Remote viewing was coined as a term in 1971 by parapsychologists Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff at the Stanford Research Institute.

The term 'remote viewing' was introduced to differentiate this phenomenon from broader concepts like clairvoyance. It specifically refers to the ability to perceive details about a distant or unseen target without physical sensory input. The initial experiments involved controlled laboratory protocols where subjects attempted to describe hidden locations or objects. These foundational studies aimed to establish remote viewing as a scientific discipline distinct from general extrasensory perception (ESP).