DR HAL PUTHOFF
Position: SRI Program Leader 1971-1989
Initially began research into remote viewing at the Stanford Research Institute alongside Russell Targ, with the first psychic experiments conducted on Ingo Swann, a leading clairvoyant who had served in Korea but had become an artist. Also tested Uri Gellar in 1972, whose talents were deemed to be hard to pin down. Swann's success under Puthoff's programme attracted the attention of the CIA, who provided funding for the program. Ingo Swann talked of one incident that occurred between 1975 and 1976 when he was asked to view remotely Soviet submarines. He said: "This was one of those 'big test' things that went on, with witnesses, and the room was filled with top brass. (I said) 'Oh my God! Hal, I don't know what to do. I think that this submarine has shot down a UFO or the UFO fired on her. What shall I do?' And Puthoff was as pale as anything, you know, and he looked at me and whispered, 'Oh Christ! It's your show. You do what you think you should do.' So I sketched this picture of this UFO and this brass (two or three-star general) sitting on my right grabbed it and said, 'What's that, Mr Swann?' I said, 'Sir, I think it's rather obvious what that is.' And he took the paper and stood up, and when he stood up, everybody else stood up except me and Puthoff, and he walked out of the room, and so did the others. So Puthoff and I went back to the hotel and I said, 'Oh Christ, we've blown the program.' So we went out and got drunk on marguaritas and things like that. Three days later, Puthoff got a call. The call said, 'OK, how much money do you want?'."
Source: Remote Viewing by Tim Rifat

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