APPENDIX TWO
Text of Stanford Research Institute Film
Throughout mankind's history there has existed a folklore that
certain gifted individuals have been capable of producing physical
effects by means of some agency generally referred to as psychic
or psychoenergetic. Substantiation of such claims by accepted
scientific methodology has been slow in coming, but recent laboratory
experiments, especially in the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia,
and more recently in our own laboratory, have indicated that sufficient
evidence does exist to warrant serious scientific investigation.
It would appear that experiments could be conducted with scientific
rigor to uncover not just a catalog of interesting events, but
rather a pattern of cause-effect relationships of the type that
lend themselves to analysis and hypothesis in the forms with which
we are familiar in the physical sciences. SRI considers this to
be a valid area for scientific inquiry.
As scientists we consider it important to examine various models
describing the operation of these effects so that we can determine
the relationship between extraordinary human functioning and the
physical and psychological laws we presently understand. It is
not the purpose of our work at SRI to add to the literature another
demonstration of the statistical appearance of these phenomena
in the laboratory, but rather we seek to achieve an understanding
more compatible with contemporary science and more useful to mankind.
This film describes a five-week investigation conducted at Stanford
Research Institute with Uri Geller, a young Israeli. The film
portrays experiments that we performed with him just as they were
carried out. Each scene has been taken from film footage made
during actual experiments; nothing has been re-staged or specially
created. It is not the purpose of the film to demonstrate any
purported psychic abilities of Mr. Geller but rather to demonstrate
the experiments done with him and his response to the experimental
situation.
Meet Uri Geller. One of the types of demonstration that Geller
likes to do is to sit with a group of people and attempt to send
a number to various people in the room. With Uri Geller, this
is Edgar Mitchell, who with his eyes covered is trying to pick
up the number that Geller is sending. Also, we see Wilbur Franklin,
of Kent State, Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ, of SRI, along
with Don Scheuch, vice-president for research at SRI. Dr. Scheuch
is trying to receive and then write down the number that Geller
is sending. In this case, Scheuch is successful in picking up
the number.
Of course, this is not a laboratory experiment, since the activity
is totally under Geller's control. It was set as an absolute that
experiments, to be worthy, had to be under institute control.
Here we show a series of experiments where, previously, fifteen
drawings were placed in double-sealed envelopes in a safe for
which none of the experimenters had the combination. It took signatures
of both the key researchers to remove a drawing at random from
the collection in the safe. One of the researchers would then,
in this case Targ, look at the drawing outside the experimental
room, reseal the envelope, enter the experimental room, whence
Geller's task was to draw what he perceived in the envelope.
This is Geller's representation of what he believed was sealed
in the envelope. At no time during these experiments did he have
any advance knowledge of the target material. As far as he is
concerned, these could be drawings of any kind, whether a design
or a representational picture. In fact, this is the most off-
target of the drawings that he did.
Here - the experiment is repeated, this time with Puthoff as a
sender, just to check that the identity of the sender is of no
significance in the experiment. Additionally, all experiments
are tape-recorded to guard against any verbal cuing on the part
of the experimenters.
This the drawing that Geller has made to correspond to the target
object. The rectangle on the clipboard represents the TV screen
in Geller's mind on which he claims to project the image he is
trying to draw. As you can see, he is quite elated about getting
the right answer. Before he does this, it is usually preceded
by several minutes of "I can't do this - it's impossible.
I want to stop. Let's wait."
Here in the laboratory notebook on the left side of the page you
see the original targets, and on the right, Geller's responses.
This is not a collection of correct answers out of a long series
of correct and incorrect responses. This is actually the total
run of pictures in the series. It is interesting that there is
often a mirror symmetry.
In this particular case, neither Geller nor the experimenter had
knowledge of what the target was. This is a double blind experiment.
Here, on the upper left of the page, is a picture that was brought
to SRI by an outside consultant and sealed in his own envelope;
Geller's representation is at the lower right. This was by far
the most complicated target picture encountered during these experiments.
This is a typical target carrier used in the experiments. The
inner envelope is opaque in its own right; the outer one is a
heavy manila envelope. A floodlight behind these envelopes would
not permit the interior to be seen. This type of communication
experiment was repeated many other times during the five weeks,
with Geller choosing to pass about 20 percent of the time.
It is interesting that when he drew his response in this case
he didn't recognize the object as eyeglasses - it seemed to him
to be an abstract drawing. In general, these drawing experiments
were not double blind as one of the experimenters knew what was
in the picture in the envelope.
Here, however, we present a case of a double blind experiment,
in which someone not associated with the project comes into the
experimental room, places an object into a can chosen at random
from ten aluminum cans. Numbered tops are also put on at random.
The randomizer then leaves the area, and the experimenters enter
the experimental area with Geller, with neither the experimenters
nor Geller knowing which can contains the object. In this particular
case, the target is a three-quarter-inch steel ball which now
resides in one of the ten cans in the box.
The ten cans having been arranged neatly, Geller's task now is
to determine which of these ten cans holds the steel ball bearing.
He is not permitted to touch the cans or the table. The experimental
protocol is for experimenter to remove the cans one at a time
in response to Geller's instructions as he points or calls out
a can-top number. Eventually there will be just two or three cans
left, and Geller will then indicate both by gesture and in writing
which one of the remaining cans contains the target. It is only
at the end of the experiment that Geller touches the can that
he believes contains the object. The protocol included the possibility
that he might touch a can accidentally. In such case, that would
have counted as a miss. Here he writes the selected number.
This, you might say, is a kind of ten-can Russian roulette. He
has made his choice. The steel ball is found.
In later repetitions of this same experiment, he was finally weaned
away from the dowsing technique where he runs his hands over the
cans. He got to the point where he could walk into a room, see
the cans
lined up on a blackboard sill, and just pick up the one that contained
the target. We have no hypothesis at this point as to whether
this is a heightened sensitivity of some normal sense, or whether
it is some paranormal sense.
Now we are repeating the experiment with a different target object.
One of these cans is filled with room-
temperature water.
Again, the can was filled by an outside person who randomized
the position of the cans. Then the box that contained the cans
was rotated by a second person so that there is no one person
in the room who knows the location of the target can. As you can
see here, there is less hand motion by Geller over the can. The
protocol as before involves his calling out the number or pointing
and one of the experimenters removing the can at Geller's call.
At this point in time he is asked to make his choice both by writing
the number down as well as making a selection by hand. You will
note that he is making a final test to be sure of his selection.
Tentatively, he reaches and having made the selection now looks
to see whether water is inside the can He now waters the plant
with the contents of the can. You will note he is very pleased
with finding this target because he had doubts at the outset whether
he would be able to locate a can filled with water.
We repeated this type of experiment fourteen times; five times
involved a target being a small permanent magnet, five times also
involved a steel ball bearing as the target. Twice the target
was water. Two additional trials were made - one with a paper-wrapped
ball bearing and one with a sugar cube. The latter two targets
were not located. Geller felt that he didn't have adequate confidence
as to where they were, and he declined to guess, and passed. On
the other twelve targets the ball bearing, the magnet, and the
water - he did make a guess as to the target location and was
correct in every instance. In subsequent work with another subject,
we found the subject experiencing a highly significant difference
in his ability to find the steel ball bearing as compared with
finding other targets.
The whole array of this run had an a priori probability of 1 part
in 10^12 or statistics of a trillion to one. Here is another double
blind experiment in which a die is placed in a metal file box
(both box and die being provided by SRI). The box is shaken up
with neither the experimenter nor Geller knowing where the die
is or which face is up. This is a live experiment that you see
- in this case, Geller guessed that a four was showing but first
he passed because he was not confident. You will note he was correct
and he was quite pleased to have guessed correctly, but this particular
test does not enter into our statistics.
The previous runs of ten can roulette gave a result whose probability
due to chance alone is one part in 10^12 We decided at the outset
to carry out the die-in-
box experiment until we got to a million to one odds, at
which time the experiment was terminated. Out of ten tries in
which he passed twice and guessed eight times, the eight guesses
were correct, and that gave us a probability of about one in a
million.
We would point out again, there were no errors in the times he
made a guess.
This is the first of two experiments in psychokinesis. Here a
one-gram weight is being placed on an electrical scale. It is
then covered by an aluminum can and by a glass cylinder to eliminate
deflection due to air currents. The first part of our protocol
involves tapping the bell jar; next tapping the table; then kicking
the table; and finally jumping on the floor, with a record made
of what these artifacts looked like so that they could be distinguished
from signals. In tests following this experimental run, a magnet
was brought near the apparatus, static electricity was discharged
against parts of the apparatus, and controlled runs of day-long
operation were obtained. In no case were artifacts obtained which
in any way resembled the signals produced by Geller, nor could
anyone else duplicate the effects.
The bottom four signals show the type of artifact that results
from tapping or kicking the table. They are small AC signals with
a time constant characteristic of the apparatus. The upper two
traces, on the other hand, are apparently due to Geller's efforts.
They are single-
sided signals, one corresponding to a 1,500-mg weight decrease,
the other corresponding to an 800-mg weight increase. Those types
of single-sided signals were never observed as artifacts with
any other stimuli.
We have no ready hypothesis on how these signals might have been
produced. The width of the signals produced by Geller was about
two hundred milliseconds. The chart ran at one millimeter per
second. It was of interest to note that Geller's performance improved
over the period of experimentation, starting with 50-mg deflections
and arriving at 1,500 mg.
In this experiment Geller is attempting to influence the magnetometer
either directly or by generating a magnetic field. The full-scale
sensitivity of the instrument is .3 of a gauss, and, as is clear
in this instance, his hands are open. Throughout the experiment,
his hands do not come into contact with the instrument. The magnetometer
itself was used as a probe to go over his hands and person to
make sure that there were no magnetic objects in his hands or
on him. Here you see substantial fluctuations both to the left
and to the right - almost full-scale in certain cases - on the
magnetometer meter. These fluctuations are sometimes uncorrelated
with the motions of his hands.
This is the chart recording of the magnetometer fluctuations produced
by Geller. We see here full-scale fluctuations of .3 of a gauss,
which is a significant magnetic field, comparable to the earth's
field. After each of these experiments we would in general discuss
the results with Geller, show him the strip chart recording, and
talk about the significance of his experiments. He was very interested
in the experiments we were doing because he had never taken part
in laboratory experiments of this kind before.
The following is an experiment which in retrospect we consider
unsatisfactory, as it didn't meet our protocol standards. Here
the task is to deflect the compass needle which, indeed, Geller
does. Before and after the experiment, he was gone over with a
magnetometer probe and his hands were photographed from above
and below during and following the experiment so that we are sure
there were no obvious pieces of metal or magnets in his possession.
However, according to our protocol, if we could in any way debunk
the experiment and produce the effects by any other means, then
that experiment was considered null and void even if there were
no indications that anything untoward happened. In this case,
we found later that these types of deflections could be produced
by a small piece of metal, so small in fact that they could not
be detected by the magnetometer. Therefore, even though we had
no evidence of this, we still considered the experiment inconclusive
and an unsatisfactory type of experiment altogether.
A look at the lower mirror affords one the best view. It can be
seen that his hands are completely exposed to photography from
above and below with different cameras.
These are a series of unconfirmed physical effects that need further
investigation. One of Geller's main attributes that had been reported
to us was that he was able to bend metal from a distance without
touching it. In the laboratory we did not find him able to do
so. In a more relaxed protocol, he was permitted to touch the
metal, in which case, as you will see in the film, the metal is
indeed bent. However, it becomes clear in watching this demonstration
on film that simple photo interpretation is insufficient to determine
whether the metal is bent by normal or paranormal means.
In the laboratory, these spoon-bending experiments were continuously
filmed and video-taped. It is evident that some time during the
photographic period this stainless steel spoon became bent. However,
unlike the things we have heard about Geller, it was always necessary
for him in the experimental situation to have physical contact
with the spoon or for that matter any other object that he bends.
It is not clear whether the spoon is being bent because he has
extraordinarily strong fingers and good control of micro-manipulatory
movements or whether, in fact, the spoon "turns to plastic"
in his hands, as he claims.
Here are a number of the spoons that were bent by one means or
another during the course of our experiments. There is no doubt
that the spoons were bent. The only doubt remains as to the manner
of their bending. Similarly, we have rings that were bent by Mr.
Geller. The rings that were bent are shown here. The copper ring
at the left and the brass ring at the right were manufactured
at SRI and measured to require 150 pounds force to bend them.
These rings were in Geller's hand at the time they were bent.
This brief recap is to remind you of those experiments we feel
were best controlled. They are the three perception experiments,
including the hidden drawings in envelopes, the double blind hidden
object experiments, and the double blind die-in-the-box experiment.
The two psychokinetic experiments - the depression or raising
of a weight on an electrical scale and the deflection of the magnetometer
- also do not seem to admit of any ready counter-hypothesis. What
we've demonstrated here are the experiments that we performed
in the laboratory and should not be interpreted as proof of psychic
functioning. Indeed, a film never proves anything. Rather, this
film gives us the opportunity to share with the viewer observations
of phenomena that in our estimation clearly deserve further study.
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