This post continues the series, "Operation Star Gate, U.S Intelligence and Psychic Spies" written by D. Trull, Enigma Editor of ParaScope.com. The first of the two doctors asked by the CIA to examine the tests shares her opinion.
2. "Psychic Functioning is Well Established"
The first of the two experts commissioned to review Star Gate was Dr. Jessica Utts, a Professor of Statistics at the University of California/Davis. Dr. Utts strongly asserts her belief that the tests she examined have proven remote viewing to be a real, measurable phenomenon.
"Using the standards applied to any other area of science," Utts writes, "it is concluded that psychic functioning has been well established. The statistical results of the studies examined are far beyond what is expected by chance. Arguments that these results could be due to methodological flaws in the experiments are soundly refuted.... Such consistency cannot be readily explained by claims of flaws or fraud."
Central to the evidence Utts cites is a close similarity in "effect sizes" among test results. Effect size is a measurement method used in sociology to distinguish random chance (defined as zero) from a tangible effect (ranging from a small size of 0.2 to a large size of 0.8).
Utts presents results from a range of tests in which the numerical effect sizes are very similar across the board. She accepts this as proof that remote viewing can be successfully replicated in laboratory conditions, and thus is scientifically sound.
While the earliest remote viewing tests were later found imperfect, Utts reports that she found no flaws or loopholes in Star Gate's modern methodologies. (Problems with earlier scoring methods included unfairly permitting judges to use a process of elimination in matching descriptions to targets, or to give the viewer hints such as the beacon's driving time to his target destination.)
Utts goes on to speculate on a possible rational explanation for psychic ability. Noting that our five natural senses act as detectors of change (sight acts on change in motion, color and depth; hearing acts on change in volume and pitch, etc.), it is reasonable to expect that a psychic sense also detects change.
Targets containing a large amount of change, such as variations in color, were more successfully identified by remote viewers than other targets. Utts supposes that psychic ability may work by searching for high degrees of change, whether nearby or far away, whether happening now or in the future.
Despite her belief in the validity of remote viewing, Utts concludes that Star Gate can be of little, if any, use as an intelligence tool. Believing psychic abilities to be inborn, Utts contends it would not be possible to train a corps of agents as remote viewers.
She also deems the information gathered by the method too arbitrary and unreliable to be useful or accurate -- even though, as she further admits, "The same is probably true of most sources of intelligence data." Utts suggests that the government discontinue its inquiry into whether psychic ability exists and instead study why it exists.
Next: Rebuttal from Dr. Raymond Hyman, who believes that Star Gate has proven nothing.
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