Early SCANATE Experiment

Swann was able to draw a map of a small military installation, which was identified later as being in West Virginia. (Targ, Russell and Puthoff, Harold E, Mind-Reach, Delacorte Press, 1977, pg 1-4). The CIA official (identified by Targ and Puthoff as "our East coast challenger", later revealed to be Richard Kennett) reported that the results were accurate, and the map was even to scale.

Three days later (6/1/73), Puthoff received a call from Pat Price, offering to have his skills tested. Puthoff reports that he was reluctant, but since he had briefly met Price and felt he wasn't a crank, Puthoff ,"on an impulse", read Price the coordinates of the experiment.

On 6/4/73, Puthoff received Price's five page response, which went into greater detail than Swann's. He went so far as to read off nameplates and labels on files. The CIA official confirmed Price's description, and Price was invited to join the project. (Targ, and Puthoff, 1977, p46-8)

Puthoff and Targ felt that this experiment was important enough to include at the open of their book, Mind Reach. "For us, this type of experiment was definitive: There was no question of collusion between the challenger and the subject, and the target site was small and characterized by controlled access." (Targ, and Puthoff, 1977, p34)

"What makes the West Virginia/Urals Sites viewings so remarkable is that these are not best-ever examples culled out of a longer list; these are literally the first two site-viewings carried out in a simulated operational-type scenario." (Puthoff, Harold, "CIA-Initiated Remote Viewing Program at Stanford Research Institute", Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 10, No. 1, Spring 1996)

However, whether this was an "operational-type scenario" would be unknown to the average reader of Mind Reach, so we are left with the question as to why Puthoff and Targ decided to showcase this particular experiment back in 1977. Some possibilities include:

• Despite what Puthoff later claimed, this may be a "best ever example". While it's on par with some of the results that have been claimed since the CIA partially lifted the veil of secrecy, this experiment is certainly more impressive than the other experiments documented in Mind Reach.
• Another theory is that the remote viewing program was, whole or in part, a psychological operation against the Russians, who took these matters more seriously than the West. While most Americans would not have yet known of the CIA connection to the SRI research, Soviet intelligence certainly did, and this example may have been directed at them.
• A more mundane explanation, and one that I'm leaning towards, is that this example was intended for the military intelligence community. During the time of the book's composition, the SRI program was reportedly hurting for funds, and the book was in part written to increase interest and funding oportunities (Schnabel, 1997, pg 204). Perhaps this operational remote viewing example was intended to impress potential sponsors in he military.

It was long felt that this experiment was the one that first drew the CIA's attention. However, Puthoff reveals that the CIA was interested in the project after Swann identified a moth inside a box as a brown, moving leaf. (Harold Puthoff, 1996)

There are several inconsistencies and problems with the different accounts of this experiment.

• Schanbel's account of the tasking of this particular experiment goes as follows: Puthoff calls "Richard Kennett" (pseudonym, probably Christopher Green) and offers to show an example of coordinate remote viewing. Kennett walks down the hall and asks a colleague, "Bill O'Donnell" (pseudonym) for a set of map coordinates. O'Donnell responds later that day, Kennett relays them by phone to Puthoff, and shortly after they begin a remote viewing session with Ingo Swann. (Schnabel, Jim, Remote Viewers, Dell, 1997, pg 104-107)
  According to author John Wilhelm, however, the process was much less casual. According to him, the coordinates were selected by an NSA monitor, encrypted, sent to California to a CIA scientist located in Menlo Park (not on the East Coast), decoded, and passed on to Puthoff. However, Wilhelm may be describing the later SCANATE sessions, of which this could have been a less formal introduction. (Wilhelm, John, "Psychic Spying?", Washington Post, 8/7/77, B1)
• In the CIA's Executive Summary of the Final Report, quoted by Hal Puthoff (Puthoff, 1996), it is implied that both viewers operated under controlled conditions. However, Price did his viewing at home, and mailed in the results.
• Puthoff has us believe that he repeated the coordinates of a military facility (so secret that the coordinates are still classified) to a man who he only casually knew. Puthoff was formerly a Naval Intelligence officer, and worked with the NSA, so he should have known better. He remains tight-lipped about the coordinates even to this day, so I doubt that he would have been so careless. This leads me to believe that he either slipped up or Price was involved with Puthoff and/or SRI before 6/1/73.
• According to author Jim Schnabel, Swann viewed the site again a second time in his Mountain View apartment the morning after the initial experiment, bringing a report to SRI later (Schnabel, Jim, Remote Viewers, Dell, 1997, pg 107). However, in Mind Reach, Puthoff and Targ compress the original session with this report, presenting it all as a single session under controlled conditions. Further, the map Swann drew of the site that was published in Mind Reach, and posted above, appears to be the one drawn in his apartment, not the one he drew at SRI as implied. (Puthoff and Targ, pg 1-4)
• As for Price's report, both Schnabel (pg 110), and author John Wilhelm (Wilhelm, John, 1977) state that Price viewed the codenames and labels on a later session, at the request of Hal Puthoff after reading his initial report. Again, in Mind Reach, these sessions are compressed into one (Puthoff and Targ, pg 47-8). I recognize that compressing several events into one is a common narrative technique in some books; however, Puthoff and Targ go to great pains to list the specific dates of the sessions, and in Swann's case, even the time of day, so I don't feel that this is a case of mere over-simplification.
• Price's performance in this experiment is clearly superior to the ones done under controlled conditions as reported in Mind Reach. The drawings created in these later experiments are extremely crude in comparison. Also, this is the only case of remote-viewing that I have seen where the viewer is able to read: supposedly remote viewing is a right-brain process, and analytical activities like reading are impossible or extremely difficult. Not even the PSI-TECH crowd, who have gone to Mars and the future, have been able to read while viewing. Jim Schnabel notes that Price had the unique talent of being able to read while remote-viewing (Schnabel, 1997, pg 126), but I have seen no other examples besides the Sugar Grove experiment.
• In the video "Psi-Files: The Real X-Files", narrator Jim Schnabel claims to have gotten access to the original coordinates and drove to a site which resembled a secret military base. However, according to Schnabel, the original target was a vacation cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains, but the coordinates were sightly off. This brings us back to the problem inherent to SCANATE: some sessions report the objective map coordinates regardless of the believed target, and some report the target desired regardless of the objective coordinates. I have yet to see this conflict adequately resolved.
• However, in his book, Remote Viewers, Schnabel reports that the coordinates did correspond to the cabin, but that the viewers were drawn to the military base because it was more interesting. (Schnabel, 1997, pg 111)
• According to Puthoff (1996) and Schnabel (1997, pg 112), the facility described is a signal-listening post near Sugar Grove, West Virginia. According to author James Bamford, this listening post is a joint Navy/NSA microwave interception post, probably positioned to pick up domestic microwave communications from a nearby commercial station. (Bamford, James, The Puzzle Palace, Penguin Books, 1983, pg 217-222) The station was distinguished at the time for having some of the world's largest microwave receiving dishes, although neither Price nor Swann mentioned any in their descriptions; the closest Swann gets is "There's a circular building, perhaps a tower..." (Puthoff and Targ, 1977)
• Both note that the site was a former missle base, although according to Bamford the base was built in the fifties for the original purpose of electronic eavesdropping. (Bamford, 1983, pg 217-8)
• Price claimed that the base was run by the Army, and even went so far as to name the Army 5th Corps engineers and Army Signal Corps among the personnel. However, the Sugar Grove base was manned by the Navy and the NSA.
• John Wilhelm claims to have visited the site (based on the coordinates of a leaked SRI report) and found nothing resembling a military installation.
• There is some question as to how and what degree the viewers' results were considered to be successful. Puthoff and Targ (1977) claim that their challenger ("Richard Kennett"/Christopher Green) confirmed Swann's account to be "correct in every detail" (pg 4) and Price's version "essentially correct" (pg 48).
  According to Schnabel's account, Kennett was initially told by "Bill O'Donnell" that the sessions were completely wrong. The next weekend, Kennett reportedly happened to be driving in the area of the initial target (a cabin) and saw signs of a secret military base. He later asked an official he knew if there was such a base in the area, after which Kennett and the SRI team were reportedly investigated by the Defense Investigative service. (Schnabel, 1997, 111-2)
• Schnabel's account leaves out how Kennett would even know enough details to be able to confirm the experiment's accuracy. The intelligence community is heavily compartmentalized, especially between agencies. Given that Kennett was investigated and treated with hostility merely for asking if there was a base in the general area, I tend to doubt that he was given a detailed map and a list of secret codewords. It may very well be the case that Kennett and/or Puthoff inferred the accuracy of the sessions by the intensity of the Pentagon's investigation, rather than an actual confirmation of the facts.
• However, according to a CIA report quoted by Puthoff (Puthoff, 1997): "Two subjects targeted on the site, a sensitive installation. One subject drew a detailed map of the building and grounds layout, the other provided information about the interior including codewords, data subsequently verified by sponsor sources"
• Reportedly, this experiment attracted the attention of other government agencies, including the Navy and NASA. These agencies did not independently confirm the results, but relied on the word of SRI, the CIA, and the NSA. (Wilhelm, 1977)

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