edgar-mitchell

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The Way of the Explorer
take advantage of the ability. It was in this spirit of cooperation and open
inquiry that Uri and I got down to business. He even agreed to restrain his
usual showmanship and flamboyance.
The resident scientists hosting the experiments were Dr. Harold Puthoff
and Russell Targ, both widely respected physicists at the Stanford Research
Institute. Both men had made their reputations in more conventional fields
of science, but they too were convinced that this was something that demanded
their attention. They designed many of the experiments we would
conduct to test for Uri’s abilities. On several occasions they were aided by
Dr. Wilbur Franklin of Kent State University, a metallurgist who examined
many of the materials used in the experiments. They had each been
working in parapsychological studies for some time now, and were well
experienced in this type of research. Targ was also a skilled amateur magician,
which blunted the first claim of critics—that “psychic stuff” was just
smoke and mirrors. The first effort of the researcher is always to determine
validity of the event. But the important work, once validity is established,
begins with the search for clues to the mechanisms permitting these
phenomena to occur so that a workable theory can be constructed.
One type of experiment Puthoff and Targ created is called remote viewing,
in which random “targets” are picked, and the subject (Uri, in this case) is
to describe the unknown object. 4 Typically, these targets would be chosen
by invited outside scientists, sealed in an envelope, then selected at random.
Uri, in a room all by himself, where he was isolated from receiving
any possible information, would attempt to describe the setting. We found
he could do just that.
Nearly every time Uri was given a target, he would promptly draw—
quite recognizably—what lay there. This type of experiment was usually
conducted in a double-blind fashion so that no one knew the correct answer
before the tests were complete and checked by impartial observers.
In some variations of this experiment a Faraday cage was used, which
isolates normal electromagnetic signals. Puthoff and Targ went on to conduct
the same experiment with dozens of other people, both those claiming
psychic abilities and those not. Eventually they discovered that most any
willing person with a bit of training could get significant results, supporting
the idea that this was not only a natural function, but a common one as
well.
It was also discovered in subsequent tests that the brain waves of two
individuals separated and isolated by a Faraday cage could synchronize
their brain waves. A light pulsed in the eyes of one would cause a certain
EEG pattern. The second person, by merely thinking of the first person,
would suddenly acquire the same EEG pattern. Somehow there seemed to
be some sort of communication occurring between the two that we didn’t
know was possible. 5