CIA releases report on remote viewing of Jupiter

It's no secret that in the 60s, 70s, and even into the 80s, the CIA spent a surprising amount of funding on a series of remote viewing projects. 

Even so, it's startling to read a document detailing one such experiment, which took place in 1973 and involved renowned psychics Harold Sherman and Ingo Swann. The document was released this week as part of a CIA dump, wherein 12 million documents were declassified and released to the public.

The theory of remote viewing postulates that, by entering one sort of trance or another, subjects can send their consciousness out into the world and report back. This would naturally interest the CIA, due to its potential for invisibly spying on anything, anywhere, essentially for free.

Sadly, remote viewing never really panned out beyond the level of random chance and classic "cold reading" techniques.

Such seems to be the case with  Sherman and Swann, who were tasked with remote viewing the planet Jupiter, just ahead of the Pioneer 10 probe. Even today, it's surprising how little we know about Jupiter. However, we know that everything Swann and Sherman reported was either a well-established fact at the time, or was completely wrong.

Sherman, for example, reported that Jupiter's "cloud cover must be miles deep" and that a "huge red mass" moves across the face of Jupiter. Both of which were quite well known at the time. (Jupiter's red spot, one of its most distinguished features, was first identified in 1665 by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Cassini.)