Research queue

The lab's to-do list, in public

Project Aletheia is an independent lab that stress-tests contested science: take a claim, find the most boring explanation that could produce it, and run the test that decides between them. This page is everything the lab wants to test next — and, honestly, what each item still needs before it can run. Some need a dataset. Some need a better design. Some need a scientist with the right instrument. If you can supply the missing piece, any of these can move.

Experiments looking for a scientist

Fully designed experiments — question, protocol, budget, and the result that would kill them — waiting for a researcher with the right setup. The lab designs, you run, and the result publishes either way: a null here is a result, not a failure.

Package in preparationEXP-2026-001-RF-PULSE-AUDITIONPre-Foundry

Can simple radio-pulse patterns be heard and decoded?

Old military-era reports say people can hear certain radio-frequency pulses inside their head (a real, accepted effect called radio-frequency hearing) and one thin historical claim says simple pulse CODES could be interpreted. Nobody ever published the numbers. This experiment tests whether volunteers can decode simple pulse patterns above chance under modern safety limits.

Why it matters

It would replace a 60-year-old undocumented claim with the first real error-rate table for pulse-code radio hearing, and a clean null would finally bound what the historical record actually supports.

What it needs

RF exposure lab with safety (SAR) monitoring and human-subjects approval
pulse-modulated microwave source in the published RF-hearing range
sound-shielded test room
10-20 adult volunteers

Budget

Gold

$100k+ standalone with dedicated exposure hardware and full board review

Shoestring

not runnable on a shoestring: RF human exposure requires a properly equipped lab

Standard

$15k-40k as a hosted study inside an existing RF/bioelectromagnetics lab (facility time, safety review, subject payments)

Time: 2-4 months including ethics review; sessions are under one hour per subject · Feasibility: HARD - needs a specialized RF exposure facility and full human-subjects review; realistic only as a collaboration with an existing bioelectromagnetics lab

Kill condition: Decoding accuracy indistinguishable from chance across the preregistered trial count at safe exposure levels

Claim ceiling: Bounded psychophysics only: whether simple pulse symbols are decodable above chance. Not speech, not communication devices, no clinical claims.

Source: Aletheia RF-ultrasound auditory investigation (2026-06); full protocol draft with safety preconditions exists and ships to the hosting lab

I could run this — talk to me

Seeking a scientistEXP-2026-002-VIBRATION-ONSETPre-Foundry

Do body-vibration episodes really come right before out-of-body experiences?

Thousands of people who report leaving their body describe a strong body-wide vibration just before it happens. All existing evidence is after-the-fact storytelling. This study has sleepers who often report such episodes log every vibration event prospectively (diary plus a simple wearable) so the timing claim gets tested forward instead of remembered backward.

Why it matters

The vibration-first sequence is one of the most consistent patterns in a century of these reports (Aletheia's own text analysis of 2,192 accounts found it splits cleanly across independent halves of the data). Nobody has ever tested it prospectively. Either outcome is a real result about how these experiences work.

What it needs

a sleep researcher or consciousness lab willing to host
20-40 frequent experiencers (recruitable through existing experiencer communities)
consumer sleep wearables (accelerometer plus heart rate)
a preregistered diary protocol

Budget

Gold

$60k+ with in-lab polysomnography nights for a subset

Shoestring

$3k-6k fully remote: wearables shipped to participants, online diaries, subject payments

Standard

$10k-25k with a hosting lab, better wearables, and compliance monitoring

Time: 3-6 months of logging; setup one month; analysis is prewritten · Feasibility: MEDIUM - fully remote shoestring version is genuinely runnable; the hard part is disciplined recruitment, not equipment

Kill condition: Prospective logs show vibration episodes are NOT preferentially followed by the experiences within the preregistered window

Claim ceiling: Timing and sequence of self-reported episodes only. Says nothing about what the experiences ARE - only about whether the reported sequence survives prospective logging.

Source: Aletheia vibration-transition program (2026): corpus analyses, a full grant-grade study design, and the prewritten analysis plan exist

I could run this — talk to me

Validated package · resource blockedEXP-2026-003-LIGHT-TOUCH-HRVFoundry validated

Light Touch 30-minute HRV showdown

Does 30 minutes of Light Touch concha stimulation change paired log RMSSD more than a sensation-matched sham in healthy adults?

Why it matters

Give a qualified researcher a complete, pre-tested protocol for one narrow short-term HRV comparison.

What it needs

Light Touch active and sensation-matched sham configurations
Beat-level RR recording with Polar H10 or laboratory ECG
Recruit 48 healthy adults to retain 40 complete pairs

Budget

Gold

$16092.84 cash; 210 person-hours; 90 calendar days

Shoestring

$8773.96 cash; 110 person-hours; 90 calendar days

Standard

$10025.84 cash; 150 person-hours; 75 calendar days

Time: Standard tier: 150 person-hours across 75 calendar days. · Feasibility: Grade D (44.5/100) from the frozen cost, calendar, instrument, and recruitment formula.

Kill condition: Kill the positive-effect route if 40 valid pairs do not produce a positive mean with two-sided p below 0.05.

Claim ceiling: At most, this estimates one short-term paired RMSSD contrast in healthy adults under the exact tested dose and sham.

Source: /Users/bo/data/adp/investigations/experiment_foundry_plan_2026-08-24/known_answer_light_touch/FINDING_EXPANSION.json

I could run this — talk to me

The question queue

Every open question the lab has vetted, with its status. Each card expands to show the honest state of its test: what data exists, what is blocking it, the boring explanation that has to be ruled out first, and the most the test could ever prove even if everything goes right.

New here? What the labels mean

Ready now —: the data, the checks, and the kill rule all exist; this could run today.
Needs data —: the question is solid but a dataset is missing. If you have it, that is the whole blocker.
Needs design —: we do not yet have a test that could not fool itself.
Needs a collaborator —: requires an instrument, lab, or subject pool the lab does not have.
“The most this could ever prove” —: every test states its ceiling up front, so a narrow result can never quietly inflate into a big claim.

AnsweredQ-CLIMATE-NEGATIVE

After like-for-like controls are applied, do broad claims about links between unusual reports and climate or environment still hold? This asks whether the apparent patterns survive fair comparisons.

Precise form: Do the broad climate/environment formulations survive current matched controls?

0 linked tests · last triaged 2026-07-23

Looking for what already ran? Results live on Findings. Investigations that ended without an answer — and what would revive them — live on Cold Cases.