Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McLane Smith, where for the weeks in between episodes, we look at stories and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make it into the previous show. In last week's episode, Visions in the Dark, we traced the incredible life story of Vangelia gusht or Ova, also known as Baba Vanger, who some believe was the most effective psychic of the twentieth century.
Fanger died in nineteen ninety six, but according to a number of her supporters, she is said to have left a string of predictions with instructions to reveal them at certain times after her death. So far, this list has included the prediction that in twenty twenty three the Earth's orbit will change, and that rather enigmatically, in twenty eighty four, Nate will be reborn, and my personal favorite that in twenty one thirty, with the help of alien civilizations, will
be able to live under water. As word of bab of Anger's apparent powers began to spread, she came to the attention of a number of mainstream scientific researchers, who were said to have made efforts to study her. Sadly, However, no official documentation or other significant evidence for this seems
to exist either way. Although it might seem unlikely that an individual such as bab of Anger and her supposed powers would be given any credibility by mainstream science, there is a long and fascinating history of well respected academics, many of whom have made significant contributions in their field, putting such people to the test, with often startling results.
Of all the supposed paranormal powers that some believe humans could possess, none have proved more fascinating to scientific researches than clairvoyance. In nineteen thirteen, French physiologist Charles Rochet won a Nobel Prize for medicine for his work on immunology, specifically the way in which some people can often have lethal reactions when injected with an antigen. Richet coined the
term anaphylaxis, still used today to describe this phenomenon. What is perhaps less known, however, is that Richey also spent a considerable part of his professional life studying the paranormal, in particular the apparent clairvoyant skills of spiritualists, and is even credited with coining the term ectoplasm. Richet conducted a number of studies which he believed confirmed the existence of human extrasensory powers. When others attention did to replicate his studies, however,
they were unable to draw the same conclusion. Brichet is considered to be one of the first to attempt a formal, mainstream science study of the apparent phenomenon of clairvoyance, but by the mid twentieth century such endeavors had become commonplace.
In the late nineteen twenties, botanist Joseph Banks Ryan brought the study of alleged psychic phenomena even further into the mainstream when he established a parapsychology lab at Duke University in North Carolina in the United States, one of the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Among Ryan's most famous subjects was Eileen Garrett, considered by some to be one of the most powerful clairvoyants to have ever lived.
Garrett's reputation was cemented largely due to a series of experiments conducted by Ryan in which she was tasked with trying to guess the images printed on cards in envelopes. Ryan claimed that Garrett was able to successfully guess the images at a rate far higher than chance, suggesting she did indeed have some kind of supernatural power, much like
with Charles Rochet's experiments. However, subsequent efforts to replicate Garrett's seemingly positive results proved unsuccessful, with many later questioning the
validity of Ryan's methods. Of all the scientists who have attempted to confirm the existence of psychical powers, however, none are perhaps more famous than Harold put Off and Russell targ Back in nineteen seventy two, Harold put Off, an electrical engineer and specialist in lasers, was looking to secure a grant to conduct a study and quantum biology, a fledgling concept at the time that examines the way which
quantum mechanics might affect biological processes. About the same time, he was introduced to a man named Ingo Swan, an artist based in New York who also claimed to have psychic abilities. Swan suggested to put Off that he should turn his attention instead to trying to understand at the quantum level where the border lies between an inanimate object
and an animate one. By way of explanation, Swan told put Off about some experiments he'd recently conducted with Professor Gertrude Schmidler at City College in New York, which he claimed provided proof that he had psychokinetic powers. Intrigued by Swan, put Off invited him to put these apparent powers to the test at the Stanford Research Institute, where he worked in Menlo Park, just outside of San Francisco in California.
On Swan's first day at the institute, put Off claimed that he successfully described the structure of a magnetometer, a device used to measure electromagnetic fields, that put Off had been planning to show him. Put Off was so blown away by this seemingly spontaneous act of clairvoyance that he wrote it up in a report for his colleagues, which came complete with the detailed schematic drawing that Swan, who claimed no knowledge of such devices, had drawn on that
first day. A few weeks later, two men showed up unannounced at Putoff's lab carrying a copy of his report on Swan. The men had come from the CIA, as they explained to a stunt put Off, they'd received word that the government of the Soviet Union was funding studies in parapsychology with a view to potentially harnessing paranormal powers
for use against their enemies. The men were intrigued to know more about put Off report and asked if the engineer would be interested in conducting some more experiments with Swan under their supervision, with the aim of starting their own parapsychology program. A few weeks later, the two operatives were sat and put Off slab holding a box chosen at random from a selection of identical boxes, each containing a different, unrelated object. It was Ingo Swan's job to
try and guess what was inside it. I see something small, brown and irregular, said Swan, who was sat alone inside an adjacent room, sort of like a leaf or something, except it seems very much alive. It's even moving. The men from the CIA opened the lid of their box, astonished to find flapping about inside a small brown moth that was almost indistinguishable from a leaf. We all deal
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That's promo code unexplained for twenty five percent off at Sunday Scaris dot com. After the success of his initial experiments, Harold put Off secured funding from the CIA to complete an eight month pilot study to determine firstly if clairvoyance was genuinely possible, and secondly, if it was, could it be used against the United States as a tool for espionage, put Off drafted in Russell Targ to assist him, a physicist who'd worked with him previously helping to develop lasers.
In the first few weeks, put Off and Targ continued to test Ingo Swan along the same lines as before, studying whether he was able to guess symbols and objects hidden from his view. When he apparently proved able to
do this regularly, they decided to expand the experiment. In what became known as the Outbounder experiments, put Off would traveled to one of six random locations within the San Francisco Bay area, while back in the laboratory, Russell Targ would sit with Swan as he attempted to guess where put Off had gone. Incredibly, according to put Off and targ,
more often than not he did it successfully. Although Swan would rarely guess the target location exactly, he provided enough elements to define it, such as the sense of water or a particular geometric shape, which, taken together, put Off and Targ argued could reasonably be said to be a correct reflection of it. Since such a process had never been tried before, the three men had to coin a term for what it was. They were doing, and eventually
alighted on the phrase remote viewing as Ingo Swan. Former police officer Pat Price was examined during this period too, and also found to have the capacity for remote viewing. At some point during the study, Russell targ invited his friend Hella Hammid to take part. Hamid, who immigrated to the US from Germany in the nineteen thirties, was a successful photographer at the time with little interest in psychical studies.
Hamid's job was to be the control subject to help get a sense of how much Swan or Price's apparent visions of the target deviated from the random guesses of a lay person. What they hadn't bargained for was Hamid apparently becoming the most effective remote viewer of them all. For her first trial, Hammid was asked to enter a shielded room, then close her eye and just say whatever
came into her mind. As she sat taking long, calm breaths, she claimed to see a series of squares within squares that got smaller and smaller, tapering off like a long path, disappearing into a central vanishing point. At the time, Harold put Off was standing at the entrance to a long pedestrian crossing with a chain link frame along the entirety of it that stretched out ahead of him and disappeared
into a central vanishing point. In the first nine trials conducted with hammid she was judged to have seen the location in her mind without question in five of them, while the other four were judged to be only marginally less accurate. In nineteen seventy seven, Hammered and Ingo Swan were invited to take part in another experiment with Stephen Schwartz, a scientific researcher who was also fascinated by the possible
abilities of remote viewing. In collaboration with put Off and targ and the Institute for Marine and Coastal Studies at the University of Southern California, Hammered and Swan were asked to locate and as yet undiscovered shipwreck that was thought to be located somewhere off the coast of California near Catalina Island. After separately being given an ocean map of the general area, both Hammered and Swan are said to have pinpointed a similar location within a hundred yards of
each other. Both also provided details about what would be found there, including chains pulleys, and the location of the ship's wheel, and, most oddly of all, a large rectangular block of stone. In June nineteen seventy seven, in what became known as Project Deep Quest, Hammered and Swan were taken down in a submarine named Taurus Wan. They guided
its pilot to the precise location of the wreck. Sure enough, they also found the pulleys, chains, and ship's wheel sticking out of the seabed, just as Hammered and Swan had predicted, and among it all, just like Hammid had also said, was the incongruous site of a large rectangular block of granite.
A declassified CIA report released in nineteen ninety five stated that there can be no question that Hella Hammid can repeatedly, although not reliably, reduce information not available through normal means. In nineteen seventy eight, having been sufficiently impressed by Harold put Off and Russell Targ's experiments at the Stamford Research Institute, the pair were invited by the CIA to lead a secret Defense Intelligence agency program to determine the potential usage
of psychic nomena in real world military engagements. The program was called the Stargate Project and you can hear much more about it in the next season of Unexplained. For now, there are three more episodes of season six still to come, along with their extras for you to enjoy. So as ever, thank you for listening and until next time. If you enjoy Unexplained and would like to help support us, you can now do so via Patreon To receive access to add three episodes. Just go to Patron dot com Forward
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