An Evaluation of the Remote Viewing Program (1995) [pdf]

The Stargate Project remains one of the most intriguing government and intelligence programs, I think, because of its casual admittance of the use of psi and remote viewing in intelligence operations for over two decades.

The review of the project downplays statistically significant results as potential methodological flaws or even outright fraud. Not surprising, given the die-hard skepticism and stigma that has surrounded psychic phenomena since the '90s. Dr. Utts, who literally wrote university textbooks on statistics and was part of the evaluation study when the program was terminated, still firmly disagrees with the conclusions to this day.

For those who keep an open mind, it's interesting to note the sheep/goat effect documented in recent parapsychological research, which suggests that a person's bias significantly influences outcomes in psi studies. A 2023 study published in Brain and Behavior again highlighted this effect (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/brb3.3026).

To a hardened skeptic this will sound like the ultimate cop-out for difficulties in reproducibility, but if you think about it, it really is fundamental to the idea of psi. Assume a reality model where anomalous cognition is indeed possible (some "anomalous" link between consciousness and the world outside the physical body), then a person's beliefs will naturally influence their perceptions. This is, of course, a major challenge to traditional scientific views, which assume (but rarely admit or even realize) a strictly Descartian split between the observer (consciousness) from the observed. Therefore, it is easier to ignore or ridicule rather than investigating deeper.

I really believe there's so much more to this story and that this will be gradually unearthed (hopefully) within the next years/decades.