Remote Viewing

Remote viewing (RV) is the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen target using paranormal means, in particular, extra-sensory perception (ESP) or "sensing with mind". Unlike traditional psychic practices, remote viewers use physical models to organize their alleged extra-sensory perceptions and to stabilized the virtual umwelt. Scientific studies have been conducted; some earlier, less sophisticated experiments produced positive results but they had invalidating flaws, and none of the newer experiments had positive results when under properly controlled conditions. The scientific community rejects remote viewing due to the absence of an evidence base, the lack of a theory which would explain remote viewing, and the lack of experimental techniques which can provide reliably positive results. It is also considered a pseudoscience.

Typically a remote viewer is expected to give information about an object that is hidden from physical view and separated at some distance. The term was coined in the 1970s by Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff, parapsychology researchers at Stanford Research Institute, to distinguish it from clairvoyance.

Remote viewing was popularized in the 1990s, following the declassification of documents related to the Stargate Project, a $20 million research program sponsored by the U.S. Federal Government to determine any potential military application of psychic phenomena. The program was eventually terminated in 1995, because it had failed to produce any useful intelligence information.