Karlis Osis

Karlis Osis was a Latvian-born parapsychologist with a PhD, known for his research into deathbed visions and his work with the U.S. government on ESP experiments with animals¹².

In the 1940s, Osis conducted a four-year study on deathbed visions, interviewing thousands of doctors and nurses in America and northern India. He hypothesized that Indian patients, whose belief system allows for reincarnation, were far more likely to experience visions before death than American patients².

He later worked at J. B. Rhine's Duke University Parapsychology Laboratory, where he conducted classified ESP tests with cats for the Department of Defense in the early 1950s. This study was designed to determine whether man could communicate telepathically with a cat².

Later, as the director of research at the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) in New York City, Osis worked with Ingo Swann on a series of experiments purported to involve out-of-body experiences (OBEs), also known as traveling clairvoyance. In these experiments, Swann was wired to a Beckman Dynograph and asked to "float up out-of-the-body" to spy on objects hidden on suspended trays. Osis and his assistant, Janet Mitchell, were reportedly thrilled with the results, particularly when Swann drew what he saw instead of trying to articulate it².

Osis also conducted a psychokinesis experiment with Pat Price, where Price, from a distance, appeared to affect an infrared sensor in a sealed copper box¹.