Psychics Join the Manhunt

[George W. Maschke]

The Sunday Times of London reports (11-11-2001) in an article titled "Psychics join the manhunt" that U.S. intelligence agencies are recruiting psychics in an effort to predict Osama bin Ladin's next moves (the article is on-line here; I've added hyperlinks in the quoted version below):

US intelligence agencies are recruiting psychics to help predict future attacks and to find Osama Bin Laden. The recruits, known as "remote viewers", claim to be able to visualise happenings in distant places by using paranormal powers.

The US government established a remote viewing programme, known as Stargate, in the 1970s in an attempt to utilise the skills claimed by psychics to combat communism. The programme, at the Stanford Research Institute in California, was shut down in 1995 after the end of the cold war.

Now, however, US intelligence agencies are reactivating some of their old paranormal spies.

Prudence Calabrese, whose Transdimensional Systems employs 14 remote viewers, confirmed that the FBI had asked the company to predict likely targets of future terrorist attacks.

"Our reports suggest a sports stadium could be a likely target," she said.

The FBI and CIA refused to comment but confirmed investigators have been told to "think out of the box".

Angela Thompson-Smith and Lyn Buchanan, former members of Stargate, said that they, too, had been approached.

Hmmm. Hiring psychics may well be "outside the box," but is it "thinking?"

For further reading, see the Skeptic's Dictionary entry for "remote viewing."

The willingness of credulous intelligence officials to buy into such outlandish flights of fancy (with taxpayer dollars) puts their embracing of the pseudoscience of polygraphy into perspective.