An Evaluation of Remote Viewing: Research and Applications
📄 Original studyPlain English Summary
This is the report that pulled the plug on the U.S. government's psychic spy program, Star Gate. The CIA hired a statistician (Jessica Utts) and a psychologist (Ray Hyman) to look at decades of remote viewing experiments, where people tried to perceive distant targets using only their minds. Here's the remarkable part: both reviewers agreed the experiments showed a real statistical effect -- the results weren't just luck. But they split sharply on what it meant. Utts said psychic ability was genuinely demonstrated, while Hyman countered that flaws in how the studies were judged (sometimes by the lead researcher himself) made it impossible to rule out non-paranormal explanations. The team's final verdict: remote viewing never produced useful intelligence, and the program should be shut down. It's now the single most-cited document in the entire remote viewing debate.
Research Notes
The landmark document that ended U.S. government psi research. Contains the full Utts and Hyman reviews frequently cited independently. Central to the remote viewing controversy: pro-psi researchers cite the agreed-upon statistical significance, while skeptics cite the conclusion that paranormal causation was undemonstrated.
Commissioned by the CIA, this report evaluates the government-sponsored Star Gate remote viewing program through two components: a blue-ribbon research review by statistician Jessica Utts and psychologist Ray Hyman, and an operational assessment based on end-user interviews and feedback data. Both reviewers agreed that laboratory experiments demonstrated a statistically significant effect (effect size ~0.385 across 196 SRI sessions with expert viewers), but disagreed on interpretation — Utts concluded psychic functioning was well-established, while Hyman argued methodological issues (particularly single-judge evaluation by the principal investigator) prevented unambiguous attribution to paranormal phenomena. The AIR team concluded that adequate evidence for remote viewing had not been provided and that the phenomenon never produced actionable intelligence, recommending program discontinuation.
Related Papers
Companion
Cites
- Information transmission under conditions of sensory shielding — Targ, Russell (1974)
- A Perceptual Channel for Information Transfer over Kilometer Distances: Historical Perspective and Recent Research — Puthoff, Harold E (1976)
- Advances in Remote-Viewing Analysis — May, Edwin C (1990)
- Decision Augmentation Theory: Toward a Model of Anomalous Mental Phenomena — May, Edwin C (1995)
- Anomaly or Artifact? Comments on Bem and Honorton — Hyman, Ray (1994)
More in Remote Viewing
Exploring the Correlates and Nature of Subjective Anomalous Interactions with Objects (Psychometry): A Mixed Methods Survey
The Location and Reconstruction of a Byzantine Structure in Marea, Egypt, Including a Comparison of Electronic Remote Sensing and Remote Viewing
Greg Kolodziejzyk's 13-Year Associative Remote Viewing Experiment Results
Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence: The Case of Non-Local Perception, a Classical and Bayesian Review of Evidences
Remote Viewing as Applied to Futures Studies
📋 Cite this paper
Mumford, Michael D, Rose, Andrew M, Goslin, David A (1995). An Evaluation of Remote Viewing: Research and Applications. American Institutes for Research.
@article{mumford_1995_evaluation_remote_viewing,
title = {An Evaluation of Remote Viewing: Research and Applications},
author = {Mumford, Michael D and Rose, Andrew M and Goslin, David A},
year = {1995},
journal = {American Institutes for Research},
}