Experiment one of the SAIC remote viewing program: A critical re-evaluation

The American Institutes for Research (AIR) recently produced a report on th e effectiveness of US government-funded research in demonstrating the exist ence of a remote viewing effect that could be used for intelligence-gatheri ng purposes. The most recent studies in this program were carried out by Sc ience Applications International Corporation (SAIC) and these studies were the focus of the assessment. The evaluators concluded that the ten SAIC stu dies reviewed contained no obvious flaws. One of the evaluators used eight methodological criteria to assess the studies, and chose one of the experim ents-Experiment One-to demonstrate the use of the criteria: the experiment appeared to satisfy all eight. The publication of this report prompted the first author (R. W.) to become interested in attempting to replicate the SA IC research into remote viewing. Before doing so, R. W. examined the protoc ol used in Experiment One as a potential template for the replication. This examination uncovered a number of possible pathways of information leakage apparently present in the study. In addition, problems were encountered by the SAIC team in reconstructing a number of unrecorded procedural details concerning Experiment One. The implications of this assessment for Experime nt One and the AIR report are discussed.