Russell Targ is an American physicist and author, an ESP researcher, and pioneer in the earliest development of the laser. At the Stanford Research Institute in the 1970s and 1980s, Targ and his colleague Harold E. Puthoff co-founded a 23-year, $25-million program of research into psychic abilities and their operational use for the US intelligence community, including the CIA, Defence Intelligence Agency and Army Intelligence. These abilities are referred to collectively as “remote viewing.