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MEMORANDUM FOR THE UNDER SECRETARY OF THE ARMY
SUBJECT: Grill Flame
6 August1979
1. The Scientific Evaluation Committee decided to issue this interim
report in order to highlight an emerging recommendation, which should
get immediate attention in order to avoid additional time delays and costs.
2. Following our initial review of RV experiments, especially those
performed in accordance with the SRI protocol and procedures, it is our
conclusion that existing experimental practices are not likely to enhance
the credibility in the RV process, nor are they likely to establish the
existence of the very phenomena.
3. The currently planned AMSAA proposal has recognized many of the
weaknesses in the existing RV protocols and has taken important steps
to affect constructive changes. AMSAA has especially recognized the basic
problems associated with the judging process, and they have proposed
procedures which tend to attack human frailties and reduce their impact
on the final outcome. However, it is our opinion, that probably because
of the pressure of time and resources, they have not gone far enough
to provide an unambiguous judging methodology.
4. We recommend that AMSAA be tasked to address the issue of an RV
experiment that approaches, as far as possible, "viewing" experiments
which can be judged by humans, hopefully in a mechanistic way, i. e,,
filling in blocks on an answer sheet responsive to "yes" or "no" type of
answers. It may be useful to do this work in addition to the type of
experiments already planned, rather than in complete replacement
thereof. What we recommend can be approached by picking targets that
are simple and in such contrast to their surroundings that no imagination
is needed to ascertain a "match", to what AMSAA calls an "essence" or
"concept". This, of course, would mean that the AMSAA's target pool
must include targets that are simple, relatively unambiguous and well
defined by a minimum of descriptors such as shape, smell, size, function,
etc. (Since relatively simple scenes are alleged to offend the sensi-
bilities of the viewers, we should then be prepared to grudgingly increase
the complexity until the viewers appear to be satisfied.
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S' E C R ET GRILL FLANE
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5. We realize that adapting experimental modifications to seriously
reduce the uncertainties in the judging process will slow down the
current rate of effort and may also increase costs, however, we feel
that in the long run this is more than justified if the goal is to conduct
an RV experiment which benefits to the maximum extent from the
perceived faults and doubts of previous work, and which could form
the basis for building a disciplined data base in this area.
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MANFRED GALE
Chairman
Grill Flame, Scientific
Evaluation Committee
GRILL FLAME HCRET
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GRILL FLAME
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