One of the most famous successes of the US government-sponsored remote viewing program was the series of sessions where Joe McMoneagle described first the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory and then a wind farm, and finally a series of sketches resembling parts of a particle accelerator.
The remarkable similarities between the sketches and the locations of the target person has been frequently reproduced in parapsychological books and websites. It can be found on Joe McMoneagle’s site (
EDIT (8/2/18) Joe McMoneagle's site doesn't host these examples any more. An archived version of the pages can be viewed here, here and here), on Russel Targ’s site (
here and
here) and on Dr Edwin May’s site (
EDIT (8/2/18) since its redesign, Ed May's site no longer hosts these examples either, but an archived version of the pages can be viewed here and, in a somewhat incomplete state, here).
This fairly typical summary of this remote viewing session comes from the book
“The ESP Enigma” by Diane Hennacy Powell, M.D.
“His most amazingly accurate results include the time he drew the locations of a CIA team while the agents were hiding in the San Francisco area. First the agents hid in Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, which is a hundred miles away from SRI. McMoneagle drew many of the laboratory buildings and structures as visible from Lawrence Livermore’s West Gate side, including a T-shaped, six-story building that was covered with glass and adjacent to a line of trees. The team traveled to the Livermore Valley Foothills Windmill Farm as their next target, and McMoneagle drew the windmill structure with almost 100 percent accuracy.”
The report on Dr May’s site is the most detailed, and he has written about it in his book
“Anomalous Cognition: Remote Viewing Research and Theory.” As such, his version of events is the one I shall be comparing to the original report,
An Application Oriented Remote Viewing Experiment, written by Dr May in 1988.
This remote viewing experiment consisted of four sessions over the course of one day, 7th May. All of these sessions were to be focused on one location, as specified by the presence of a “beacon”
The description from the 1988 report reads:
"Viewer 372 [ie, Joe McMoneagle] and a viewing monitor were aware that the target material was of [redacted] significance and was located within the greater San Francisco Bay area. They were told that an individual [redacted] described by name and Social Security number was in the target area during the viewing sessions, and that two members of the SRI staff (known to V372 and the monitor) would serve as a “beacon” and would be at the specific target of interest between 2200 hours on May 7 and 0800 hours on May 8, 1987."
It is worth noting at this point that McMoneagle and the interviewer were not completely blind to the nature of the target, as described in some versions of these events. Additionally, at the start of the first session, McMoneagle is told by the interviewer that the beacon is a physicist, which is another piece of information that could influence his remote viewing session.
Dr May's website includes a section listing the times and circumstances of each of the four sessions. Dr May quotes the 1988 report almost verbatim, except for a couple of sentences that he has omitted from the website. Below is a quote from Dr May’s site. The sections in bold are those which are in the original 1988 report, but are missing from
the version online.
"0800 Hours — Receiver 372 was asked to describe the geographical area and the gestalt of the area of interest. He was also asked to provide as much detail as possible in real-time (i.e., at 0835) and was targeted upon the sponsor's on-site representative. At this time, the representative was sleeping (approximately 2 miles from [redacted: the target location]) after having been awake the entire previous night.
1010 Hours — The receiver was asked to describe the details and activity at the site designated by the sponsor's on-site representative as of 0000 hours 7 May (i.e., the previous night).
1600 Hours — The receiver was asked to describe, in real-time, the details and activity at the site designated by the sponsor's on-site representative. At this time, this individual was eating dinner (approximately 2 miles from [the target location])
2400 Hours — The receiver was asked to describe, in real-time the details and activity at the site designated by two SRI personnel."
These omissions, which pinpoint the target person’s location, become pivotal when trying to properly assess the results of this experiment. Dr May writes
“During the 0800h session, the target person was located in building A at LLNL,” although the 1988 report tells us something quite different. The target location, the Advanced Technology Accelerator, is 15km (9 miles) from the Lawrence Livermore Labs and so the two versions of events do not match up.
Similarly, the claim
“at 1600h he was driving through the windmill electric power farm at the Altamont pass” does not agree with the original report for two reason. Firstly, as seen above, the target was eating dinner, not driving his car. Secondly, the drawing and description of the wind farm came from the 0800h session, not from the afternoon 1600h session.
Since reading the original report makes it clear that neither the target person nor the other two beacons were ever at the Altamont Wind Farm nor the Lawrence Livermore Labs, where has this reputation for being incredible successes come from?
In the 1988 report, the inclusion of these two locations as targets alongside the inital (primary) target is explained thus:
“We have also identified targets of lesser interest in the [redacted] environment. We have designated a wind-power electric generator farm at Altamont Pass but adjacent to [redacted] as a secondary target, and the [redacted] main complex, which is farther away geographically but is functionally associated with [redacted] as a tertiary target.”
I have emailed Dr May to ask if he recalled exactly when during the experiment the secondary and tertiary targets were defined but have received no reply.
The paper
“Anomalous Cognition Technical Trials: Inspiration for the Target Entropy Concept” by May and Lantz (included in the book
Anomalous Cognition) tells us
“Three separate targets within this trial were identified depending upon where the beacon person was at the time of the session.”
This does not accord with the original report. Is it possible that the wind farm and the laboratory were added to the session as “targets” after the sessions were complete?
As for the successful viewing of the particle accelerator, this took place on the third and fourth sessions and it is difficult to tell how blind to the target the interviewer is, since he sometimes prompts Joe McMoneagle with technical names for things he is describing.
But one thing is clear, claims that Joe McMoneagle remote viewed to an uncanny accuracy the location of a distant individual is not supported by the original report. The details as to why the secondary and tertiary targets were chosen are very sketchy and the constant inaccuracies in the retelling of this experiment means this cannot be taken seriously as an example of anomalous cognition.
The original 1988 report can be
downloaded from here.
References:
Diane Hennacy Powell, M.D., “The ESP Enigma: The Scientific Case for Psychic Phenomena,” (2009) Walker & Company
Edwin May & Nevin Lantz, “Anomalous Cognition Technical Trials: Inspiration for the Target Entropy Concept” in “Anomalous Cognition: Remote Viewing Research and Theory,”edited by Edwin May & Sonali Bhatt Marwaha, (2014) McFarland
Edwin May, “An Application Oriented Remote Viewing Experiment,” (1988) SRI International
