SPOON-BENDING SCIENCE - NEW SCIENTIST

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080018-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 5, 1998
• Sequence Number: 18
• Publication Date: July 14, 1977
• Content Type: OPEN

Spoonmbending science
Gellermania continues, albeit in a muted form, as British scientists continue to examine children who bend
cutlery and a major French firm has launched an investigation of a metal-bending psychic and magician
Joseph Hanlon On a rainy June night, five
apparently sane men drove 100
miles to a lab in Bath to watch a girl try-unsuccessfully
-to bend a spoon "paranormally". This trek provides
evidence that parascience, and metal bending in particular,
continues to attract the attention of serious scientists. But
it also illustrates the changes that have occurred in the
nearly four years since Uri Geller burst upon the scene
and dozens of children appeared to have the same abilities.
As the scientists became more aware of the possibilities of
deception and tightened their conditions, these abilities
disappeared. Professor John Taylor just two years ago in
his book Superminds (MacMillan) declared: "Taking all
this evidence as a whole, only one conclusion seems to be
possible: the strange metal bending phenomenon is
genuine." But last week he told New Scientist that he is
now much less sure that there even is a metal bending
effect. In his own lab, the powers of the children have
declined in direct relation to the tightening of conditions.
Not only can none of the children perform under what he
calls "100 per cent" conditions, they now cannot or will
not even duplicate their earlier performances under looser
conditions.
The Bath test last month was in the lab of Harry Collins,
the only person in the UK to have government money for
research connected to parapsychology. Collins is perhaps
best known for his letter to Nature (vol 257, p 8) in which
he reported that through the use of one-way glass, he had
caught five of the little "Uris" cheating. His #10 000
Social Science Research Council grant is to look at the para-
psychological researchers. But it also includes "participant
observation", which means watching children bend spoons.
In this area, "we saw enough to encourage us to continue
our experiments, but nothing that would convince a
sceptic." Since then, the conditions have been tightened
and again nothing has happened.
The June test, at which I was one of the judges, was of
15-year-old Julie Knowles. Her abilities have been well
publicised (eg Reveille, 5 November, 1976) and she was
taking up the $10 000 challenge of US magician James
Randi. He offered the money to anyone who can bend
metal by paranormal means, but his money remains safe.
Julie has been tested both by Collins and Professor John
asted of Birkbecl , London. Hasted is a strong
believer in a ie s abilities. Although Collins has not seen
her cheat, neither has she been able to perform under his
tighter conditions.
Of those British scientists who have looked closely at
metal bending, only Hasted appears to remain strongly
convinced. He recently published the results of his work
with Uri Geller and three children in Journal of the Society
for Psychical Research (vol 48, p 365). He is now looking
at what he claims is the children's ability to affect strain
gauges embedded in pieces of metal without touching the
metal.
If spoon-bending is dropping from vogue, there appears
to be an increase in other forms of academic parascience
research. There are now at least eight post-graduate
students in parascience, at least t
two of whom hope to get first British PhDs in para-
PhDs this year-probably the fir
psychology.
psychology.
Approved For Rel se 20(1 w0W,;?i G11441 6-007 8000200080018-5
are put on to a tape randomly and a subject later tries to
increase the strength of those signals-if this occurs, it
would mean the subject had influenced the randomisation
process which occurred some weeks before the experiment.
At Surrey University, a philosophy chair was established
for someone to do research "concerned with the philo-
sophical implications of data accumulating in the border-
lands of scientific inquiry, eg ESP." Since its establishment,
the chair has been occupied by Professor S. C. Thakur, who
is developing a philosophy of parapsychology. Three post-
graduate students are now working on telepathy and
psychokinesis (PK) in the Surrey philosophy and
psychology departments.
At City University, Professor Arthur Ellison, president of
the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), is now building
up instrumentation to study physiological correlates-brain
rhythms, electrical skin resistance, etc-of unusual mental
states, particularly during "out of body experiences". And
at Kings College, London, Taylor is looking at electro-
magnetic (EM) signals emitted by subjects during psychic
healing and other apparently paranormal events. Some low
level PK effects, such as moving a small object by passing
a hand nearby, have been "very repeatable", and Taylor
now believes they can be explained by low level EM forces,
charge distributions on the objects, etc. The more spec-
tacular events, such as objects moving about the room,
have never been repeated under controlled conditions so
could not be studied.
Money remains a particular problem in this research
area. None of the post-graduate students is known to have
studentships, although three are supported by the SPR.
Taylor raised the money for his research from private
sources; but even so, he had to beg and borrow equipment.
That money has now run out, and Taylor's assistant expects
to have to leave this month. -
Magic and the paranormal
For Charles Crussard, research money is not a problem.
He is 'research director of Pechiney, the metals and
chemicals conglomerate which is the fifth largest private
company in France. Crussard heads a series of labs employ-
e~t ~taac : C lk E)0 767R*00)20WO0(L earchers have
possible "retro-psychokinetic effect". In the last, signals been studying-with company approval-Jean Pierre
 Approved For Rel a 200' 03f26ListCIA-I6-007 rR000200080018-5
Girard. By all accounts, the Girard studies are on a
much higher plane than the Geller circus. The most striking
difference is that Girard openly admits to being a trained
magician and to having a listing in a French magicians'
annual. Noting that Geller is also a trained magician,
Crussard writes that this merely "proves that such people
have an attraction toward illusionism" and that special
precautions must be taken. Crussard concludes that the
metal bending effect is a combination of mind and body-
psychic and magic-which is sometimes 100 per cent
psychic but not always. "I believe that Geller has PK
powers, but I also believe he gives too many public per-
formances and uses his other powers too often."
In a paper submitted to Nature last year, Crussard
reports on 116 cases of Girard bending metal. Some, he
says, were under tight conditions. But in the paper he
admits that "in some cases the experiment was confused
and a trick may have been possible. But we never saw any
tricks." The events reported include many bent keys-in
two cases, it is claimed that they were checked as flat
before being put into an assistant's hand and were bent
before they were taken from his hand. A flat aluminium
plate held by an assistant and stroked by Girard is said
to have bent in two places; other plates were bent and
straightened during the same session. Twenty five round
bars have also been deformed; in one case a stainless steel
bar in a closed (but not sealed) tube was both bent and
magnetised, Crussard reports.
Flying to Grenoble
The importance of Pechiney and the high standing of
Crussard as a metallurgist inevitably forced Nature to take
the paper more seriously than it might otherwise have
done, although its anecdotal form and mix of controlled
and uncontrolled tests would probably have made it un-
publishable in any case. At Crussard's invitation, Nature
editor David Davies and noted sceptic Chris Evans (a
referee of the original Geller paper: Nature, vol 251, pp
559, 602) flew to Grenoble in early May. They watched
Girard give an informal performance, in which he bent
a few bars, and saw films and tapes of other Girard
bendings.
It was agreed that the conditions still did not satisfy
those which have been developed in the past few years. In
particular, it was felt that the bars were not well enough
controlled before the experiments and not labelled, making
it possible to bend a similar bar before the test and sub-
stitute it for the test bar. Indeed, Girard had been invited
by the experimenters to take identical bars home to
practice with. Other problems included the fact that Girard
did not always keep the bar in sight of the camera, and
that the protocol did not adequately exclude the possibility
that an experimenter might be involved in a fraud.
"I have always considered that my word was sufficient.
In a scientific experiment, if a scientist sees something, his
testimony is sufficient," Crussard comments. But last week
he told me that he accepts the Nature criticisms, and that
in this area of science much tighter rules must apply.
At an early stage in the experiments, the researchers
contacted James Randi and read his book The Magic of Uri
Geller (Ballantine) as well as several of his articles in an
attempt to tighten the conditions. After the Nature visit,
Randi was invited to go to Grenoble actually to set the
conditions. Just three weeks after their first visit, Evans
and Davies were back in Grenoble-this time with Randi.
And this time the conditions were tight. Davies and Randi
coded the rods and Evans controlled them before and
during the experiment. After three hours, Girard gave up
? and abandoned the unsuccessful test. Crussard told me that
"the protocol Randi selected was very good" and will be
continued.
the first C
sure that after a few tries he will be able to do it."
Crussard involved a magician at an early stage-the
French illusionist Ranky has issued a public statement say-
ing that in the tests he watched, he could not see how
Girard could have used tricks. And his involvement more
recently of Randi, probably the best spoon-bender in the
magic business, continues to show that these experiments
are on a much higher level. Chris Evans commented: "I was
impressed by their honesty and their determination to do
things properly. I feel very strongly that they are treating
this in a proper scientific manner-quite different from
any other so-called scientific studies `of this that I have
seen." Evans remains a complete sceptic, but he admits that
"Girard is quite the best I have ever seen. If this-was
fraud, it was very clever-not the sort of thing Geller or
I can do." Evans also stressed the "staggering difference
between Girard and Geller. Everything about Geller shouts
fake at you. Girard seems quite different." Where Geller
constantly runs around the lab and is always doing six
different things; often unannounced, Girard just sits in a
chair the whole time, stroking the bars and doing pre-
cisely what he says he is going to do.
The Randi visit has, however, sparked off a row between
Randi and Crussard. Randi watched some of the video-
tapes of Girard and says he caught Girard cheating several
times: In one, for example, Girard holds a bar in his right
hand and slowly rotates it with his fingers. It appears to
bend, when in fact a bend hidden from the camera is
simply rotated in view. Although he did not say so at the
time, Crussard told me that the whole thing was a test
of Randi, and that he knew that the film contained tricks
as well as real psychic events. This explanation cuts little
ice with the critics, however, who consider it may be little
more than a cover-up. Crussard also told me that if he
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found during a proper scientific experiment that Girard
used a trick, "it would be very disillusioning for me. But
I would certainly tell it-this must be published as well."
Girard was also tested a year ago by Taylor, who says
that it was he who told Crussard that Girard was a
magician. Although Girard was able to perform under
Taylor's tightest conditions at that time, Taylor also says they
were "not 100 per cent" and have been made considerably
tighter since then. Taylor refused to say if he had seen
Girard using his illusionist's skills, but he did admit that
he had taken legal advice on the libel laws-perhaps a
wise decision, as one researcher recently withdrew an
already submitted paper reportedly accusing an alleged
psychic of fraud after the psychic threatened to sue.
Meanwhile, back in the US, the parapsychology boom
continues. Two books were published last year on Geller
(The Search for Superman by John Wilhelm, Pocket Books,
and The Geller Papers by Charles Penati, Houghton
Mifflin). This year, Russel Targ and Harold Puthoff, the
Stanford Research Institute scientists who wrote the
Nature paper on Geller, published a book on remote view-
ing experiments at SRI (Mind-Reach, Delacorte).
The critics are also out in force. A Committee for the
Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal has
been launched with well-known critics such as Randi,
Evans, Martin Gardner, and C. E. M. Hansel, as well as a
few who are less closely related to the area such as B. F.
Skinner, Carl Sagan, and Isaac Asimov. Their bi-annual
journal The Zetetic has just published its second edition.
Committee members also had a large section of the May-
June issue of The Humanist with a series of articles "The
psychics debunked". And Committee members have been
called in to advise the US government on its continued
funding of parapsychology research.
The Targ and Puthoff studies of Geller continue to take
a knocking. In his book, Wilhelm comes close to accusing
Targ and Puthoff of dishonesty. The major experiment in
the Targ and Puthoff paper is a series of picture drawings,
in which Geller was supposedly isolated from one, of the
experimenters. That experimenter would then make or
select a drawing and attempt to transmit it by telepathy to
Geller. "Following a period of effort ranging from a few
minutes to half an hour, Geller either passed (when he did
-not feel confident) or indicated he was ready to submit a
drawing." Geller passed in three of 13 attempts, they say.
Not quite, replies Wilhelm. In three cases, he alleges,
Geller chose to pass but they included one of his drawings
anyway. In one of those cases, Geller passed, but Wilhelm
says: "apparently Targ and Puthoff themselves may have
helped select one of Uri's many drawings that best fit the
target." This was a horse in response to a target of a camel.
Only the drawing of the horse (but not the others) was
published in Nature. In another case, Geller asked Puthoff
whether the target was a geometric picture or an object, and
Puthoff told him. Was there any more such communication
not mentioned in the Nature report? Also not mentioned is
that in one instance Geller left the room and drifted three
rooms away for a cup of coffee during the experiment.
Wilhelm notes that not only was Shipi Strang present
during the tests, but so was another Geller supporter-
Jean Mayo. Often more people were present. Geller's "SRI
experiments tended to be more like full-blown stage per-
formances than private experiments." In one case, Mayo's
telephone number appeared on Geller's response sheet.
She recalls she gave him the number during lunch, but how
did it get on to the sheet? Paranormal, or was protocol
broken by Geller having the pad before or after the test?
Finally, one of the best scientific validations of ESP is
brought into question in an article by Martin Gardner in
today's (14 July) issue of The New York Review. Last year
(University of Chicago). In the book he describes an
experiment in which a randomiser selects a number from
0-9 and lights a corresponding light on a console. The
sender concentrates on the light, while a receiver in
another room presses a button which he thinks corresponds
to the senders light. In a run of 5000 numbers, the receivers
were right 722 times instead of the expected 500. But three
mathematicians at Davis checked the machine, and wrote
to Gardner that in fact it was not random! In a random
series, there is a 10 per cent chance that the machine,
having produced a number X, will immediately produce
X again. In Tart's run of 5000 numbers, this occurred only
in 193 trials instead of the 500 expected. The mathema-
ticians tested the machine and found that it did, indeed,
avoid twins as it had during the experiment. People
apparently repeat a number in such tests much less than
10 per cent of the time, so this alone could have provided
many of Tart's extra hits.
In a comment that must apply to most of the parascience
research done recently, the mathematicians say: "Until the
experiment is done again, we are in the position of a
chemist who at the end of an experiment discovers that
his test tube was dirty. Whether it was only a little con-
taminated or a lot doesn't matter. The experiment has to
be executed with a clean test tube." ^
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 Approved For Relse 2i 'T/ 6t: 01> 13' 96-007 8000200080018-5 83
Finding a home for stray fact
Was the "Miracle of Fatima" simply ball lightning? Are the strange dull sounds heard by George
Darwin 80 years ago related to those reported in the British press last year?
Adrian Hope Independent American journalist
I. F. Stone, with his famous weekly
newsletter, routinely embarrassed politicians and public
figures by reminding them in print of official lies told years
ago. Apart from a prodigious memory, Stone relied mainly
on clippings continually gathered from other publications.
"Everything you need is on the public record," he would
tell students of investigative journalism.
In science there is also in the public record a wealth of
hard fact reported first-hand, but consistently overlooked,
for the simple reason that it fails to fit neatly into any
scientific pigeonhole, and thus remains unclassified. Some-
times this unclassified residuum of hard, scientific fact can
have direct bearing on modern scientific puzzles. For
example the recent reports in the popular press of com-
plaints from people living in London, Bournemouth, Cardiff,
Blackpool, Glasgow, and Ipswich of mysterious humming
noises which are supposedly "baffling scientists" bear a
marked resemblance to those of sounds heard a century
ago in iron steamers off the coast of Greytown, USA..
In the US, William Corliss of Glen Arm, Maryland, has
embarked on the mammoth task of classifying 200 years
over the ocean. Amplitude and spectral analysis of the low
and medium frequency radiation pattern is documented at
length and the interesting point made as an aside that it
"is found as variations in the signal from radio stations".
In other words, whatever is causing the ocean pattern
produced unpredictable interference in received radio
signals. One explanation offered by the Navy, who supplied
the aircraft, the crew, and the computer which analysed
the data, is that the effect is due to peculiarities of ocean
current temperature and salinity. Corliss, in a source book
footnote, suggests possible correlation with the Bermuda
Triangle.
Corliss readily acknowledges that by including fascinating,
but homeless, facts and filtering the data included in his
source books only slightly, it is inevitable that some hoaxes
and honest misinterpretations will have been included. His
unabashed philosophy is to include material by virtue of
its strangeness and tendency to contradict current scientific
hypotheses. It follows that either the "waifs" that he has
included are false, or as he puts it, "science still has much
fundamental work to do".
backlog of previously neglected but potentially interesting Healthy scepticism
scientific material. A nuclear physicist who has worked for Reassuringly the annotations are healthily sceptical
NASA, Corliss has six series of source books available, where the waifs are in serious doubt. For instance, along-
each containing classified and meticulously cross-indexed side that hard fact report on radio disturbances over the
references and excerpts from old and new papers and ocean is an excerpt from an 1847 Report of the British
magazines. Association describing how two Liverpool residents in the
Some sources are as obscure and unlikely as the material Great Park at Birkenhead saw in the clouds an erect image
culled from them. Catholic World (June 1949), for instance, of Edinburgh for a period of 40 minutes. Corliss reminds
is quoted as citing a 1917 description by a Miss Gordon of the source book reader that the straight-line distance
the famous "Miracle of Fatima". During a rainstorm at the between Edinburgh and Liverpool is about 170 miles, and
Cova da Iria, the clouds were torn apart, a sun the colour that as there was at that time a panoramic model of Edin-
of stainless steel appeared, and threw out colours like a burgh on display in the Zoological Gardens at Liverpool,
giant Catherine wheel. Finally the sun, turning blood-red "the coincidence of the mirage and the exhibition is hard to
in colour, came hurtling down over the heads of all those swallow". Corliss is even more openly sceptical when quot-
present. Alongside this reference is another, culled by ing in his Strange Artefacts a report from the English
Corliss from the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal of Mechanic of 1892. Archdeacon Nouri, it seems, climbed the
1841, describing balls of fire witnessed near London in 1750. top- of Mount Ararat and there discovered Noah's Ark
"Dogs howled, fish jumped three feet out of the water . . . which he "walked round with five or six companions". The
and a ball of fire was seen." According to the same source, Ark, like the UFO, notes Corliss, is found frequently.
in 1795 the Rev Mr Gregory described how a ball of fire Although other entries may also at first appear to have a
passed over the town of Derby and several locals "felt some- touch of humour about them, some dubious phenomena
thing like an electrical shock." According to Nature in 1971, have been independently reported so many times that it is
something similar happened in Austria in September 1963. only a fool or a wise man who would discard them. In 1895
In the entrance hall of a restaurant, students on a field trip George Darwin, son of Charles, wrote to Nature describing
from Heidelberg University Geology Department were strange dull sounds heard in the delta of the Ganges. These,
sheltering from a storm. "Suddenly, through the open out- he explained, are locally called Barisal guns, apparently
side doors, a whitish-yellow ball appeared, just above the similar sounds heard off the Belgian coast being called
floor. It was slightly larger than a tennis ball and its speed "mist pouffers". Darwin believed that similar sounds were
was that of a walking person." heard in Dartmoor and parts of Scotland, and asked, "will
All these, and numerous other related source refer- any of the numerous readers of Nature in various parts of
ences, are to be found under the heading "Ball, lightning", the world give us an account of their experiences in this
reference section GLB of the Corliss Source Book Strange matter?" There then followed a lengthy corespondence
Phenomena. Alone and isolated where originally published, reporting guns or pouffers as far afield as Western Australia
they mean little. Together, they help build up a picture not and Cardiganshire. Corliss is able to cite references to
only of what forms ball lightning can take but how, under rumblings heard by Humboldt in Mexico, Moodus sounds in
some circumstances, this natural phenomenon can be mis- Scotland and Buffalo, and Gouffre noises in Haiti.
taken for something supernatural or psychic. Can all these and perhaps those heard recently in
In the same source book, Corliss quotes a dull description England perhaps be explained by the same cause? Who
from a 1964 issue of Undersea Technology of "an electro- knows? But that is the kind of question that Corliss's source
magnetic radiation pattern over the ocean" which may help books leaves unanswered, and indeed does not seek to
explain away some of the mysteries still surrounding the answer. The compiler's avowed intention is to rock the
Bermuda Triangle. Scientists from the LTV Research Centre scientific boat b references anomalous ev is and arte-
engaged routine ro eidi serNOW63026 fa eAiRDP9&Q0787~$ 20 OjQ1 eSn modern
accident, a uniqu to leel"ectromagnetic radiation pattern computerised data systems. ^