The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Defence chiefs spent £18,000 on a mystic experiment to find Bin Laden's lair.

23rd February 2007 (Daily Mail online)

The hunt for his secret lair has long baffled the finest military minds.
But now it has been claimed psychics were recruited by the Ministry of Defence to locate Osama Bin Laden.

Newly declassified documents revealed that the MoD conducted an experiment to find if volunteers could "see" objects hidden inside an envelope.
And it is suggested the ministry hoped positive results would allow it to use psychics to "remotely view" Bin Laden's base and also to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

However, after running up a bill of £18,000 of taxpayers money, defence chiefs concluded there was "little value" in using psychic powers in the defence of the nation and the research was taken no further.

The investigation was conducted in 2002, the year after the invasion of Afghanistan when Bin Laden's Houdini-like ability to evade capture
was becoming increasingly embarrassing for British and U.S. commanders.

The study involved blindfolding test subjects and asking them to "see" the contents of sealed brown envelopes containing pictures of objects and public figures.

The MoD tried to recruit 12 "known" psychics who advertised their abilities on the Internet, but when they all refused they were forced to use "novice" volunteers.

The report, released under the Freedom of Information Act, shows 28 per cent of those tested managed to correctly guess the contents of the envelopes, which included pictures of a knife and Mother Teresa.

But most subjects, who were holed up in a secret location for the study, were hopelessly off the mark. One even fell asleep while he tried to focus on the envelope's content.

A former MoD employee who received a copy of the report said the timing of the study must have been related to military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Nick Pope, who worked at the ministry for 21 years, said: "It can only be speculation, but you don't employ that kind of time and effort to find money down the back of the sofa.
"You go to this trouble for high-
value assets. We must be talking about Bin Laden and weapons of mass destruction."

The MoD has defended its decision to fund the secret tests, despite the questionable use of taxpayers" money.
A spokesman said: "The remote viewing study was conducted to assess claims made in some academic circles and to validate research carried out by other nations on psychic ability. The study concluded that remote viewing theories had little value to the MoD and was taken no further."

And Mr Pope said: "I don't think this was a waste of public money. Many people will say so, but I think it is marvellous that the Government is prepared to think outside the box. And this is as outside the box as it gets."

So , is it a good use of taxpayers money ?
Do you think psychic ability works over distances ? Any experiences of this ?
Thoughts on the article ?

Psychics huh..hmmmmmm


Interesting...since Military RM's....Remote Viewers had found him a long time ago...I guess everybody wants a piece of the action..

Sounds like they weren't just trying to fight the war on terror- sounds like they were just trying to disprove something

It's not the first time this type of thing has been done. Uri Geller was used by the alphabet company.

do you think they got this one?

I don't think it was a waste of taxpayers money. The fact that they actually gave thought to using psychics is marvelous progress. The success rate of 28% isn't all that bad for novices. It could have been better, I agree. But being open minded about trying to use psychics makes me feel like their may be hope for mankind after all.

Thanks for sharing the article Sabre.

I think it was probably a waste of taxpayers money, but then again so is alot of conventional purchases that our governments make.

I do like the idea also the willingness to pursue other non-conventional methods to seek intelligence.

I do believe in the possibility of Remote Viewing, but I think that amount of money could have been put to better use...like an improved flak-jacket.

most definitely IrishVampGirl. Maybe someone could create an "individual body armor" vest that is as effective as the ones we have now, but will allow more movement...it's nice to see the government being more open minded, but seeing that money go to better use, perhaps to help save a few more soldiers' lives, would just be more sensible.

They actually thought about using a psychic... Goes to show how much times have really changed.

First off, way to go because I put a lot of stock in Sylvia Browne. She's just amazing.

Now, as far as this goes, more liberal and even some skeptical police departments have been using psychics to help solve cases for years so I don't see why it would be surprising or anything for the military to use them for whatever purpose they see fit. If they found Osama, great job. Maybe now peoples minds will start to be more open. :)

It seems reasonable for them to try any tactics that might help them since obviously the military and intelligence community wasnt having any luck on their own.

The report, released under the Freedom of Information Act, shows 28 per cent of those tested managed to correctly guess the contents of the envelopes, which included pictures of a knife and Mother Teresa.

Insufficient data.

How many envelopes are we talking about, how many possibilities? Were the test subjects pre-informed of the type of contents? Influenced in any way? Was the test environment neutral, military, or something entirely else?

Sorry to crimp your enthusiasm here, but as far as information goes this one is worthless.

An interesting - and somewhat funny, in a cynical sense, - story, nonetheless, but not of any scientific interest at all.

I don't know the actual figures on the war but i am sure that 18,000 is a really, really small amount in the scheme of things

They used a little cash to investigate something that, if it had worked, could have saved time and lives.

What I find interesting is the idea of Psychic Counter Inteligence. A complete war based on the preminitions of just psychics. Wouldn't that be wild.

I think that until we can find a way of separating the real psychics from the charlatans, this will continue to be a waste of taxpayers money.

I have to agree with Irishvampgirl on this one. There are deffinatly better things to be spending the money on.

I think it is a wonderful thing they are starting to give validity to psychics, and are using them in such a cause. Even though they might not know where it is.. what progression others are using, beside the police to uncover the truth..~NFA

well some one has to find him :)

while i do applude the government's open mindedness..spending that much money on psychics isn't much better then the $10000 toilet seat.

I agree with my girl irishvampgirl , the government really doesnt care what they are spending money anymore. While the soilders are getting killed , they are farting around with a buttload of psycics that produced nothing and now the money is gone down the drain.

Government spends money on many things,besides psychics.If interested look up shamanwarriors its quite interesting.

I will have to also agree on Sil post weshould be fortunate and we could be spending money on other things then that

i believe that psychics (SOME) are real and some do know what they are talking about but there are so many that are fake that its hard to know what to believe sometimes i guess

here is the site i was referring too.Intersting read.

http://www.warriorshaman.com/index.html

I do not think it is a good use of taxpayer money!:(

I am not sure if it could really work over distance. I do not have any experience of this.

I am not sure on what to think of this article, either. A desprate attempt to find his layer, maybe? But, I do not blame them, for I would do anything to find this place, too. I just really don't like the amount of tax money that was being put into this study.

The states did use remote viewers to find bin laden but as far as the experiment goes there is way better things the government could do to use the money more wisely. There is education and more doctors things that people need that are being taken away from society for the use in wars

Thanks Sabre, that was fun to learn. There has been more money wasted by all involved than ever should have been but while I find this ideal far fetched if it had worked it could have saved a great many lives and even more money so as an experiment it was worth it.

Unfortunately, since we've still found no way to accurately measure someone's ability or validity in the metaphysical or psychic, it would seem that this is a case of throwing money at something and hoping it sticks.

I think that there could be a valid use for psychics but you first must find a way to weed out the fakes. If not, the information you get could actually be COUNTERproductive. Instead of leading you to your target, you could be led in the opposite direction. Admittedly, there is a huge pressure on the governments for results but this is likely to upset the critics of those governments even more.

I'll tell you what the whole thing is just creepy to me. And what if they're wrong? are they really embarassed? do they still get payed? What happens to them afterwards? Do they have to go into the witness protection program because of what they have "seen"?

it is a waste of taxpayers money when taxpayers are already funding soldiers over there

perahps it is a waste of money... but really isnt that part of the purpose of governments, to misuse and misallocate taxpayers money?

Well maybe its not the purpose, but I have never heard of a government that didnt throw money down the drain.

Cynical much? A movie was actually made about Remote Viewers. Go watch Suspect Zero

not a good way to spend us taxpayers money if you ask me

I agree. there are more pressing things to worry about like homelessnes. AIDS and bringing out troops home

not having anything against the US military but think they need all the help they can get. Psychics have been used by the police to solve crimes so the defence department might as well get into it. Who knows it may work....

Why not use them! After all everrything else has failed. Imagine there are spy satellites that can see an ant in your backyard(even in the dark), BUT a 6'5'' Arab who walks with a cane and is constantly surrounded by bodyguards cannot be located

I really have to agree with Irishvampgirl... theres alot better thing we can do with the money... they have been very lavish in what they do.

It's great that they were actually willing to give this a shot. However, because psychic powers can be very unpredictable, it may have been a waste of money since you can't get the answers 100% of the time.

i honestly feel the psychic use on the war f terror was an intersting idea and i do believe one tha could have worked well but do also believe such pows should not be used in such a such a dark way

i wonder what credentials these psychics had as to a proven track record of accuracy. There are individuals out there with a scary ability to read minds and know things that they really shouldnt or couldnt have known...

As far as spending money on it.... the us government spent 1 million dollars to develop a pen that would work in space... im not sure why a pencil wouldnt have cut it...my point is this... governments will always waste tax payers money and that paying for a study on psychics is the least of our concern when it comes to wasteful spending.

Its a breakthrough for those with that ability,nice to see them being recognised for what they are.i hope they succeed.

I do believe that there are those that possess the ability to have prophetic visions; however, they would not work well for this matter. Additionally, I do think that this is a waste of money in the use for national security. Anyone with a real talent is not going to step forward and reveal themselves just to be used at the Government's discretion.

These studies have been going on in many countries for decades. I don't feel it's a waist as 18K is nothing specially senses one missile on an aircraft costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. I wish they would do more studies but it's to taboo to do so. It’s a shame.

i think the government is shady. they want us to think everything is different than it actually is. i think it would be dangerous for the government (better for us of course) to have psychics help out. But u cant really trust anything that has to do with the government (in my opinion anyway)

Especially these days.

If they could find real psychics that could be somewhat reliably used, it would be handy.

But I can imagine that their lives would be pretty much ruined after that.

Never trust the government in anything. They oppose anything that could give them a bad name.

I guess it was a waste, they should have let them try to see if they could have found him. What could have hurt, they already took the time in doing the research in finding the Psychics why not use them.

psychics is a good idea. numbers shure as hell are not gonna do it. but they need to use real psychics not fake wanna be's.

You may be interested to learn that US military and the Russian military have been supporting remote viewing experimentation since the end of world war 2.

Both of these governments believed that there are human beings in the world that use more then 10% of their brain. It is believed that individuals that use a higher percentage of their brain have psychic abilities.

Experiments that were conducted by the US government regarding remote viewing. The put a group of the test subjects in a room and asked them to look for a specific item located in another country and to draw what they saw. Everyone of the people that were tested had no previous knowledge of the item or it's location.

Most of the people tested were able to draw the specific location of ships and armaments.

Both the Russians and the Americans were suing remote viewing all through the cold war.

It reasonable to believe that these governments and other governments around the world have sunk millions of dollars into these programs to see just what the Human mind id capable of.

i always have and will always belive that physics are a load or crap :)

Hey, if it works then go for it. :)

i did not know about that but i guess that is what they get for using powers like that to do their dirty work it all comes to bite them in the ass.....

I think this is one more example of how desperate or leaders are. Going into the fifth year of the war that has nothing to do with 911. We are still talking about the troops getting the right equipment. Sorry I'm off topic.
I would like to know what kind of back ground the Psychics had and what kinda documented successes they had.
If they where just money grubbing fakes then that was a tragic waste of funds that could have been better spent on our Troops.

Lucifer- While I too am very much so against our *current* government, I have to disagree that they avoid all things that "give them a bad name." The use of psychics undoubtably will bring upon them thousands of angry letters/phone calls from extreme religious fanatics and groups, and skeptics (or angry tax-payers!).

This article is about the British government...I'm curious if the UK is more open about their projects in this regard...was this a leak? We know the CIA claimed that their projects were 'unpromising' but they apparently found it promising enough to let the DOD take over and we don't hear much about it since.

Hmmmm that much money to find this man & yet he still evades all the people out there looking for him..Amazing that they can spy & see/find things that most of us cant begin to fathom but an older man w/a cane surrounded by body guards that cant be found...... Im amazed that they thought about using psychics. Most politicians out there seem to be money hungry but they took the time to waste a bit of it on psychics...Politicians never cease to surprise me. Even though they were thinking outside of the box for once couldnt they have put the money to good use, like pulling our troops out of a country that no longer wants them there & bring them home to their families?

It is still tho a question to be carefull, cause in this area, some are real and truthful, some are just fake, so it still a sensitive domain because of the many fake

I think everyone is Psychic to a degree...

Sometime predicting the future only by 2 or 3 seconds... Somewhat, Blind anticipation...

Sometimes I feel Deja Vu alot, and sometimes I can sense when sometime is about to happen, if only by 2-3 seconds before it happens.

The further I've predicted certain events into the future is about 2 minutes. Nothing serious... just random events.

As far as seeing the contents of an envelope.. I don't know, somepeople might have that ablilty, like that said in the article, 28% were correct.

the other 72% of the self proclaimed psychics could just be liars?

With all this said, I AM NOT PSYCHIC. possibly just a good guesser...

Anyways, I hope this helps.

~Sir Jäger

Meeper, re the Pace Pen, The Russions response to writting in space was indead to take a pencil! It would appear this had never occured to NASA.

As for Psychics, knowning the british government there is NO freedom of Information act which applies to scret documentation untill the validity clauses expire (usualy 60 years I think, but can be alot more) so if the expeirment HAD worked we would not know about it!

However Psychic powers do exist, I've seen two many examples not to be convinced, but there stability is notoriously bad, and that is what will damage any "military" application.

Incidentally however its only relatively recently that Magic and Psychics were not part of everyday political life.

Rasputin as an example in Russia, Queen Victoria had a range of clarvoyants and psychics under her employ, and Queen Elizabeth I had a number of pet psychics and a court appointed wizard (for want of a better word)

This "rational age" is the only age in which such powers have EVER been debunked! Still, I guess we know so much more then those poor ignorant savages of our past (Ooh the irony!)

i say thatthey were given this gift to help others.. thisis a good way to help our men and women over seas in the Huge Sandbox over there... Maybe it wil bring them home alittle sooner.

I also appreciate the governments openness as has been stated. Psychics do exist and I'm sure a lot of money is spent on more trivial matters.

ReaperHunt – RV studies where being conducted before WWII but its safe to say that they picked up afterward. Most serious studies were conducted later and in more recent times. Not only are governments conducting various tests there are third party corporations doing so as well, some with government backing. I’m sure testing will never go away. As we develop newer technologies and better understandings of how our bodies and minds function we’ll be able to develop better tests.

Coughcool – If you want documentation on success there are a few good books and sites out there on this subject. Most people don’t understand how theses tests are done and what kind of results can actually be obtained so you might get disappointed on how those conducting the tests defined successes.

FelixFelix – The CIA claimed that they were unpromising for a couple of points. In the US most of this testing to date has shown that certain individuals do indeed surpass randomness to a degree high enough to say, “yes there is something extraordinary going on here” however the actual results that have been disclosed and published have not been significant enough for credible use for Intel or other related work.

For example: In a blind test say a Viewer was able to tell you that a white shoe box sat on a wooden table in an otherwise empty room with a vacation photo and a house key in it. That was what they where providing you. Now try to imagine how many building there are in the world that have wooden tables on them. How long would it take to search them all for the shoe box?

This is just a grouse example but it hits the point. The viewings may be accurate (In the test room two doors down the Viewer saw things correctly) but the Viewers can not tune the viewings in clear enough like a satellite or camera image can. Viewers can’t provide clear and valuable enough information for practical use. Thus governments and agencies world wide keep trying but to date have had no published results that they deemed successful or practical.

And as others have danced around, if someone could provide 100% clairvoyance most likely they would never been seen from again and they would become another tool of the government kept like a hamster in some lab.