Russell Targ (born April 11, 1934) is an American
physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe.
Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...
,
parapsychologist and author who is best known for his work on
remote viewing
Remote viewing (RV) 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 ...
.
Targ joined
Stanford Research Institute
SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic ...
(SRI) in 1972 where he and
Harold E. Puthoff coined the term "remote viewing" for the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen target using parapsychological means. Later, he worked with Puthoff on the US
Defence Intelligence Agency's Stargate Project.
Targ's work on remote viewing has been characterized as
pseudoscience
Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claim ...
and has also been criticized for lack of rigor.
Early life, education and career
Targ was born in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
.
He is the son of
William Targ, an American book editor who was well known and respected in the field of commercial publishing. According to
Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writings of ...
, Targ was introduced to the
paranormal
Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Nota ...
by his father whose Chicago bookstore carried a variety of paranormal works and whose later published works at
Putnam included a biography of
Helena Blavatsky
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, uk, Олена Петрівна Блаватська, Olena Petrivna Blavatska (; – 8 May 1891), often known as Madame Blavatsky, was a Russian mystic and author who co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875 ...
, founder of the
Theosophical Society
The Theosophical Society, founded in 1875, is a worldwide body with the aim to advance the ideas of Theosophy in continuation of previous Theosophists, especially the Greek and Alexandrian Neo-Platonic philosophers dating back to 3rd century CE ...
, and
Erich von Däniken
Erich Anton Paul von Däniken (; ; born 14 April 1935) is a Swiss author of several books which make claims about extraterrestrial influences on early human culture, including the best-selling ''Chariots of the Gods?'', published in 1968. Von D ...
's ''
Chariots of the Gods Chariots of the Gods may refer to
* ''Chariots of the Gods?'', a 1968 book by Erich von Däniken
* ''Chariots of the Gods (film)'', a 1970 documentary film, based on the book
* ''Chariot of the Gods (album)'', a 2022 studio album by Hoodoo Gurus
...
''.
Targ received a
B.S.
A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years.
The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...
in
physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which re ...
from
Queens College
Queens College (QC) is a public college in the Queens borough of New York City. It is part of the City University of New York system. Its 80-acre campus is primarily located in Flushing, Queens. It has a student body representing more than 170 ...
in 1954. From 1954 to 1956, he completed two years of graduate work in physics at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
without taking a degree.
Lasers and engineering research
Russell Targ was involved in early
laser research at Technical Research Group where he co-authored, with
Gordon Gould among others, a 1962 paper describing the use of
homodyne detection with laser light. Later, at Sylvania Electronic Systems, he contributed to the development of frequency modulation and
mode-locking
Mode locking is a technique in optics by which a laser can be made to produce pulses of light of extremely short duration, on the order of picoseconds (10−12 s) or femtoseconds (10−15 s). A laser operated in this way is sometimes ...
of lasers,
and co-authored a 1969 paper which described the operation of a kilowatt
continuous wave
A continuous wave or continuous waveform (CW) is an electromagnetic wave of constant amplitude and frequency, typically a sine wave, that for mathematical analysis is considered to be of infinite duration. It may refer to e.g. a laser or particle ...
laser.
In 1972, Targ joined the Electronics and Bioengineering Laboratory at SRI as a senior research physicist in a program founded by
Harold E. Puthoff. The two conducted research into psychic abilities and their operational use for the U.S. intelligence community, including NASA, the
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
,
Defense Intelligence Agency
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is an intelligence agency and combat support agency of the United States Department of Defense, specializing in defense and military intelligence.
A component of the Department of Defense (DoD) and the ...
and
Army Intelligence.
Targ worked at SRI until 1982.
From 1986 to 1998 Targ worked in
electro-optics as a senior staff scientist at the
Lockheed Missiles and Space Company
Lockheed Missiles and Space Company (LMSC) was a unit of the Lockheed Corporation "Missiles, Space, and Electronics Systems Group." LMSC was started by Willis Hawkins who served as its president. After Lockheed merged with Martin-Marietta the ...
, where he contributed to
aviation
Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot ...
windshear sensing applications of
Doppler
The Doppler effect or Doppler shift (or simply Doppler, when in context) is the change in frequency of a wave in relation to an observer who is moving relative to the wave source. It is named after the Austrian physicist Christian Doppler, who d ...
heterodyne
A heterodyne is a signal frequency that is created by combining or mixing two other frequencies using a signal processing technique called ''heterodyning'', which was invented by Canadian inventor-engineer Reginald Fessenden. Heterodyning is us ...
lidar
Lidar (, also LIDAR, or LiDAR; sometimes LADAR) is a method for determining ranges (variable distance) by targeting an object or a surface with a laser and measuring the time for the reflected light to return to the receiver. It can also be ...
technology.
Parapsychology research
Remote viewing
Remote viewing (or RV) is the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen target using subjective means, in particular,
extra-sensory perception
Extrasensory perception or ESP, also called sixth sense, is a claimed paranormal ability pertaining to reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses, but sensed with the mind. The term was adopted by Duke Universit ...
(ESP) or "sensing with 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. The term was coined in the 1970s by Targ and Puthoff, while working as researchers at SRI, to differentiate it from
clairvoyance
Clairvoyance (; ) is the magical ability to gain information about an object, person, location, or physical event through extrasensory perception. Any person who is claimed to have such ability is said to be a clairvoyant () ("one who sees cl ...
.
In 1972 Puthoff and Targ tested remote viewer
Ingo Swann
Ingo Douglas Swann (14 September 1933, Telluride, Colorado – 31 January 2013, New York City) was an American psychic, artist, and writer known for being the co-creator, along with Russell Targ and Harold E. Puthoff,''Mind-Reach: Scientists ...
at SRI, and the experiment led to a visit from two employees of the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology.
The result was a $50,000 CIA-sponsored project known as the
Stargate Project.
The SRI team published papers in ''
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are p ...
'' and ''
Proceedings of the IEEE
The ''Proceedings of the IEEE'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The journal focuses on electrical engineering and computer science. According to the ''Journa ...
''. They also presented their work in a symposium on consciousness at a national meeting of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respon ...
.
A number of scientific reviews of the SRI (and later) experiments on remote viewing found no credible evidence that remote viewing works, and the topic of remote viewing is regarded as
pseudoscience
Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claim ...
.
[ Marks, David; Kammann, Richard. (2000). '' The Psychology of the Psychic''. Prometheus Books. ]
Reception
The psychologists
David Marks and Richard Kammann attempted to replicate Targ and Puthoff's remote viewing experiments and disputed the claims that the experiments were successful; for example, they were able to successfully identify targets from cues given by the investigators and recorded in the transcripts. They concluded: "Until remote viewing can be confirmed in conditions which prevent sensory cueing the conclusions of Targ and Puthoff remain an unsubstantiated hypothesis." The researchers said that Targ and Puthoff had not provided unpublished transcripts when requested, but that after obtaining them from a judge in the study they were able to find "a wealth of cues".
Simon Hoggart
Simon David Hoggart (26 May 1946 – 5 January 2014) was an English journalist and broadcaster. He wrote on politics for ''The Guardian'', and on wine for ''The Spectator''. Until 2006 he presented ''The News Quiz'' on BBC Radio 4. His journali ...
and Mike Hutchinson described Targ as willing to believe and overly credulous. A 1988 report by the
United States National Research Council
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (also known as NASEM or the National Academies) are the collective scientific national academy of the United States. The name is used interchangeably in two senses: (1) as an umbrell ...
(NRC) concluded: "There should remain little doubt that the Targ–Puthoff studies are fatally flawed."
Remote viewing was popularized in the 1990s upon the
declassification
Declassification is the process of ceasing a protective classification, often under the principle of freedom of information. Procedures for declassification vary by country. Papers may be withheld without being classified as secret, and even ...
of certain documents related to the
Stargate Project, a US$20 million research program that had started in 1975 and was sponsored by the
U.S. government
The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a feder ...
in an attempt to determine any potential military application of psychic phenomena. The program was terminated in 1995 after it failed to produce any useful intelligence information. David Goslin, of the
American Institutes for Research said: "There's no documented evidence it had any value to the intelligence community."
A variety of scientific studies of remote viewing have been conducted. Some earlier, less sophisticated experiments produced positive results, but they had invalidating flaws.
[ Marks, David; Kammann, Richard. (2000). '' The Psychology of the Psychic''. Prometheus Books. ] None of the more recent experiments have shown positive results when conducted under
properly controlled conditions.
This lack of successful experiments has led the mainstream scientific community to reject remote viewing, based upon 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.
Science writers including
Gary Bennett,
Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writings of ...
,
Michael Shermer
Michael Brant Shermer (born September 8, 1954) is an American science writer, historian of science, executive director of The Skeptics Society, and founding publisher of '' Skeptic'' magazine, a publication focused on investigating pseudoscientifi ...
, and professor of neurology
Terence Hines
Terence Hines (born 22 March 1951) is a professor of psychology at Pace University, New York, and adjunct professor of neurology at the New York Medical College; he is also a science writer. Hines has a BA from Duke University, and an MA and ...
describe the topic of remote viewing as
pseudoscience
Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claim ...
.
According to
Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writings of ...
, Targ and Puthoff "imagined they could do research in parapsychology but instead dealt with 'psychics' who were cleverer than they were".
Further work on parapsychology
The SRI remote viewing project also encompassed the work of such consulting "consciousness researchers" as the artist/writer
Ingo Swann
Ingo Douglas Swann (14 September 1933, Telluride, Colorado – 31 January 2013, New York City) was an American psychic, artist, and writer known for being the co-creator, along with Russell Targ and Harold E. Puthoff,''Mind-Reach: Scientists ...
and
Military Intelligence Corps chief warrant officer
Chief warrant officer is a military rank used by the United States Armed Forces, the Canadian Armed Forces, the Pakistan Air Force, the Israel Defense Forces, the South African National Defence Force, the Lebanese Armed Forces and, since 2012, t ...
Joseph McMoneagle.
Targ and Puthoff both expressed the belief that
Uri Geller
Uri Geller ( ; he, אורי גלר; born 20 December 1946) is an Israeli-British illusionist, magician, television personality, and self-proclaimed psychic. He is known for his trademark television performances of spoon bending and other il ...
, retired police commissioner Pat Price and artist
Ingo Swann
Ingo Douglas Swann (14 September 1933, Telluride, Colorado – 31 January 2013, New York City) was an American psychic, artist, and writer known for being the co-creator, along with Russell Targ and Harold E. Puthoff,''Mind-Reach: Scientists ...
all had genuine psychic abilities; however, flaws were found with the controls in the experiments and Geller was caught using
sleight of hand
Sleight of hand (also known as prestidigitation or ''legerdemain'' ()) refers to fine motor skills when used by performing artists in different art forms to entertain or manipulate. It is closely associated with close-up magic, card magic, card ...
on many other occasions. The SRI tests gave Geller substantial control over the procedures used to test him, with few limits on his behavior during the test.
In 1982, Targ with Keith Harary and Anthony White formed a company, Delphi Associates, to sell psychic consulting services to individuals and businesses.
In the book ''Mind Race'', Targ and Harary claimed that all nine silver futures predictions made at Delphi in 1982 were correct; however, a later attempt failed. According to
Henry Gordon, "As with most psychic claims, there is little documentation to back them up."
Ray Hyman
Ray Hyman (born June 23, 1928) is a Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, and a noted critic of parapsychology. Hyman, along with James Randi, Martin Gardner and Paul Kurtz, is one of the founders of the ...
has written "Targ and Harary's much-publicized case for the reality of psi and the validity of remote viewing is filled with exaggerated and unsupported conclusions. Their careless scholarship leads to new deceptions."
Personal life
Russell was married to
Joan Fischer Targ, who died in 1998.
Russell and Joan had a daughter,
Elisabeth Targ, who was a
psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their ...
and parapsychologist
and two sons Alexander and Nicholas.
In 2003 Targ married artist Patricia Kathleen Phillips.
Joan Fischer Targ was the sister of
World Chess Champion
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the world champion in chess. The current world champion is Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who has held the title since 2013.
The first event recognized as a world championship was the 1886 match ...
Bobby Fischer
Robert James Fischer (March 9, 1943January 17, 2008) was an American chess grandmaster and the eleventh World Chess Champion. A chess prodigy, he won his first of a record eight US Championships at the age of 14. In 1964, he won with an 11 ...
.
In 2004 Targ assisted Fischer, who had been a fugitive in the United States since violating a trade embargo with his
1992 victory over
Boris Spassky
Boris Vasilievich Spassky ( rus, Бори́с Васи́льевич Спа́сский, Borís Vasíl'yevich Spásskiy; born January 30, 1937) is a Russian chess grandmaster who was the tenth World Chess Champion, holding the title from 1969 ...
.
While Fischer was detained in Japan with extradition pending, Targ worked to support a claim of German citizenship for Fischer.
In ''
Pawn Sacrifice'', a 2014 biopic of Fischer, Targ appears briefly, portrayed by Marco Verdoni.
Targ, who is
legally blind
Visual impairment, also known as vision impairment, is a medical definition primarily measured based on an individual's better eye visual acuity; in the absence of treatment such as correctable eyewear, assistive devices, and medical treatment� ...
, is an avid motorcyclist and has published a memoir on his experiences as a "blind biker".
Publications
Books authored
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Books co-authored
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*
*
Journal articles
On remote viewing
*
*
*
*
On precognition
*
On lasers and electro-optics
*
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References
External links
ESPResearch.com- Russell Targ's site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Targ, Russell
1934 births
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
21st-century American physicists
Columbia University alumni
Living people
Parapsychologists
Lockheed Missiles and Space Company people