space Station, the National Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine, and National Missile Defense. The purse strings are held by politicians. If they were held by scientists, the U.S. would be a very different place. You are absolutely correct that I think the Senate Intelligence subcommittee would approve funding for 20 years for something which doesn’t work. Whether something works or not is often _not_ the question asked when funding is needed. According to [Parapsychology in Intelligence: The Rise and Fall of the CIA’s Psychic Spies](http://www.parascope.com/ds/articles/CIAparapsychology.htm), > [@](#): > > While the military’s interest in the [psychic] programs had fluctuated over the years, the Pentagon was prodded on by a pack of paranormal-minded politicians in the U.S. Congress. As far as the Jimmy Carter quote goes, my requirements for evidence aren’t eliminated, or even lessened, simply because of something the President of the U.S. says. Clinton is or was “interested in” Roswell. The Reagans used astrologers to help plan their activities. I have little faith that what any President believes is much better, in terms of scientific knowledge, than John Doe on the street. I will not accept arguments from authority as logically sound. Of course, according to [Former President Carter Details Psychic Encounter](http://www.parascope.com/en/carter.htm), > [@](#): > > “I have to say that without my knowledge, the head of the CIA asked her to come in,” Carter said. “She went into a trance. And while she was in the trance, she gave some latitude and longitude figures. We focused our satellite cameras on that point and the plane was there.” She may or may not have been “remote viewing.” The psychic might have actually contacted a dead crew member, who gave her the correct location, along the lines of Jon Edward. Or, Carter may have been remembering 18-year-old events incorrectly. Another Web page, [Two Believers, Two Skeptics, Ed Dames and ONE MILLION BUCKS](http://www.darkecho.com/skepticalbeliever/two.html) says, > [@](#): > > (I didn’t ask him [James Randi] about Jimmy Carter’s having mentioned Remote Viewing being used to find a downed aircraft in Central America, but since originally having heard about it, I’ve also heard that the object was only “very roughly” located by RV and they knew it was somewhere in Central America anyway so it was all very indefinite). Unfortunately, this “I heard somewhere” isn’t supported with a reference, and “Central America” is simply wrong, but perhaps just a typo (the substitution of ‘America’ for ‘Africa’). (As an aside, Uri Geller, at [HotToast.com](http://www.tcom.co.uk/hpnet/hottoast/Hot-Toast_files/bi_ugc.html), apparently can’t be bothered to get the details of the story correct: > [@](#): > > Ex-President Jimmy Carter, asked to recall the most memorable event during his time in the White House, described how a psychic used remote viewing to find a US aircraft which had crashed in Zaire. The man “went into a trance and gave some latitude and longitude figures. We focused our satellite cameras on that point and the plane was there.” Not only does he claim the situation leading to the comment was different from reality - well, from the majority of hits on Google - but the lady psychic is now a man. Perhaps the latter is explained by **Rich\_rv** ’s citation.) It is a curiosity that you think I was calling any test presented to Congress into question. **Arnold** asked, “what test would disprove RV?” You replied with a test protocol with which I disagree, on _methodological_ grounds. When did Congress come into the discussion of the test at all? You could have simply said, “the test which was presented to Congress was such a test, and remote viewing passed it.” Instead, you chose to outline an entire protocol, and gave no hint that it was anything but brand new. Is it the same protocol as was given to Congress? If not, then why hasn’t RV been subject to a test which could disprove it yet? If it had been done before, why would you call it “an interesting question”? > [@](#): > > At a minimum you should consider establishing a rapport with the Remote Viewers and collect more information as to how we do it. As I’ve already said, I don’t care, at this point, _how_ you do it, I only care about whether or not you _can_ do it. I don’t need to understand the precise physiological mechanisms for aspirin’s action to be able to devise a test which can answer the question, “is it any good for headaches?” I don’t need to know a thing about the workings of an internal combustion engine to test whether or not pressing on the gas pedal makes my car go faster. The question I am interested in right now is, “does RV work?” If the answer turns out to be “yes,” then and only then will I go on to the question of “_how_ does RV work?” Asking the second question first is absurd. > [@](#): > > You want proof in a coarse kind of way that in-fact irritates more than just a few of us. I know you will not believe what I tell you unless I am somehow willing to do it your way, fit it into your paradigm. It is not like that at all. So now you appear to be saying that remote viewing _cannot_ be tested scientifically. Because that is all the proof I ask. Rigorous, scientific testing. Blinded, randomized, using methods which are unassailable, and generating results that, if successful, would have had the average skeptic beating down your door to learn from you. The fact that we’re not speaks volumes. Also, having read **Czarcasm** ’s summary of the Kress report conclusion, _and_ having read [Jessica Utts](http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~utts/air2.html), [Hyman’s Rebuttal](http://www.mceagle.com/remote-viewing/refs/science/air/hyman.html), and [Utts’ response to Hyman](http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~utts/response.html), it is my conclusion that RV has _not_ been tested in such a fashion. And that Utts _completely_ failed to address two out of the three main points Hyman made , the remaining one being ‘iffy’ (I would have to track down original source material to learn if she did, indeed, answer Hyman’s point). This was _not_ simply, “he said, she said,” since _he_ is obviously highly educated in the entirety of the scientific testing paradigm, while _she_ is obviously a professor of statistics who was in far over her head in trying to answer his objections on non-statistical matters. For a single example, Hyman defines the term ‘exemplars’ very precisely as experiments that are so fundamental they’re used to teach science, but Utts attempts to redefine it to mean any scientific experiment. Both of the experiments she cites are very clearly _not_ exemplars as Hyman describes them, and they’re not exemplars for _exactly_ the reasons Utts states as to why they’d be difficult for students to do! Such a use of the same words in different ways in an attempt to win an argument clearly shows the argument has already been lost, and the loser is grasping at straws. It is, frankly, a pitiful thing to see coming from a professor of anything, but I understand the desire to do so, since she was simply trying to save face in light of her own overwhelming ignorance of the subject she chose to write about. It’s probably also important to note that contrary to your statement, “It is our contention that RV is not PSI but an advanced communication of consciousness,” it seems that Utts, Hyman, May, and everyone else involved in the SRI and SAIC tests appears to have believed that RV _is_ a form of psi. You might want to get that straightened out. Beyond that, if a target were, say, “the South Pole at the current time,” is it even _possible_ to remotely view that target since there is no consciousness there to communicate current conditions to anyone? Doesn’t your statement also preclude the possibility of remotely viewing any of the other planets in our solar system? > [@](#): > > I use the same tactics on you that you use on me. You act in some way that you are an injured party when in fact you are not. There are two way I can read this combination of sentences: either _you_ are playing at being a victim, or this is meant as a very grave insult - I can interpret this as saying “Glenn has such utter contempt for my intelligence that he thinks that just _telling_ me that I’m not a victim ought to clear things up.” Let’s look at your blatant attacks so far in this thread, Glenn: First, instead of simply saying, “RV does not work via RF,” you chose to ridicule my math, which later turned out to be _your_ mistake (only afterwards did you say that the RF discussion is irrelevant). Second, instead of simply telling me that my envelope ideas were incorrect, you chose to ridicule me some more. Your attacks are plain to see. My being the target of those attacks is plain to see. I don’t need to _pretend_ to be a victim. Therefore, you must mean to insult me, making this your third attack. Note well that I only bring up your attacks to point out your own hypocrisy. You claimed to not want to participate because this wasn’t a forum, but instead an arena. In your dealings with _me_, it is _you_ who began the arena-like posts, not I. You could very easily have posted in a positive manner, as I point out above, but instead you _chose_ to make ad hominem attacks without provocation (I emphasize that it was your decision to do so because I certainly didn’t force you to post in the manner in which you did). Someone who professes to want to avoid an “arena” should not act to promote an “arena” atmosphere, no? > [@](#): > > Your comments do not go unnoticed; in fact they actually generate the response that you get. But I’m not getting much of a response. Silence? In response to direct questions? That’s an interesting debating style you’ve got there. From another post: > [@](#): > > If anyone wants to fairly consider the topic at hand… let me know. I’ve been **trying** to fairly consider the topic at hand, and you insulted me for my efforts. What is the incentive for me to continue? That I should receive more abuse? ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2001, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remote-viewing-in-hawaii-continuation-of-the-staff-reports-thread/89612/138 "2001-11-03T14:55:23Z")
On the subject of the Feds spending money on pointless research: I am indebted to Senator William Proxmire’s Golden Fleece Awards project for the following information. [http://www.taxpayer.net/goldenfleece/index.htm](http://www.taxpayer.net/goldenfleece/index.htm) > [@](#): > > The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism won a place on the “Top Ten Golden Fleece Awards of All Time” list for spending millions of dollars in 1975 to find out if drunken fish are more aggressive than sober fish, if young rats are more likely than adult rats to drink booze in order to reduce anxiety, and if rats can be systematically turned into alcoholics. > > The Department of Commerce also made it onto the Top Ten List for giving the City and County of Honolulu $28,600 in 1981 to study how they could spend another $250,000 for a good surfing beach. > > The National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke was given a Golden Fleece Award in September 1985 for spending $160,000 to study whether someone can “hex” an opponent during a strength test by drawing an “X” on his chest. > > The National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Mental Health got an award in March 1988 for spending more than $107,000 to study the sexual behavior of Japanese quail under carefully controlled laboratory conditions. > > The National Science Foundation won in October 1981 for spending $144,012 to test commonly accepted, historically proven, fundamental economic principles on supply and demand-–on pigeons. > > The Department of Defense won in December 1981 for running a $13,000, 6 year program in which a bull was tested for possible biological effects resulting from a submarine communications device – a study later found useless by Navy officials. Long subject to rumor, the story of “Sylvester the Bull” was confirmed in official Navy correspondence with Senator Proxmire. > > The Department of Agriculture won in January 1982 for spending $40,000 for a study entitled “Food Preferences and Social Security.” > > The National Institute of Dental Research won in April 1984 for sponsoring a 5-year, $465,500 study to find out the “effects of orthodontia on psycho-social functioning.” Just because the Government pays to have something researched doesn’t prove a thing about its validity. ---
**Author:** ![Rich\_rv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@Rich\_rv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rich_rv)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2001, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remote-viewing-in-hawaii-continuation-of-the-staff-reports-thread/89612/139 "2001-11-04T06:07:57Z")
My procedure is not structured. Some people have a rigid scoring scheme to form a data base of strengths and weaknesses such as perhaps being weak on identifying colors correctly but strong on describing the presence of water. (This is a whole sub-topic in the accuracy department. People vary in their abilities to “pickup” the various sensory type data, physical or emotional.) Naturally, the more exact a description is, the more room for error… house vs structure, elephant vs large lifeform, etc. If the target is a cabin in the woods and the viewer describes only the cabin or only the woods, how accurate is he? If he says structure near tall vegetation is that good enough? If he describes it as a red instead of brown? But as one of the experiments described above would eliminate that concern, the topic falls more properly to “good intelligence” or usefull information. In the example I gave of the laundry room target, some of my data had me thinking the target could be a restaurant or kitchen. As I said, I could not really identify the target. After learning it was a laundry room, I could see the data that led me toward a kitchen also applied to a laundry room. But…the rest of the data did not match our own home laundry room while it did have data that matched the retirement home laundry room. I suppose one could argue that the specific words relating to washers and dryers could also relate to the crash of TWA800, but thats a stretch, a debunkers view. 🙂 I informally “score” individual words or sketches and look for patterns. Sketches may not match the word data. Contradicting words appear…high…low,…small, huge… cold, hot…( a jet plane at 30,000ft?). Also, four out of 20 words doesn’t count in my book. But… on occasion 20 words grouped together maybe with a matching sketch have matched the target while another 20 plus and other sketches were totally unrelated. And again, there is the individual interpretations of meanings and associations. I have come across a lot of selective data matching when doing practice with others and have strongly disagreed with what some called “hits”. But the proposed “select-the- right target- from- your-own- data” test should remove that problem. One example I enjoyed was a target given me by a friend. My data desccribed what appeared to be a “small” stage/playhouse setting…an audience… focused lighting. The actual target was a penny in a freezer. My friend was convinced I had locked in to Lincoln at the theater. 🙂 I didn’t count that as a “hit”. One of my favorite questions when the target is stated as: “Describe the location shown in the photograph at the time the photo was taken.” People often say, “Well I didnt describe the boat in the photo but I described the boathouse behind the photographer.” Now, if one keeps doing that, the proposed test will not work. 🙂 AND—thats not a “hit”. Rich ---
**Author:** ![douglips](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@douglips](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/douglips)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2001, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remote-viewing-in-hawaii-continuation-of-the-staff-reports-thread/89612/140 "2001-11-04T08:28:07Z")
I think the problem here is that some people think the goal of remote viewing is to get the gist of the images, like to get “cold, red, slimy” rather than “salamander”. This leads to the suggestion of tests where “If I get N of the basic properties of a target, it’s a hit”. Others would like remote viewing to produce results like “I definitely saw picture A, not pictures B or C.” The first flavor seems rather tenuous and likely untestable. Is one penalized for getting wrong properties, so if I said “cold, hot, slimy, dry, green, red” is it just as good as if I just said “cold, slimy, red”? The second flavor is very simple to test - my example test above seems appropriate. Simply take your remote viewing data and match it up to a photo from a pool of targets. Easy to distinguish a hit from a miss. It should be possible to generate a pool of targets that would satisfy all participants. If indeed remote viewing is of the first type, then I think I’ll be a whole lot less interested in the remainder of this discussion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remote-viewing-in-hawaii-continuation-of-the-staff-reports-thread/89612.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remote-viewing-in-hawaii-continuation-of-the-staff-reports-thread/89612.md?page=8)