Hunting And Gathering Intelligence With Intuition

20 min readDec 28, 2020

**‘You can have tons of talent, but it won’t necessarily keep you fed. If you have sharp instincts, though, you’ll never go hungry.’** ~ Haruki Murakami ~

I believe that we, as intelligence analysts, are all familiar with the experience that we “feel” something is wrong. That our inner radar turns to a specific subject, piece of information, or behavior. This phenomenon is also sometimes called the “asshole alarm.” In general, we are not fully aware of this. Let’s illustrate with a real-life example:

One day a colleague of mine asked me to shine my light on a domain name, he said: "What’s your idea? The first hunch is often the right one". I took a look at the domain name and immediately I got an uncanny feeling, a nagging pain in my gut at the level of my solar plexus. Almost a kind of agitated, ‘fight or flight’ mode. I felt my muscles tightening and my nerves and senses were on edge. Alarm bells went off. I remember finding this remarkable, why did my system react so quickly and yet so intense? Seconds after, I read my colleague’s additional info which included the fact that there was a website with an article on missing children connected to the domain name. I wanted to know more and decided to conduct a short OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) investigation. After doing some technical analysis on the domain name, I performed some SOCMINT (Social Media Intelligence), found a lead (track), and stumbled upon all kinds of pictures of little children posted on various social media platforms. When I was confronted with those photos, the above process was repeated, the ‘fight or flight’ mode was activated again. I saw and felt enormous fear, sadness, and complete despair in the eyes of the children. That hit me, and I needed some time to process this. Based upon the technical analysis, the found pictures, and some other leads, I dared to conclude (something we as analysts and researchers prefer to refrain from) that malicious activities were in play and that the starting point of my research; technical 'neutral' data, led me via intuition to, most probably, a child trafficking network.

The results of this investigation were eventually passed on to the relevant authorities.

There is a lot to say about this example: skeptics will note that my conclusion is not scientifically substantiated, but perhaps also, they and others (maybe you as a reader) will recognize themselves in the above case. Apparently, my subconscious mind picked up the energy associated with the technical data even before I started doing my research. A pitfall of this may be that one enters the investigation in a biased manner and thus looks for confirmation of the intuition, and no longer applies truth-finding. I realize that this is a fine line that every analyst should be aware of.

This case, among others, made me wonder about the role of intuition during conducting research and many questions came into my mind.

What exactly is intuition and how does it work? Is intuition based on experiences from the past which ensure that we (can) recognize certain patterns? Is intuition that which we call ‘experience’? Or is intuition the same as our instinct, that system which especially animals, like the wolf, make use of? Perhaps it is a combination or maybe there are completely different, other factors that (can) play a role. To answer these questions, I decided to search for more information on the Internet. I also asked eight colleagues about their experiences with intuition while conducting research. Based upon my intuition I chose for these specific colleagues, I just felt that they would be able to contribute to this article perfectly, besides that, I’m very happy to place them in the light. All of them are remarkable people. Thanks to them I gained more insights.

My colleagues answered the following questions:

Do you use your intuition when conducting research?
If yes, how does that work for you (or not)?
Do you experience physical sensations when intuition comes into play?

Their quoted replies to those questions can be found throughout this article.

Meaning and Definition of Intuition

First of all, I believe it is important to know the literal meaning and definition of intuition, to have a clear starting point. The word intuition is derived from the Latin “Intuitio” which means “seeing within”.

The different definitions sound as follows:

‘Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning.’ (Wikipedia)
‘(Knowledge from) an ability to understand or know something immediately based on your feelings rather than facts.’ (Cambridge Dictionary)
‘The ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning.’ (Oxford Dictionary)
‘A thing that one knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling rather than conscious reasoning.’ (Oxford Dictionary)

As you can read, the two most important characteristics are:

intuition is independent of any conscious reasoning process;
intuition concerns the instinctive and immediate ability to understand or know something;

Also, intuition is related to feelings and is also referred to as “gut feeling”.
This name is very striking and the origin lies in the following:

“Gut feeling” is aptly named, since within the intestinal lining is the enteric nervous system. This is where millions of neurons are hiding, and they “talk” to your brain via the vagus nerve.’

‘Comprised of 100 million neurons, the network of nerve cells lining the digestive tract is so extensive that it has earned the nickname “second brain.” Technically known as the enteric nervous system, this network of neurons is often overlooked and contains more nerve cells than the spinal cord or peripheral nervous system.’

‘But what may not be obvious is just how connected the brain and gut are. Emerging evidence is showing that the gut-brain axis is one of the most powerful relationships in our body.’

For me, this also explains why we can perceive certain feelings in our stomach-gut, related to a certain state of being. Just think of the special feeling when you are in love, the so-called butterflies in the belly. Or the nagging feeling when you are nervous or anxious, exact that feeling I got as described in my example about the domain name and the little children. This ‘recognition’ of how (powerful) the gut-brain axis works, specifically in relation to conducting research made me even more enthusiastic. I became increasingly curious about the experiences of my colleagues.

Willy Debets — Former Police Investigator and currently working as a Private Investigator and Trainer at ‘Debets Advies’, Lelystad, The Netherlands

“Naturally, I always use my intuition during an investigation, just like many other investigators do. You “feel” that something is wrong, so to speak, and by analyzing and investigating further and deeper you eventually figure it out.”
“When you read documents or hear a story you get “images” and/or a feeling. Logical thinking. Is the story true or am I missing something? You start with your experiences and try to think objectively and logically. Do the order (of events) and actions appear correct or does something “feel off? “ If something is too good to be true then that is almost always the case.”

Cassius.X.II — Investigator and Open Source Intelligence Analyst

“I suppose as analysts we try to eliminate using intuition as much as possible and rely solely on facts. In saying that, I do believe that intuition is something that is in-built or innate for people like us who have investigate minds. Sometimes you just can’t help but get a gut feeling.”
“Sometimes I just guess a location from an image and it turns out to be correct. This happens scarily often and I’m not sure why. It could just be that I have retained something that I learned or watched before. I also think it has to do with the fact that investigators like you and me pick up on really small or weird details that others do not eg. types of trees, architecture, a thing in the background of an image, etc…”

Anonymous — Privacy Officer

“When I see a domain name g00gle.com then my experience is telling me that this is going to be bad news. Do I see a domain name called account-update-secure.com then my intuition says it will probably be used for bank phishing.”

While waiting for the replies of my other colleagues, I researched this amazing subject further and stumbled upon some very interesting articles, under which one of the CIA (CIA Blog, Ask Molly, September 2, 2020). In this article they say the following:

'Ah, intuition. Gut feeling. Spidey sense. The third eye. A sixth sense. Perhaps one of the most fundamental of intelligence tools — but undoubtedly one of the most difficult to observe and empirically document.'

'Analysts are constantly building their bodies of knowledge so that they can be prepared to assess changes at the drop of a hat. They are thinking critically and creatively so their intuition can thrive. Allowing yourself to think intuitively is an important part of the process. If you are not actively examining a situation, you are not preparing yourself for intuitive thought.'

'In short, intuition is an important step in a long and complex analytic process, but its success relies on logical reasoning and objective analyses.'

Also, they describe the famous case of double agent Aldrich Ames as a relevant example of the use of intuition for intelligence research.

'There is no better way to illustrate the role of intuition than examining a case study. In the late 1980s, as the Cold War was drawing to a close, the CIA faced a terrifying threat. One after another, the CIA was losing its Soviet assets — many of whom were arrested, convicted, and executed for spying for the West — and it had no idea why. After ruling out the threat of a talented Moscow code-breaker, CIA assembled a small team to work the possibility of an insider threat. The hunt for a CIA mole began. The first step was to narrow the list to those who would have access to the compromised information. Though only a small percentage of the Agency population had access to the information, the number was still much too large for the investigative team to manage. Their next step? Intuition.

The team was asked to go through the condensed list and take note of those persons who made them ‘uneasy’ or otherwise suspicious. In an era that predated big data and complex algorithms, this was the most promising solution. For Sandy Grimes, a CIA officer on the team, there was one name that stood out in particular: Aldrich Ames. Sandy had known Ames for years. Something about him, his personality, his demeanor, always seemed to stand out and recent changes in his behavior struck her as troubling. It is this intuition that made Ames a person of interest. Only after the FBI conducted legal surveillance of Ames, were federal law enforcement officers able to confirm that Ames was the mole they had been looking for. Intuition can play a very important role in the intelligence world, and it was absolutely necessary to catch one of the most damaging spies in US history.'

I find this a very powerful example, the fact that Sandy Grimes’s intuition led the CIA to the mole, Aldrich Ames, and that they acknowledge that intuition can play a very important role in the intelligence world.

Later on, I found an old article of the FBI that seems a bit of the opposite of the CIA’s opinion (FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin Volume: 75 Issue: 9 Dated: September 2006).

They said the following:

'Also, investigators must guard against relying on their intuition, which involves the emergence of views of a case based on the investigator’s own personality characteristics, past experiences, and subjective reactions to people and circumstances. Intuition is not based on a rational analysis of facts and evidence collected through effective investigative techniques. Consequently, it should be suppressed.'

At the time, they believed that the use of, or reliance on, intuition is something that should be suppressed. I think this is an interesting point of view and I, therefore wonder whether the vision of the FBI has been changed/adjusted today.

I also came across the article ‘How Police Analysts use intuition to solve criminal cases’, Getty Science, December 5, 2016, written by scientist Matylda Gerber, PhD. Here some quotes from that article:

“In my studies to date, I have discovered that when analysts have no facts available, they use intuition. However, intuition doesn’t provide them a solution but only indicates where to search for the solution. It is because all cases differ to a large extent and the recognized information doesn’t necessarily lead to the same solution as in previous cases.”
“In my research, I use the Critical Decision Method, which allows me to extract not only explicit but also implicit knowledge analysts use to solve criminal cases. My next experiment will detect the occurrence of identified unconscious processes in analysts’ brains. The final step would be to design functions that help analysts to deal with no facts. Those functions, developed by research, not intuition, would be implemented into a system used by police analysts across Europe.”

After reading her article, my intuition (I got this awareness of instinctively “knowing”) very strongly told me I had to contact her. I felt she could lead me to new and important information.

I emailed her on the spot and she answered back quickly with the following:

“I’ve done research on a project about the way police criminal intelligence analysts think. The biggest problem was to understand how experienced analysts are able to find a solution to a criminal case having just a little information or too much to analyze one by one. I’ve discovered how an intuitive hunch leads to a spectacular solution finding through insight. It works in this way:
Our intuition is mainly based on implicit experience, so experience we have and use but we are not aware of it, that is why, when intuition prompts something, we don’t know where it comes from. So, when the analyst had a hunch to focus on a particular information she didn’t know why but she had a strong feeling this is a right decision to investigate this hunch. She made an interpretation of what she could find investigating this information. I call this interpretation of intuition — leap of faith. It’s a process of interpreting intuition, that is based on implicit experience, using explicit knowledge. So, it’s rather imprecise but still helps to set direction for data collection and analysis. During this process, intuition prompts which information should be considered. During this process, the analyst suddenly gains insight with the right solution. Probably what happens is that implicit knowledge based on which intuition arised, blends with newly collected information and beyond our consciousness creates a new solution that is applicable for a given situation. This process goes beyond consciousness, because consciousness is incapable to analyze the huge amount of information that implicit experience contains. I’ve observed a similar process analyzing experienced medical doctors.
While analyzing how experienced executive search consultants make decisions about finding suitable candidates, I’ve focused on a different aspect of intuition — how do they know when to trust their intuition. Experienced head hunters within a few seconds know if a given candidate is right and it’s not about liking them or not. They have an imagined perfect candidate and immediately they know if the real one suits. If they recognize the candidate to be the right one, their way of collecting information is just to confirm their intuition. If they don’t know, they collect both positive and negative information about the candidate. The concept that explains this way of thinking and collecting information is Meta-Reasoning.”

Meta Reasoning

“Our brain is constructed in a way that tries not to waste too much energy if possible. Conscious reasoning is more effortful than the unconscious one — intuition based, that is why our brain tries to use conscious reasoning as little as possible. There is a concept of Meta-Reasoning — a mechanism that informs when a decision could be made without consciousness and when consciousness should be switched on. There are different hypotheses, but the most probable is that there are 2 mechanisms. One is working all the time. It’s a mechanism that sends positive impulses with different intensity. If we face a situation that is very familiar, our organism receives a strong impulse that this situation is familiar and we have a pattern of behaviour for this situation. Decision-making goes beyond our consciousness. If the impulse is lower, the information is that the situation is somehow similar to the past experience but needs to be verified. Then, consciousness is switched on but only to find information that confirms an intuitive solution. Finally, when the impulse is very weak, the consciousness is switched on, because there is no solution for the encountered situation and it needs to be found deliberately. The second mechanism is latent and is switched on only if a possible danger or an inconsistency occurs. It gives a negative impulse and consciousness it switched on to find what the danger is about. This concept of two mechanisms (positive and negative impulses) is compatible with four-drive theory of motivation and somatic marker hypothesis.”

The information Matylda provided me with gave me lots of new insights and her scientific approach drew me a completer picture of how intuition works. In the meantime, I received the replies from my other colleagues.

Anonymous — Veteran and Intelligence Analyst

“I have a very specific belief that intuitions are less about a magical ability to read things, as intuition is about the instinctual ability to observe and sense information that develops an incomplete but strong evident hypothesis. This hypothesis is essentially a picture puzzle with a section missing, and those with the ability to see the missing section with what information they can form a very reasonable analysis. Some is experience, subconscious knowledge or simply intelligent thinking. But when it is a brain that is not able to formulate a perfect how and why understanding and articulate with evidence it becomes an intuition.”
“I believe it is instinct, art in many cases and science which is not yet studied. And analysis is like hunting. We are hunters and gatherers. These primitive skills can be readily converted into other skills and talents. Evolution and adaptation using parts of the brain that are really nearly vegetative but useful for survival.”

George Yuhasz — Former U.S. Government Special Agent and Author of Children’s Book ‘Imagine That: The Magic of the Mysterious Lights.’

“In the absence of any recognizable patterns, I have found numerous times that using one’s own past experiences, whether cases are similar or not to the one at hand, can help develop leads in getting answers to questions (Basic Who, What, When, Where, How). This has worked well with missing persons cases I have worked. In dangerous situations, if one has any measure of time to think, then intuition may come into play, otherwise instinct takes over in gut reaction form. I’ll add that experience, which eventually becomes stored in one’s subconscious, can be acquired intentionally as well and may then take shape as a recognizable pattern to be called upon. However, I have found that working with other investigators (Ex. a task force scenario), intuition can often give way to bias which leads to defeating the purpose of investigations in the first place-seeking and establishing factual information.”

Robert E. Sell — Security Enthusiast, Search & Rescue Member, Tracker, Tracelabs Founder

“I think what we call intuition is some what primitive as we make it sound like some sort of magical thing. I find for me it comes from experience. Much like our instincts its an essential tool for us to function and is developed over time based on our experience. While its hard to explain it I would say for me it is sometimes an immediate “pull” which sends me down a particular trail (literally or figuratively) and sometimes its a nagging feeling that I need to look at something or to be careful. We do this all the time with people where we decide if we can trust them or not. I recommend the book ‘Gift of Fear’ to learn more about that. Excellent book on profiling violent offenders. It talks a lot about our intuition and how we often know the answer however our higher reasoning capabilities often get tricked with false data. The older I get, the more I trust my personal instincts. I also tend to give less thought about the outside influences than I did when i was younger which helps a lot. By doing this I not only find the right path but also very often find new ways to accomplish the tasks faster/better. There is overlap here with creativity and allowing ourselves to be artists rather than box checkers.”

Dalai Clawma @greyhathackr — Ethical Hacker — Red Teamer

“Intuition is a very interesting thing the definition of it is “the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.” So, in this sense it’s equal to instinct. Do I follow my instincts? Yes, I think I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. At the end of the day it’s decision making based on empirical evidence and luck.”
“When I notice something is not normal (in my work) I go into detective mode and depending on what is its impact I get super focused on fixing the issue. If I don’t have any control over it I report it and forget about it.”

William Thomas — Security Researcher at CYJAX Limited

“That strange feeling you get when you feel you’re on to something — or ‘gut feeling’ — is something I do experience as an intelligence analyst. I often write threat reports about a new advanced persistent threat (APT) group, a phishing campaign, or a previously undisclosed malware. Part of providing good intelligence reports is narrative-based analysis. This involves fully understanding the threat, investigating it, and contextualising the subject of the report. When looking at an ongoing campaign, I look for when the attackers slip up and make a mistake, such as registering a domain without WHOIS Guard, that leads to revealing more of their infrastructure. I often use my intuition to try and guess what I, as an attacker, would do and then check if they made any mishaps. These operational security (OPSEC) fails can unravel their campaigns and lead to things like C&C servers, locations of implants, or stolen credential stores.”

Cassandra33 — Open Source Intelligence Analyst and Private Investigator

“In general, when busy conducting an investigation, I switch into the “hunter modus”: I put on my headphones with music, often related to the subject, to bring myself in a certain kind of mood. I close myself off from the world and start hunting. I feel my adrenaline levels rising, I become extremely focused, and when my instinct/intuition leads me to an important track, a key finding, I almost scream from joy, a kind of hyperkinetic state. The ultimate release. A natural high.”

Summary

In the example at the intro of this article I said the following:

“I took a look at the domain name and immediately I got an uncanny feeling, a nagging pain in my gut at the level of my solar plexus. Almost a kind of agitated, ‘fight or flight’ mode. I felt my muscles tightening and my nerves and senses were on edge. Alarm bells went off. I remember finding this remarkable, why did my system react so quickly and yet so intense?”

Also, I wondered about:

“What exactly is intuition and how does it work? Is intuition based on experiences from the past which ensure that we (can) recognize certain patterns? Is intuition that which we call ‘experience’? Or is intuition the same as our instinct, that system which especially animals, like the wolf, make use of? Perhaps it is a combination or maybe there are completely different, other factors that (can) play a role.”

I’ve learnt that the two most important characteristics of intuition are:

is independent of any conscious reasoning process;
concerns the instinctive and immediate ability to understand or know something;

I understand more now about the ‘gut-feeling’ phenomena and the gut-brain axis:

'But what may not be obvious is just how connected the brain and gut are. Emerging evidence is showing that the gut-brain axis is one of the most powerful relationships in our body.'

I gained more insights about the opinion of two famous U.S. Intelligence Agencies, the CIA and the FBI, on intuition and the use of it while conducting intelligence research.

Matylda Gerber provided me with many new scientific insights, among others:

“Our intuition is mainly based on implicit experience, so experience we have and use but we are not aware of it, that is why, when intuition prompts something, we don’t know where it comes from.”

“I call this interpretation of intuition — leap of faith. It’s a process of interpreting intuition, that is based on implicit experience, using explicit knowledge.”

And last but not least, I was truly amazed by the replies of my colleagues, I’ve picked some of their, for me, most striking sentences:

“You “feel” that something is wrong”
“When you read documents or hear a story you get “images” and/or a feeling”
“Sometimes you just can’t help but get a gut feeling”
“Sometimes I just guess a location from an image and it turns out to be correct. This happens scarily often and I’m not sure why”
“[…] my intuition says it will probably be used for bank phishing”
“I believe it is instinct, art in many cases and science which is not yet studied. And analysis is like hunting. We are hunters and gatherers”
“In dangerous situations, if one has any measure of time to think, then intuition may come into play, otherwise instinct takes over in gut reaction form”
“While its hard to explain it I would say for me it is sometimes an immediate “pull” which sends me down a particular trail (literally or figuratively) and sometimes its a nagging feeling that I need to look at something or to be careful”
“There is overlap here with creativity and allowing ourselves to be artists rather than box checkers”
“Do I follow my instincts? Yes, I think I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t”
“That strange feeling you get when you feel you’re on to something — or ‘gut feeling’ — is something I do experience as an intelligence analyst”
“I often use my intuition to try and guess what I, as an attacker, would do and then check if they made any mishaps”
“I close myself off from the world and start hunting. I feel my adrenaline levels rising, I become extremely focused, and when my intuition/instinct leads me to an important track, a key finding, I almost scream from joy, a kind of hyperkinetic state. The ultimate release. A natural high”

I deliberately refrain from drawing conclusions but I think I can say with adjacent certainty that gut feeling, experience and instinct are core elements of that what we call intuition. I will continue to use it, under all circumstances, and delve further into this beautiful ‘system’.

Special thanks to the people that contributed to this article and I wish you all good luck in your further lives and careers. Below is a list of links to the articles I have used and the websites of some of my colleagues.

‘The highest endeavor of the mind, and the highest virtue, is to understand things by intuition.’
~ Baruch Spinoza, The Ethics ~

References

Intuition Definitions

Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuition

Cambridge Dictionary
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/intuition

Oxford Dictionaty
https://www.lexico.com/definition/intuition

Gut Feeling

UCLA
https://www.uclahealth.org/u-magazine/gut-feeling

Science Magazine
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/09/your-gut-directly-connected-your-brain-newly-discovered-neuron-circuit

Centre for Brain Health, California
https://neuroscience.centreforbrainhealth.ca/our-second-brain-more-gut-feeling

Intelligence Agencies

Central Intelligence Agency, CIA
https://www.cia.gov/news-information/blog/2020/ask-molly-september-2-2020.html
https://www.cia.gov/news-information/blog/2019/to-catch-a-spy-25th-anniversary-of-the-aldrich-ames-arrest.html