Talk:Remote viewing

CIA admits that remote viewing isn't bull

A statement was posted to the CIA website confirming that they believe it to be a real phenomenon. It's not obvious to me where this might go – could someone who's inclined include it? — TARDIS builder^💬   |     07:57, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

The consensus view is that CIA got no actionable intelligence through remote viewing, so whether they believe it to be genuine or not is irrelevant. Verbatim quote: but that the phenomenon was too unreliable, inconsistent, and sporadic to be useful for intelligence purposes. So, yeah, taking the report at face value, they concluded that it works, but it works so badly as to be practically useless. As in general with psi phenomena: they provide some significant correlations, but they are useless in the real world. tgeorgescu (talk) 08:23, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Regardless, replacing "significant" with "real" is a rookie mistake because correlation is not causation. And it would be very weird if all the CIA had a single opinion about it. There are bound to be people working there who are very smart and knowledgeable and others who are not. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:31, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

If the CIA thought it was bull, they wouldn’t have continued the program for so long as well as army intelligence. Not to mention the Chinese and Russian programs. 2605:59C8:99C:8910:2140:49BA:B5A9:137B (talk) 20:11, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

That is your opinion and not relevant to this article. Programs take a while to be funded and also to be dismantled, "for so long" is relative. It was also only pennies of their budget so they probably didn't really think much of it. The Chinese and Russians were doing what the USA was doing, and we don't completely know what they were doing. So your argument is not relevant. The rules of FRINGE apply here. Sgerbic (talk) 20:19, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Remote viewing has been in operative use for decades

I find the description and discussion about remote viewing quite bizarre. After it was made available to the public in the mid 1990:s a number of the former military remote viewers started to provide courses. The community of viewers has continued growing and developing. There is a generally accepted scientific protocoll containing key points making sure there is no cheating. Many remote viewing projects have been made available to the public giving the oppotunity for anyone to get an insight by going through the raw data. An obvious objection would be that we can't tell if the viewer knew about tha target before doing the viewing. However, for the last decade or so projects looking into the future have been available to the public. E g Farsight Institute and Cryptoviewing have provided mothly predictions a month in advance. This means that the public including myself have the opportunity to first take part of the results of the remote viewing session and then during the month or so after the feedback will play out. Over and over the mentioned groups have produced stunning results. Remote viewers have described unique events of which there was totally impossible to have prior knowledge. The detail och specificness has many time been overwhelming and when the event played out there could be no doubt about that this was what the Remote viewer had described. 155.4.33.198 (talk) 14:26, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

@155.4.33.198 Remote viewing is overwhelmingly considered WP:FRINGE pseudoscience. To give more weight to its scientific viability in this article would require significant amounts of reliable sources from a variety of reputable scientific venues. StereoFolic (talk) 15:32, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

You'll need some robust sources for that. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:30, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

President Carter and remote viewers who located a downed Soviet plane in Africa

There are many reliable sources for this:

• https://www.google.com/search?q=president+carter+on+remote+viewing+a+soviet+plane+that+crashed+in+africa

Compiling sources and info. Whether one thinks Carter and the CIA, etc. are lying or not is not important as to whether the Carter incident should be in the article or not. It is a matter of obvious notability concerning remote viewing. Discussion can occur in the thread farther down about the Carter incident.

Harold Puthoff talks about it in this recent 2025 interview at around 25 minutes 45 seconds in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gf_tKn9TaP8 Writing in his diary on April 11, 1979, President Jimmy Carter described a CIA briefing where he was informed that a plane carrying sensitive information had crashed in Africa. According to Carter, "An American parapsychologist had been able to pinpoint the site of the crash. We've had several reports of this parapsychology working; one discovered the map coordinates of a site and accurately described a camouflaged missile test site. Both we and the Soviets use these parapsychologists on occasion to help us with sensitive intelligence matters, and the results are unbelievable." In a contemporary annotation accompanying the diary entry Carter wrote, "The proven results of these exchanges between our intelligence services and parapsychologists raise some of the most intriguing and unanswerable questions of my presidency. They defy logic, but the facts were undeniable." According to Carter's daily schedule, he met with CIA Director Stansfield Turner on April 11, 1979. Carter provided additional details regarding the incident in 2005 interview with GQ, stating, "We had a plane go down in the Central African Republic — a twin-engine plane, small plane. And we couldn't find it. And so we oriented satellites that were going around the earth every ninety minutes to fly over that spot where we thought it might be and take photographs. We couldn't find it. So the director of the CIA came and told me that he had contacted a woman in California that claimed to have supernatural capabilities. And she went in a trance, and she wrote down latitudes and longitudes, and we sent our satellite over that latitude and longitude, and there was the plane." In his 2015 memoir A Full Life, Carter wrote that the crashed aircraft "contained some important secret documents. We were searching for the crash site using satellite photography and some other surreptitious high-altitude overflights, but with no success. With some hesitancy, a CIA agent in California recommended the services of a clairvoyant woman, who was then consulted. She wrote down a latitude and longitude, which proved to be accurate, and several days later I was shown a photograph of the plane, totally destroyed and in a remote area. Without notifying Zaire’s President Mobutu, we sent in a small team that recovered the documents and the bodies of the plane’s occupants." A declassified CIA document, dated March 28, 1979, describes an Air Force "sensitive" individual who "after a vision provided coordinates, the name of the country, and a description of the terrain in which the plane crashed." In 1982, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency office responsible for tracking U.S. troops who are missing in action stated that "Some of these psychics’ leads have checked out… they have been able to visualize aircraft crashes, and we have found the wreckage where they indicated.” In a 1978 document, CIA project officer Dr. Kenneth Kress outlines operational successes in the remote viewing program. Writing a year before the 1979 plane crash described by Carter, Kress concludes, “Tantalizing but incomplete data have been generated by CIA-sponsored research. These data show, among other things, that on occasion unexplained results of genuine intelligence significance occur. This is not to say that parapsychology is a proven intelligence tool; it is to say that the evaluation is not yet complete and more research is needed.”

References

Discussion concerning the Carter incident can continue in the thread farther down. --Timeshifter (talk) 02:09, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

Few people can do remote viewing well

That is what this Wikipedia article gets wrong. It is a red herring to say that studies show that remote viewing can not be replicated in large studies. Of course not.

Even those who do it well aren't 100% right. Hal Puthoff discusses who got the best results in this recent 2025 interview:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gf_tKn9TaP8

--Timeshifter (talk) 05:03, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Zero people can. 2804:18:1080:2865:1:0:FD0F:623C (talk) 21:27, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

Hal Puthoff (Harold Puthoff in this Wikipedia article) was one of the main researchers. I suggest you get a username so we can see your biases (if any) in how you edit Wikipedia articles. --Timeshifter (talk) 05:11, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

Discussion concerning the President Carter incident

@LuckyLouie -Can you please explain why a book published by former President of The United States is not considered a legitimate source? There were several additions made by user @NRO Constellation that you deleted. This person listed two books an article, and the the published White House schedule for President Carter, and an official CIA document confirming the event.Mattford1 (talk) 20:12, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

Having had political authority doesn't make Jimmy Carter an authority on parapsychology, especially not when actual specialists and researchers call remote viewing pseudoscience, and when experiments under controlled conditions have never, AFAICS, given positive results. Many, many rulers throughout history have employed, and believed in, astrologers. Would you say pronouncements about astrology by these rulers are also legitimate sources for the reliability of astrology? Bishonen | tålk 21:15, 26 May 2025 (UTC).

Hello - thanks for your comment. Please see here: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00787R000200020022-6.pdf. I will be providing additional sourcing shortly. Thanks! NRO Constellation (talk) 21:42, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanking me for my comment while ignoring my question is not very good discussion etiquette. Again, would you say pronouncements about astrology by historical rulers with astrologers are also legitimate sources for the reliability of astrology? Also, you did right to discuss here, but it would have been better to have waited for consensus on this page before restoring your edit. Bishonen | tålk 21:54, 26 May 2025 (UTC).

Apologies, but I believe the CIA document addresses your point re: "rulers." Hopefully the additional information and sourcing included in the updated revision helps add some nuance. Thank you for engaging. NRO Constellation (talk) 22:04, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

This collection of quotations from politicians and CIA officers is massively WP:UNDUE. They're not reliable sources for this topic and should not be used to try to undercut the sources that actually are reliable. And pulling from primary source documents like daily schedules is even worse. MrOllie (talk) 22:12, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

Thank you. The daily schedule was included to show that Carter met with DCI Turner on the day that he described a "remote viewer" idenifying a missing aircraft in Africa.

This is confirmed by this CIA document from a few days prior to Carter CIA briefing: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00787R000200020022-6.pdf

Perhaps I am misunderstanding, but is the insinuation that this event did not occur and that Carter made it all up, despite the documentation? NRO Constellation (talk) 22:15, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

The 'insinuation' is that anyone who took the CIA of that era's claims on this topic at face value, including a former president, is not a reliable source on the subject. MrOllie (talk) 22:28, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

Thank you. For clarity, are you suggesting that the CIA director (Stansfield Turner, whom Carter knew from their time at Annapolis) intentionally lied to Carter about how the aircraft was located and, additionally, that the CIA fabricated a Directorate of Operations "meeting minutes" document several days prior to aid in this deception? NRO Constellation (talk) 22:34, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

I am suggesting exactly what I stated, no more and no less. I'm not really interested in discussing the topic in general here per WP:NOTFORUM. MrOllie (talk) 23:17, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

I am sorry, but you have articulated no good reason to censor a former president's detailed, nuanced comments - backed by the documentary record - on this topic. Your objection appears rooted in a highly conspiratorial and ahistoric (e.g., Carter nominated Turner to reform CIA after its abuses were exposed in the early 1970s) theory of what occurred in the incidents described by Carter.

Censorship is not becoming - and certainly not the intent - of Wikipedia. The edits, along with the additional supporting information, will be restored. NRO Constellation (talk) 23:27, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

Disagreeing with you is not 'censorship'. You have no particular right to push whatever you like into a Wikipedia article. Edit warring about this will only get you blocked and/or the article locked down. MrOllie (talk) 23:30, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

All credit to @Mattford1:

These sources are both notable and verifiable, and excluding them while allowing references from publications like Skeptical Inquirer creates an unbalanced portrayal of the subject. President Carter’s statements on remote viewing are a matter of public record and were made in interviews and speeches. As a former U.S. President and former head of U.S. intelligence (prior to his presidency), his remarks are historically and contextually significant, especially in an article dealing with government involvement in remote viewing. While his statements may not serve as scientific endorsement, they are noteworthy as political and historical testimony, and their inclusion would enhance the reader’s understanding of the broader social and governmental context. Furthermore, declassified CIA documents are primary sources that demonstrate how U.S. intelligence agencies investigated remote viewing over a span of two decades. Excluding them while retaining only secondary sources critical of the practice violates Wikipedia’s neutral point of view policy by presenting only skeptical interpretations while omitting government-sponsored inquiries and admissions that the program existed and was evaluated. If Skeptical Inquirer, a magazine with a clearly defined skeptical editorial stance, is considered a reliable source for this article, then it is only reasonable and fair to also allow historically credible, non-fringe primary and secondary sources like official CIA documents and direct quotations from a U.S. President. This is especially true when those sources are being used not to promote remote viewing, but to illustrate the factual historical engagement of government agencies with the phenomenon. Wikipedia’s core content policies—Verifiability, No Original Research, and Neutral Point of View—support inclusion of verifiable and relevant information from credible sources, even if they do not align with the editorial stance of skeptical publications. NRO Constellation (talk) 23:33, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

Copy and pasting comments like this is deeply unhelpful. Kindly do not fill up the talk page with redundant text. MrOllie (talk) 23:34, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

I'll rephrase - excluding detailed, nuanced comments from a former president (and government documents directly related to those comments), violates Wikipedia core content policy of a neutral point of view.

This is not in promotion of any particular point of view; it is provided in the pursuit of completeness and accuracy. Removing this information does a disservice to all readers looking for a fulsome overview of the topic.

Are you suggesting Carter's comments and the supporting documentation should be entirely absent? NRO Constellation (talk) 23:42, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

Following up here: There appears to be consensus among other editors (Randy Kryn and Timeshifter) that the Carter information, which is directly relevant to the topic and corroborated with contemporaneous documentation, should be included. Randy Kryn even suggested giving it its own section, which seems logical. Thanks. NRO Constellation (talk) 01:17, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

Counting only the people who agree with you is not consensus. MrOllie (talk) 01:38, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

Are you suggesting Carter's comments and the supporting documentation should be entirely absent? NRO Constellation (talk) 01:46, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

It is already covered at Stargate Project (U.S. Army unit). We don't need it on this article as well, nor do we need WP:UNDUE expansion with reams of redundant quotes. MrOllie (talk) 01:54, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

Also, kindly stop trying to put words in my mouth with this 'Are you suggesting' business. MrOllie (talk) 01:56, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

Given that three editors have supported the inclusion of nuanced comments from a major American political figure on this topic, along with corroborating contemporaneous documentation, the edits will be restored in the name of neutrality and completeness. Thank you for understanding. NRO Constellation (talk) 02:35, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

1) That's not how consensus works and 2) Edit warring on multiple articles simultaneously is a terrible idea. MrOllie (talk) 02:37, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

I would welcome escalation to administrators or another competent authority.

All edits are reliably sourced, directly relevant to the subject matter, and provided in accordance with Wikipedia's core principles of objectivity, neutrality, and for historical completeness. Thank you. NRO Constellation (talk) 02:43, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

You're already blocked from one article, but if you want more admin attention WP:ANI is always open. MrOllie (talk) 02:44, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

NRO Constellation, I agree with MrOllie. First, As mentioned the subject is already covered in the Stargate Project article. That specific event seems to be relatively minor so it looks to me that the existing coverage is sufficient and more would be undue. Second, edit warring is a very bad idea, you should stop before you get blocked. As a reminder, thinking that you are right will in no way be a valid excuse. --McSly (talk) 02:45, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

The broader claim is that remote viewing is "pseudoscience" and "fringe."

Yet there is compelling information from a major American political figure, corroborated by other documentation and sources, that it has had notable successes. Censoring such information is unbecoming of Wikipedia and is in directly violation of commitments to neutrality and objectivity.

How can this, along with recent unjustified deletions to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution page, be escalated to a competent authority? NRO Constellation (talk) 02:57, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

So, what you are saying essentially is that most if not all known laws of physics as currently understood are wrong. And that the proof for that fantastic claim is hearsay testimony. Am I correct in my understanding? --McSly (talk) 03:04, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

I am saying that either (a) remote viewing has had some limited operational successes (as a former president and reliable documentation all state) or (b) DCI Turner, despite being nominated to reform the CIA, lied to a U.S. president about the efficacy of remote viewing (and the CIA fabricated a contemporaneous document to further this deception). NRO Constellation (talk) 03:10, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

As MrOllie wrote above, WP:ANI is always open. That's where you can "escalate" your concerns to a "competent authority." JoJo Anthrax (talk) 03:07, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

These sources are both notable and verifiable, and excluding them while allowing references from publications like Skeptical Inquirer creates an unbalanced portrayal of the subject. President Carter’s statements on remote viewing are a matter of public record and were made in interviews and speeches. As a former U.S. President and former head of U.S. intelligence (prior to his presidency), his remarks are historically and contextually significant, especially in an article dealing with government involvement in remote viewing. While his statements may not serve as scientific endorsement, they are noteworthy as political and historical testimony, and their inclusion would enhance the reader’s understanding of the broader social and governmental context. Furthermore, declassified CIA documents are primary sources that demonstrate how U.S. intelligence agencies investigated remote viewing over a span of two decades. Excluding them while retaining only secondary sources critical of the practice violates Wikipedia’s neutral point of view policy by presenting only skeptical interpretations while omitting government-sponsored inquiries and admissions that the program existed and was evaluated. If Skeptical Inquirer, a magazine with a clearly defined skeptical editorial stance, is considered a reliable source for this article, then it is only reasonable and fair to also allow historically credible, non-fringe primary and secondary sources like official CIA documents and direct quotations from a U.S. President. This is especially true when those sources are being used not to promote remote viewing, but to illustrate the factual historical engagement of government agencies with the phenomenon. Wikipedia’s core content policies—Verifiability, No Original Research, and Neutral Point of View—support inclusion of verifiableand relevant information from credible sources, even if they do not align with the editorial stance of skeptical publications.

Mattford1 (talk) 23:23, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

Very well said. Thank you. NRO Constellation (talk) 23:28, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

You appear to have misread Wikipedia's policies, which specifically reject the idea that we should balance articles in the manner you suggest. See WP:FALSEBALANCE and WP:FRINGE. Wikipedia is designed to reflect the mainstream view. MrOllie (talk) 23:35, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

Whether one thinks Carter and the CIA, etc. are lying or not is not important as to whether the Carter incident should be in the article or not. It is a matter of obvious well-documented notability concerning remote viewing and its history.

And whether or not most remote viewing large-sample trials show no statistical significance is a red herring. Those most familiar with it have said that some individuals are much better at it than others. Even those who do it well aren't 100% right according to the main researchers. Hal Puthoff (Harold Puthoff in this Wikipedia article) discusses who got the best results in this recent 2025 interview:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gf_tKn9TaP8

Making claims that Carter and the CIA are lying is based on WP:Original research. Maybe you can find an "expert" at Skeptical Inquirer to say so, and put that in the article. --Timeshifter (talk) 12:12, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

No editor has said Carter and the CIA are lying, only that the data plucked from WP:PRIMARY sourced documents and selective excerpts from memoirs don't warrant the kind of WP:WEIGHT that is being suggested here. The scientific consensus regarding remote viewing and other paranormal concepts is pretty clear, and the sources suggested by NRO Constellation can't be leveraged to imply that some credible breakthrough data exists and has been ignored. The Carter anecdotes are given appropriate treatment here, i.e. a passing mention framed as historical detail illustrating the brief era when such stuff was being funded by the government. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:28, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

This well-sourced Jimmy Carter/CIA event surely deserves a paragraph (if not a section) on the page. Since it is confirmed, and supposedly accurate, it's both a historical occurrence and an example of what this page discusses. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:10, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

Agree with Timeshifter .. its ridiculous on its face that the Carter source is being excluded. MasterBlasterofBarterTown (talk) 17:00, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for joining the discussion! NRO Constellation (talk) 17:11, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

@NRO Constellation, Randy Kryn, and Mattford1: And others. I think the next stage is a request for comment. See:

• Wikipedia:Requests for comment.

The President Carter info deserves more than a sentence that doesn't even point out that the remote viewing Carter was told about was successful (at least according to the people who informed Carter). --Timeshifter (talk) 05:04, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

Carter's report is a widely-known claim, and its omission from the article is kinda glaring. But we have to be careful and provide enough context so the reader can understand that Carter isn't making a FRINGE claim that Remote Viewing works, he's just saying that someone once told him at it had worked. He's not saying he believed that person. Above, Bishonen likens this case to rulers who consult astrologers, which is an apt analogy, but one that actually argues for including the Carter anecdote -- the Astrology article covers Reagan's notable dependence upon them. Feoffer (talk) 11:07, 30 May 2025 (UTC)