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Psychic Nearly Destroys Familyby Benjamin Radford - LiveScience's Bad Science Columnist

July 17, 2008 08:56 pm ET

Benjamin Radford is managing editor of the Skeptical Inquirer science magazine. He has investigated "psychics" and "psychic powers" for over a decade. His books can be found on his website.

Many people go to "psychics" for a handful of typical reasons. They want to know if they will get their dream job soon, or make a big move, or end up with the hunky new guy who seems shy but might just be "The One".

Most of the subjects are personal, minor, and relatively inconsequential. If the information seems valid, then the client is happy. If none of it comes true, then the subject just chalks it up to a bad reading and only loses a few bucks. No real harm done.

But what happens when the psychic lies to the client (or is wrong) -- telling her information that is not true about something with real-world consequences?

Consider the case of Colleen Leduc -- a single mother of an autistic 11-year-old girl in Barrie, Ontario. On May 30, she left her daughter Victoria at her elementary school. Leduc was soon called back to the school urgently and confronted by the principal, Victoria's teacher, and a teacher's aide (educational assistant or EA). Puzzled and alarmed, Leduc asked what was going on. The group told her that they believed that Victoria was being sexually abused. They had contacted the Children's Aid Society, a case file had been opened, and her daughter might be taken from her "for her own safety".

Leduc was shocked by the explanation. "The teacher looked at me and said: 'We have to tell you that Victoria's EA went to see a psychic and the psychic asked her if she works with a little girl with the initial V. When the EA said yes, the psychic said, 'Well, you need to know that this girl is being sexually abused by a man between the ages of 23 and 26.'"

The EA reported it to the teacher who then went to the principal and so on.

Because Victoria is autistic, the child couldn't speak for herself about the alleged abuse. Leduc didn't believe the psychic's allegations and said that they could not be true since her daughter did not even come in contact with any men of those ages. Furthermore, Leduc could prove it. Because of Victoria's disability, Leduc had equipped her daughter with a GPS tracking system and a continuous audio recorder. A review of the audio proved that at no point was Victoria sexually abused in any way by anyone.

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The case was eventually closed. But Leduc was stunned that it had gotten as far as it did based on such dubious evidence. The psychic has not been identified nor arrested for providing false report of a crime. (For more on this, see www.WhatsTheHarm.net -- a web site the tracks the damage done by psychics.)

If you believe that psychic information should be taken seriously, consider that at any time you could suddenly be accused of anything from murder to rape to child molestation on nothing more than the word of someone who claims to get messages from supernatural sources. Psychic powers have never been proven to exist -- much less provide reliable, valid information.

Some psychics are careful to claim that their readings are "for entertainment purposes only" -- tacitly admitting that their information should not be taken seriously. Most, however, are happy to do their work for paying clients and accept no responsibility for the truth of their information.

If you consult psychics, the next time you meet with one, ask him or her to promise in writing that what they are telling you is true and accurate. I predict that you won't get any takers. Ask yourself why they will take your money but not promise to give you the truth.

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http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/top10-conspiracy-theories.html

Top-Ten Conspiracy TheoriesConspiracy. Just saying the word in conversation can make people politely edge away, looking for

someone who won't corner them with wild theories about how Elvis, John F. Kennedy, and Bigfoot are cryogenically frozen in an underground bunker.

Yet conspiracies do exist. In the corporate world, major companies we buy products from everyday have been found guilty of conspiring to fix prices and reduce competition. Just about any planned criminal act committed by more than one person could be considered a conspiracy from simple murder-for-hire to the Watergate break-in.

Many conspiracy theorists go much further, though, and see a hidden hand behind the World's major events. While some of the theories have a grain of truth to them, conspiracy theories are impossible to disprove because the hardcore believers will find some way to rationalize away evidence that contradicts their beliefs. Eyewitnesses who dispute their conclusions are mistaken or part of the conspiracy. At least, that's what they want you to think...

#10. Big Pharma

Almost everybody (except investors) loves to hate the drug companies. Drugs cost too much. Drug company profits are obscene. And it seems that every few months, some drug once claimed to be 'safe' is yanked off the shelf after patients die. It's little wonder that the drug industry ("Big Pharma") is looked upon with suspicion.

But some proponents of "alternative medicine" believe that drug companies actually conspire to keep people sick to reap profits. For example, Kevin Trudeau the (bestselling author of Natural Cures They Don't Want You To Know About) claims that important medical information is being kept hidden by a conspiracy between the medical establishment and big drug companies. According to Trudeau: "There are certain groups including... the drug industry... that don't want people to know about cures for diseases..."

Actress and model Jenny McCarthy appeared recently on "Larry King Live" accusing doctors and the pharmaceutical industry of conspiring to suppress evidence of a link between childhood vaccines and autism.

#9. Satanic Cults

Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, a rash of child abuse cases horrified America. Children accused adults of ritual rapes, torture, and abuse. The news media reported the sensational stories. Often the accusations included charges of Satanism.

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The pinnacle was Geraldo Rivera's infamous NBC special "Devil Worship: Exposing Satan's Underground" which aired on Oct. 28, 1988. Rivera relied on self-proclaimed "Satanism experts", misleading and inaccurate statistics, crimes with only tenuous links to Satanism, and sensationalized media reports.

In what was the largest viewership for a documentary in television history, Rivera claimed that an organized, Satanic conspiracy was at work killing babies, murdering innocents, and conducting ghastly rituals. "There are over one million Satanists in this country," Rivera said, adding that "The odds are [they] are in your town."

Rivera presented no proof. The lack of evidence was seen as proof of how well organized and shrewd the Satanic conspiracy really was. Yet little evidence supports claims about Satanic cults or conspiracies. In a 1992 report on ritual crime, FBI agent Kenneth Lanning concluded that the rampant rumors of ritual murders, cannibalism, and kidnapping were unfounded.

Phillips Stevens, Jr. -- associate professor of anthropology at the State University of New York at Buffalo -- said that the widespread allegations of crimes by Satanists "constitute the greatest hoax perpetrated upon the American people in the 20th Century."

#8. Protocols of the Elders of Zion

The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is a hoaxed book that purported to reveal a Jewish conspiracy to achieve world domination. It first appeared in Russia in 1905 and described how Christians' morality, finances, and health would be targeted by a small group of powerful Jews.

The idea that there is a Jewish conspiracy is nothing new, of course, and has been repeated by many prominent people including Henry Ford and Mel Gibson. In 1920, Henry Ford paid to have half -a-million copies of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion published. In the 1930s, the book was used by the Nazis as justification for its genocide against Jews (in fact, Adolph Hitler referred to the "Protocols" in his book Mein Kampf).

Though the book has been completely discredited as a hoax and forgery, it is still in print and remains widely circulated around the World.

#7. The Roswell Crash Cover-Up

There is one fact that almost all skeptics and believers agree on: Something crashed on a remote ranch outside of Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.

The Government at first claimed it was some sort of saucer … then retracted the statement and claimed it was really a weather balloon. Yet the best evidence suggests that it was neither a flying saucer nor a weather balloon but instead a high-altitude, top-secret military balloon dubbed "Project Mogul".

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As it turns out, descriptions of the wreckage first reported by the original eyewitnesses very closely match photos of the Project Mogul balloons down to the silvery finish and strange symbols on its side. The stories about crashed alien bodies did not surface until decades later. In fact, no one considered the Roswell crash as anything extraterrestrial or unusual until 30 years later when a book on the topic was published.

There was indeed a cover-up. But it did not hide a crashed saucer. Instead it hid a Cold War-era spying program.

#6. John F. Kennedy's Assassination

John F. Kennedy was killed in 1963 in a Dallas motorcade. Who killed Kennedy?

Most -- though not all -- conspiracy theorists acknowledge that Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy from a book depository. Beyond this fact lies a vast area of conspiracy theory that has spawned endless speculation and hundreds of books, articles, and films.

Was there a second assassin -- perhaps one at a nearby "grassy knoll"? And if Oswald did act alone, who gave him the orders? Activists against Fidel Castro? Organized crime bosses? A jealous husband upset with Kennedy's philandering?

Though the Warren Commission report concluded that Oswald acted alone, a 1979 report by The House Select Committee on Assassinations suggested that there was in fact a conspiracy and likely more than one shooter. In such a complex and sensational case, the conspiracy theories will live on.

#5. Paul McCartney's Death

According to many stories and conspiracy theories that circulated in the late 1960s, Beatles guitarist Paul McCartney died in 1966. The remaining members of the Beatles along with their manager and others conspired to keep McCartney's death a secret -- going so far as to hire a look-alike and sound-alike to take his place in the band.

Well, kind of. In a case of seriously twisted logic (even by conspiracy theory standards), the conspirators in this case took great pains to keep the press and public from finding out about McCartney's demise. Yet they also wanted fans to know about it and placed clever clues in album covers and music giving details about McCartney's death.

For example, on the cover of the Abbey Road album, all four Beatles are photographed striding across a zebra crossing. But only McCartney is barefoot and out of step with the other three. This must mean something, right?

Despite public denials by the band, fans couldn't just let it be and came together to look for more clues.

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#4. The Moon Landing Hoax

In the 1978 film "Capricorn One", American astronauts and NASA faked a Mars landing. Though a mediocre film, it was an interesting idea and one that would endure for decades.

In 2001, Fox television aired the program "Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?" which rehashed many discredited "discrepancies" between the official version of the Moon landing and photographs of the landing. (Curiously, they never explain why NASA would distribute photographs that would "prove" that they had faked the Moon landing.)

Web sites such as BadAstronomy.com have pages and pages of point-by-point, detailed refutations of the Fox claims. Of course, even if there was some credible evidence showing that the 1969 Apollo moon landing was a hoax, conspiracy theorists must also account for later Moon missions involving a dozen astronauts.

And there's the issue of the hundreds-of-pounds of Moon rocks that have been studied around the world and verified as of extraterrestrial origin. How did NASA get the rocks if not during a Moon landing?

Many astronauts have been offended by the implication that they faked their accomplishments. In fact in 2002 when conspiracy theorist Bart Sibrel confronted Buzz Aldrin and called him a "coward and a liar" for faking the moon landings, the 72-year-old punched Sibrel in the jaw!

#3. Subliminal Advertising

Ever been watching a movie and suddenly get the munchies? Or sitting on your sofa watching TV and suddenly get the irresistible urge to buy a new car?

If so, you may be the victim of a "subliminal advertising" conspiracy! Proponents include Wilson Bryan Key (author of Subliminal Seduction) and Vance Packard (author of The Hidden Persuaders) -- both of whom claimed that subliminal (i.e., subconscious) messages in advertising were rampant and damaging.

Though the books caused a public outcry and led to FCC hearings, much of both books have since been discredited and several key "studies" of the effects of subliminal advertising were revealed to have been faked. In the 1980s, concern over subliminal messages spread to bands such as Styx and Judas Priest with the latter band even being sued in 1990 for allegedly causing a teen's suicide with subliminal messages (note: the case was dismissed).

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Subliminal mental processing does exist, and can be tested. But just because a person perceives something (a message or advertisement, for example) subconsciously means very little by itself. There is no inherent benefit of subliminal advertising over regular advertising any more than there would be in seeing a flash of a commercial instead of the full 20 seconds.

Getting a person to see something for a split-second is easy. Filmmakers do it all the time (watch the last few frames in Hitchcock's classic "Psycho"). Getting a person to buy or do something based on that split-second is another matter entirely. (The conspiracy was parodied in the 1980s television show "Max Headroom" in which viewers were exploding after seeing subliminal messages called "blipverts".)

#2. Princess Diana's Murder

Within hours of Princess Diana's death on Aug. 31, 1997 in a Paris highway tunnel, conspiracy theories swirled. As was the case with the death of John F. Kennedy, the idea that such a beloved and high-profile figure could be killed so suddenly was a shock.

This was especially true of Princess Diana. Royalty die of old age, political intrigue, or eating too much rich food. They don't get killed by a common drunk driver.

Unlike many conspiracy theories, though, this one had a billionaire promoting it: Mohamed Al-Fayed -- the father of Dodi Al-Fayed who was killed along with Diana. Al-Fayed claims that the accident was in fact an assassination by British intelligence agencies at the request of the Royal Family.

Al-Fayed's claims were examined and dismissed as baseless by a 2006 inquiry. The following year at Diana's inquest, the coroner stated that "The conspiracy theory advanced by Mohamed Al Fayed has been minutely examined and shown to be without any substance."

On April 7 of this year, the coroner's jury concluded that Diana and Al-Fayed were unlawfully killed due to negligence by their drunken chauffer and pursuing paparazzi.

#1. The 9/11 Conspiracies

The evidence is overwhelming that the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 were indeed the result of a conspiracy. There's no doubt about it. A close (or even cursory) look at the evidence makes it clear that it was carefully planned and executed by conspirators. The question, of course, is who those conspirators were.

Osama bin Laden and the crew of (mostly Saudi) hijackers were part of the conspiracy. But what about President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney? Did top Bush advisors including Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld either collaborate with bin Laden or intentionally allow the attacks to happen? Put another way, was it an "inside job"?

Conspiracy theorists believe so and point to a catalog of supposed inconsistencies in the "official version" of the attacks. Many of the technical conspiracy claims were debunked by Popular Mechanics

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magazine in March 2005 while other claims are refuted by simple logic. If a hijacked airplane did not crash into the Pentagon (as is often claimed), then where is Flight 77 and its passengers? Are they with the Roswell aliens at "Hangar 18"?

In many conspiracy theories, bureaucratic incompetence is often mistaken for conspiracy. Our Government is so efficient, knowledgeable, and capable -- so the reasoning goes -- that it could not possibly have botched the job so badly in detecting the plot ahead of time or responding to the attacks. I find that hard to believe.

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http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/071129-psychics-journalism.html

Bad Journalism Encourages Psychic Detectivesby Benjamin Radford , November 29, 2007 09:38 am ET

Ada Wasson and Mary Ellen Walters vanished.

The elderly pair left their Warren County, Ohio retirement home on April 19 for a day of shopping at an outlet mall. They never arrived. Days turned into weeks and months with no clue about their fate. Their car was missing; their credit cards had not been used; and no one had reported seeing them.

Police were puzzled and their families were desperate. The case was widely publicized, attracting attention, sympathy … and psychics.

While the news media often report on a psychic's introduction into missing persons cases, reporters very rarely follow up on the psychics. The result is that the public hears about psychics being involved but doesn't hear about whether-or-not psychic information actually recovered the missing person or solved the case.

(An early news report on Wasson and Walters was headlined "Psychic Aids In Search For Missing Women" despite the fact that the women had not been found and thus there was no way to know whether the psychic had in fact helped in the search. Giving wild guesses and incorrect information to police hardly "aids" in the search.)

Digging deeper

News of the women's recent recovery was reported in dozens of newspapers. But only one enterprising journalist dug a little deeper and interviewed police about the information they received from dozens of self-proclaimed psychics. The result was an excellent article headlined "Psychic Tips Were Off On Missing Women Case" by Deb Silverman, a reporter for WCPO in Cincinnati.

According to Silverman, police were contacted by about 30 psychics over the course of the 6-month investigation. They sent maps, audiotapes, letters, dream journals, and e-mails. One supposed psychic said that the numbers '42' and '27' were significant and would help police find the missing women. Another said that the pair would be found about 5 miles from where they were last seen. And another said searchers should look in the Ohio River. Still another said the women were within 300 feet of a rural, white church somewhere.

30 different "psychics" gave 30 different answers.

The women were found not by psychics nor by police.

The skeletal remains of Wasson and Walters were spotted Oct. 14 by a hunter and his son in a secluded field near Interstate 71 in Kentucky. One of the women was in the car, the other was nearby, apparently having tried in vain to reach the highway. There were no signs of foul play. The pair had missed their exit to the mall and tried to turn around but got lost on the country roads before driving into a dry creek bed where their car got stuck. Both were in poor health and neither had a cell phone.

The "significant numbers"? 30 and 40.

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All the information that all 30 psychics gave was wrong. The numbers, the dreams and visions, the river, the white churches -- every detail was not only completely wrong but also wasted time and resources. Police spent about 40 work hours sorting through the information.

The psychics are largely to blame. But journalists bear some responsibility. If more journalists covering missing persons cases followed up on their reporting and publicized psychics' consistent failures, perhaps fewer would contact police with their visions and hunches, wasting police time, and falsely raising the hopes of the missing person's family.

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http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/top10_unexplained_phenomena.html

Top Ten Unexplained PhenomenaScience is powerful. But it cannot explain everything.

#10. The Body/Mind Connection

Medical science is only beginning to understand the ways in which the mind influences the body. The placebo effect, for example, demonstrates that people can at times cause a relief in medical symptoms or suffering by believing the cures to be effective whether they actually are or not.

Using processes only poorly understood, the body's ability to heal itself is far more amazing than anything modern medicine could create.

#9. Psychic powers and ESP

Psychic powers and extra-sensory perception (ESP) rank among the Top Ten Unexplained Phenomena if for no other reason than that belief in them is so widespread.

Many people believe that intuition (see #3 below) is a form of psychic power -- a way of accessing arcane or special knowledge about the world or the future.

Researchers have tested people who claim to have psychic powers, though the results under controlled scientific conditions have so far been negative or ambiguous. Some have argued that psychic powers cannot be tested or for some reason diminish in the presence of skeptics or scientists. If this is true, Science will never be able to prove or disprove the existence of psychic powers.

#8. Near-Death Experiences and Life After Death

People who were once near death have sometimes reported various mystical experiences (such as going into a tunnel and emerging in a light, being reunited with loved ones, a sense of peace, etc.) that may suggest an existence beyond the grave.

While such experiences are profound, no one has returned with proof or verifiable information from "beyond the grave". Skeptics suggest that the experiences are explainable as natural and predictable hallucinations of a traumatized brain. Yet there is no way to know with certainty what causes Near-Death Experiences or if they truly are visions of "the other side."

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#7. UFOs There is no doubt that UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects)

exist. Many people see things in the skies that they cannot identify, ranging from aircraft to meteors.

Whether-or-not any of those objects and lights are alien spacecraft is another matter entirely. Given the fantastic distances and effort involved in just getting to Earth from across the Universe, such a scenario seems unlikely.

Still, while careful investigation has revealed known causes for most sighting reports, some UFO incidents will always remain unexplained.

#6. Deja vu

Deja vu is a French phrase meaning "already seen" -- referring to the distinct, puzzling, and mysterious feeling of having experienced a specific set of circumstances before.

A woman might walk into a building, for example, in a foreign country she'd never visited and sense that the setting is eerily and intimately familiar.

Some attribute deja vu to psychic experiences or unbidden glimpses of previous lives. As with intuition (see #3 below), research into human psychology can offer more naturalistic explanations. But ultimately the cause and nature of the phenomenon itself remains a mystery.

#5. Ghosts

From the Shakespeare play "MacBeth" to the NBC show "Medium", spirits of the dead have long made an appearance in our culture and folklore. Many people have reported seeing apparitions of both shadowy strangers and departed loved ones.

Though definitive proof for the existence of ghosts remains elusive, sincere eyewitnesses continue to report seeing, photographing, and even communicating with ghosts. Ghost investigators hope to one day prove that the dead can contact the living -- providing a final answer to the mystery.

#4. Mysterious Disappearances People disappear for various reasons. Most are runaways,

some succumb to accident, a few are abducted or killed. But most are eventually found.

Not so with the truly mysterious disappearances. From the crew of the Marie Celeste to Jimmy Hoffa, Amelia Earhart, and Natalee Holloway, some people seem to have vanished without a trace.

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When missing persons are found, it is always through police work, confession, or accident (and never by "psychic detectives"). But when the evidence is lacking and leads are lost, even police and forensic science can't always solve the crime.

#3. Intuition

Whether we call it "gut feelings", a "sixth sense", or something else, we have all experienced intuition at one time or another.

Of course, "gut feelings" are often wrong. How many times during aircraft turbulence have you been sure your plane was going down?. But they do seem to be right much of the time.

Psychologists note that people subconsciously pick up information about the World around us, leading us to seemingly sense or know information without knowing exactly how or why we know it.

But cases of intuition are difficult to prove or study. And psychology may only be part of the answer.

#2. Bigfoot

For decades, large, hairy, manlike beasts called "Bigfoo" have occasionally been reported by eyewitnesses across America. But despite the thousands of Bigfoot that must exist for a breeding population, not a single body has been found. Not one has been killed by a hunter, struck dead by a speeding car, or even died of natural causes.

In the absence of hard evidence like teeth or bones, support comes down to eyewitness sightings and ambiguous photos and films. Since it is logically impossible to prove a universal negative, Science will never be able to prove that creatures like "Bigfoot" and the "Loch Ness monster" do not exist and it is possible that these mysterious beasts lurk far from prying eyes.

#1. The Taos Hum

Some residents and visitors in the small city of Taos, New Mexico have for years been annoyed and puzzled by a mysterious and faint low-frequency hum in the desert air. Oddly, only about 2 percent of Taos residents report hearing the sound.

Some believe it is caused by unusual acoustics. Others suspect mass hysteria or some secret, sinister purpose.

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Whether described as a whir, hum, or buzz -- and whether psychological, natural, or supernatural -- no one has yet been able to locate the sound's origin.

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