Responsible and Scientific Approaches to Anomaly Targets

Jana: I have approached you for an interview because I would like to discuss potential ways to responsibly and scientifically approach anomaly targets, utilizing what is referred to as “remote viewing.” As chief scientist at Skinwalker Ranch, you are in a position that many remote viewers would probably consider a possible dream client for their services.

Erik: Titles focus on status, as much or as often as they convey anything relevant about roles and responsibilities. I don’t know that the title, “chief scientist,” conveys anything meaningful about my role at Skinwalker Ranch. The investigation there is evolving, and while our network of partici­pants is expanding, I have been the sole scientist working on a year-round basis, collecting, analy­zing, reporting, and curating data onsite. Other respected professionals, including scientists in our extended circle, work with us seasonally, and on a project-level basis. That is not to diminish their roles or contributions, but to put my own in context.

I think it is likewise worth examining the role of science itself here. Science is our presumptive pathway to understanding what is going on at Skinwalker Ranch and similar sites. I am a physi­cist, and that branch of science seems a good fit, given the phenomena that we have observed on the ground and in the air. Whether the things we are observing in the environment are natural, technological, or exotic in origin, physics seems to be a good lens through which to view them. It is not, however, the only discipline that has a contributing role to play. There are other branches of sci­­­e­n­ce and entire schools of thought that seem fit to engage aspects of a very complex situation calling for a multidisciplinary approach. Speaking of the objective disciplines: medical science, general life sciences, and clinical psychology may have as much as physics has to teach us about the ranch and about the prevalent influences at this mysterious site. I am speaking of effects on both non-­living and living systems, including human beings. Important answers may emerge from even more distant disciplines, as far as any of us knows. That is part of what we are here to discover. The task requires a complete tool set.

I interface with professionals who come from diverse disciplines and distant places. They have all had insights to volunteer that I don’t have on my own as a physicist.

My role as principal investigator (the correct title) is to aggregate and curate ideas and data and to formulate an actionable investigative plan going forward in collaboration with property owner, Brandon Fugal, and with any subject-matter experts with whom he engages, whatever their disciplines happen to be. The “principal investigator” title is, therefore, a better fit to what I do and to the general circumstance at the ranch. Would we or should we heed an individual whose outlook is any less precise about his role?

Jana: Is it appropriate to mention former work with Kit Green and Hal Puthoff, as they are well-­known in the RV community?

Erik: Sure, I think it’s appropriate to mention that I have had collaborative discussions with individu­als historically involved in the (1) the investigative and (2) the formally-tasked remote-viewing programs of former decades conducted with U.S. government support.

While private, in-person conversations over a period from 2012 to 2018 ventured into the history of remote viewing, with which I had been familiar previously only by name, the topic was not central to those discussions at the time. I regard what we covered under terms of confidentiality to be no more and no less than a thought-provoking sidebar topic, explored with pragmatic, advanced degree-wielding scientists who were themselves not practitioners but responsible stewards over the early study and development of RV methodologies with agency tasking.

The takeaway from these personal interactions—touching on things which are, for the most part, searchable in the public record—begins with the fact that remote viewing is “real,” that it does produce “results,” that it is part of a general human perceptual capacity (however misunderstood, unexplored, and nascent in most of us, most of the time), and it ends with an invitation to consider what its potential deliverables are based on the data in hand.

As a physicist, I considered these privileged discussions to be an excellent introduction and motivation for my own thoughts over the years on (1) the principles, (2) the mechanisms, and (3) the limi­­tations of “remote viewing,” which I regard more generally as non-­local/atemporal human perception, a subset of the broader topic of “consciousness.”

Yes, I am familiar with RV and with some of the conspicuous players in its modern history. No, I am not a student of, an authority on, or a practitioner of remote viewing. I am someone with a collection of persistent data and insights from extensive personal experience with the subject and related matter and with individuals who have made it part of their own personal and professional journey.

Jana: Given your familiarity with remote viewing, I believe there’s no need for an extensive explanation at this point. However, I would like to start with one of the official definitions of remote viewing, as a basis for our conversation.

“Remote viewing (RV): the name of a method of psychoenergetic perception. A term coined by SRI-International and defined as the acquisition and description, by mental means, of information blocked from ordinary perception by distance, shielding or time.” [1] To explain how remote viewing is different from other modes of psychic work, we might add: “…and includes some mechanism or procedure for controlling mental noise.” [2]

The ability to “acquire information blocked from ordinary perception” holds great promise in uncovering valuable insights and answers that may elude traditional scientific methods.

Erik: I would like to know what you consider to be a few of the best examples of these “insights,” before we get too far down the road. As far as what I’ve seen goes, hardly all of the sketches, annotations, clay or paper models, etc., coming out of viewing efforts bear much verifiable resemblance to the circumstance being “viewed.” Some do. I’ve seen these. Lots of them. But it’s a continuum. They all have one thing in common: They attest to Boolean truths—Yes, there is a mechanism at work. And, no, the results are not always accurate, useful or even verifiable.

I have been a listener in many instances during which RV is the subject of great, almost mystical interest, but with the emphasis generally being placed on the “ability” of the individual “viewer” as the determiner of the outcome. I get it. That’s very human. But, as a human physicist who finds himself dealing with a problem set these days in which the influence of the observer is anyone’s guess and is the subject of wild speculation (in some cases with support), I find myself grasping for an understanding, not so much of any of our “abilities” but of what the universal mechanisms are—in this case, of what I have termed non-local/atemporal human perception.

With RV, we’re talking about an apparent change in the informational universe, with a “before” and “after,” relative to the viewing event or session. Are we not? My field of physics is full of descriptions of “before” and “after” circumstances expressed in terms of equations that rely upon invariants. The existence of conserved quantities, or invariants, is the basis on which we can justify putting “equal” signs into our work and subsequently solve for or predict outcomes. So, this is a perspective from which I am comfortable treating the subject of RV. I have to think that there is a mechanism and that there are principles or laws governing the operation of that mechanism. My speculation is that there may be conservation laws as well. I don’t hear much being said about these in the field of RV, but… what might those laws be?

Jana: Referring to your comment about what I refer to as “insights,” that’s a very good question. I’m talking about remote viewers for now, because that’s the context of this magazine, but it doesn’t only apply to them. Many seem to be under the impression that one has the possibility for an “objective” acquisition of data, especially with respect to empirical knowledge about addressed targets. The problem, of course, is that you can’t task for a “what” or “who” without bringing at least basic preliminary assumptions into play. On the other hand, there is considerable indication that such a “perception” is always an interaction that exerts an influence.

Consequently, many remote viewers find themselves particularly captivated by what we refer to as mystery targets—an avenue to explore unsolved puzzles and mysteries that intrigue us in the present era.

Erik: Why am I not surprised? It seems to go with the mindset of most “viewers” or would-be practitioners of RV. There’s no overestimating the human appetite for mystery.

Jana: Moreover, the firsthand experience of witnessing the reality of “psychic abilities” seems to naturally foster a special open-mindedness towards anomalous phenomena.

Erik: See there? We’ve gone straight to “abilities.” It implicitly sets the stage for an emphasis on the “who” and not on the “what.” I don’t find it useful. I don’t like it—on many levels.

The focus on “abilities” or “gifts” presents a challenge to our objectivity and, in my experience, an impediment to the study and application of RV, if there is any legitimate application to speak of (which remains an open question for me). I find it especially disingenuous when those who step forward as practitioners ingratiate themselves with the affirmation that the “ability” resides in all human beings, while seeking singular attention and deference from others as remote-viewing superstars. As far as I have witnessed or read, a focus on mechanism, principle, and methodology is more enabling to a greater number of those who wish to engage or at least understand the topic. Otherwise, the subject has very little appeal and even less utility—no more to me than a spectator sport. I don’t have time for that.

Jana, I will let you in on a piece of personal history that may be of greater value to someone from your field than it has been to me concerning things like remote viewing. The thread that I want to follow through what I have to share is the importance of outlook. This is closely related to what I regard as inlook, or an observer effect, wherein the observer and the observed are, at times, one and the same. In the latter case, I am speaking of an effect of habit that would, in principle, limit the effectiveness of RV, owing to a focus on the self. Any desire or insecurity, for example, would compete with, color, and contaminate impressions, limiting the bandwidth available for anything “remote” or the fidelity of anything “viewed.”

Jana: In our (CRV) terminology we have the expression “internal editing,” which refers to an unwanted process that is very hard to unlearn. Is that close to what you mean?

Erik: Perhaps. I am speaking of the effect of distracting, parallel threads of thought about thought. A distraction of the self by the self about the self. In this case: insecurity that gates and contaminates results.

Jana: The label internal editing comes from Ingo Swann’s teachings on remote viewing. Internal editing occcurs when the viewer receives impressions and perceptions that he or she then fails to objectify (that is, verbalize, write down, sketch or otherwise externalize for others to observe). This happens as the viewer is immediately in the process of obtaining, recognizing, and judging the data. Reasons for internal editing include the viewer’s fear of producing something that might be judged by others as being “wrong,” rejecting otherwise sound data that doesn’t logically fit into a prematurely-formed belief as to what the target is, or an ill-formed attempt to ignore anything that doesn’t “make sense” of the incoming data. That all leads to a lot of problems—not only are analytical overlays induced, also data is missing, and the viewer cannot access possible follow-on data on the respective “strings.” Is that close to what you mean?

Erik: Yes. This is a very coherent description of what we are grappling with.

Jana: It’s intriguing how you pinpoint one of the fundamental principles so directly. Let’s term it outlook and inlook for the sake of our discussion; that seems fitting.

Erik: Sure. Thank you for entertaining my termino­logy. I defer to you as the expert on this, and with good reason. I will carry my illustrative narrative forward with this emphasis in mind. I think we agree that, by whatever name, it is fundamental.

It should come as no surprise that I have had “viewers” reach out to me and to those within my circle many times, largely because our work is a beacon, if not a lightning-rod, for their particular kind. It is an apex “target” of opportunity, at least in the opinions of some. It is very public. It is rich in mystery. And, as long as the mystery persists, it is essentially impossible to “fail” through what I have termed, loop-closure on any specific feature of an RV session.

Would-be remote viewers of the ranch hail us from far and wide to connect with (or to attach themselves to) the mystery that is the “Skinwalker Ranch” phenomenon and its narrative. Some come to us with axiomatic, almost religious certainty that key insights about the ranch “pheno­menon” can best—if not exclusively—be accessed through their practice and their self-tasking as viewers and as revelators on what is driving events here.

It’s hardly new: They have, as they see it, a hammer and a mandate to use that hammer. Everything is a prospective nail, including a nexus of high-strangeness in the Utah desert. This, without the slightest consideration of accountability or concern about loop-closure. The deliverables of the viewings are vague and centered on targets or concepts that are, at least for now, beyond reach, beyond inspection, beyond confirmation or falsification. I am speaking of those who “view” the unsearchable past or future, of those who “view” extra-dimensional activity, of those who “view” invisible extraterrestrials and inaccessible infrastructure thousands of feet below ground. I hesitantly observe that an attraction to this scenario-type and to these memes goes with the profile of many people who are consummate about remote viewing in the first place. Mystery attracts. As does attention. With the implicit rewards, there for the taking, why be bothered with facts or unintended consequences? Right? Either that accurately describes a major subset of the practitioner community, or my impressions are based on a sample that just happens to be skewed in that sense, which is admittedly a possibility.

To be clear, I am not taking the discussion where you may sense I am taking it at this point. This is not meant to be gratuitously critical or dismissive. It’s just a faithful accounting of my experience and conclusions to date—subject to change. Sometimes, my personal interactions with those involved in RV have been quite grounded, searching, coherent, and fascinating! The majority, however, have been vague, sensational, exhausting, and without sought-after returns. Every time, however, they bring an opportunity for learning and for introspection. I will bring this to relevance, with the help of a story…

Erik: In one colorful case, a practicing remote viewer came into my picture with overtures made from two thousand miles away. He was hellbent on remote viewing the ranch, as well as viewing me and my work and many things that I had not opened for discussion at all—much less that kind of treatment! And this was before the documentary series painted an even brighter target on my otherwise quiet and austere work at the site.

Our conversation began with no exclusive emphasis on remote viewing. That was in the margins. It began with talk of “science.” It began with forwarded messages, via a common contact, containing this gentleman’s ingratiating overtures and his ideas and suggestions about how the scientific work at the SWR site ought to be conducted. There were forty-two points outlining scien­tific investigative tools and methodologies (two of which were numbered 36). A lot of technical jargon decorated his missives filled with phrases in all-capital letters, exclamation points, etc. I found the whole thing presumptuous and odd.

In short order, I began to suspect that something wasn’t quite what it appeared to be with this fellow. That is, I may not have been dealing with a conventionally trained scientist at all but, rather, with someone who aspired to some kind of scientific relevance and who coveted the company of physicists like myself, for whatever reason. There was an implicit appeal for “funding” and the recruitment of certain well-known, conspicuous figures in both scientific and speculative realms. [3] I wondered several times why I had been forwarded this material at all. Was I not pursuing the investigative pathways that I should have been at the ranch, in someone’s view? I politely inquired as to his career history, his educational background, and current interests. My impressions were confirmed. This was not a scientist, an engineer, or an academic of any sort. This was someone from a completely different walk of life. He was and is an endearing individual with a life experience that would undoubtedly make for a series of interesting written vignettes. I won’t provide any spoilers, but I’ll say this: in short order, his real passion and agenda came into focus. He identified as a “PSI practitioner,” first and foremost. Once that fact was brought into the light, and once I explained that I was familiar with some of his areas of interest and generally curious about their histories, claims, deliverables, and mechanisms, etc., he took courage and, fatefully, presumed a mandate to “view” my work and personal circumstance without invitation.
Not cool.

I wasn’t merely offended but disappointed and repulsed that someone with whom I had engaged in transparent conversation had presumed to try to peer through some frosted lens at my reality and make declarations about my work to me and potentially to those within my circle. The hubris was jarring. There wasn’t the slightest hint of defe­rence to propriety, respect for boundaries, etc. So it is with so many people, across the board: perceived “might” makes perceived “right.” An imagined “ability” was a presumed mandate. No.

I hadn’t invited this. Nor would I, given some of the inherited, nuanced elements of my task and their intertwinement with “consciousness” and the potential for a bi-directional “observer effect” and so forth. Some of my advanced degree-wielding predecessors had speculated that we are interacting with what they termed a “sentient, precognitive nonhuman intelligence” at the Skinwalker site. The rabbit hole was sufficiently deep already.

To make this picture more relatable, all one has to do is imagine a stranger from a continent away attempting to access a surveillance system or a computer network at one’s home or office, or perhaps view one’s personal, financial, or medical records, potentially to trumpet whatever information is obtained into other ears, if not to the general public. This is not principled behavior. And, no, it’s not cool. And, in this case, not even successful or useful. But, it was understood. I had crossed paths with this before.

This experience and what happened subsequently has shaped my view and messaging about the premise, the practice, and the potentials of remote viewing and my impression of the mindset among remote viewers. It has informed my own habits, when it comes to inquiry and to disclosure of things held in confidence or of existential importance to us. It is among a select few, specific experiences that provide the backstory for my oft-repeated, public declaration, “Curiosity, alone, is not an entitlement to answers.”

I mentioned an emphasis on outlook (or inlook) before launching into this. You see, in the cited example, this gentleman, who undoubtedly meant well, described an extreme personal desire to use his imagi­ned RV “ability” as a means of connecting with distant people, places, times, and circumstances. In other words, to get answers, simply because he wanted them. His overtures were a spectacular display of “virtue signaling,” the likes of which I had only seen in organized religion. The conversation shifted to “blessings,” to “helping people,” “the world,” “society,” “the children,” and so on and so forth. In service to these, he described his dedication to an elaborate ritual of fasting and meditation and exercise and an almost monastic existence dedicated to things in the “PSI” realm. Interestingly, he also voiced a pathological level of insecurity or fear of “failure.”

I related earlier that this gentleman came to me with a report of what he had “remote viewed” about me, about my work, etc. What response could I give to that? In principle, there are plenty of options. I could have simply disengaged. I could have attempted some kind of boundary-setting. In this instance, with little more than instinct as my guide and with a graceful termination of our conversation as my endgame, I took the remote-viewed would-be insights sent via email, and put them through the sieve of a spreadsheet breakdown, sentence by sentence, phrase by phrase, feature by feature. I tabulated the results. I broke them into what seemed like suitable groups of plausible “hits” and “misses,” of “ambiguous” statements from which neither a “hit” nor a “miss” could be assessed, and statements that could have been informed by context or prior discussion, a.k.a. “frontloading.” Not that I needed the additional homework.

When all was said and done, my simplistic evaluation yielded an approximately 20% “hit” rate. I sent the spreadsheet, its explanation, and summary assessment to my practitioner contact. Though I had not appreciated the uninvited “viewing” attempt, I did not overtly push back; I pulled. Without the need to call out these lackluster results as such, it might be said that I pulled this individual onto his face on the figurative floor in our shared conversational space. He was crestfallen.

I didn’t stop there. In my quiet, veiled irritation, I challenged this presumptuous, quirky but likable individual to engage with me in a slightly different—at least consensual—exercise. I invited or challenged him to receive a set of specific questions from me, essentially “targets,” and to do whatever ritual he might elect to do in order to get the best possible results—this time, for a “viewing” with my permission. I reasoned that the outcome would be a “win” in any event. In the event that the answers were in large measure verifiably correct, I might gain a greater understan­ding of RV itself. In the event that the answers were no more accurate than mere chance, I could be done with the interaction, which I had conside­red a distraction. I sent my litany of targets and questions via email. Days later, after whatever preparatory rituals this gentleman resorted to, I received the “answers.” I subjected them to the same dispassionate spreadsheet breakdown and analysis. The “hit” rate was again close to 20%—identical to the previous, within a margin of error.

Again, the RV practitioner, whom I had never met, was disappointed. In his paradigm he had “failed.” If he had not continued messaging me, I would probably have been satisfied that I had made a decent effort to engage and that our discussion was closed. Still, a lingering impression and an observation of something that the two “viewing” scenarios had in common sent me down a conceptual pathway. Ideas began to form. I wondered: Might there exist a better way to treat this and either (1) net some real insights or (2) put it entirely to bed? After all, the general topic of RV had been legitimized, if not motivated by my aforementioned interactions with very credible and forthright scien­tists who had been formally engaged to explore this arena. There had been a time when this kind of interaction would have been consi­dered quite special—“rare air.” So, I took inventory, and I decided against prematurely terminating the conversation. Whom else did I know, so personally invested and so consummate about this “RV” topic? No one. I knew folks who had “studied” it, by their own affirmation. I knew experts on its history. But this gentleman was engaged in the present tense and at the next level, so to speak, and he interacted with some of the figures in my arena, so why not make the most of the opportunity? I suspended any judgment and made a decision to explore, at least a few steps further.

Fortes fortuna adiuvat. Or does it? My new acquaintance had earlier related his interest not only in remote perception but also in PK, or “psychokinesis.” He was convinced that he had generated mind-matter effects on more than one occasion with objects and instruments in his immediate vicinity, and he wanted to give that a try at the cross-continental distance between his location and mine. Rather than recoil from previous “failures,” he wanted to try something more. I engaged, as I would expect any of us to engage, seeking one or another kind of closure. Why not? I saw an opportunity to allow the interaction with this gentleman to run its course and gracefully terminate on his initiative, in the event of further “failure.”

So, I set up a modest experiment involving a very sensitive, but simple, battery-powered light within a shielded enclosure, and I invited my contact to attempt to remotely interact, via PK, with it in any manner of his choosing to change the state of the light. I connected the very low-power light to a high-capacity portable battery, turned the light on with a touch, placed the whole thing into a semi-transparent antistatic enclosure, and waited to see if it would turn off. This arrangement sat on a shelf in an underground part of my home for days. I was prepared to give the low-maintenance exercise as much time as needed. The “task” was simply to toggle the state of a touch-sensitive light that did not require mechanical switching. It was a light whose drive circuitry was sensitive to the electric field on a human body. Once turned off, the light would remain latched in an off state due to the power management settings on the battery pack to which it was connected. I wouldn’t miss even a fleeting PK interaction, as it would latch in the off state. Energetically, the bar was set at what I consider a very low level to achieve the desired change of state. I would not have been surprised to see it “work,” taking the possibility of false positives from this sensitive arrangement into consideration. And, at this point, I would have been equally pleased with either outcome.

So… what happened?
Nothing.

Between the lines of conversations that left me wanting to toss my phone across my desk, it became clear to me that this was also someone whose personal history, whose social, financial, physical, and mental circumstances were very different from my own, including episodic homelessness. He lived a very spartan existence, evidently dedicated to his mastery of all-things-“PSI.” I think most would agree that this fellow was and is far from typical. I had to admit to myself that I had found him a little hard to relate to at times, but that I was not prepared to invalidate his foundations, leaving a net-negative effect on him in the wake of our interaction. What kind of person would want that? What if the roles were reversed? Perhaps I could find something constructive in our experience, something that might be beneficial to him, whether he insisted on continuing to make dubious practices his central life pursuit, or whether he chose to reevaluate that decision and do something of a more practical nature going forward.

So, I proposed a change. Namely, and on logi­cal grounds, I proposed that this gentleman at least take a more dispassionate view of results and that he keep his focus on the “mechanism” and on taking as much “data” as he could, rather than focus on “success” or “failure” in each instance as a measure of his personal “ability.” I advocated for less emotional investment and a bit more intellectual engagement, if any engagement at all. I spoke of observable natural processes in an effort to neutralize the self-evident insecurity. Since the mind itself was at least part of the presumed apparatus for any of the sought-after effects, the objective was to suspend any engagement of the mind with doubt or self-judgment. It was to direct attention toward a test, not of the practitioner or of something framed as his “ability” (or lack thereof), but of the method. I encouraged not only ambivalence but also skepticism. Somehow, this seemed to resonate with him. Again, the conversation went silent for a while.

Days later, I received a call from one of my business partners who asked about my availability to come into our laboratory for some problem-solving and work on a few items being processed for a technical customer. We make components for the X-ray analytic industry. I had no thoughts about my interactions with the RV practitioner as I prepared, traveled to, and arrived at the office. After jumping right into the discussion and lab work and taking a short break in our office space, a few minor coincidences in rapid succession reminded me of the gentleman with whom I had been corresponding.

I walked through an open warehouse space filled with a richness of interesting objects and materials, and it occurred to me that the location in which my cleanroom facility was hosted and, in fact, its existence had not been discussed at all with the remote viewer. I made it as far as the machine shop, stopping in front of a large, gray CNC milling machine and looking around at large rolls of packing materials, spools of wire, stacks of metal, shelves of quartzware, pallets of decommissioned equipment, including large bins and boxes full of lasers and spectrometers, power supplies, etc. It occurred to me that this was a contextual playground offering many potential “targets” for a classic “outbounder” experiment. Perhaps this environment would offer enough variety that a real-time outbounder “hit” could be made and confirmed to bookend my interaction with the “PSI practitioner,” bearing a satisfying “success” for him.

High on the painted, white cinderblock wall with a thick blue stripe was a large window through which I could see trees and a blue sky toward the mountains, etc. As I walked toward it, instead of continuing back to the lab to rejoin my business partner, I again stopped in my tracks. I sent a text message to my contact. Paraphrasing, I texted, “Hey, I am in a place from which we have not communicated before. If you have a moment, I’m wondering whether you get any impressions of this space.” I did not provide a location or a description. I provided a time, just to make explicit when I had sent my message. I didn’t expect a quick response, as this had not been a planned exercise. I had never tried anything of this sort. And that was precisely the point. I surveyed for geometric targets.

Three minutes later, I got a text reply, as I stood in the open walkway, alongside the oversized metal shelves, staring alternately at the machine shop area, at the large CNC mill, at the shelves, and out of that window, high on the wall. The response, via text: “Seeing blue and white.” Then there was mention of “something big and metal… with the curve on it… made out of segments.” I did not interrupt.
“I want to go on, but if you are at a laser light show, I’d prefer to stop and save the damage LOL.”

“Blue and white?” “Big and metal?” “Lasers?” Interesting.

I volunteered nothing. I glanced around and, again, at the trees through the window, at what would be the second-story level in the high-ceiling building. “Definitely sensing outdoors,” he texted. Then there was a question: “Are you outdoors?” I responded, “Do you really want me to answer that?” The reply was “Yes.” Without thinking, I revealed that I was “inside of a warehouse.” I resolved to make that the last answer that I would give that could contaminate the exercise and frustrate my plan.

Determined to provide only one good target, I intently fixated on the big, gray CNC mill, which has the appearance of a big cube with sliding windows on its front and a segmented cable-guide arching over its top to accommodate the movements of the milling head. The segmented, curved cable guide had, in fact, been the feature of greatest focus for me. I thought this was probably the simplest and most conspicuous geometric target, suitable for typically vague remote viewing. I waited for more comments on it. Instead, I got another question via text. I did not answer it. I offered to send a picture, which would have necessitated taking the electrical tape off of the lens of my phone camera, but which would have conveniently ended the exercise with a plausible proof of “success” for this fellow. I could get on with my work, for which I had come there in the first place. I kept staring at that CNC mill.

The next text read, “I just got a strong impression of these metal segments put together… I thought it was curved at the top.” I didn’t validate it, but I thought, “Good enough! Done! Finally!” He saw the gray box and the segmented cable guide upon which I had deliberately focused.
“Let me show you some things,” I texted, eager to wrap up.

The response, “Maybe not please don’t.” I wanted to send a picture and a “Good job. Thanks, and best of success!” but instead began receiving text messages in rapid succession. Each described something in my immediate vicinity. To my back and above my height was a stack of large, white rolls of “bubble wrap” that I couldn’t possibly get my arms around. To my left, situated in an aisle between the industrial shelves, was a table, cluttered with tools, power supplies, wires, containers, and a tabletop environmental chamber. Ahead of me, that milling machine stood in a space shared with other equipment. The text messages streamed in, “I see a white convex larger object… smoothed edges… Table with a bunch of wires and little drawers… Giant metal box against the wall, I believe it is smoky gray…“ Several short sentence fragments seemed to connect with just about every geometric and material element around me. What the heck was going on? Whatever it was, it was going on in real time. I was intrigued. I provided no clues or cues. Nothing.

My priority immediately changed. My terse response: “Keep going.”

For the next few hours—hours!—I walked from place to place, silently staring at objects, thinking about them in terms of low-level impressions of their basic properties. I watched as text messages and finger drawings streamed into my phone with uncanny correspondence to my changing location and focus. It continued without prompting. I took no pictures. I kept the tape on my phone lenses. My responses, if any, were deliberately terse: “Keep going. See what I see.” I moved throughout the warehouse, into the cleanroom, into the offices. In lockstep, I received messages describing each object that I stopped to study or touch. My business partners asked why I was so distracted and seemingly amused. I offered a partial explanation, and then, seeing that my explanation was pointless, I resorted to reading some of the received text messages aloud, as they streamed in. They witnessed what was happening. Their questions were predictable. “What have you gotten mixed up with, Erik?” We marveled. There was profa­nity involved. We laughed. The fellow sending the messages from two thousand miles away was never prompted that he had an audience. Instead, he occasionally complained that I was giving him no guidance or validation when he asked for it. He had no clues from me concerning the objects that we set up on a lab stool as observational targets, as he spontaneously sent text descriptions and finger sketches of those things. Memorably, he described ultra­-pure water. Distinct liquids (chemicals), containers and tubing were also mentioned as soon as I made my way into the lab. Boxes containing assortments of O-ring seals and custom fixtures inside of a vacuum chamber were also described as soon as I fixated upon or touched them. As I’ve said, this continued for hours—even after I left the facility, drove home, and went with my wife for a meal of noodles, spicy steamed vegetables, and chicken in broth.

Over the next two years, I kept notes on several spontaneous exercises of this same general kind in a variety of settings without any premeditation, preparation, reportage, or follow-up. There was a school gymnasium, a deli, a mezzanine, a gas station, a commuter train stop, the base and branches of a tree, my own living room in front of a piano, a public playground, a laboratory wet bench. And so on and so forth. The results were consistently like those described above. Instantaneous and undeniable. They add support for the existence of a mechanism and operative principle.

It is reasonable to ask whether the “insights” from such exercises are directly useful. I don’t see much support for a claim that they are. So, what, then, are the informational deliverables? In the wake of passing novelty, this became the driving question to maintain any ongoing interest on my part. Sure, it works—like a boomerang. So what? Seriously, why continue with something like this, having no demonstrable utility, except to better understand exactly how it works?

These extemporaneous exercises produced a remote observer’s impressions, descriptions, sketches, etc., correlative with perceived elements in the surroundings of a local observer. They were sometimes multisensory or contextual, not merely visual, as the name “remote viewing” seems to suggest. It seems important to note that, in these exercises, we do not see anything brought to light that is not known to the local observer by the remote viewer. Do they convey any new information about what is viewed? No, not in these cases. They only point to what is possible, to something that may have played a role in the survival of our ancestors, and that may be operative, more than we realize, as part of our modern lives.

These narrative details are interesting. Even entertaining. Aren’t they? But what was the motivation for relating them here? Recall, I spoke of outlook or inlook. My motivation was to reexamine the idea of individual “ability” or investment in “success” or “failure” as its indicators—all of which I found to be an impediment in this gentleman’s case. I have related an example in which the abandonment of these and of any specific method or preparatory rituals has shed light on what’s really going on and provided some sense of direction for follow-up. It’s worth noting that, while Skinwalker Ranch has served as a catalyst for interactions like this one with folks in this domain, no one has been engaged to remote view the ranch on my sole initiative or at my personal request, including the gentleman of whom I have written. Yes, it has been attempted by others. I am confident that it is ongoing, with or without my involvement, owing to the public nature of the history and ongoing investigation.

Based on what I’ve seen, I expect the course of these RV exercises to fall into well-traveled paths, invoking the themes and memes of interdimensional structures, crafts and beings, extraterrestrials, clandestine operations, agencies, wandering spirits, heavenly and dark entities—on the land, in the sky, deep below ground. What I find most interesting is not the specific features or even the gestalts from these activities, but whether these viewing efforts become superposed to interact with and interfere with one another. To bring this to a close, no, I have no plan to engage my acquaintance to remote view the ranch phenomenon, as he may have sought with my cooperation or my buy-in or my sponsorship at the outset, but I remain quite interested in the ongoing work of those who study the principles by which RV ope­rates.

Jana: The history of remote viewing has often been connected with the search for UFOs and anomalies, e.g., Pat Price’s UFO bases, later continued by Puthoff/Atwater in project 8200, Ed Dames’ obsession with the topic during his time as a monitor on the Star Gate program, and Ingo Swann’s book Penetration, to name just a few of the better known examples. Many remote viewers have more or less devotedly explored these topics.

Erik: No kidding.

Jana: Yet, a significant challenge when dealing with anomalies lies in acknowledging the multitude of potential that can lead to misinterpretation.

Erik: You’ve said a lot there. Yes.

Jana: Factors like contamination of tasking due to preliminary assumptions, the inadvertent influence of prior knowledge (frontloading), or the pervasive influence of confirmation bias all contribute to the complexity of the endeavor. To overcome confirmation bias, it is important to be aware of one’s own tendency toward confirmation and to make an active effort to consider different points of view, examine alternative hypotheses, and look for evidence both in favor of and against one’s opinion. Openness to different perspectives and the pursuit of objective truth can help reduce the influence of confirmation bias.

Erik: The fact that this is part of the discourse, the terminology and at least a significant preoccupation in the field is one of the cornerstones of my respect for the topic, without which I would probably have none.

Jana: It very much depends on the scientific background and experience of the project managers of such RV ventures. You can talk about good and bad examples, but it is hardly practical to talk about an average. These challenges may be less apparent to individuals who are not deeply immersed in scientific endeavors, unlike scientists, who are often more cognizant of such issues.

Erik: Yes. Very much so.

Jana: In light of this, I’m curious to know what specific methods you employ to ensure the utmost cleanliness of data and conclusions in your work. How do you maintain a rigorous approach to minimize potential biases and inaccuracies?

Erik: This is a very loaded topic in my present engagement at SWR. And I don’t find it simple at all. Perhaps others do. Many seem to think that there are reliable methods to “ensure… cleanliness of data and conclusions” at SWR. But that’s an external perspective; and it is to be expected that folks will view our circumstance with an outlook that serves well in other contexts but not necessarily here.

It would have been trivial to answer your question, had it centered on, for example, things I’ve done previously in industry—R&D, product development, etc. In my other work, we would refer to the standard set of answers. In no particular order: (1) The requirement that we have well-understood “controls,” (2) the requirement that we make explicit what the (known) parameters of the problem are and that we at least acknowledge which ones we control and which we do not. Of course, there is (3) the nearly universal requirement that outcomes be viewed through statistics applied to many repetitions of a given “experiment” to expose how inputs map to outputs. Finally, we might also require that outcomes be compared with computational or other “models” as a way of discerning in what regime or part of the (presumed-known) parameter space we are working. It’s good science.

But what are we to do, in a circumstance in which (1) the observer does not even know that there is an “experiment” in progress or any “data” pending (this speaks to the inherited, anecdotal narrative of spontaneous, strange events having no obvious or intentional relationship to the actions of the observer). What are we to do when (2) the observer does not have the luxury of repeating the observation, thanks to his or her lack of control over conditions in the wild? What are we to do when (3) the observer lacks a complete understanding of what the relevant inputs are or whether the noted results are the full set or only a partial inventory of the “effects” whose cause we are here to study? What are we to do when (4) the expectations of the observer are considered (as they are by some) as being among the outcome-generating influences over objectively real events? These things put us at a disadvantage.

Jana: A truly honest and rigorous scientific approach to experiment design involves structuring experiments in a way that aims to disprove a hypothesis, rather than seeking to confirm it. However, before arriving at a hypothesis, there must be a collection of data or observations from which to formulate a hypothesis. What are the primary considerations when designing experiments that aim to achieve more than just gathering data?

Erik: I notice you said, “Before arriving at a hypo­thesis there must be a collection of data or observations from which to formulate a hypothe­sis.” Is that always the case? The phrase “must be” seems quite strong here. We might modify this with the phrase “is most often…”

Some hypotheses are grounded in explicit observations or data. Some seem to emerge from subconscious data collection, where the source is less obvious. Other hypotheses begin with an internal dialog that precedes the data altogether. An often-cited example are the “thought experiments” of Einstein, who began with reflection on peculiar physical circumstances that, while ponderable, were physically impractical to set up or to measure at the time and that did not have a basis in data from prior experience.

So, I guess my outlook on this claim depends on how liberal our definitions of “data” or “observations” are allowed to be. Reflection on experience seems to be the most common way to guide our steps to further experience, but there are also ideas and tests for those ideas that come through exterior, non-deductive, non-data-driven pathways.

But that wasn’t really the question, was it? The question has to do with the primary considerations when “designing experiments” that aspire to do more than just gather data.

Even when the approach is new, gathering data is just a mechanical process, once the means and methods are sorted out. You’ve spoken of experimental design. That’s the best part. Before I commit to the drudgery of data collection, I work to identify which data types are likely to bring the most insight and the greatest informational return per unit of data collected and processed. That begins with consideration of which features of the thing that I am studying have the greatest influence on the whole. Which kinds of information matter the most? These guiding questions serve to avoid what I term “limping” experimental design. Many hypotheses and experiment ideas come to us in a form that presupposes confirmation. In these, we can draw a strong conclusion if we get the preferred result, but we learn nothing at all if we don’t. The broken symmetry leads to a limping navigation of the problem space. Where possible, I seek hypotheses and designed experiments that produce strong insight, no matter what result we get. In my experience, this has come down to reducing the dimensionality of the problem and the volume of data that must be collected in the first
place.

Jana: A phenomenon is commonly observed in the context of missing persons and criminal cases: Especially in high-profile events that capture the media’s interest, law enforcement agencies and authorities frequently encounter a deluge of unsolicited communications from clairvoyants, remote viewers, and psychics. Has it happened to you that remote viewers send you their sessions about the phenomena on the ranch (I don’t mean any work that you would contract out, of course, if applicable) and how do you feel about it?

Erik: Sure. This is more than a rabbit hole. It’s a whole field of them. Suppose someone comes to us or writes to us, as they certainly have to me, and says, “I’ve remote viewed the ranch, and I saw [x] several miles below the ground or [y] emerging through another dimension or [z] taking place in the ancient past or distant future,” etc. What response can we be expected to have to this? What can we do with this generally non-falsifiable information?

Perhaps you can speak to these questions:
(1) What actionable informational deliverables do we give or receive through remote viewing?
(2) What universal laws, possibilities, or limitations apply when we generate and propagate “information” through remote viewing?
(3) Is RV a something-for-nothing proposition that produces “free information” for the pondering, or are there conservation laws, an informational or energetic balance in which the information acquired through RV represents a “something” in exchange for a “something?”

These are the kinds of questions that I might expect any other physicist to pose. So, how do I “feel” about remote viewers sending results? By this point, I don’t know that I have any feelings to speak of. I can say this much: Every time someone volunteers a “session” concerning “the ranch,” I think I learn as much or more about the practitioner and his or her practice than I do about the ranch or the phenomenology that it hosts.
At least so far.

Jana: Considering the multitude of unanswered questions, is it reasonable to perceive it as risky for remote viewers to involve themselves in psychic interactions with the phenomena, regardless of intentionality?

Erik: To address that concern, I would either have to cite real events that I may not be able to share in much detail because of confidentiality constraints or because I don’t have the details needed to address the more searching questions that will naturally follow from my answer. I would eventually have to speculate about the broader set to which any specific examples that I might volunteer belong. An interview setting is not ideal for speculation on risk. There aren’t many winning conversational moves for me to make. On one hand, if I am less vocal about “risk,” I can be misunderstood as evasive or dismissive, which I am not. On the other hand, if I expound much on the idea of “risk” and let it affect the scope of my work, it cultivates a misunderstanding that I carry a bias, fed by a belief system—about not just one topic but at least two. Instead, I’d rather repeat what has been said well enough by someone else: We don’t know what we don’t know. Not to evade the question entirely, yes, the potential for “risk” and “harm” has come up in my discussions with practitioners and others, to whom I defer. I am well aware of and sensitized to the concern. The idea of a consciousness to consciousness interaction between humans and something potentially nonhuman—in which the very nature of the interacting participants is dissimilar and potentially incompatible—has been broached by others. This seems like a great question for
them.

Jana: Thank you Erik for taking the time to discuss this with me and answer a few questions.