In my first demonstration Sheldrake argues that the three subjects (Ss) who "stood up, looked around, shifted their positions several times, and appeared to be momentarily distressed . . .” still could have been aware of being stared at. Sheldrake also states “a sensitivity to being stared at does not necessarily imply an awareness of the position of the starer.” True, but "being momentarily distracted, etc.” does not prove the Ss knew they were being stared at either! A distraction could have myriad causes. As for the two others (i.e., the “paranoid” and the “psychic”) where is the evidence they are "more sensitive than most” to the detection of being stared at? How are "psychics” and “paranoids” identified and evaluated?

In my second demonstration Sheldrake argues there are pairs of unexplained numbers (e.g., 0801, 0802, etc.). By no means are these numbers “unexplained.” On page 38 of my SI article a sample subject’s time sheet clearly states time in minutes from start at 0800 pm and then lists 0801, 0802, etc. through 0820. Since each S’s starting time differed from other Ss, there were different numbers for each S. The time sheet on page 38 was merely an example.

I can unequivocally state that none of the experimental Ss had any difficulty understanding what they were supposed to do and acted appropriately.

Sheldrake was correct however in the fact that on the sample time sheet on page 38 of my SI article the last line of the text states “five times for two minutes each during the experimental period.” This, of course, is an error. It should have read “for one minute each. . . .”

Sheldrake’s argument that by allowing Ss to change their prior guesses would distract them from their immediate feelings I find totally unconvincing.

Finally, Sheldrake’s attempt to shoot down the results of my two demonstrations has failed completely and I stand firmly with my original conclusion that “it is prudent to conclude that people cannot tell when they are being stared at.”

In this case not only was poor Fred guilty of papercide but he had also fallen victim to what psychologists call an error due to perceptual expectancy or a mistake in perception due to our human proclivity for developing mental sets or expectations of things to come. Magicians take advantage of this human failing to fake us out, and professional communicators use it to lure us into their messages. We constantly make mental guesses about how people, events, or things will be. Sometimes we are correct and other times we are wrong-and sometimes we are deliberately deceived. It is our mental “set” that causes us to literally see what we expect to see and hear what we expect to hear. Since we constantly make assumptions or mental guesses about how things will be, it is hardly surprising that we are often wrong and often misled.

A clear example of this fact and the operation of this perceptual principle occurred recently in a series of strange events in a modest but comfortable brick home in a quiet, middle-class neighborhood of a central Kentucky city - events that convinced the homeowners and a neighbor that they were entertaining a full-fledged poltergeist or “noisy ghost.”

The case began with a phone call from Mrs. S., a sixty-two-year-old housewife and mother who, both hesitant and apologetic, informed me that some very strange things had been happening in her house over the past few months. Mrs. S. told me of flying telephones, appliances that start by themselves, doors that slam mysteriously, and ghostly pool games. Since her account was tantalizing enough to warrant a personal visit, I told her to make an annotated list of everything that had happened and that I would be there in a few days.

The following week I drove to the house and was greeted by Mr. and Mrs. S. and their middle-aged neighbor, Mrs. R., who had, during her visits, also experienced two of the startling events: a suddenly slamming door and a leaping telephone. Mrs. S. had, as I requested, made a comprehensive list of the unusual events. They were:

1. Pool balls clacking in the basement and the voices of people playing billiards. Yet no one was in the basement pool room.
2. Months later Mrs. S.'s son and his friend were frightened by a "mysterious force” that disturbed the air and also caused a valvehead cover to leap off a shelf.
3. On one occasion Mrs. S. saw her son seated in the front seat of his Corvette - a car he had been repairing in the basement garage - but upon going upstairs she found this son watching TV.
4. While vacuuming the bedroom Mrs. S. turns off the cleaner and goes into the kitchen to answer the phone. Suddenly, someone turns on the vacuum. When Mrs. S. investigates no one is there but the family dog.
5. Four adults - Mr. and Mrs. S. and Mr. and Mrs. R. - sitting around the kitchen table “see,” out of the corner of their eyes, the telephone suddenly leap from the phone stand onto the floor under the table.
6. While the neighbor, Mrs. R., was leaving the small bathroom between the bedroom and the kitchen to enter the kitchen - someone or some force - violently slams the door leading to the bedroom.
7. One evening while preparing dinner and in process of melting butter in a small skillet, Mrs. S. heard the front door bell. To avoid scorching the butter, Mrs. S. sat the skillet atop an empty saucepan on the back burner and hurried to the door. Returning minutes later, she finds the skillet - melted butter unspilled - sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor. No one had entered or left the kitchen but Mrs. S.
8. A flower pot holding a spider plant and hanging from the kitchen ceiling periodically shakes and vibrates in an unpredictable manner for no apparent reason. A second plant, similarly suspended and in line with the first but at the other end of the room neither shakes nor vibrates.
9. With the exception of the phantom pool game, all of the other events occurred within a few weeks of each other over the space of two or three months. The pool game had happened several years before.

I began my investigation by assembling Mr. and Mrs. S. and Mrs. R. around the dining room table and going over the list with them in order to gain additional details and specific information relevant to the happenings. I also told the group that ghostbusters like myself proceeded by looking first for all possible natural causes for the phenomena before resorting to occult or supernatural explanations. If it so happened that none of the natural or scientific explanations proved to be satisfactory then - and only then - did we seek out uncanny causes or conclude that something unearthly was at work. All agreed that this strategy made good common sense and was a sound way to operate.

Proceeding chronologically, I studied each event, examined the artifacts of concern, inspected the surrounding environment, and interviewed each of the individuals involved. My findings are summarized below:

1. The Phantom Pool Game - Careful interrogation revealed that the only one who reported hearing “voices” in the pool room was Mrs. S.'s 86-year-old mother who was, admittedly, hard of hearing. Moreover on other occasions the grandmother had - as elderly, semi-deaf people frequently do - mistaken street and other noises for human voices. Both ladies did, nevertheless, agree that they had heard “clacking pool balls.” On inspecting the wall-mounted rack holding the pool balls when they were not in play I found it to be suspended by a single screw at the top. The slightest nudge or movement does cause the rack to swing in a pendulum-like fashion and causes the pool balls to roll back and forth clacking against each other noisily. Any house or foundation vibration could and did cause the rack to sway and the loose balls to “clack” against each other. A finger tap against the bottom edge of the rack not only caused the rack to sway back and forth but also produced a number of clacks. Such noises ordinarily would not be heard from upstairs unless one opened the basement door and listened intently, as the two ladies had at the time of the phantom pool game. While in the pool room I also noticed slight and periodic vibrations of the entire house structure. According to Mr. S. who built the house, they were due to the bedrock foundation and heavy truck traffic on the nearby interstate. Ergo: no game was in progress and the clacking in sounds were caused by the pool balls rolling in the wall rack. The voices, if any, were misinterpretations of other noises or sounds issuing from places other than the basement pool room.
2. The Mysterious Force - The fact that several years elapsed between the phantom pool game and the next mysterious event logically rules against the presence of a “resident” poltergeist continually harassing the family. On interviewing Mrs. S.'s 23-year-old son and his friend, I discovered they had recently acquired a damaged Corvette they were in process of restoring. Since the car had been involved in a fatal accident, the two friends were telling each other ghost stories and trying to “freak each other out.” Then, when a greasy valve cover carelessly placed too near the edge of a downward slanting shelf slid off, bounced off the Corvette hood, and clattered noisily across the concrete floor - the two concocted the story of the “mysterious force.” Neither took the event seriously and the son saw it as an opportunity to tease his mother whom he regarded as overly superstitious anyway.
3. The Phantom Son - This event was closely related to the one above. Since the son had been working on the interior of the Corvette for several nights in a row, Mrs. S. was accustomed to seeing him inside the car every evening. Taking a quick glance in the car and expecting to see him there, she did see him there even though he had already gone upstairs. Such misperceptions, based upon our mental set, are very, very common. Further, it is also possible that Mrs. S. may have seen her own reflection in the dark-tinted windows of the car and mistook it for that of her son. Of course, if Mrs. S. had stopped, opened the car door, peered inside and tried to talk to her son, she would have immediately recognized her error. Mrs. S. admitted that she merely gave the car a passing glance and and was surprised only after going upstairs and finding her son there and not downstairs.
4. The Self-Starting Vacuum - Inspecting the vacuum cleaner and turning the handlemounted, sliding switch on and off several times, it was soon obvious that this sliding switch could be delicately poised at a point where even the slightest jar would flip the switch from off to on. Following several delicate adjustments, I was able to turn the vacuum on and then turn it off in such a way that even the slightest movement imparted to either the floor or the base or handle of the cleaner itself would be sufficient to put the vacuum in service. “When you turned it off and left it sitting in the middle of the hall was anyone or anything in the hall or bedroom?” I asked. “No,” Mrs. S. replied. "And when you returned had anything at all changed? Did anyone or anything come down the hall?” “No,” she answered, “the only thing different was that our dog was now lying on the bed.” In other words, the dog came down the hall and into the bedroom after you left? “Yes, that’s right.” I then demonstrated to Mrs. S. the delicate position of the switch and just how easy it was to turn it on by merely giving the handle a gentle nudge. I explained that most likely when she shut it off she left the switch in this very sensitive position and when the dog came down the hall and bumped against the vacuum he was responsible for turning it on. Mrs. S., again, accepted this possibility as both plausible and likely.
5. The Leaping Phone - On inspecting the phone on its stand, I was told that the hand-held phone and the base upon which it rested was in the same place and position it was on the day it “jumped off and fell under the dining room table.’ The first thing I noticed was the relatively unstable position of the telephone due to its being balanced atop three books - a city directory and two phone books - with the phone resting on the smallest book on top. The phone and its base, an automatic answering machine, was connected to the wall outlet about three feet away by two parallel wires: 1) the phone line; and 2) a standard 110V power cord. There was a moderate amount of slack in the two lines so that both rested lightly on the floor between the stand and the wall outlet. If one picked up the wires between the outlet and the stand and gave them a quick jerk it would pull the phone off the stand and dump in onto the floor under the dining room table. Mrs. S, at the time of the leap, was sitting in a chair half way between the stand and the wall outlet, less than a foot away from the wall and the dangling lines. When I asked Mrs. S. if the back legs of any of the chairs had ever become entangled in the phone wires she replied that she couldn’t remember it but she did admit that it was possible. Most of the time she said she was careful. I then demonstrated how easy it was to lift and set the chair down in such a way that the back leg of the chair came down between the wall and the wires. I then told her, “Don't look down. Just sit down and scoot the chair up to the table. When she did this the two wires were drawn taut with the phone poised precariously atop the books on the stand. “Now shift your chair, Mrs. S., either forward or sideways.” As soon as she complied the phone toppled from the stand and would have bounced under the table had not I put a cushion underneath to catch it and prevent damage. Mr. and Mrs. S. and Mrs. R. all agreed this was the most probable cause of the original event. Because of their fright and surprise none of them recalled the exact position of either the chair or the wires after the phone hit the floor. My original supposition was that the family dog, a large friendly beagle, had been responsible. According to Mrs. R., however, the dog was asleep On the floor beside her chair on the opposite side of the table from the phone.
6. The Slamming Door - The unusually small (536-foot) utility bathroom, located between the kitchen and one of the bedrooms, has two doors: one from the kitchen and one from the bedroom. On entering the room and repeatedly opening and shutting one of the doors while the other stood ajar, I was immediately impressed by the amount of air pressure created by the doors opening and closing. According to Mrs. R., the neighbor, she had just washed her hands and was moving into the kitchen when the door behind her - the door going into the bedroom - was violently slammed. To recreate the event I stood in the center of the room with the bedroom door ajar and the door to the kitchen closed. Giving the bedroom door a gentle push I was surprised to find the door so delicately balanced it slammed shut with ease. Even a single finger push resulted in a fairly hard slam. The most violent slam, however, occurred with the bedroom door ajar and the kitchen door closed. Suddenly opening the kitchen door and pulling it quickly toward me generated so much air pressure the bedroom door slammed violently. With Mrs. R. watching, I demonstrated how the slam could have occurred in either one of two ways: first, after washing and drying her hands in the small area and in process of turning to open the kitchen door, her heel could have easily given the bedroom door enough impetus to cause it to slam; or, second, in opening the closed door into the kitchen suddenly pulling it back, the resulting change in air pressure in the small confined area would suffice to slam the bedroom door with force. Mrs. R. was not certain which of the two things had happened but she did accept one or both as the most reasonable and probable causes of the original event.
7. The Flying Skillet - By having Mrs. S. repeat her actions just as she performed on the evening the skillet flew from the stove, it was evident that natural causes were again responsible. According to Mrs. S. she was melting butter and heating it on one of the front burners of her four-burner electric stove. After the butter melted she heard the front door bell, and, not wanting the the butter to scorch, she picked the skillet up and set it atop a small saucepan containing water which was heating on one of the back burners. In carrying out her actions for me and using the same skillet and saucepan, it was clear that she set the skillet on the saucepan at a precarious angle. This, she assured me, was the way she had done it originally. Moving over to the stove and giving the skillet a gentle forward tap, the skillet slid off the saucepan, bounced across the front burner, slid down from the top of the stove to land flat on the kitchen floor approximately in the same position where it was propelled by the hypothetical poltergeist. I explained to Mrs. S. that any vibration or even a boiling, vibrating pan could easily dislodge the skillet and send it skittering across the stove and onto the floor contents intact - depending, of course, upon the angle of the fall. While it was somewhat unusual that none of the butter spilled, the fact that it could have had sufficient time to cool and congeal after being removed from the high heat should not be overlooked.
8. The Shaking Spider Plant - When Mrs. S. called my attention to the spider plant suspended from the ceiling she also said that it periodically vibrates for no apparent reason. Mr. S. corrected his wife by saying he believed the vibrations were due to heavy traffic on Interstate 75, located a few hundred yards away. During the time I watched the plant it would clearly shake for few seconds and then stop, alternating between movement and stillness every few seconds. After I moved to a nearby window and watched the distant traffic on the interstate, there was little doubt as to the source of the vibrations. The reason the second plant failed to vibrate was due simply to the fact that this plant had larger, heavier, and thicker leaves and it was located in a position less sensitive to the tremors caused by the heavy truck traffic. This vibration, I am convinced, proved to be a significant causative factor in a number of the unusual events, particularly the pool game and the flying skillet.

Summary and Conclusions

Although singly each of the events would not have led Mr. and Mrs. S. and their neighbors to assume something of a paranormal nature was afoot, the concatenation of these events over a short period of time did lead to the development of a perceptual set which made each subsequent event more uncanny than the one before. Thus, gradually, the couple made the assumption that something supernatural and even “poltergeist-like” must be involved. Since they and their neighbors were intelligent, well-educated, and somewhat skeptical from the outset, they quickly and readily accepted the naturalistic explanations I provided. They were, in fact, grateful and relieved by my assurance that their home was free and clear from any and all spiteful and demonic influences.

Had somewhat less skeptical and more superstitious individuals been involved, the outcome would have been significantly different. Each succeeding event would have convinced true believers in ghosts that a poltergeist was, indeed, at work. With such a perceptual set it is probable that additional ghostly pranks would have occurred. The less skeptical, with different perceptual expectancies, would have seen all of these events as positive proof of a persistent spectre. Moreover, they would have presented their case in such a way that the editors of Fate, The National Enquirer, Globe, Star, Sun and Weekly World News would be delighted to feature it in their pages as indisputable proof of a spiritual invasion. Readers of such periodicals would, I am sure, agree that ghosts are not only real but they can be found everywhere at any time. It is also likely that they would regard my present efforts at poltergeisticide as purile and foolish attempts to explain away positive and conclusive evidence of a very real and geisty presence.

In cases like this one, our perceptual errors can be of major consequence. On other occasions these mental sets and misperceptions have led to tragic consequences. On July 3, 1988, the crew of the U.S.S. Vincennes shot down an Iranian Airbus killing 290 people. This was an even clearer example of the perceptual expectancy principle at work. Fearing an attack, both the commander and the crew believed they were in jeopardy and fired in self-defense. Military psychologists have long been aware that soldiers, sailors, and airmen in their first battle suffer considerable stress before and during the fighting and may confuse their expectancies with reality. Not only do such tragedies make it doubly important that we carefully check our facts before jumping to conclusions but also that we recognize and pay more attention to the limitations and deficiencies of normal human perception. As for geists - polter- or otherwise - before blaming them for every domestic anomaly we cannot explain we would do well to apply Harrington’s principle of “least astonishment.” In his book Dance of The Continents (1983) Harrington states:

Understanding is a sport of participation and therefore something of a game. . . . The game has only one rule: draw the least astonishing conclusion that can be supported by the known set of facts. . . . Every least astonishing conclusion is a winner, judged to be the most probable choice of all the available competitors.

Read Rupert Sheldrake's response

According to parapsychologists, a commonly reported form of distant mental influence on human beings is “the feeling of being stared at,” which is closely related, historically, to the notion of the “evil eye.” Considerable folklore endorses the idea that gazing at someone carries special powers, favors, or influence. Folklore aside, contemporary opinion polls confirm that the feeling of being stared at is known in all cultures (Radin 1997).

A typical occurrence is that of a woman eating alone at a diner who suddenly becomes agitated. Then the hair on the back of her neck raises and she gets the feeling that someone is watching her-someone behind her. She turns and, sure enough, a young woman is staring directly at her. This type of situation is reported over and over and raises the question: Can a starer's intense focus affect the human nervous system?

According to some parapsychologists it not only can but does, and they insist that it has been confirmed in several laboratory studies, (e.g., Braud, Shafer, and Andrews 1993a; Braud, Shafer, and Andrews 1993b; Schlitz and LaBerge 1994 and 1997; and Peterson 1978). Wiseman, on the other hand, in a series of studies (Wiseman and Smith 1994; Wiseman, Smith, Freedman, Wasserman, and Hurst 1995) as well as a study carried out with Schlitz (Wiseman and Schlitz 1997) found no evidence of psychic functioning. In fact, psi (extrasensory perception) proponents are the only ones who seem to obtain evidence for psi while skeptics do not and, as Wiseman notes (Wiseman and Schlitz 1997), this fact may provide strong support for “the experimenter effect” (Palmer 1989), i.e., the experimenter somehow controls the outcome of the study. Such an effect, however, would be as mysterious-if not more so-than the alleged “staring effect” itself. In another context Wiseman (1999) suggests that the positive results might well represent a “file drawer” effect, i.e., people who failed to obtain impressive positive results simply filed the study away and didn't bother to report it. Nevertheless, Blackmore, who is a severe critic of parapsychology in general (Blackmore 1996), has stated that most contemporary parapsychologists believe this phenomena to be true and offer it as valid proof of psi.

Unquestionably the most vocal supporter of this claim is the British biologist Rupert Sheldrake who, in chapter four of his book Seven Experiments That Could Change the World: A Do-It-Yourself Guide To Revolutionary Science (Riverhead Books, New York, 1995), argues that not only do our minds “extend beyond the body” but also suggests, “If our minds reach out and 'touch' what we are looking at then we may affect what we look at just by looking at it. If we look at another person, for example, we may affect him or her by doing so” (107). Sheldrake, moreover, insists that the sense of being stared at is not only very “well known” but in informal surveys in both Europe and America, “I have found that about 80 percent of the people I have asked claimed to have experienced it themselves.” Sheldrake also notes it is accepted as a premise in countless works of fiction and it plays an important part in the relationship of people with animals and their pets.

It is, therefore, of considerable importance and significance to determine if such “mental influence,” independent of other possible material means of human-to-human communication, does exist.

Demonstration One

Methods and Procedures

Rather than carrying out a rigidly controlled laboratory experiment, the author decided to test this claim under ordinary, real-life conditions in the form of a demonstration. The author was convinced at the outset that people who are cognitively focused (i.e., mentally engrossed in an activity), will never, under normal circumstances, attend to such a weak, nonintrusive, nonmaterial, competing sensation as that of “being stared at.” Showing that people are not aware they're being stared at is a demonstration of “common sense,” not an experiment with an unpredictable outcome. To carry out this demonstration the author, on several occasions over a two-month period, took up a physical position no closer than five feet and no farther away than twenty feet behind forty individuals-twenty-one women and nineteen men (of the forty, twenty-two were University of Kentucky students and eighteen were Lexington, Kentucky, citizens)-and for a period of time between five and fifteen minutes stared intently at the back of each individual's head. Both the viewing distance and the time spent staring varied because of the situational requirements for each subject and the conditions prevailing at the time of the observations. The mean age of those who were stared at was 29.5 years.

Considerable care was taken with each subject to ensure that the starer was not noticed by the person being stared at when the starer took up his physical position behind the subject. Care was also taken to ensure that the subject was not physically aware of the starer's presence during the observation period. Further care was taken to ensure that no third party was aware of the author's staring behavior and then communicated this to the person being stared at during the staring period. The author made sure his staring behavior went undetected not only by the subject but by other people in the environment. No communication between the subject and any other “watchers” took place during the staring sessions. When the subjects completed the activities in which they were engaged, they were approached and questioned. All subjects were seated during the time they were observed. No subject was ever interrupted by the experimenter during the staring period, and the staring period was continued until the subject clearly shifted his or her attention to another task. For example, those subjects stared at while they were eating or drinking were not approached and questioned until they had left their table and had moved toward the cashier or exit.

Seven of the subjects were stared at while they were eating or drinking. Nine subjects were observed while they were reading or studying at the University library or one of the Lexington city libraries. Eight subjects were observed while they were watching TV and the remaining fourteen were observed while they were working at a computer video terminal. Results from two other subjects were discarded.

During each of the forty observation periods the experimenter tried to maintain a steady and unrelenting gaze at the subject's back and head and to ensure that the experimenter's presence and position went undetected during the period of observation.

Following each observation period the experimenter approached the subject, introduced himself, handed the subject his business card, explained the purpose of the investigation and asked them to check and sign a prepared response sheet (figure 1). This response sheet asked them to indicate whether or not they were aware of being stared at and to give their permission to use their results. The mean time of all the subjects being stared at was 8.6 minutes (standard deviation 2.7) and the mean distance behind the subjects was approximately twelve feet.

Figure 1. 'Sense of being stared at' experiment response sheet.

Results

For the thirty-five subjects who reported that they were unaware of being stared at it is important to stress the fact that each of these subjects was totally involved and attentive to the activity they were engaged and focused on. They were seldom if ever distracted by surrounding activities during the period of observation.

Demonstration Two

Methods And Procedures

To test this hypothesis fifty University of Kentucky students, thirty-six women and fourteen men from the Freshman Introduction To Psychology Course, served as volunteer subjects. Each of the fifty volunteers served both as an experimenter, i.e., starer; and as a subject, i.e., the person being stared at.

Figure 2. View of subject at table with digital clock. This is what the experimenter saw when staring at the subjects through the one-way mirror.

Two adjoining, sound-proofed rooms connected by a one-way vision window in the psychology building at the University of Kentucky were used for the observations. Working in pairs, the subject being stared at was seated at a table in the observation room with his or her back to the one-way mirror. A digital clock with large hour and minute numbers was placed at one end of the table with the subjects at the other end. The clock was located so that it could be seen from the observation side, i.e., the other room, by the two observers doing the staring, (the author experimenter and the student experimenter) as well as by the person being stared at (figure 2).

On the observer side of the window the two doing the staring were seated at a table in a position where the clock was clearly seen but the view of the subject was blocked by a small cloth partition. To stare at the subjects both the experimenter and the student had to stand up and look over this partition and stare at the back of the subject at the required time for the full one-minute interval (figures 2 and 3).

Figure 3. This is the view of the digital clock that the experimenters saw through the one-way mirror during those time intervals in which the subjects were not being stared at.

Before each twenty-minute staring session the subject was furnished with a time sheet on which they filled in their name, date, and time of the experimental staring session. Subjects were told to write “yes” on the minute-by-minute time line whenever they believed someone was staring at them. Next, they entered the time shown on the digital clock after their “yeses.” The subjects also marked his or her degree of certainty that they were being observed in the appropriate column on the right hand side of the time sheet. They were also informed that they could check only five “yeses” in the first column-since no one would be stared at more than five times, i.e., more than five minutes during the twenty-minute session. If, however, the subject filled in five lines before the twenty minutes were exhausted but felt that during the last few minutes of the session they were more certain they were being stared at, they were allowed to cross out earlier “yeses” and fill in the later minutes with a “yes” of a higher degree of certainty (figure 4).

Figure 4. Sample of subject's time sheet used
to guess times they were being stared at.

On the observer side of the mirror the experimenter and the student experimenter used an identical twenty-minute Experimenter Time Sheet in which the five individual minute observation periods were pre-selected and marked on the experimenter's time sheets. The five one-minute staring periods for each of the fifty student subjects were randomized by putting fifteen white poker chips and five red poker chips in an opaque bowl. After shaking the bowl, for each of the fifty Experimenter Time Sheets the chips were drawn one at a time, with the red chips used to designate the minutes for staring. The only restriction imposed on this method of randomization for the minute staring sessions was that in the event five red chips were drawn successively this draw was rejected and and the randomizing procedure was started afresh.¹ All subjects were informed of these randomizing procedures and all questions regarding exactly what they were supposed to do and the precise requirements of their task were answered before each twenty-minute period began (figure 5).

Figure 5. Sample of time sheet used by the experimenters to determine exactly when subject would be stared at. “X” indicates the five specific one-minute periods during which this particular subject was stared at.

Results

Since the four subjects who exceeded chance by correctly guessing three out of the five one-minute periods in which they were being stared at might well be “psi stars” or “psychically gifted,” each of these four subjects was retested under the same experimental conditions three separate times. None of the four accurately identified more than one one-minute period in which they were being stared at. The mean retest score for all three retest sessions for the four “stars” was .025 for each session-less than chance. The mean of their original score plus the three retest scores was used in the distribution.

Discussions of the Results of Both Studies

These results are not surprising when it is remembered that most industrial and business security systems are based on the premise that the cashiers, dealers, croupiers, et. al., are not aware of exactly when they are under surveillance, i.e., being stared at by security personnel from one-way mirrors or monitoring cameras. The TV series Caught On Tape (Real Life Productions) is also based on the fact that people frequently commit crimes when they assume no one is looking. CBS's very popular Candid Camera TV show also assumes people are not aware of the fact that others are looking at them.

Why Braud and the other parapsychologists resorted to the use of indirect physiological measures, e.g., electrodermal activity, rather than more direct, above-threshold methods is puzzling. Opportunities for the play of bias, i.e., “the experimenter effect,” are maximized in the notoriously unreliable recording and reporting of these highly sensitive and quixotic subthreshold measures. In fact, in a recent study using electrodermal measures (Wiseman and Schlitz 1997), Wiseman, a skeptic, found no evidence of psi whereas Schlitz, a believer, found positive and significant effects.

Accordingly, a simpler, more direct approach to the study of such alleged effects seemed both more reasonable and more reliable, especially since the claim that people know they're being stared at is an “above threshold” phenomenon.

Sheldrake's contention that such studies as the two reported here cost very little to carry out, can be done by most anyone without special training-including amateurs-and can yet provide good scientific answers to big questions are points well taken. A recent example of what Sheldrake calls “small science” is the work of eleven-year-old Emily Rosa and her study of Therapeutic Touch (Sarner 1998). Because two studies reported here are also good examples of small science, the author strongly recommends that other interested skeptics replicate these studies. The second study does not require connected rooms with a one-way mirror. A cardboard partition with two holes-one allowing the experimenter to see only the digital clock and the second allowing the experimenter to see both the clock and the person being observed-would serve adequately. Both the experimenter and the subjects could carry out such a study in a single room with the subjects at one end and the observer at the other. In the present study when subjects were asked not to turn around or stare at the one-way mirror all of them complied. In the first study, obviously no special equipment of any sort is required.

A note of caution is in order to those who would replicate the first demonstration. As noted earlier, two subjects, once they learned that the experimenter was an investigator of paranormal phenomena, did their best to persuade the experimenter that they were special people with special gifts badly in need of scientific attention. This behavior is not unusual. Many ordinary individuals desire attention and publicity and will do anything to get it. The opportunity to establish themselves as psychically gifted and in possession of paranormal powers and, therefore, worthy of further study is a chance they find difficult to pass up.

Summary and Conclusions

To determine if people can tell when they are being stared at, two demonstrations were completed. In the first, forty individuals were stared at for an average time of 8.6 minutes while they were eating, reading, or watching a computer screen or television. When they finished they were asked if they were aware they were being stared at. Of the forty a total of thirty-five reported they were “totally unaware that anyone was looking at them.” For the other five there is good reason to believe they also were not aware they were being viewed. In the second demonstration fifty students sat at a table in front of a one-way mirror and were observed by two experimenters, one minute at a time, five times during a twenty-minute observation period. The students' task was to try to guess when they were being stared at and report their degree of certainty. None of the fifty were able to correctly guess when they were being stared at. The mean accuracy score for the group was 1.24; the chance score for guessing was 1.25 out of a total of five guesses.

Despite the parapsychologists' contentions, unless replications of these two studies prove otherwise, it is prudent to conclude that people cannot tell when they are being stared at. If experimental purists question either the validity or the reliability of the outcome of these two demonstrations, I suggest they repeat them and see for themselves. If people somehow know they are being stared at-but only at a subthreshold level (which at the moment is unproven and only speculative), this “fact” is of theoretical value only and is far too weak, and unreliable to be of any practical use to modern man.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Dr. Melody Carswell of the University of Kentucky Psychology Department, Dr. William Raynes of the UK Statistics Department, and Mr. Fred Bach of Video Hits, Lexington, Kentucky, for their assistance and support in carrying out these studies.

Note

This is a simple, quick, and legitimate way to randomize such a presentation. Even if the series were biased, subjects would still be expected to detect the stares when they occurred. [Return]

References

• Blackmore, Susan. 1996. In Search of The Light: The Adventures of a Parapsychologist. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
• Braud, W., D. Shafer, and S. Andrews. 1993a. Reactions to an unseen gaze. Journal of Parapsychology 57: 373-390.
• ---. 1993b. Further studies of autonomic detection of remote staring: Replications, new control procedures, and personality correlates. Journal of Parapsychology 57: 391-409.
• Palmer, J. 1989. Confronting the experimenter effect. Parts 1 and 2. Parapsychology Review 1-4 and 1-5.
• Peterson, D.M. 1978. Through the looking glass: An investigation of the faculty of extra sensory detection of being stared at. Unpublished Thesis, University of Edinburgh, Scotland.
• Radin, Dean I. 1997. The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena. San Francisco, Calif.: Harper Edge, Harper, 29-30.
• Sarner, Larry. 1998. The Emily Event. Skeptic 6(2), 32-37.
• Schlitz, M.J., and S. LaBerge. 1994. Autonomic detection of remote observation: Two conceptual replications. In Proceedings of Presented Papers 37th Annual Parapsychological Association Convention. Ed. by D.J. Bierman, 352-360. Parapsychological Association, Fairhaven, Mass.
• ---. 1997. Covert observation increases skin conductance in subjects unaware of when they are being observed: A replication. Journal of Parapsychology 61: 185-l96.
• Sheldrake, Rupert. 1995. Seven Experiments That Could Change The World: A Do-It-Yourself Guide To Revolutionary Science. New York, N.Y.: Riverhead Books, Chapter 4.
• Wiseman, R., and M.D. Smith. 1994. A further look at the detection of unseen gaze. Proceedings of Presented Papers 37th Annual Convention. Ed. by D.J. Bierman, 465-478. Parapsychological Association, Fairhaven, Mass.
• Wiseman, R., M.D. Smith, D. Freedman, T. Wasserman, and C. Hurst. 1995. Two further experiments concerning the remote detection of an unseen gaze. Proceedings Of Presented Papers 38th Annual Convention. Ed by D.J. Bierman, 48-492. Parapsychological Association, Fairhaven, Mass.
• Wiseman, R., and M.J. Schlitz. 1997. Experimenter effects and the remote detection of staring. Journal of Parapsychology 61: 197-207.
• Wiseman, R. 1999. Quoted in Robert Matthews, I know you're looking. New Scientist 17 April.

We’ve long known that Art Bell, night radio’s paranoid propagandist, knows how to rave and rant. What we didn’t know was whether or not he could read and write. An organized rumor that he is, indeed, literate comes to us in the form of an alleged “book” titled The Quickening: Today’s Trend, Tomorrow’s World. The question of Bell’s literacy is not fully settled, however, because on the title page we are told there was an editor, one Jennifer L. Osborn, who had a prominent role in this publication. Quickening, unfortunately, was released this year by a firm labeled Paperchase Press of New Orleans, Louisiana. Added suspicion is cast upon Bell’s claim to authorship by the presence of Ms. Osborn’s name right under Bell’s in a very suggestive position. After one dips into the book’s pages, however, it becomes crystal clear from the chapter titles, the gloom-and-doom themes, as well as the litany of errors and misinformation — plus the hysterical and repetitive exaggerations — that the ideas, if not the words, are, indeed, classic Bell.

Just as he does in his nightly radio diatribes, Bell in this word-assembly, is out to terrorize anyone naive enough to read him. Each chapter of this “book” begins with a little “story” whose intent is to frighten one into believing the human race has had it. Although each tale is designed to scare us into calling our Senator, all come off just about as chilling as a Halloween pumpkin.

In one story a couple is no longer able to have children because the wife has a venereal disease. In another, a man catches a drug-resistant form of malaria. In others, two terrorists blow up an oil field, two teenagers poison themselves by inhaling upholstery cleaner, and a bunch of German skinheads catch and torch a Turk. Each of these grotesque tales is Bell’s way of assuring us that our individual and collective future is going to be pure hell. Even worse, our prophet tells us, is the fact that everything around us today is moving so fast, i.e., “quickening,” that none of us Simple Simons is able to keep up with these fast-moving times. This is especially true for simple Art, who apparently never misses a single issue of The Weekly World News and seems to believe every word he reads. “Every aspect of our lives is accelerating and changing at a faster and faster pace,” Art tells us; and since he can’t keep up, then no one else can either! So there!

He or Osborn (or both) are thoughtful enough, however, to give us a warning at the beginning of their book:

Warning: The following material may not be suitable for those of you not prepared to face the realities of the future. These may seem like isolated snapshots of some far-off world. In truth, they are all symptoms of the same cause: The Quickening. . . .

Looking at the chapter topics, we can easily see just what is ringing Art’s bell. First, there is the world’s booming technology, with the Internet, fiberoptics, virtual reality, smart computers, cloning, and all them other goblins the scientists are creating. Next we have the economy (which is America’s heavy load and which nobody understands), the European Union, Asia’s cheap labor, and the disastrous road we're on to a global economy! Then there’s the government, which is fragmented and in decline as we are moving daily to that horror of horrors: global government! And look at society, in particular, our society with its rampant crime and immorality and weakened fabric due to militia groups, terrorism, and hordes of illegal immigrants. Then, of course, there’s the shame of shames — our religion and spirituality. Are your spiritual? Is your neighbor? Look at all those weird New Agers, all that crappy modern psychology. This is what has brought on all the UFOs and alien attacks and abductions and talk about a crazy one-world religion!

Behold our messy environment with its out-of-control consumerism and humongous garbage piles, smog everywhere, lead in all the kiddies cereal, chemical spills and leaks, global warming, ozone holes, and fallout of all kinds from massive overpopulation! The latter, of course, causes horrible disease and famine. Not only are there a lot of new and scary diseases but all the old plagues are coming back and our antibiotics are no longer working. Only prayer can save us! Then there’s our old Mother Earth, who seems to be undergoing menopause with all her earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, tornadoes, hurricanes, droughts, and floods; and don’t ever forget all those mountain-size asteroids and comets heading our way. Worried about the future now?

Within each of his woe-filled chapters, Bell manages to get off some real cobs of wisdom and advice. For example, Bell tells us, “We have children we do not know how or have the time to raise.” We are also advised, “We have to learn self-discipline and stop reproducing. There're too many people already.”

Art is also concerned about our freedom, and he notes, “The world now has more freedom than in the past but at what price? The trouble is that increased political and social freedom has had a degenerative effect on the moral fiber of humanity” (p. 306). Chinese, North Korean, and Cuban citizens thank their lucky stars every day for their firm moral fiber.

We are then told that “Secular humanism is the trend of ‘the Quickening,’ but this has had the backlash of creating a narcissistic population bent on having its own way” (p. 306). Of course, none of the other religious and sectarian groups are ever interested in “having their own way.” In another religious revelation, Bell passes on the shocking, humongous news that “homosexuality [now can be found] even in the church.”

Bell also tells us, “We must save more of our earnings. We should learn to do with less . . . to continue to live as we do will yield people — our children and their children — who will not know how to adequately take care of themselves, to take care of each other, and to care for the world upon which they must depend for resources” (p. 308). Then in the same voice Bell tells us, “We can’t change.” He informs us that there is ethnic hatred everywhere; there is a great disparity between the rich and the poor; we still live under the threat of nuclear war; we are destroying our environment; and, since we cannot change some things, “We should change ourselves as individuals.” “My hope,” Bell says, “is that we as humans will come to our senses. Believing things are ‘not really that bad’ will doom us.” Answering his own rhetorical question “Where is the Quickening taking us?” Bell says, “To a global government with a benevolent dictator. If this is what it takes so be it.” The plague of pompous pieties, platitudes, and propaganda never ceases!

It is very difficult for us to believe that Art Bell (or anyone else for that matter) would have the unmitigated gall to ask the public to pay $24.95 for 336 pages of childish inanities or to have them read such drivel as, “Ghosts and apparitions exist and houses can be haunted. Of that there is no doubt. . . . Psychic abilities are all spiritually based and occultic” (p. 193). Bell’s chapter-by-chapter exposure of his massive and seemingly inexhaustible ignorance and his utter lack of scientific background and training, as well as his total inability to present a respectable rational argument, is embarrassing, even for a grade-school reader.

It is highly unlikely that this silly essay will be reviewed by other critics, since the kindest thing one can do for the author of a “truly bad book” is to ignore the social boo-boo and find something more worthy of criticism. Reviewers, nevertheless, also have a duty to protect the potential reader from nausea and intellectual indigestion. My only justification for spending this much time and effort on The Quickening is to warn any and all unwary readers that it is even worse than Bell’s self-congratulatory newsletter After Dark. Somewhere toward the end of this distressing work Bell confesses, “writing a book is no easy task.” In Bell’s case the chore is well beyond his abilities, and despite Osborn’s help, he still hasn't done the job. The best that can be said about The Quickening is that it is, indeed, sickening!

It was, therefore, somewhat surprising in the face of all this upbeat hype to open the March/April 1997 issue of Psychology Today and see a special report from Dossey informing us that both words and prayer not only have a negative side, but in many situations words and prayer can actually harm! According to Dossey, the old nursery rhyme “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me!” is wrong. It should be changed to “Sticks and stones can break my bones and words can also hurt me!” Moreover, Dossey says he has the proof.

In a series of allegedly “scientific” studies, Dossey argues that negative prayers from human beings can harm microorganisms. He stresses that while most everyone is familiar with the placebo effect, few are aware of the nocebo effect — the ability of negative beliefs and expectations to actually cause harm. Though far more complex, we humans share many identical biochemical processes with microorganisms and we harbor billions of microbes within us. Therefore, if negative prayers can harm lower organisms, would it not be possible to exert a nocebo effect on humans as well? Dossey says, “Yes, indeedy!” and he even goes so far as to suggest that negative prayer not only works but that everyday ordinary “harm-meaning” folk regularly engage in it, especially in athletic contests, where the opposing teams gather in their respective locker rooms, praying that they will beat the BeeJesus out of their opponents. In such a situation, God must be very puzzled, but Dossey tells us such prayers work, citing a comment from Michael Murphy, founder of the New-Age Esalen Institute in California, as proof:

Witness the many hexes aimed at games via radio and television sets. If rooting channels or triggers powers of mind over matter, it is no wonder that during certain contests balls take funny bounces and athletes jump higher than ever or stumble inexplicably. . . .

Although scientific studies of the effects of purposeful negative prayer on human beings have not been attempted because of their obvious illegal and unethical implications, there is little doubt that the range of negative power is enormous, especially in the form of curses on those we hate and those who have done us wrong. Referring to primitive cultures where hexes, spells, and voodoo can have tremendous negative effects — even death — on those who are victims of such powerful suggestion, Dossey says that “after years of study, I'm convinced that the malevolent use of prayer is quite common, woven into our society and our lives. In a 1994 Gallup poll on the prayer habits of Americans published in Life magazine, five percent of people confessed they'd prayed for harm to come to others. And that was only the number that admitted it.” Dossey goes on to suggest that diseases such as the Guillain-Barrë syndrome and other illnesses of unknown origin are due in part to the negative wishes and prayers of others!

Dossey summarizes his position by suggesting that negative prayer is nothing, after all, but the devil in us and the evil side of the two-headed human coin we keep flipping, hoping that good will turn up. He discusses the case of Eddie Rickenbacker, who, according to Dossey, was adrift in a lifeboat during World War II when, as the result of a prayer, a bird dropped by that he captured and ate. Dossey also tells us about the prophet Elisha, who caused forty-three children who made fun of his baldness to be devoured by bears.

While Dossey seems to believe that the eaten children were the direct result of an answered negative prayer, I can think of a different explanation. Odds are that Elisha had some very specific extra help with the bears, and, should he have actually pulled off such an atrocity, even in his time Elisha would have been lynched, gassed, hung, injected, and electrocuted by a jury of peers for such a humongous crime against innocent children over a mere tease. I would also bet the outraged curses of eighty-six vengeful parents would more than outweigh anything Elisha could ever conjure up.

Dossey’s illustrative examples do raise some very intriguing questions. What happens when the same number of people pray for something as pray against it? How does God decide whose prayer to answer? Does the total number of people praying for or against something matter? How about the righteousness of the supplicants? Are positive prayers answered more frequently than negative ones? Does God take the positive ones and Satan the negative? Does the intensity of the praying have any effect on the outcome? Does the length of time one devotes to praying have any effect on the frequency with which one’s prayers are answered? Do the words and phrases used in the prayer — either positive or negative — have any bearing on the success rate? Does the nature of the thing or things prayed for have any bearing on the prayer’s success rate — either positive or negative prayers? Why or why not??

All of these questions, and more, have a very particular relevance and application when we come to the realm of athletics. Just for example, this spring when a small Kentucky town in Eastern Kentucky won the State High School Girl’s Basketball crown, the town’s newspaper, as well as the largest newspaper in Kentucky, gave credit for the victory to God’s answering their prayers. Why their prayers were answered and the prayers of the losers were not remains unknown. One possibility is that the Hazard team had a better “pray-er” — in the form of their principal, who was also a minister. If it turns out that the higher one stands in the religious hierarchy the better the chances that one’s prayers will be heeded, then it certainly behooves every athlete and every athletic team to employ the most religious “pray-ers” possible. Certainly no one should ever enter any contest unpre-prayered!

If Dossey is right then we have an exciting future ahead of us! Not only will we have the game itself, but the prayer game within the game — another exciting and dramatic contest between the opposing praying ministers and the opposing praying fans. Special prayer meetings will be held before every game, featuring the top clerics striving to outpray each other and guarantee victory for their team. In fact, I think this is what Dossey had in mind all along — a movie epic with Spielberg as producer and Chris Carter as director for a billion-dollar blockbuster called Prayer Wars.

In the 1998 Super Bowl, on one side of the field we will have Billy Graham, praying that the AFC champion will destroy the NFC champion. On the the NFC side, praying equally hard, if not harder, we will have Benny Hinn sending up a heavenly beseechment urging every man on the NFC team to break various parts of their foe’s anatomy. To add to the excitement we could have the nation’s huddled watchers vote electronically to determine the winner of the prayer game independently of the winner of the ball game. Then, if the prayer-game winner is also the football-game winner, we will know once and for all whose side God was on. If it turns out that the prayer-game winner is the football-game loser, then we will also know once and for all that God does not put a very high price on the game of football or the other mindless games that humans play. We will also remember what we seem to have forgotten somewhere down the line, that humans have engaged in wishful thinking and have asked for help from above since the beginning of time, with only chance results.

If you take the time to ponder this issue, you may come to the surprising conclusion that maybe we are all better off if many of our prayers are ignored and never answered, especially the negative ones.

As for Dossey’s thesis, I'm afraid he has not thought it through and has not even begun to answer any of the questions posed earlier regarding winners and losers. If Dossey is correct, then I would certainly hate to be in his shoes, because the number of negative prayers launched against him since he started this campaign to promote superstition and misinformation and to misinform and mislead the masses is bound to have such harmful effects upon his person that he is already in the emergency room. And if he only knew about the white-coated doll with “Dr. D” stenciled on the back and the twenty-five pins. . . .We can rest assured, however, we've no cause for concern since the last thing on earth Dossey is, is superstitious! He is, after all, a medical doctor and a medical scientist!

Looking at ETs historically, Huyghe notes that they are well over one hundred years old. In 1896 one Colonel Shaw and a Miss Camille Spooner reported a near abduction by alien creatures with large black eyes who stood three feet tall. Similar reports came out of England in 1901, Baltimore in 1919, Australia in 1925, and Spain in 1944. All of these cases preceded Betty and Barney Hill’s "abduction,” George Adamski’s Venusian flights, Antonio Villas Boas’s alien party in Brazil, and police officer Lonnie Zamora’s encounter with little folk in white coveralls. Following the UFO-sighting classification work of J. Allen Hynek of Project Blue Book, we received in 1987 the alien cover on Whitley Strieber’s Communion, which made the “little grays” very popular. People began to see these fellows everywhere, and there were also many variants. Some grays turned out to be five, six, and even seven feet tall instead of the usual three or four feet. Moreover, people began to report many other aliens of every shape, form, and variety, as the abductions and human/alien encounters began to proliferate and prosper publicity-wise.

Huyghe’s classification effort is not the first — both Linda Moulton Howe and Thomas Bullard made earlier efforts to deal with this alien avalanche. Huyghe, however, believes his taxonomy is the best because all of his entities are closely associated with an alien craft and a good encounter story. Huyghe states his classification doesn't pretend to be scientific but is based solely on how the aliens looked to the human observer, i.e., their phenotype. Huyghe has been able to distinguish four separate classes with several types within each class. The largest class, as one might expect, is the humanoids with five sub-types: nordics, short grays, short non-grays, giants, and nonclassics. Under the animalian category are also five types: mammalian, reptilian, amphibian, insectoid, and avian. Under robotic we find two types: the metallic and the fleshy. And in the fourth category, the exotic, we have again two types: the physical and the apparitional (ghostlike creatures).

Short stories and drawings of all the reported aliens accompany each of the classes and types. As Huyghe notes, if you are a UFO buff, you need this book: "Don't get lost in space without it!” In closing, Huyghe quotes David Jacobs who believes that only the grays are genuine, while all the rest are confabulations of the witnesses. Eddie Bullard, the folklorist and neo-skeptic, also reports that in his opinion the alien humanoid is nothing but “a malicious fairy in technological trappings.” Other folklorists, however, are not so sure.

For example, Michael Craft, staff member of the Omega Institute and a student of Tibetan, Taoist, Native American, and other magical traditions, believes that not only are the aliens very real but, “Something deep inside us appears to love or require the existence of incomprehensible beings and forces, both hostile and friendly. Whether they are there because we need them or because they need us, they are there for us. Whether or not these things are ‘real’ is another question, perhaps one without a single answer.”

In his 1996 book Alien Impact: A Comprehensive Look at the Evidence of Human/Alien Contact (St. Martin’s Press, cloth, 302 pp., $23.95), Craft assures us: “The myth of the alien is as old as humanity. Angels, elves, dragons, talking trees, demons, and trolls are the ancestors of our modern Grays, Bigfoots, Poltergeists, and Channeled spirits.” Craft became interested in aliens, it seems, because of his own strange, UFO-type encounters. Hearing stories of others over a twenty-year period has convinced Craft that “belief is the enemy.” He says, “The UFO community, and its vast literature, is a creaky house built from many different materials” — disappearances, abductions, alien animals, celestial portents, false memories, time distortions, flashbacks, and so on. The fact that the number of people who report seeing UFOs and meeting alien beings is constantly increasing and that over fifty percent of the population believes in aliens has convinced Craft that such a “belief system” is not only real and powerful but mirrors the chaos of modern civilization.

Craft then proceeds to review the entire history of human/alien contact according to reporters such as George Adamski, Billy Meier, Betty and Barney Hill, Travis Walton, Budd Hopkins, Whitley Strieber, participants in the Roper poll, David Jacobs, John Mack, as well as the infamous “men in black.” Every occult, paranormal, folkloric, or pseudoscientific phenomenon or concept — past and present — is trotted out by Craft in a maximum effort to make the reader take him seriously. These include cattle mutilations, crop circles, MJ-12, Area 51, Roswell, black helicopters, Erich von Däniken and Zacharia Sitchin and the Monuments on Mars, the Ashtar command, the Aetherius Society, Findhorn, Swedenborgism, Madame Blavatsky, channeling and science-fiction themes in Philip K. Dick’s VALIS and Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End, the Shaver mystery, and more.

Craft also treats us to modern experimentation in the field of parapsychology, including the work of Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne and some of those remote-viewers who report seeing alien-powered UFOs. Digressions into the belief systems of such sober scientists as John Keel and Terence McKenna are also provided. Keel believes that God is causing people to see UFOs, and McKenna says that an energy field — “the spinning vortex is the UFO . . . UFOs are intended to confound science and reason” — causes us to see and experience UFOs.

According to Craft, what all of the UFO alien lore really means is that reality itself is changing. In Craft’s words, “[H]umanity is headed toward a drastic reordering and restructuring of what we call reality. Paradigm-shaping scientific discoveries appear almost daily just as UFO encounters seem to. Those crazy ‘confoundings’ are on the rise. Perhaps we are headed toward a casual collapse, or a reshaping of reality that ignores all the old rules, except those found in old fairy tales . . . whether we go to the stars or oblivion, UFOs — our oldest friends — are along for the ride.”

If while reading this you have been hearing a buzzing noise, don’t be alarmed. Its just my baloney detector acting up. It goes crazy now every time it hears the words alien impact or the name Michael Craft. It is truly a shame that so very many intelligent and semi-educated people have failed to receive any basic training whatsoever in the sciences. Any general familiarity with one or more of the scientific disciplines would end once and for all the writing, publication, and dissemination of such unmitigated nonsense as Craft’s Alien Impact and the dozens of other books about visitors from beyond. Illusions, delusions, hallucinations and the need to feel important and to be heard and sympathized with, as well as the human proclivity to perpetuate "terminological inexactitudes” can easily and sufficiently account for all reports of contact between humans and aliens, not to mention contact between humans and dragons, elves, demons, fairies, or Elvis. Pompous, pretentious, and contrived accounts of the “social impact” of nonexistent entities are unacceptable. Can one even conceive of writing a book titled The Social Impact of Fairies?

Despite Craft’s labors and the hysterical maunderings of Hopkins, Mack, Strieber, Jacobs, and the credulous media, valid and scientifically acceptable evidence of the existence of either aliens or alien spaceships remains unavailable and will, in all likelihood, remain so for centuries to come. Independence Day is science fiction, not science fact. True believers will, of course, think me a pawn of sinister governmental forces or part of the reactionary establishment’s plot to keep the Truth from the masses. As Chris Carter knows, the Truth is, indeed, “out there.” Like Carter, Craft has discovered that paranormal and paranoid fiction is both more entertaining and financially profitable than dull and mundane fact.

We must not nitpick, however. Dr. Brown informs us that the farthest reaches of the universe are now open to us and can be reached in short order using his rigorous and exacting remote-viewing protocols developed by the US military for espionage purposes. Although these methods are new, they are “valid and exceptionally reliable research instruments, regardless of whether many other scientists yet accept them or are familiar with them” (p. 2). That takes care of that! Brown goes on to inform us that: 1) there is extraterrestrial life, lots of it; 2) this is not a book of speculation about ET life but a volume of results; 3) there is always a study that is the first of its kind and this is such a study; 4) widespread acceptance of his methods will come and we need not be ashamed of using these methods now; 5) his methods are as rigorously controlled as those in any other social science study, although the methods are not the same; 6) he is able to replicate his results, in other words, he can do his SRV over and over and go back where he was before; 7) a wide array of psi phenomena exists; 8) remote viewing — the ability to accurately perceive information at great distances across space and time no — longer needs to depend upon a few gifted individuals because now we know that SRV can be taught and learned, and the reliability of trained individuals is “generally much greater than that of the best natural psychics” (p. 4).

Brown next informs us that he discovered SRV after making contact with several of the Pentagon’s ex-psychic warriors who successfully spied on the Kremlin during the Cold War. Brown became interested after these warriors turned their attention to the enigma of UFOs and ETs visiting Earth. Brown then quickly learned how to use SRV to investigate the ancient Martian civilization that flourished on Mars at the time dinosaurs roamed the earth. Next he learned how to use SRV to study the little Greys and to visit them on their home world. Once Brown mastered the technique, wonder after wonder began to unfold. Things got so wonderful, in fact, that Brown had to stop and insure his readers that “what I discovered in the process of my research was more unexpected than the plot of any science-fiction novel. I never could have dreamed up a story more amazing than the reality that I have perceived” (p. 6).

As the reader turns the pages what strikes the eye is, indeed, amazing. Following a brief history of the U.S. Military Psychic Warfare Program, we are informed about the work of Robert Jahn and Harold Puthoff and Robert Monroe and Ingo Swann and how important meditation and the work of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is in teaching one to use SRV. After learning how one uses the mind and imagination to sail off into the wild blue yonder and how to master the seven stages of SRV protocols and the six different types of remote-viewing data, we are then introduced to the UFO literature as provided us by those good doctors — Dr. John E. Mack and Dr. David Jacobs — who tell Brown about the reality of the little Greys and send him forth to pursue them to their own planet. After a brief excursion to the Transcendental Meditation-Sidhi program and the Monroe Institute, Brown takes us on a journey through Akasha — the home of that fount of universal knowledge, the Akashic Record.

Brown is now ready to get down to business and he does. He next takes us to Mars. Then we visit a UFO-abduction and follow this with conversations with the present-day Martians who have survived and discuss Martian civilization with them. Brown now has us visit subspace, where all SRV occur, and introduces us to the subspace helpers as well as other members of the Galactic Federation. We then visit the home of the Greys and learn along the way that, believe it or not, the ETs helped write many of the Star Trek episodes, which are previews of what we will become in the future. A little further along the way we meet Jesus, God, and Guru Dev and study Earth’s future environment. Following a delightful conversation with Buddha and a study of the Martian culture now present here on Earth, Brown urges us to make official diplomatic contact with the Martians but not before we launch an all-out program to carefully train our human diplomats so that they can bring about the desired results with the Martians, the Greys, and other members of the Galactic Federation. Brown closes his astounding, incredible, and scientifically amazing book by informing us that there is already a Martian underground base in New Mexico and that we should use it as a “processing center” to receive the waves of Martian citizens that will be coming after the president contacts the Martians and begins negotiations. In Brown’s words, “I suggest that the president of the United States authorize (with United Nations sanction) the transmission to Mars of an invitation to begin direct talks between Earth-based humans and the chosen representatives of the Martians. The transmission would indicate that humans are warmly receptive of the idea of working with the Martians with regard to issues of mutual concern” (p. 260). As for the Greys, Brown feels they are not yet ready to work physically with large numbers of humans on an equal level. Nevertheless human diplomats should start working with them, using SRV in subspace, and win them over. Brown thinks we should even help them with their UFO-abduction genetic project. Brown is also convinced that neither the Martians nor the Greys will do anything to further communication with us. "They are waiting for us to act first Let us speak, finally, to those who have waited so long and patiently for us, out there.” Readers who would like to communicate with Dr. Brown can do so by writing him at The Farsight Institute, P.O. Box 49243, Atlanta, GA 30359.

As for the conquest of time, this marvelous accomplishment has also been made with SRV, and exact procedures for doing so are set forth in a lovely book with the intriguing title Future Memory: How Those Who “See the Future” Shed New Light on the Workings of the Human Mind. The book is authored by Phyllis M.H. Atwater, L.H.D. (Doctor of Humanities) and published by Birchlane Press (Carol Pub. Group, New York, 1996). According to Atwater many people “are able to live life in advance of its physical manifestations and remember in detail of having done so when something triggers that memory.” As a child Atwater suffered from synesthesia — hearing colors and seeing sound — and has had at least six near-death experiences thus far. She also believes that we humans invent reality as much as we discover it and that reality is loose and flexible and occasionally “shifts.” We call these shifts coincidences. All such things as prophesying, forecasting, precognition, clairvoyance, and clairaudience are models and proof of our futuristic awareness. Moreover, we all have future memories and Atwater interviewed over 200 people who gave her examples of seeing ahead. Everyone having dj‡ vu experiences, for example, can attest to “seeing ahead.”

The best way to travel in time, however, is to learn the sure-fire future memory technique of “Remote Viewing.” Atwater learned it from an electronics design expert, James Van Avery, at the International Conference on Paranormal Research a year or so ago. Van Avery believes all of us can live the future in advance “by merely deciding to, then practice and practice and hone the skill until it becomes natural to us.” Van Avery says that once, as a child, he knew every turn of the roulette wheel in advance and that he then finally developed his present jim-dandy procedure for “remembering the future.” Jim and Atwater provide the reader with a detailed how-to-do-it, step-by-step procedure in the book and it is, indeed, very simple and something everyone can learn. Boiled down to its essentials it consists of quietly closing your eyes and concentrating on what things will look like in a few minutes; checking a few minutes later, closing your eyes, and imagining again; and gradually going further and further into the future, concentrating on specific details until you can describe the future precisely. While persistent practice is mandatory, the absolute essential ingredient, Atwater tells us, is the matter of belief. “You must,” Atwater says, “make a drastic change in your belief system that what you’re doing is real and that Future Memory is possible and can be controlled.” Most important of all, we are told, “Beliefs do not rely on logic for justification. Once you accept that Future Memory is possible and you can do it, something wonderful will happen. Being conscious of future events will seem almost as easy as remembering what you ate for lunch yesterday. You will actually wonder why visualizing future events was so difficult” (pp. 49-50). Atwater also tells us not to let wrong results discourage us but to use them as means of learning how to improve.

If any of you skeptics are considering taking up remote viewing and, thereby, conquering both space and time, we advise you to do it quickly; otherwise you are likely to be crushed in the mad dash of millions of gamblers and horse players and stock brokers beating new paths to the doors of Brown and Atwater. And you must also take into consideration all those millions of Martians and Greys camped out in front of Brown’s and Atwater’s doors asking for a handout. As for self-deception, we can confidently conclude that on planet Earth today, it is alive and well and flourishing nicely among those with advanced degrees.

For several decades now members of the scientific establishment have nervously bemoaned the fact that this nation is rapidly running out of scientists and engineers and that there is an ever-increasing gap between the scientifically literate and the mass of the American citizenry. While many have suggested all sorts of broad-based strategies and techniques to remedy this alleged disaster, and to keep the nation abreast of other countries who seem to be getting ahead of us in science education, few have managed to come up with workable plans for solving the problem. It is therefore refreshing to encounter an eminent scientist who not only argues persuasively that we as a nation are much better off than we heretofore thought, but that it is unrealistic to assume that we will ever be able to educate the public science-wise. Also, that we are foolish if we believe that we will, through some sort of educational magic, make physicists, chemists, mathematicians, economists, psychologists, biologists, etc. out of the average man, woman, and child.

The dispenser of this sobering wisdom is Morris H. Shamos, professor emeritus of physics at New York University, who also says the last thing we need to produce are “clones like ourselves”, i.e., scientists who have the same values, techniques, methods, and outlook that we have. Our present system, Shamos argues, is producing sufficient numbers of clones in all the hard and “soft” sciences to take care of our immediate and foreseeable needs well into the next century. What we do need, however, are scientific generalists who are good communicators and who are able to get the general public to feel comfortable with science.

Shamos argues that the current reform movement is badly flawed and is not making progress. Not only have we failed to set any reasonable or agreed upon standards for scientific literacy, we have also failed to set forth any guidelines for the ways and means of achieving such standards. Moreover, we have failed to specify how such improvments would benefit our society more than literacy in other disciplines such as law, political science, psychology or sociology. Why science is so much more valuable and necessary must be carefully spelled out and justified to the satisfaction of everyone in our society. This can be done, Shamos insists, if we help the public gain confidence in what scientists do by providing access to responsible expert advice and cleaning our house of the large number of fringe experts and their junk science. We must very carefully select and use our best people as technical advisors on matters of public policy and they must spell out very clearly what the proposed scientific action means and how it impacts the social body — especially its moral and political aspects. Like we have done in the field of law, we would be wise to establish a scientific “supreme court,”as Authur Kantrowitz proposed a quarter-century ago, to resolve significant disagreements. This court would function in a manner similar to a legal court by studying and cross examining proponents on both sides of important science issues. Quickly eliminated would be the “junk science” that Peter Huber so eloquently described in his book Galileo’s Revenge.

Shamos also proposes the establishment of a National Science Watch Committee to oversee our scientific educational efforts. How should it be structured so that it would gain and hold the public’s trust? The schools cannot do this alone. We must communicate to the public that becoming interested in and informed about science issues is in their own best and personal interest. Learning about AIDS and breast cancer causes are good examples.

Shamos is the first to admit that he is not in possession of all the answers but believes we had best be getting started in the direction of achievable progress. Anyone concerned with science education should begin immediately to teach:

• An appreciation and awareness of the scientific approach to problems not primarily for content;
• The realization that technology is a practical imperative for our personal health and safety;
• A greater use of exports who can help develop a broad scientific literacy.

Shamos also recommends the setting up of a curriculum guide for scientific awareness. This guide would focus specifically on such things as:

• The purpose of science;
• The purpose of technology;
• Why both science and technology are necessary;
• The meaning of scientific “facts”;
• The meaning of scientific “truths”;
• The role of theory in science;
• The role of conceptual schemes in science;
• The role of experiment in science;
• The role of mathematics in science;
• The complemetary roles of science and technology;
• The history of science especially technology;
• The cumulative nature of science;
• The horizons of science — its potential and limitations;
• The threat of anti-science and science counter-culture movements;
• The societal impact of science and technology;
• The roles of statistics in science in decision-making;
• The proper use of expert science advice.

All of the above subjects would be taught not to emphasize the content but rather to stress the nature of the scientific enterprise. This, Shamos believes, is the sort of understanding of science that we want the educated public to be aware of — they need to better understand the “why”, “what” and “how” of scientific endeavor. These, Shamos stresses, will be absorbed and retained whereas a hodge-podge of isolated facts will not.

There is little doubt that Shamos has his finger on the problem, and it is apparent that this lack of awareness and understanding of the issues listed above underlies many of the present misconceptions about science found at the public level as well in our colleges and universities.

If we ever hope to deal effectively with the serious problem of antiscience in academia, as set forth by Gross and Levitt in their recent work Higher Superstition, we must take a stance toward the problem along the lines that Shamos suggests. What Shamos is proposing is one of the most promising and more implemetable ideas we have encountered in several decades. It is also important to note that I have only skimmed the surface of the very deep, well-written, long and carefully developed thesis. Anyone and everyone concerned with science education should read Shamos if he or she desires to be fully informed about the problem.

In no way, however, should this be surprising. Over the centuries, man’s impermanence has dominated his thinking and has, inevitably, been uppermost on his everyday mind. Corliss Lamont long ago reminded us in his book The Illusion of Immortality (Philosophical Library, 1950) that more books have been written on death, dying, and what-comes-after than on any other single subject. In his book Lamont noted that more than 5,000 titles are included in the bibliography on the subject of immortality compiled in 1862 by Ezra Abbot and printed as an appendix to W. R. Algor’s 1871 Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life (H. J. Widdleton, London). Since that time, Lamont reported in 1950, the writings on immortality have increased rapidly, stimulated by two major wars, several minor ones, and the vogue of spiritualism. Lamont said that he himself had a bibliography on file of more than 2,200 books and articles-most in English and most written after Abbot’s impressive compilation. If one adds to all of the publications that have occurred in the 45 years since 1950 we have an impressive pile of paper indeed. If “the light” titles continue to proliferate at their present rate, however, this file may well be exceeded, since they are moving and growing at, obviously, the speed of light.

Almost every bookstore in the country now has a special death-and-dying display or a separate “light” section prominently featured to placate the eager consumers. “Light” titles currently crowd the nonfiction bestseller lists. One of the best-known and an almost permanent resident on the list is Betty J. Eadie’s Embraced by the Light (Bantam, 1994), which stresses the existence of spiritual, physical, and universal laws, including the supreme law of love. Betty saw the light, met Jesus, and was given a message for mankind. Another current contender in the sales derby is Dannion Brinkley’s Saved by the Light (Villard Books, HarperCollins, 1994). Its subtitle is: A True Story of a Man Who Died Twice and the Profound Revelation He Received. Brinkley, who was struck by lightning, saw a lot of light before he was propelled to a spiritual realm inhabited by 13 angels made of light who filled him with knowledge of the future, including, Brinkley says, the coming of the Gulf War and the break-up of the Soviet Union. Some of the wonderful side benefits of the “light” experience, in case you didn’t know, include ESP and the power of prophecy. In Melvin Morse’s Transformed by the Light (Villard Books, 1992), for example, Morse argues that the NDE stimulates one’s ESP abilities and increases the number of verifiable psychic experiences three-fold.

To fully appreciate the history of the “light” books one has to go back to Raymond Moody’s Life After Life (Mockingbird Books, 1975) and his follow- up work Reflections on Life After Life (Bantam Books, 1977). If Moody was not the originator of the "light” experience as one of the most universal characteristics of the NDE he certainly deserves credit for its popularization. His own “light” book The Light Beyond (Bantam) appeared in 1988 and has been followed more recently by Reunions (Villard Books, 1993), in which Moody shows us how to talk with our dead relatives. Not to be left out, our old friend, Brad Steiger, hops aboard the gravy train with his 1994 offering One With the Light: Authentic NDEs (Signet Books). Another fascinating entry in the race is P. M. H. Atwater’s Beyond the Light: What Isn't Being Said About the ND Experiences (Birch Lane Press Books, Carol Pub. Group, 1994). Atwater herself is an ND survivor as well as an NDE researcher. She has found there are many different types of NDEs: some are good and some are bad, and there are strong similarities between NDEs and hallucinations. Since Atwater had three NDEs in 1977, she is undoubtedly an expert.

As Atwater reveals, not all NDEs lead to heaven. In Angia Fenimore’s Beyond the Darkness: My Near Death Journey to the Edge Of Hell (Bantam Books, 1995) the author tells of going in the other direction. On January 8, 1991 Fenimore committed suicide and expected to move toward the light. Instead, she moved into a realm of darkness and a world made up of terrifying visions and profound psychic disorientation, where all of her worst nightmares were real. She also met Satan and found him unattractive. Miraculously, however, after a nice chat with God and an illuminated Christ, she was restored to life. She is now a child-of-God and after receiving professional help was inspired to write her book. She warns us all, however, that “God can’t force us to choose the light.”

Of all the “light” books currently available perhaps the best one is Kevin D. Randle’s To Touch the Light (Pinnacle Books, Windsor Pub. Corp., 1994). Although this is the same Randle who, along with D. R. Schmitt, turns up alien bodies in crashed UFOs in the Southwest, e.g., The Truth About the UFO Crash At Roswell (Avon Books, 1994), he is yet wise enough about the light business to take all of the supernaturalism with a grain of skepticism. In fact, Randle quotes Paul Kurtz’s insight that a profound personality change is in no way proof of an afterlife. Failure to fear death after an NDE only proves that the person having the experience was, indeed, profoundly affected. Such experiences do, most assuredly, provide a measure of comfort and hope, and there is nothing wrong with this unless one thereby neglects his or her material world and the here-and-now in preparation for another world to come.

While most books of this sort are marked by humility and simplicity, this is not the case for Sidney Saylor Farr’s What Tom Sawyer Learned from Dying (Hampton Roads Pub. Corp., 1993). Farr supposedly learned much more from dying than he ever learned from living and he is now a source of wisdom on everything. Today Farr is an authority on the earth’s past, present, and future; the secrets of medicine and healing; humankind’s ultimate destiny; politics, science, psychology, and more.

If you are, however, seriously interested in the NDEs and the psychological experience of seeing the light, you should, of course, read Dr. Susan Blacknore’s excellent Dying to Live (Prometheus Books, 1993). If you have not yet seen the light, don’t worry. The question is irrelevant for both the living and the dying. Curiously enough, the message from all of those who have encountered the light and returned is the same. All of the beings of light are in firm agreement, and they tell the dying: Stay on Earth and resist the transcendental temptation; focus on life not death; use your human powers of love and compassion in work to make this material world-the world of the here and now and the world we all inhabit-a better world, the best world it can possibly be. This is the one thing on which all of us-the believer and the skeptic-can unanimously agree. This is the true light we all should see.

Last month, for example, Frank Tipler, a professor of physics at Tulane University, published a book with the fascinating title The Physics of Immortality: Modern Cosmology, God, and the Resurrection of the Dead (Doubleday, 1994). Normally a sane and sober scientist, Tipler, who is a reviewer for Nature and co-author (with astrophysicist John Barrow) of the respected 1986 book The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, in this latest work seems to have lost his bearing. Tipler, of course, demurs and insists that his mathematical model of the end of the universe proves irrefutably not only the existence of God but also the fact that every human being who has ever lived will be resurrected from the dead in the far distant future. According to Tipler, there is no other possibility. Then, asked to reduce his “Omega Point” theory to one sentence, Tipler replied: “God, who is a personal being who created the universe out of nothing, exists, loves us, and will one day resurrect us all to live in heaven forever.” If this sounds to you more like theology than science then you are in good company. Needless to say, it will come as no surprise to learn that Tipler is also a Roman Catholic as well as a physicist. Most reviewers of Tipler’s book claim he is daft and deluded or like a wily fox, out to sell theology in a new way. If you have the stamina, training, expertise, and patience to follow Tipler’s arguments point by painful point you may be persuaded that some of his arguments are sound. Nevertheless, you will really need God’s wisdom and the help of many of his angels merely to follow Tipler’s arguments and conclude that everything that has ever lived will be resurrected as it formerly was.

If you are sincerely interested in such weighty and wild speculations you will be much better off and more comforted with David Lindley’s more modest and humble little book The End of Physics: The Myth of a Unified Theory (Basic Books, 1993). Lindley does a superb job of deflating all such vast and half-vast claims recently set forth by speculative physicists that we are now on the verge of a Theory of Everything that will explain everything and end human questioning. Incredibly, the same claims were made around the turn of this century, just before Einstein and Planck and relativity and quantum theory. Tipler, however, is not alone. Professors from one end of the nation to the other (and even overseas) are becoming more and more willing to crawl out on the end of some very thin and shaky limbs. At the University of California in Berkeley, for example, a professor of environmental psychology has started a $100 per hour House Counseling Service. The Professor has his clients “role play” with their homes. The owner or owners speak to their houses airing all of their feelings about what they like and do not like about them. Once all their feelings have been aired, they shift roles and play the house—talking back to the owners, telling them what is wrong with their behavior. According to the prof, “Just as some people perpetuate destructive relationships—some people keep finding themselves in unsuitable houses.” Eventually, if a divorce is the only solution because of irreconcilable differences between house and owner, a realtor is reached and the two parties part. If disagreements are small then renovation or behavior changes can patch up the quarrel. One can only assume that the professor also has a share of the realtor’s profits and a hand in the decorator’s business.

In case you have ever been concerned about human and animal rights, you now have, according to the British botany professor Malcolm Wilkins, a third area of concern: the rights of plants. Plants, like other living things, have feelings and are sensitive to injury and pain. How does the good professor know this? Well it seems that plants make inaudible crackling noises when they want water. Just how Wilkins knows they make noises that are inaudible is an entirely unrelated question. Perhaps Wilkins has been consulting with Cleve Backster, the scientist who a few years back was attaching electrodes to stems and leaves and getting feedback he interpreted as emotions. If plants do have feelings and emotions, we are in deep trouble. What, pray tell, will we eat if we can neither be herbivorous nor carnivorous?

Next, we were recently made aware of the work of Felicitas Goodman, a professor of English and folklore at Indiana University. In her 1990 book Where the Spirits Ride the Winds: Trance Journeys and Other Ecstatic Experiences (Indiana University Press, Bloomington) Goodman tells of her discovery of special trance states that lead to all sorts of supernatural powers and contact with spirits both living and dead. The secret lies, Goodman tells us, in following native shamanic techniques, which seem to consist of placing the human body on a slanted board tilted at exactly 37° from the vertical. Once you are tilted you then have to be rhythmically stimulated. This can be done with a tape recording of a drum or a rattle or preferably both. The beat, however, must be even and rather fast: 200 to 210 beats per minute for a 15-minute session will suffice when accompanied by proper breathing exercises. During one’s time on the board, the right arm should be bent at the elbow with the left arm straight and the left hand pointed toward the body. What are the rewards for time on the board? Why, goodies galore! If one keeps at these spirit-journeys one can contact the spirits, access the chakras, learn divination, acquire the gift of healing, learn to shape change, acquire paranormal skills, and attain life everlasting! It is also important that all beginners have a companion, preferably Goodman, who understands the process. In fact, she has been at the slant-board business since 1977. So far, she has held more than 80 workshops and has had a total of 890 participants—592 women and 298 men, with repeat attendances of 159 women and 68 men. Goodman’s posturing is specifically designed to take the believers to the world in the sky, the middle world where other humans live, to the lower world, or out to sea. One can’t help but wonder what would happen if Goodman tilted her board to, say, 38° or maybe even 50?

Then there is the anthropology professor Grover Krantz, of Washington State University in Pullman, who collects Bigfoot-prints and has just published the fascinating book Big Foot-prints: A Scientific Inquiry into the Reality of Sasquatch (Johnson Books, Boulder, Col.). Krantz apparently believes in Bigfoot and will not accept no for an answer. Although most anthropologists flatly reject the idea that a primate (as big as Bigfoot is supposed to be) could live undetected in North America, Krantz attempts to prove the creature’s existence with neither a corpse nor a live specimen. Not only is Krantz easily fooled (see “Bigfoot Evidence: Are These Tracks Real?” in SI, Fall 1994, by Michael R. Dennett) but he goes so far as to claim there are literally millions of Bigfoot tracks. Of course there are not. Krantz also argues that logging companies are paying people to spread wild tales about Bigfoot to discredit the search. According to Krantz, if Sasquatches are found they will be declared endangered and logging will be restricted.

We must also mention three other noted academics who have some deep and very unusual convictions with regard to people being abducted by little gray aliens. Both John Mack, the Harvard professor of psychiatry, and David Jacobs, the Temple professor of history, have become somewhat famous, along with Leo Sprinkle of the University of Wyoming, because of their continuing insistence that UFOs are real and that thousands— even millions—of our citizens are being taken by extraterrestrials for various and nefarious purposes. Maybe, just maybe, there is something psychedelic seeping into the academic offices; something that the union of ivy and brick exudes into the campus air that affects the cerebral vortices of older intellectuals. Mm, maybe this should be looked into. To parody Mike Royko, brains that work like those mentioned above should be thoroughly examined by scientists. On the other hand, perhaps wild speculation among the professorial class is now de rigueur! As all good scientists know and say, “Further research is needed.”