Remote Viewing: How to Be Wrong from Across the World
Remote viewing is what happens when you take the ancient art of guessing and slap a government grant on it. It’s the mystical claim that certain gifted individuals can see distant locations, hidden objects, or secret events simply by concentrating really, really hard. In other words: psychic tourism, without leaving the couch.
At its peak, remote viewing was treated like serious business. The U.S. military, in a moment of breathtaking optimism and desperate Cold War panic, decided it was worth throwing tax dollars at a bunch of people squinting into the void and sketching blobs that were somehow supposed to represent Soviet missile silos. Unsurprisingly, the results were about as useful as asking a Magic 8-Ball if Moscow was planning anything suspicious.
Remote viewers are big on vague impressions. They’ll tell you they “sensed a body of water” or “a tall structure” or “something metallic,” which is about as specific and actionable as saying “I think there’s an air molecule nearby.” And when they miss — which is often — they don’t call it failure. They call it “nonlocal interference,” or “the viewer’s signal being distorted.” Translation: “I made it up, and you’re rude for noticing.”
Naturally, none of this has ever passed an actual scientific test. Controlled conditions kill psychic powers faster than common sense kills astrology. Remove the ability to cold-read, to pick up on unconscious clues, to fudge and backtrack, and the hit rate drops straight into random chance territory — exactly where it belongs.
Remote viewing persists because it flatters both the viewer and the true believer. It says you don’t need to travel, research, or think critically. You just have to trust your “impressions” — even when those impressions look suspiciously like someone trying to describe a parking lot while blindfolded and spinning on a carnival ride.
If your intelligence operation depends on Gary from Albuquerque squinting at a map and “feeling” that enemy submarines are somewhere near “a coastline,” you deserve every diplomatic disaster that follows.