The Amer­i­can Chron­i­cle reports…

ESP involved in blind seniors’ holes-in-one, ‘Robin Hood shot?’

Steve Ham­mons

April 13, 2008

Recent news sto­ries have car­ried accounts of two legally blind Amer­i­can golfers hit­ting holes-in-one. And a legally blind woman in the UK made a “Robin Hood shot” at her archery range, split­ting her first arrow already in the tar­get with her sec­ond shot.

These kinds of inci­dents may seem like mir­a­cles or dumb luck.

Or, maybe they are exam­ples of what researchers in human per­cep­tion call “anom­alous cog­ni­tion” or “remote view­ing.” Another term is “extrasen­sory per­cep­tion” or “ESP.”

These are con­cepts, well-researched and doc­u­mented by researchers, that try to give names to the human abil­i­ties of accu­rately per­ceiv­ing aspects of sit­u­a­tions around us using our inter­nal instincts, intu­ition, gut feel­ings, hunches, visu­al­iza­tion, sit­u­a­tional aware­ness and other sim­i­lar methods.

The U.S. Government’s Project STARGATE of the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s found that mil­i­tary and intel­li­gence per­son­nel could learn to per­ceive infor­ma­tion about sit­u­a­tions not avail­able to them through their nor­mal five senses of sight, hear­ing, touch, taste or smell.

They could per­ceive far­away places, events and other infor­ma­tion inter­nally.
We prob­a­bly see amaz­ing exam­ples of this all around us. But do we rec­og­nize these uncon­ven­tional occur­ances within oth­ers and within ourselves?

HOLES-IN-ONE, “ROBIN HOOD SHOT”

For exam­ple, an April 11 news report by the Asso­ci­ated Press told the story of the 85-year-old legally blind golfer in Ari­zona who made a hole-in-one recently at a golf course in Green Val­ley, near Tucson.

Robert Dun­ham, a for­mer World War II para­trooper in the Pacific, was at a golf course in an activ­ity coor­di­nated through a blind vet­er­ans reha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­gram of the Vet­er­ans Affairs health care sys­tem in south­ern Ari­zona.
Dun­ham started los­ing his sight ten years ago and had only been in the VA golf­ing pro­gram for three weeks.

His hole-in-one shot amazed fel­low vet­er­ans and the VA staff watch­ing, as well as Dun­ham himself.

Green Val­ley News reporter Nick Pre­ve­nas wrote in an April 8 arti­cle that, although Dun­ham had played golf for nearly 30 years but Dun­ham “said last week’s fate­ful shot was the first time he had come any­where near a hole-in-one.”

And then there is the April 5 news story in the St. Peters­burg Times, Florida, news­pa­per about 92-year-old legally blind Leo Fiyalko’s hole-in-one shot on Jan. 10.

Fiyalko said that it was his first shot of the day golf­ing with his “Twi­lighters” golf bud­dies. He said it was his first hole-in-one in 60 years of golfing.

The Times arti­cle noted that, “Fiyalko has learned some­thing. He admit­ted to being a lit­tle reluc­tant to talk about the shot for the first few weeks. Now he knows it is inspi­ra­tional, and he’s embraced it.”

Yes, it is inspi­ra­tional. And maybe it is some­thing more. Maybe events like this are exam­ples of human per­cep­tion that is not depen­dent on sight or other senses of sound, touch, taste or smell.

A March 27 arti­cle in the UK news­pa­per The Tele­graph reported that 74-year-old Tilly Trot­ter started archery two years ago after being encour­aged by her grand­daugh­ter to try it. Trot­ter lost much of her sight 17 years ago after a head injury.

While at the archery range one day with her hus­band, the amaz­ing “Robin Hood shot” sur­prised every­one present.

Trot­ter was quoted as say­ing, “The sec­ond arrow made such a noise going into the back of pre­vi­ous arrow I thought I had hit the ceil­ing or done some expen­sive dam­age. Then I heard peo­ple jump­ing up and down shout­ing that I’d done a Robin Hood. It was a one-in-a-million shot and a bit of a fluke really.”

What do golfers Dun­ham, Fiyalko and archer Trot­ter have in com­mon other than being legally blind, up in years and being involved in sports where the goal is hit­ting a small tar­get with hand-held tool that launches a small projectile?

In all three cases, these indi­vid­u­als also had helpers nearby who gen­er­ally pointed them toward the tar­get, the golf green or archery bulls­eye, and gave them feed­back on their shots.

How did this com­mu­ni­ca­tion and sen­sory per­cep­tion by the nearby friends, fam­ily or helpers who were able to see affect these appar­ently mirac­u­lous or very lucky shots?

CONTINUING RESEARCH

Maybe some researchers some­where should take a look at these and other indi­vid­u­als. In decades of research on the phe­nom­ena of anom­alous cog­ni­tion and remote view­ing, it has been clear that some peo­ple have nat­ural abil­i­ties to per­ceive in ways other than, or in com­bi­na­tion with, some our five senses.

These abil­i­ties, how­ever, are believed to be within each of us. We can learn to make the most of them by pay­ing atten­tion to them and learn­ing more about these traits.

They are most likely also present in ani­mals that rely more on instincts and nat­ural kinds of per­cep­tion than we humans who often depend on our log­i­cal, or illog­i­cal, brain and thinking.

We are also prob­a­bly able to con­sciously or uncon­sciously opti­mize the use of these per­cep­tual abil­i­ties based on the circumstances.

For exam­ple, when there is dan­ger or sur­vival may be at stake, we might nat­u­rally try to draw on all avail­able resources within us, whether phys­i­cal, men­tal, emo­tional, spir­i­tual or even in the realm of uncon­ven­tional, such as anom­alous cog­ni­tion, remote view­ing and ESP.

If a loved one is in dan­ger, we might get a par­tic­u­larly trou­bling gut feel­ing. If we meet a stranger and we feel dan­ger, maybe we are per­ceiv­ing a real threat.
Peo­ple who have expe­ri­enced dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tions in the past might have cul­ti­vated these abil­i­ties. Maybe other life expe­ri­ences also enhance these human traits.

A mil­i­tary or intel­li­gence “remote viewer” might get bet­ter results when they are work­ing on some­thing that is of cru­cial importance.

A peace offi­cer on patrol may find that their “cop instincts” kick in when some­thing impor­tant demands their attention.

Even a police or mil­i­tary canine might use dogs’ nat­ural sen­sory and other per­cep­tual resources in expanded ways in cer­tain safety-related sit­u­a­tions.
As part of declas­si­fied infor­ma­tion about the Project STARGATE research and oper­a­tions, it is known that dol­phins were report­edly tested in regard to anom­alous cog­ni­tion and remote view­ing fac­tors. This might make us won­der if the well-known sonar capa­bil­i­ties of dol­phins and other marine mam­mals have sim­i­lar­i­ties in us land animals.

The U.S. Navy has a very active Marine Mam­mal Pro­gram, based in San Diego, that works with and deploys Navy dol­phins for var­i­ous mis­sions and oper­a­tions. It is not clear from Project STARGATE reports if that research involved Navy dol­phins.
It is known that in cer­tain mar­tial arts, stu­dents are blind­folded and told to per­ceive their oppo­nent through means other than their eyes.

In the 1977 movie STAR WARS, men­tor Obi-Wan Kenobi blind­folds stu­dent Luke Sky­walker while train­ing with the light saber weapon and try­ing to hit a mov­ing tar­get dart­ing around him. “Use the Force,” Kenobi tells Luke, refer­ring to a real­ity he believes is around us and within us. We can use the Force and it uses us, he tells Luke.

But whether we are talk­ing about mar­tial arts fight­ers, blind golfers and archers, dogs and dol­phins or the rest of us, it is clear that we have the abil­ity to per­ceive that not only includes our five senses, but also involves a “sixth sense” and maybe more.

How are these per­cep­tions related to psy­chol­ogy, spir­i­tu­al­ity, biol­ogy, physics and some kind of ani­mal or human radar or sonar?

And what really does “luck” and “coin­ci­dence” mean? Is there some­thing more going on when cer­tain cir­cum­stances come together in inter­est­ing and unusual ways?
Some researchers call this “syn­chronic­ity,” mean­ing that so-called coin­ci­dences may often be some­thing much more.

As we explore these and other fas­ci­nat­ing ele­ments of our world, and inside each one of us, maybe we too will hit a hole-in-one in some way like Robert Dun­ham and Leo Fiyalko. Maybe each of us can make a “Robin Hood shot” of some kind in our own lives, like Tilly Trotter.

The old say­ing about our abil­ity to per­ceive and under­stand is true about many things, includ­ing phe­nom­ena like anom­alous cog­ni­tion and remote viewing:

“There are none so blind as those who will not see.”

Visit Steve Ham­mons’ Joint Recon Study Group blog.