Remote viewing is the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen subject, purportedly sensing with the mind. Typically, a remote viewer is expected to give information about an object, event, person, or location that is hidden from physical view and separated at some distance. Remote viewing is done under controlled conditions, and the person who is doing the viewing is blind to the nature of what they are looking at. The remote viewer is expected to perceive details of a location or an activity that is otherwise shielded from them by being distant or remote in time or space.
Remote viewing was first proposed in 1970 by Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff, parapsychology researchers at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) . The term "remote viewing" was coined by Ingo Swann in December 1971 during an experiment at the American Society for Psychical Research in New York. During the Cold War years, the USA and Soviet Union are known to have been spying on each other using the services of psychic remote viewers, with the specific objective of gathering intelligence information of military significance.
Remote viewers describe the results of their experiences in written reports, which are forwarded to the end-users for evaluation and, if necessary, action. Remote viewing is a controversial topic, and there is no scientific evidence to support its effectiveness.
