Research Areas

The Institute’s scientific and analytical work

The Institute for Environmental Systems Analysis studies environments as connected systems. Its research concerns the relationships among physical conditions, living organisms, human activity, technology, geography, and recorded information.

Institute projects often begin with an ordinary environmental question. A field team may be measuring groundwater, surveying a monument, calibrating an instrument, cataloguing biological material, or reviewing an industrial system. A separate inquiry begins only when some part of the expected relationship fails to appear.

The Institute organizes its work into broad research areas while allowing individual projects to cross disciplinary boundaries. Howard Stonecipher, Director, establishes research priorities and authorizes major field programs.

Environmental Systems

Environmental systems research examines how atmosphere, water, geology, biological activity, technology, and human settlement interact within a defined area.

The Institute is particularly interested in conditions that emerge through relationships among several ordinary processes. A small change in water movement may affect soil, vegetation, animal behavior, infrastructure, and instrument performance. None of those observations is necessarily unusual by itself. Their timing and geographic arrangement may be more significant than their individual magnitude.

Research in this area includes long-term monitoring, comparison of neighboring environments, reconstruction of earlier conditions, and examination of changes that remain invisible when each variable is considered separately.

The Institute does not assume that every environmental system is stable. It does, however, ask why a system remained stable for as long as it did and what changed when that stability ended.

Geographic Persistence

Geographic-persistence research examines whether every measurable property of a location moves with the physical material occupying it.

This work developed from comparisons between historical geodetic records and modern observations. Several survey monuments appeared to retain aspects of earlier positions despite measurable movement in the surrounding terrain. The differences were small, but their direction was inconsistent with ordinary regional motion.

The Institute has expanded this inquiry to include historical boundaries, repeated observation points, locations associated with persistent reports, and sites whose recorded characteristics appear to survive substantial physical change.

A place is normally treated as a coordinate attached to the Earth. Institute research considers whether that definition is always sufficient.

Geological Records

Geological materials preserve environmental history through mineral composition, structure, chemical alteration, magnetic orientation, fossils, and relationships among rock units. The Institute studies these records for evidence of ordinary environmental change and for discrepancies that cannot be reconciled with the expected sequence.

Current research includes unusual mineral zoning, inconsistent paleomagnetic directions, unexpectedly old material within younger geological settings, buried surfaces, and locations where separate geological histories appear to occupy a single continuous landscape.

Work at Russell Ranch has been particularly useful in this area. The juxtaposition of rocks formed in different environments and assembled through later tectonic processes provides a physical model for studying how several histories can become part of one place without becoming one history.

The Institute distinguishes unusual geology from geological impossibility. The first is common. The second requires considerably better records.

Subsurface Environments

Subsurface research examines conditions concealed beneath soil, rock, sediment, ice, water, and constructed surfaces.

Institute teams use available geological records, remote measurements, environmental sampling, and non-destructive sensing to identify structures or conditions that cannot be understood from the surface alone. Areas of interest have included buried reflectors, unexplained voids, inconsistent geological contacts, unusual emissions, deep-water signals, and instrument responses apparently originating below known infrastructure.

The Institute does not regard regular geometry as proof of construction. Natural processes produce repetition, symmetry, fractures, layers, and forms that appear deliberate. A subsurface feature becomes more significant when several independent observations agree concerning its location, boundaries, material properties, or environmental effects.

Excavation is considered only when it can answer a defined question without destroying the conditions being studied. On several projects, continued observation has been more informative than immediate disturbance.

Mountain Environments

Mountain environments combine rapid weather changes, complex geology, isolated biological communities, steep environmental gradients, and long periods of limited human observation. These qualities make them useful settings for Institute research.

The Institute has conducted work involving unusual odors in fractured mountain terrain, biological material associated with high-altitude populations, simple organisms displaying unexpected directional behavior, old trees preserving extended environmental records, and geological structures that appear to bring separate histories into close physical contact.

Mount San Antonio now serves as the Institute’s principal location for long-term mountain observation. Permanent instruments around the Mount Baldy Complex provide local environmental records and controls for comparison with work conducted elsewhere.

The mountain was selected as a headquarters because it suited the Institute’s requirements. Its continuing behavior has supplied additional reasons.

Coastal and Marine Systems

Coastal and marine research examines environments in which water movement, sediment, weather, biological activity, human infrastructure, and limited visibility complicate direct observation.

Institute projects have included coastal moisture surveys, offshore environmental assessment, sonar review, seafloor measurements, radiation detection, sediment examination, and technical support for research vessels and industrial operations.

A Pacific investigation west of San Francisco recorded repeated gamma detections near the seafloor. Follow-up sensing identified a buried reflector with sufficiently regular geometry to justify continued study. The available evidence indicates that the source was beneath the seafloor rather than resting upon it. No public conclusion has been issued concerning its origin.

Other coastal work has examined sediment retaining more moisture than local conditions appeared to support. The Institute continues to investigate whether these observations reflect groundwater movement, industrial effects, geological structure, measurement conditions, or a relationship not yet represented in the existing model.

Atmospheric and Acoustic Environments

Atmospheric research concerns the movement and composition of air, changes in pressure, temperature and moisture, the behavior of sound, and the performance of instruments operating within those conditions.

The Institute has examined unexplained odors without corresponding concentrations of expected gases, moisture appearing within nominally dry technical systems, pressure behavior inconsistent with equipment configuration, and physical changes observed in containers placed in unusually quiet environments.

Low-noise environments are useful because minor events become easier to detect. They are also difficult to interpret because familiar background conditions no longer conceal the ordinary movement of structures, containers, equipment, and personnel.

The Institute measures the environment before attributing significance to its silence. Silence is nevertheless recorded when it behaves as a condition rather than an absence.

Biological Indicators

Biological-indicator research examines organisms that respond consistently to environmental conditions that have not yet been identified through direct measurement.

Institute investigations have considered changes in animal vocalization near particular mineral exposures, directional behavior among simple organisms, unusual biological structures recovered from enclosed environments, uncommon lipid fractions associated with geographic populations, and long-lived plants that may preserve environmental information across generations.

The Institute does not assume that an organism understands the condition producing its response. An amoeba does not require a theory of geography to move in a consistent direction, and an animal does not require technical knowledge to avoid a material or location.

A repeatable biological response may therefore serve as an instrument of limited but useful sensitivity.

Human biological research is conducted with attention to consent, privacy, cultural context, and the danger of treating a finding among a small number of participants as a characteristic of an entire population.

Long-Lived Organisms and Environmental Memory

Some organisms preserve information for periods extending far beyond ordinary field observations. Trees record fire, drought, climate, injury, atmospheric conditions, chemical exposure, and changes in growth through their rings and tissues.

The Institute studies redwoods, sequoias, dawn redwoods, and other long-lived organisms as environmental records. Their value lies not only in age but in continuity. A tree may remain in one location while generations of instruments, researchers, institutions, and explanations pass around it.

Research in this area examines whether biological records contain repeated changes that correspond to known environmental events and whether any remaining patterns resist those correlations.

The Institute does not claim that trees remember in the human sense. It considers the possibility that memory is not required for matter to retain a history.

Anomalous Materials

Anomalous-materials research concerns substances whose measured properties, environmental distribution, or biological effects do not agree with their apparent composition or expected origin.

Projects have included unusual mineral material associated with changes in animal behavior, fruit exhibiting small but persistent mass discrepancies, unidentified structures recovered from vehicle tires, chemical residues reported within an obscure dry lakebed, and biological compounds displaying unexpected physical behavior.

These materials are first examined through ordinary chemical, mineralogical, biological, and physical methods. Contamination, sample substitution, storage conditions, measurement error, and natural variability are considered before additional interpretations.

A material does not become anomalous because it has been given an interesting name. In several cases, however, the interesting name has remained after the ordinary explanations did not.

Environmental Effects of Technology

Technology changes the environment in which it operates. The Institute studies those changes in industrial systems, scientific facilities, communications equipment, transportation, launch operations, offshore activity, and remote instrumentation.

Research may concern emissions, heat, vibration, pressure, chemical release, electromagnetic interference, changes in animal behavior, contamination, water movement, or environmental conditions unintentionally produced by equipment.

The Institute also considers the reverse relationship. An environment may change the behavior of equipment, alter the information it reports, or expose limitations that were not apparent under controlled conditions.

A technical system is not treated as separate from its surroundings merely because its designers intended it to be sealed.

Remote Sensing and Observational Geometry

Remote-sensing research examines what can be learned from energy reflected, emitted, absorbed, delayed, or redirected by an object or environment.

Institute work in this area includes optical observation, radio reflection, telemetry analysis, sonar, radiation measurement, satellite records, ground-penetrating methods, and comparison of observations made from different locations.

Historical research involving passive reflective satellites demonstrated the importance of observational geometry. An object may remain physically present while becoming visible only when the source, object, and observer occupy a particular relationship.

The Institute applies this principle to environmental observations that appear dependent upon where the observer stands. In these cases, the location of the instrument may be part of the phenomenon rather than merely the place from which it was measured.

Signals and Instrument Environments

Signals research examines electromagnetic, acoustic, optical, and instrument-generated information associated with environmental systems.

The Institute characterizes the ordinary signal environment of a location before treating a detection as unusual. Analysts compare timing, direction, repetition, strength, modulation, equipment behavior, atmospheric conditions, and the possibility of local interference.

A signal may be natural, accidental, reflected, technical, or deliberately produced. It may also be genuine while being attributed to the wrong source.

Some Institute investigations involve signals that become weaker, less coherent, or less locatable as equipment approaches the apparent point of origin. These cases remain under technical review.

Operational signals-intelligence and counterintelligence functions are described separately on the Institute’s Intelligence and Security page.

Human Environments

Human activity is part of the environment and may alter physical conditions long after the activity itself has ended.

The Institute studies relationships among settlement, industry, transportation, infrastructure, resource extraction, institutional behavior, and environmental change. Research may include the effects of occupied spaces, abandoned facilities, altered landscapes, underground construction, repeated human movement, and records produced by organizations operating within a site.

Some projects have examined whether the history of human presence can be detected through ordinary physical evidence. Others concern residual effects for which no adequate physical mechanism has yet been established.

The Institute does not use the word “residual” to imply consciousness, intention, or survival. It uses the word because something appears to remain after the expected source is gone.

Institutional Environments

Organizations create environments through rules, communication patterns, resource allocation, authority, architecture, recordkeeping, and repeated behavior. The Institute studies institutions when those systems affect scientific work or become relevant to an investigation.

Institutional assessment may concern discrepancies between an organization’s stated purpose and its observable activity, conflicting records, unusual personnel movement, failures of internal control, unexplained technical capacity, or coordinated action that cannot be understood through the formal organization chart.

The Institute also applies these methods to itself. Internal assessments examine whether Institute offices are functioning as intended and whether the Institute’s own assumptions have become obstacles to accurate observation.

An institution may become part of the system it was created to study. Recognition of that condition is a research requirement rather than an administrative inconvenience.

Historical and Archival Research

Historical records extend the Institute’s period of observation beyond the working lives of its current personnel.

Researchers examine maps, survey records, field notebooks, photographs, correspondence, maintenance documents, technical reports, oral histories, and privately retained records. This material may establish that an unusual condition occurred earlier, reveal that a supposed anomaly is ordinary for the location, or identify changes in the way an event was described over time.

Informal notes are not treated as precise measurements. They may nevertheless preserve observations omitted from formal reports because the original observer lacked an explanation or feared that the remark would not be taken seriously.

The Institute is particularly interested in records whose authors attempted to correct an observation and then recorded that it had returned.

Alienism and the Physical Record

The Institute examines whether specific claims, descriptions, and geographic relationships found in Alienist texts can be compared with the physical record.

This research does not treat doctrine as a substitute for measurement. Church material may identify a location, sequence, environmental condition, or relationship suitable for examination. Field observations are then collected and evaluated independently.

A meaningful correspondence must be specific enough to fail. General language capable of describing any mountain, light, sound, or unusual event is not considered a useful prediction.

When the physical record and doctrinal material agree, the Institute documents the relationship and considers ordinary explanations for it. When they disagree, the disagreement remains part of the record.

The purpose of this work is not to make the physical world conform to doctrine. It is to determine whether some portions of the doctrine were already describing the physical world.

Unresolved Research

Most Institute research ends with an ordinary explanation, an improved method, or a finding too weak to justify additional work. These outcomes are preserved because they prevent later personnel from repeating the same inquiry without reason.

A smaller number of projects remain unresolved. In these cases, the Institute may continue long-term observation, seek independent review, wait for improved equipment, or retain the record until another investigation produces a relevant comparison.

An unresolved project is not a successful extraordinary claim. It is a documented question that has survived the methods presently available.

The Institute considers that sufficient reason to keep the file open.