by Ken Renshaw
A few miles beyond the Rawhide Cafe my GPS navigator directed me onto an unmarked, dirt road, which led up the mountain for a mile or so, and then onto another unmarked dirt road that led me to Steve's, where the navigator announced, 'You have arrived.'
Steve's house was a log cabin, the kind made from brown-stained factory logs, perched on a hillside, with spacious deck on the front, a high peaked roof, with a satellite dish mounted on the peak.
Steve appeared at the deck rail and said, "Come on up."
I walked up the two flights of stairs and was warmly greeted by Steve, a six-foot-two bear of a man who looked like an NFL lineman, with a well–tanned face, sparkling blue eyes, and black hair in need of cutting. He introduced me to Georgia, a beautiful Latina –looking woman, with shiny long straight hair, large eyes and mouth, and thick eyebrows. She came out onto the deck with a tray of iced tea.
"Beautiful view," I said, taking a glass of tea. "You can see forever!"
"Physically, it is about fifteen miles to that ridge. Psychically, as you know, I can see a lot farther."
The three of us sat down at a picnic table on the deck and talked about Rocky Butte, the people there, and the aesthetic virtues of living away from civilization. I told him about my mobile home in the desert.
Georgia commented as she looked at me, or rather looked through me, "I pick up something about a dark-complexioned lady with reddish hair and piercing light–blue eyes," She paused, "and an exuberant attitude toward life associated with this desert place."
"Georgia, don't scare the man," exclaimed Steve.
"No, I am getting to be quite at home with ESP and people who have it!" I smiled at Georgia. "Her name is Tina, and she spends time with me. She seems to be kind of psychic. Sometimes, she can tell me what I am visualizing." I felt some pleasant thoughts about Tina.
I paused and then added, "Before this case, I never thought much about ESP. I do know I can read juries pretty well and can tell when I am going in the wrong direction in an argument, or when something is upsetting or confusing. I always called it intuition. I can also sort of feel it when someone is lying to me."
Steve added, "Georgia is much better than I at reading other people's mental pictures. I can hardly do it at all. But, she doesn't do the things I do. We all have our own special abilities."
Georgia looked through me for a second, then changed her focus to me, smiled a knowing smile, and then said, "I kind of thought so. I'll fix lunch while you guys talk. We insist on you staying for dinner and spending the night in our guest cabin up the hill. It isn't much, but the solitude is great."
"Thank you," I replied. "I'd be delighted to stay for dinner, but I have to get back to Sacramento tonight to catch an early plane tomorrow. Since the judge only gave me a month to prepare for the trial, I need to get back to the office."
Steve smiled and began to focus, "Most people have a surprising amount of ESP ability. They often don't recognize or label it. When they first started the remote sensing experiments at SRI, way back in 1972, they used people with recognized psychic powers, people who had been tested in laboratories, and well known professionally as quote, psychics. One day, they tried a remote sensing experiment using one of the secretaries associated with the project, somebody who had never participated in any sort of psychic activity. She could do it quite well. So, they developed a training program to use ordinary people who demonstrated psychic ability in tests.
"I was recruited because I did well in some psychic experiments we did in our Psych I class at Stanford."
"Yes" I said, "I read your book."
"Good!" Said Steve, "I won't have to tell those stories again. Where would you like to start?"
"Tell me about the basic process of remote sensing."
Steve thought for while and then said, "I like to call what I do as psychic sensing because sometimes I can sense smells, noise, cold, and all the physical sensations, as well a visual images. I can also sense the nature of a person, such as very evil, and emotional state, such as sad, grieving, happy, or angry.
"I'll talk about two categories. The first is 'remote sensing' of unsolicited information that simply comes to me.
"Many people, at sometime in their lives, experience unsolicited psychic events. Mothers will sense their child is in trouble and rescue them from some perilous situation; a person will, at the last moment, decide not to board an airplane that subsequently crashes; drivers will decide to take a different route to work on a day when, it turns out; there was a horrific auto accident on the normal route. There are myriads of such stories. Although they are real to the people who experience them, science ignores the phenomena because they don't fit any scientific theory."
"The second process, which I spent years doing for US classified programs, is where they give you a target or objective that has nothing to do with you, and you go into an extended deep meditation, and sense basic things about a target. For instance, they might want to know what is going on in a building photographed by a spy satellite. They would show me the photograph or give me the geographic coordinates of the building. Then, I would start with sensing what someone in the building might observe at a sensory level: noises, colors, shapes, nature of objects, maybe something big like a ship hull; level of activity, such as busy or quiet. Over time, often a period of an hour, I would continue to sense the nature of activity, people building something, machines manufacturing material, or objects, etc. Sometimes, but not always, I would eventually get an image of the place. While I was in the deep meditation, I would be dictating my observations to an assistant who would guide me in gaining more detail."
"So this wasn't a flash process, like the unsolicited events?" I asked.
"Sometimes yes and sometimes no. Most of the time, it wasn't a flash process. My personal opinion, not verified by any studies, is that when I am remote sensing, I am getting the information from a person who is physically at the target. If that person is a "good sender," very involved in the activity, I get a lot of information. If the only person there is a half-asleep guard, I don't get a lot."
"Can you give me some examples?" I asked.
"Not very many. The program gave the customer tons of data, much of which was verified by other sources such as satellites or on–the–ground spies. There were many formal evaluations of the program, which led to the program being funded again year-after-year. All I can say is that it was very successful, and the President himself, actually two Presidents, saw data from the program. I don't think examples in those dark files will ever see the light of day. I think the longevity of the program is the greatest testament to the success of the program."
I interjected, "I saw the picture of the President awarding you a medal in the book, and read the citation that went with the medal. That award speaks of success."
"I wish I could tell you the story that led to being considered for that medal," said Steve with a wide grin. "It was a triumphant event.
"If you want examples of my abilities, I can provide you TV footage. I used to do kind of a circus act for TV shows to demonstrate remote sensing. I might have a dozen or so clips.
"Most of them are of me describing photographs in sealed envelopes. Somebody associated with the show, who did not know me, collected five eight-by-ten pictures of places and sealed them in unlabeled envelopes. On the show, they pick one of the envelopes and I perceive what is inside. I have been one hundred percent in accurately describing contents of the scene in the photos.
"In two of the demonstrations, they sent someone to some location in town and I described what they could see in the environs. In one of those, they had a remote TV crew at the location. After I made my description, they showed what was there. All these are on a DVD, so I can easily make you a copy.
"In the past decade, I have been remote sensing as consultant for a variety of individuals, companies, and occasionally some law enforcement agencies. I require a confidentiality agreement with my customers that have very strict nondisclosure p
rovisions. I am never to disclose either the customers or their interests; they are never to disclose the source of information I give them, or that I have been in their employ. The agreement avoids potentially embarrassing situations and protects my privacy. I have produced some spectacular results for some people, but I can't disclose those either."
I asked, "Do you need a disclosure agreement from me?"
"Definitely, no! I consider this a public service, giving the Sheriff his comeuppance. I have to warn you that I will have to hide behind my disclosure agreements if any questions are asked about my confidential or classified activities."
"Thanks, I'll respect that, and object if opposing council makes any questions of that sort." I replied. "I have to decide what to give to a jury of lay people. I can't give them stuff that is too spooky or stuff that is too technical. I'll have to sort that out in the next few days. Tell me about the night Lucy was lost."
Steve's mood grew very somber. I could tell this was a painful subject for him. He began:
"I was driving back from Sacramento, it was dark, probably 8:30 or so, when I came to the Rawhide Cafe, down the road from here. There was a light snow falling."
"I saw the cafe on the way up here," I interjected.
Steve continued, "It was all lit up by headlights of patrol cars. Red lights flashing everywhere. I parked and went to the Cafe to see what was going on. There was the sheriff's command center van in the parking lot with a generator running. I could hear several sheriffs’ radio channels. Paramedics stood outside an ambulance. Many other people were standing around: one person with tracking dogs, bloodhounds, I believe, was there; people in orange vests and hard hats, people with backpacks, rope, and rescue equipment, deputy sheriffs in uniform, and a local a Native American who lives near here. The sheriff and several other people were inside the brightly lit cafe, standing in front of a map hung on the wall, arguing. It was a very busy place.
"I walked up to the deputy guarding the door and said I needed to speak with the sheriff about helping. I told him I was a psychic and might be of use. He blew me off, saying that the sheriff was too busy to talk to the public."
"I went back to my car and got a copy of my book–the one that you read–and what I call my credentials folder that has the picture of the President and me, letters of commendation from high level military and government people, on letterheads with government seals, several news clippings about me helping find lost people, and letters of commendation for working with the police in solving missing persons cases. I showed the book and folder to the deputy who examined it for a while and then led me in to see Sheriff Bogend, a fat bastard with a scowl on his puffy face. His khaki uniform seemed to be straining at the buttons to hold his bulk, and his tie was pulled down in disorder. He was sweating despite the cold and seemed really stressed out. I showed him my book and credentials folder. He thumbed through them without really looking and handed them back to me. He did not speak with me, he looked only at the deputy and scolded, 'Damn it, why are you wasting my time with some fortuneteller. We have a lost child to find. Get him out of here!'
"The deputy, visibly smarting from being chastised, showed me to the door and said mechanically, 'Thank you, we do not need your services.'
"As I started to walk away, I saw a group of men wearing orange search and rescue jackets passing a photo around. I asked whether I could see it, and they passed it to me. It was the school 'picture day' photo of Lucy, a large copy that her parents had bought along with the small shots Lucy traded with other students. As I looked at the photo, I immediately felt a psychic connection with Lucy. I walked to my car and got in. As I sat, it came to me exactly where Lucy was. I could tell she had found shelter under some logs, or in a cave or something and was crying and very cold. It was vivid.
"I was mad. I got out of the car and walked back to the cafe. I pushed the deputy aside and went over to the map and drew an X on the map where Lucy was. When I turned around, the Sheriff and deputy had guns drawn, pointing at me. I said, 'I know where she is, here where the X is, about a hundred yards up Bear Creek from that old logging trestle. She is in some kind of shelter but is very cold. She may not have much more time.
"The Sheriff shouted in a tirade, 'we have her tracks in the snow going in another direction. Get Houdini out of here! If you come around here again I'll have you arrested. Don't go hunting for her yourself, you will be destroying her trail for the trackers.' Two deputies grabbed me by the arms and walked me out of the cafe, past the parked emergency vehicles, to the edge of the parking lot. One shouted at me, 'If we see you around here again or conducting your own search you will go to jail for obstructing officers in an investigation.' They pushed me into the street.
"I barely made it home because I was so occupied feeling Lucy's distress."
Steve was almost in tears and having trouble finishing the story.
"I couldn't sleep because of my concern. About midnight, she died and I could go asleep, feeling her peace."
I was quiet while Steve sat deep in thought.
Georgia came out onto the decks, using her rear to push the screen door open, carrying a large tray loaded with sandwiches and fruit.
She looked at Steve and said, "You told him the story." She went over and kissed him on the forehead. He grabbed her and pulled her onto his lap as she screamed, and kissed her.
Georgia, appearing a little embarrassed, as she got off his lap and smoothed out her dress and said, "It is really hard for him to tell that story."
I replied, "I think the Colson Foundation wants to make sure nobody else has to tell similar stories."
Steve got up and got a glass of iced tea from the table and raised it in a toast, "I'll drink to that."
Over lunch we chatted about living in the mountains and desert, the wildlife we saw, the aesthetics of such a life. I told them about being raised in the woods in the small northern California logging town, and how the gossip grapevine worked, as it did in Rocky Butte. We got talking about college, and I told him about the Garabedian brothers.
"When I was in upper division, my third and fourth years of engineering school, I took some classes with a pair of identical twins, Erin and Eric Garabedian. They were really smart and could have been straight-A students by themselves. In that school, it was really hard to get A's. You had to study really hard and do seemingly endless assignments of problem sets to get good grades. Erin and Eric had a great advantage, they could study together, divide the problems sets of solving equations or doing engineering calculations requiring a lot of time. It seemed that if each of them studied half of the material they both knew all of it. When they took exams, they purposely sat far apart, and asked for the instructor to take note, because they would usually get the same score and miss the same problems: they didn't want to be accused of cheating.
"Somehow they psychically communicated. They could synchronize their thinking."
Steve smiled and said, "It doesn't seem unusual to me–that's what I would expect from twins. It is a very high bandwidth case, though."
"Bandwidth?" I asked.
"The electrical signals of the nerves in the parts of our brains where we process sensory data are of a very low frequency, a few cycles per second, a tenth or twentieth of the frequency on our power lines, sixty cycles. When I remote sense, I listen to recorded sounds through earphones to help me slow my brainwaves down to bellow five cycles. Information comes very slowly at those frequencies. Follow me and I will show you.'
I followed Steve into an office off his living room. He changed some connections on his PC and then said,
"Ten or fifteen years ago all our PCs communicated over dial-up phone lines. I have my PC connected to the low bandwidth telephone line that comes all the way out here from Rocky Butte. I am going to load the web page from The Rocky Butte News."
We watched as for about two minutes as the image of the newspaper web page loaded. First, with vague images and then text, then with the images gradually filling
in and eventually becoming sharp and clear.
"This is how my usual remote sensing works. At first, there are only vague outlines and sparse sensory information. As time goes on, the pictures and sensory data fill in with more detail. I might spend a half hour 'loading a page,' so to speak. Remote sensors have to be trained and disciplined to not jump to conclusions about what is coming in. There is a lot of room for error if you do.
"I can't talk about my Government work, but I can give you a made-up example that shows the process. For a task they might give me a photo of somebody of interest, call him Mr. X. And I would go into meditation and report what I sensed. It might go like this, working with a guide to help steer me:
Me: 'an open place, no trees around. Northwestern part of US.'
Guide: 'A little closer on the place.'
Me: 'somewhere people visit for natural wonders. A feeling of great devastation from fire. Many people standing around, waiting for something, sense of excitement, standing on a path of boards.'
Guide: 'Is the excitement about the fire?'
Me: 'No the fire was before, nature is repairing itself.'
Guide: 'Go back to the people. What are they looking at?'
Me: 'some kind of white dome. White stuff coming out of the dome.'
Guide: 'What can they smell?'
Me: 'Not a pleasant smell, some kind of chemical.'
Guide: 'What can they hear?'
Me: 'Hissing and chugging sound. People talking excitedly.'
Guide: 'What kind of movement do they see?'
Me: 'Something white squirting from the dome, erratic.'
Guide: 'What kind of structures or buildings can people see?'
Me: 'There is something big and old behind the people.'
"If we continued on, I would gather increasingly detailed information. If we stopped right here, what I sensed may be of use to an intelligence analyst. If he had information from other sources that Mr. X had rented a car in Jackson Hole, Wyoming the day before, and entered Yellowstone National Park that morning, he might conclude that Mr. X was at the viewing area for the geyser 'Old Faithful.' With time, I might have been able to tell that it was 'Old Faithful' and the intelligence analyst could have used that information to verify the car rental and park entrance information.