Prior to the 2001 Remote Viewing Conference held in Las Vegas, Nevada, I had no idea of who Ingo Swann was. During the conference presentations, I heard his name mentioned over and over with near reverence, like mentioning the name of a creator god.

 I prefer to think of Swann as a remote viewing creator demi-god; a creative genius like Walt Disney. Most of what I’ve learned about him is from his site.

 So who is Ingo Swann?

 He is the “Father” of remote viewing.

 He was born in Telluride, Colorado on 2:30 a.m. on 14 September 1933.

 He read his first dictionary when he was three. He read the Encyclopedia Britannica cover to cover by the time he was in kindergarten. When he was seven, he read “The Book of Tao” by the ancient Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu. He’d also read the Bible a few times and would make “box and flow” diagrams or flow charts to illustrate what he was reading. Later, these diagrams would be studied by the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), the Pentagon and by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to discover the theoretical foundations of psychic mind functions.

 Swann began painting when he was five.

 In 1955, he went on to get Bachelor’s degrees in both Biology and Art. Swann then volunteered for a two year U.S. Army tour of Korea, after which he decided to go to New York City and become an artist. He supported himself by working in the Secretariat of the United Nations from 1958 to 1968.

 In 1967, Swann’s life changed. He met Mrs. Buell Mullen, an artist who designed huge stainless steel panels with indestructible epoxy paints. She was suffering from neurological disorders from inhaling the toxic fumes and hired Swann to lift the heavy machines she needed to etch the steel panels.

 One of Buell’s favorite topics was psychic phenomena. She would throw large dinner parties that included British psychics. The psychics would gossip about British Intelligence and British Customs Service using psychics to help them achieve their missions. They gossiped about how Hitler and Churchill tried to use psychics, as well as the Soviets.
 Buell told Swann how she arranged for mediums to meet with Madame Chaing Kai Shek. She went on to tell him that she’d been approached by our own military, a Navy officer in uniform. From that point, Swann paid closer attention to the British psychic's gossip. He eventually got to know Dr. John Wingate, who was a professor at New York University who served on the board of the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR).

 Swann went on to meet a Mrs. Lucille Kahn, the “reigning” empress of psychical research. She and her deceased husband, David Kahn, had discovered and financially supported Edgar Cayce, the “sleeping prophet.”

 Swann began to do “out of body” experiments and started to verbalize what he “saw” throughout the experimental chamber. As this became more difficult, Swann suggested that he sketch what he “saw.”  Swann began to sketch his concealed practice targets. The news of Swann’s success got out to Buell, the Wingates, and others who knew of foreign governments trying to use psychic ability to enhance their military.

 Swann was working on repeatable experiments testing the out of body perceptions until one day when he was waiting for the electrode machine to be hooked up. As he waited, there was a “pop” and his perception went through the wall and he “saw” the snow outside and a woman walking by in a “ridiculous orange coat.” He was startled, ripped off his electrodes and ran outside to see a woman dressed in an orange coat turning the corner onto Central Park West.

 Now the question was, how to move from “out of body perception” of things in the next room to viewing things long distance?

 The first long distance remote viewing experiment Swann was involved in was held on December 8, 1971. He was hooked up to monitoring equipment and was ready for the experiment. One of the ASPR workers had a sealed envelope containing the target. She opened it and read the target “Tucson, Arizona” to Swann over an intercom. Swann was supposed to remote view Tucson’s weather. According to Swann, “Now something wondrous and magical occurred.”

 He describes a sense of moving that lasted a fraction of a second and suddenly “There I was ­ There. Zip, Bang, Pop.” He began speaking as soon as he heard the target “Tucson, Arizona.”

 "Am over a wet highway, buildings nearby and in the distance. The wind is blowing. It's cold. And it is raining hard. I noted that there was water glistening on the highway -- and then said:

 ‘That's it! Tucson's having a fucking big rainstorm,’ although the forbidden word was not entered into the record of the experiment.”

 Janet, the ASPR worker, then dialed the weather service in Tucson.

 "Well, you're right on, baby.” she reported to Swann. “Right now Tucson is having unexpected thunderstorms and the temperature is near freezing."

 As the records of Swann’s experiments were piling up, a new category was developed after he viewed a distant city from the lab in New York.
 He suggested the term "remote sensing" or what we know today as "remote viewing."

 Sandy Frost is an Alaska Native (Athabascan) online investigative journalist, author and CEO and founder of NewsHooks 2 NewsBooks, a publishing company designed to help journalists with stories to tell but nowhere to tell them. Her three books include "The Cassandra Frost Collection, A decade of writing on remote viewing, intuition and consciousness," available here.