CIA Uri Geller SRI 1973: full experimental record

The experiment was performed ten times. Geller was asked to identify the face of a die shaken in a closed steel box. The box was vigorously shaken by one of the experimenters and placed on a table. The position of the die was not known to the researchers.

Geller provided the correct answer eight times. He declined to respond two times, saying his perception was not clear. The probability that eight correct responses could have occurred by chance was approximately one in a million.

[Note in original document]: In those cases in which he passed, he said his perception was not clear. The experimenters noted that Geller had received widespread publicity based on reports that he can bend metal by paranormal means. The die experiment was not related to metal bending. The protocol was designed specifically to test clairvoyance of a well-defined physical state.

Target: a drawing of the devil. The drawing was held by Targ in a separate room. Puthoff was with Geller in the shielded room. Puthoff called Targ to indicate the experiment had begun. Targ did not describe the drawing.

Geller spent almost a half hour working on the drawing before producing the first of several responses. His drawings were as follows:

1. "Moses' Tablets" , the Ten Commandments, inside the world with a trident on the outside.

2. Apple with a worm coming out of it. A snake was in the same picture.

3. Composite picture with the Ten Commandments on top of the world, God inside the world and the trident on the outside, along with a neatly drawn leaf.

[Note in original document]: One is led to speculate that the Garden of Eden representation in these three drawings is perhaps associational material triggered by the target. The inability on Geller's part to draw the devil may be culturally induced.

In another drawing experiment during the same August session, Geller produced drawings that the document records as closer to the target. The document notes two drawings produced in one sitting, one of which was described as "complex and indescribable."

[Note in original document]: In those cases in which Geller made drawings, the results did not depart significantly from what would be expected by chance when evaluated by blind judging. The die experiment produced the session's most statistically significant result.

Targ and Puthoff presented themselves as neutral physical scientists, well aware of the hazards of dealing with a professional magician whose avowed purpose at SRI is to obtain certification as an authentic psychic, and willing to accept only experimental results that admit of no explanation through fraud, sleight-of-hand, or other trickery.

Austin Kibler and George Lawrence have been to SRI to observe Geller, Puthoff and Targ in action. There is serious doubt that Geller's accomplishment transcends the range of activities a skillful magician can perform, and much concern that Puthoff's and Targ's own experimental bias in favor of successful outcomes is undermining their objectivity in designing properly controlled experimental procedures.

Geller's connections with Dr. A. Puharich, with whom many unsavory reports have been linked, also is disturbing.

However, I personally observed at yesterday's briefing no unorthodox behavior by Puthoff or Targ that could serve to corroborate ARPA's judgment.

The CIA's own observer attended the SRI briefing and personally found no evidence of fraud or procedural manipulation in what Puthoff and Targ presented. The ARPA observers who had visited SRI directly reached the opposite conclusion. The CIA document records both assessments without resolving the conflict between them.

The results covered research from October 1972 to March 1974. The scientists described experiments in which:

Uri Geller, an Israeli subject, reproduced target pictures drawn by experimenters at remote locations while Geller was in an electrically shielded room.

Pat Price, a former California police commissioner, perceived remote outdoor scenes many miles from their physical location in experiments in which neither the subject nor the experimenters knew the location in advance.

Brain wave recordings (EEGs) were made of subjects receiving visual signals without being in the normal line of sight for optical transmission.

In another experiment with Geller, he was asked to guess the face of a die shaken in a closed steel box. The box was vigorously shaken by one of the experimenters and placed on a table. The position of the die was not known to the researchers. Geller provided the correct answer eight times. The probability that this could have occurred by chance was about one in a million. The experiment was performed ten times but Geller declined to respond two times, saying his perception was not clear.

Both Geller and the researchers agreed that in those cases in which he made drawings, the results did not depart significantly from what would be expected by chance. [Note: the Nature paper's statistically significant claim rested on the die experiment and the remote viewing protocol, not the drawing experiments.]