Living in Los Angeles, I've grown accustomed to seeing neon-signed psychic storefronts, sidewalk fortunetellers, aura readers, channelers, spiritualists, and New Age advocates of all kinds. The “fringe” is well represented here.

But none of this — not even the psychic cat that occasionally shows up on Venice Beach — could have prepared me for the bizarre parade of paranormal oddities appearing regularly on the late-night radio program “The Art Bell Show.” Carried live five days a week on AM stations all over the country, “The Art Bell Show,” officially known as “Coast to Coast AM,” is America’s most-syndicated late-night talk radio program. (The show “Dreamland” airs on Sundays.)

The program began roughly fourteen years ago; that’s when Art Bell says he first became interested in the paranormal. As it grew in popularity, “Coast to Coast” gradually picked up affiliates and sponsors and today leads the late-night pack in ratings with an estimated nightly audience of eight to ten million. In addition to hosting the program, Bell publishes the After Dark Newsletter, based on his show’s topics, helps maintain a large Internet site (artbell.com) filled with images and links to pro-paranormal sites, and has published two books, The Art of Talk and, most recently, The Quickening, both available only through his 800 number. (See Robert Baker’s column, ”Art Bell’s Quickening Is Sickening,” S.B. December 1997.)

If you ever down enough coffee to catch the show (it airs live on the West Coast from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m.), you are likely to hear Bell and his guests discussing topics commonly found in the supermarket tabloids: ancient structures found on the moon and on Mars; extraterrestrials living on Earth — and how to spot them; the latest crop-circle sightings; the use of remote viewing to see into the far-off future and the distant past. (One “remote-viewer” settled a long-standing historical debate by confirming to Bell that Jesus did indeed look as modern artists have portrayed him.) You are also certain to endure one of the many lengthy on-air product endorsements, ranging from water filters to tape recorders, that Bell seamlessly (and rather sneakily) weaves into his monologues. The topic may occasionally switch to politics or current events, but it inevitably returns to the wild and fantastic tales of the supernatural — his five unscreened phone lines for incoming calls make sure of that.

Bell says that he’s been “in search of wisdom” throughout his life and has investigated many religions, but he claims he makes no judgments about whether the numerous paranormal topics he discusses are real or not. (He does, however, confess a personal interest in life-after-death and UFOs. And, yes, he has seen one.) Bell says he doesn't like to “tear apart his guests” with tough questions and frequently expresses his desire to “let listeners make up their own minds.” Where, then, are the tools to enable listeners to do this? Why is the show and his regularly advertised Web site so completely devoid of any critical, skeptical material?

Bell believes there is already an “automatic skepticism” about his program’s paranormal subject matter and that plenty of skeptical information is available (though he didn’t mention where). Furthermore, as Bell points out, his program is simply about the paranormal, and he feels it’s not productive for him or anyone else to criticize what are frequently subjective stories. Perhaps, but many of the phenomena discussed on his show do involve questions of a scientific nature — phenomena that have been researched and investigated and can be considered without belittling the subjective experience. Nevertheless, although Bell insists he doesn't want his listeners to blindly accept the paranormal claims of his guests, he says, in apparent contradiction, that he is comfortable letting everyone have a chance to tell his or her story, unchallenged.

Not to be eclipsed by the perpetual weirdness of his callers and guests, Bell periodically refers to his own “millennium madness” theory named, ominously enough, ”The Quickening.” Bell says that for about the last decade or so he has been noticing changes of ever-increasing severity in our culture and environment; that “in many areas of our lives the gravity of events seems to be intensifying” and may be leading to some great “change” — and this by the end of the century. Bell cites the increase in violent crime and broken families, frequent climactic catastrophes of all kinds, the growing national debt, dishonest politicians, general lack of respect for others — about any and every “bad” thing you can imagine — as evidence of this coming global transformation. The multitude of factors contributing to ”The Quickening” are conveniently vague, and, like any good apocalyptic forecast, can easily be modified and re-explained to encompass facts that may, at first, appear contradictory. For instance, when I pointed out that last year’s violent crime rate was the lowest since 1989 (this according to FBI statistics released in October of last year), Bell’s response was: “Yes, but the increase through 1989 was horrendous.”

Does Bell fear that he may be contributing to the “dumbing down” of America by refusing to be critical of his paranormal topics? Hardly. Although he acknowledges that there is indeed a “dumbing down,” Bell scoffs at suggestions that he bears any responsibility. “If America is getting dumber it’s not because of my program. . . . There are a million shows like mine. Look at (the television show) ‘Strange Universe’ — they don’t feel an obligation to present contradictory materials.” For Bell, the root of the quandary is our educational system, but he’s emphatic that it is not his role to instruct listeners on subject matter he regards as “absolute entertainment” — even though comments from listeners that tout “Coast to Coast” as an informative and important source of news are proudly displayed on his Web site.

Not surprisingly, the real reason for the show’s divergent postures — simultaneously existing solely as entertainment and presenting supposedly reliable, scientific information — has little to do with any “search for wisdom.” The “Art Bell Show,” and others like it, exist because of a formula, one that their producers rarely concede and one that invariably precludes any meaningful, balanced discussion of the paranormal. “These programs,” Bell admits, “are on the air for a very specific reason: they're businesses. They wouldn’t be in business if people weren't watching. People watching equals ratings, ratings equals money.” He discusses the paranormal because, as he says, “it’s what people want.” And if it contributes to a population increasingly unable to critically evaluate his show’s topics? “It’s not my responsibility” is his refrain. Bell doesn't seem to care.

The Art Bell Show, officially Coast to Coast AM, began roughly thirteen years ago and is America’s most syndicated late-night talk radio program. Carried five days a week on AM stations throughout the country (with a sixth show called Dreamland on Sundays), it regularly features a parade of paranormal oddities.

Theories about a strange object near Hale-Bopp were first made public in November of last year when Chuck Shramek, an amateur astronomer from Houston, called Art Bell’s program to report that a photograph of his appeared to show a large object behind the comet, an object he speculated to be up to four times the size of Earth. The following night, Courtney Brown, a tenured professor of political science at Emory University and director of the Farsight Institute in Atlanta, was a guest on Bell’s show and claimed that three “remote viewers” associated with his institute had confirmed Shramek’s findings and, incredibly, had determined it to be a metallic object full of aliens. As further proof, Brown sent Bell a photograph of the Hale-Bopp “companion” (allegedly taken by someone Brown identified only as a “top-ten university astronomer”) on the condition that Bell hold off displaying the image on his Web page until the astronomer in question held a news conference. (Meanwhile, astronomers analyzing Shramek’s mystery object concluded it was a misidentified star, though Shramek continues to dispute this.) After two months of waiting for the secret astronomer to come forward (time also spent feeding the Hale-Bopp UFO hype), Bell decided to post the secret photograph. One day later Bell was contacted by Oliver Hainut and David Tholen, both professors from the University of Hawaii, who said that Brown’s image was merely a doctored copy of one of their recent comet photos, and they provided a comparison to prove it. The image was a fake.

As one might expect, Bell took a number of steps to distance himself from the very controversy he had spent so much time promoting. Brown, who had enjoyed frequent publicity on Bell’s program, was no longer welcome (to this day Brown refuses to reveal the mystery astronomer’s identity). Links previously advancing the UFO story — including audio files of the November shows containing the early Hale-Bopp “companion” discussions — disappeared from Bell’s Web pages. (Bell says that all of the audio files from those November shows were lost when a hard drive crashed.) Russel Sipe, an Internet expert who maintains a popular Internet site devoted to educating the public and combating the pseudoscience linked to the comet, also noted that when Alan Hale paid a visit to the radio program in early March, Bell “talked about the magnificence of the comet . . . and even seemed to suggest that there was no evidence for anomalous elements surrounding Hale-Bopp.”

Despite the blatant reversal of position, Bell says he doesn't regret having publicized the Hale-Bopp UFO story. “You have to remember I had several sources,” Bell explains. “In addition to Shramek’s photo, I had a university professor at Emory who supplied us with photographic evidence of what he said was true.” Keep in mind this is the same professor who, for a mere $3,000, will teach students enrolled at his “Institute” to communicate with extraterrestrials. Nevertheless, Bell maintains that Brown and Shramek’s evidence constituted “sufficient material,” and he seems unconcerned that his sources eventually proved to be totally unreliable.

What about the possibility that thirty-nine people ended their lives in part because of Bell’s promotion of false information? Bell doubts the cult members incorporated the “companion UFO” story into their mass suicide decision. He says that in the weeks following the Courtney Brown debacle, the “entire fraud was heavily exposed” and that the revelations all occurred two months before the Rancho Santa Fe suicides. And in a further attempt to paint himself as just another innocent reporter at the mercy of his sources, Bell asserted that “the media had it totally, utterly wrong” in their initial reports of the numbers and ages of suicide victims, as if to compare his show’s unsubstantiated and pretentious banter about a massive, comet-trailing alien craft to the act of gathering details during a breaking, tragic news story. Most important for Bell, though, is that the Heaven’s Gate members appeared to have been aware of the Hale-Bopp UFO debunking. The first line of their now infamous Web site reads:

“Whether Hale-Bopp has a ‘companion' or not is irrelevant from our perspective.”

However, the cult’s Internet link to the Art Bell homepage also indicates it’s likely they first heard about an approaching spaceship during Bell’s two-month-long UFO escapade.

But whatever the Heaven’s Gate cult members or anyone else may have done with the information presented on his radio show, Bell feels that is not his responsibility. “I'm not going to stop presenting my material because there are unstable people,” he insists. “That’s what the First Amendment is all about.” Constitutional rights aside, Bell’s wild Hale-Bopp tales have clearly extended beyond the confines of harmless late-night entertainment and have contributed yet another ominous paranormal myth to a public of both stable and “unstable” people regularly misinformed about science.

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the “Roswell incident,” an event that helped kick off our culture’s undying fascination with UFOs. Although its passing will undoubtedly be marked with more sensationalistic “documentaries” and continued cries of conspiracy, two former proponents of the incident have had a change of heart.

In the March issue of his Skeptics UFO Newsletter, Philip Klass reports that Kent Jefferey, an international pilot and organizer of the International Roswell Initiative (which collected more than 25,000 signatures aimed at obtaining a Presidential Executive Order to declassify UFO information), is expected to explain his new position — that there’s little evidence to support the Roswell case — in an upcoming issue of the MUFON UFO Journal.

Earlier this year, Klass reported that Roswell researcher Karl Pflock had publicly disclosed his revised view that “no flying saucer or saucers crashed in the vicinity of Roswell or on the Plains of San Agustin in 1947.”

Will the revelations of these converts dampen the anniversary hype? Probably not. But skeptics should be pleased to know that a book by Klass about Roswell is in the works, to be published by Prometheus Books later this year. (Skeptics UFO Newsletter, March 1997)

Faking the Final Frontier

According to one theory, the recent production of Apollo 13 — with its amazing special effects and camera tricks — had a great deal more in common with the famous NASA mission than just the story. As Jon Blanton reports in the North Texas Skeptic, some conspiracy buffs still believe that the moon landings and the many other Apollo missions were mere Hollywood fakery. Their proof?

First, they claim that the lighting in both the still and video records of the moon walks is totally inconsistent with what would be expected on the moon — and entirely consistent with staged studio lighting effects (e.g., “pools” of light around the central figure with rapid fall-off of lighting in the surrounding areas; “fill-in” lighting on central figures where shadows should have been virtually black; etc.).

Secondly, they claim the audio is suspicious. For instance, Armstrong’s quiet voice describing the landing has virtually no “background noise” — whereas he ought to have been yelling to make himself heard above the noise of the engine controlling the descent.

Thirdly, they believe there are glaring inconsistencies between the video and still records (of Aldrin’s descent onto the lunar surface, for example).

Is it possible that NASA didn’t have the resources to get a man on the moon and simply faked the whole thing? That’s a stretch. Besides, as Blanton likes to point out, he once stood in the control room at McDonald Observatory and watched while a laser beam was bounced off a reflector left by the Apollo 11 astronauts. Of course, maybe Blanton is part of the conspiracy. . . . (North Texas Skeptic, March 1997)

Decorating for Balanced Energy

If you've recently moved your sofa to make room for that new recliner, your relationship just might go down the tubes. And those shelves you just put in? They might lead to financial ruin. Or, as Robert Baker points out in a recent Kases File, if you don’t pay careful attention to the location of that litter box, you might find yourself in a heap of trouble.

Feng-shui (pronounced “fung-shway”) is an ancient Asian folk belief that the way objects are arranged and placed in one’s home will affect ch'i, or qi (pronounced “chee”). Ch'i, of course, is that invisible field of electromagnetic energy that determines our vitality, fortune, and love life. And for one reason or another, this folklore has caught on in America.

According to a recent New York Times article, “Thousands of people . . . are taking weekend courses and promising to change the fortunes and love lives of eager clients through consultations that can cost as much as $1,000 an hour.”

Feng-shui consultants and gurus are even showing up in Architectural Digest and other magazines, dispensing advice on how to rearrange the ch'i in your home. (KASES File, Volume 10, Number 1)

Awards for Credulous and Incredulous Reporters

As all skeptics know, getting fair, balanced reporting on paranormal topics is rare. The wild claims of astrologers, healers, and psychics of all kinds often go unchallenged and uninvestigated by reporters. But this is not always the case. Occasionally, thorough stories do appear, in which the investigator took the time to look at both sides of the issue. Keith Taylor, a member of the San Diego Association for Rational Inquiry, believes both types of reporters should be recognized, and his group is establishing new awards to do just that.

Though the names of the awards have not yet been decided, the hope is that local reporters will be singled out for their gullibility or honored for their responsible journalism. It might even generate some publicity for the local group. And perhaps other skeptics groups will be inspired to start similar programs.

Suggestions for award names can be sent to DipsyDmstr@aol.com, ehemming@adnc.com, or the San Diego Association for Rational Inquiry, 945 Fourth Avenue, San Diego, CA 92101. (Rational Inquiry, January/March 1997)

Our coverage of the 1994 CSICOP conference in Seattle, Washington, June 23-26, begun in our last issue, continues.

How We Fool Ourselves: Anomalies of Perception and Interpretation

Introducing the session focusing on how we fool ourselves, Barry Beyerstein, a professor of psychology at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, British Columbia, emphasized that “so- called simple perceptions are anything but simple” and that what we see is not always the true nature of reality. Perception is a creative act that involves not only the purely sensory apparatus of the brain but also such things as memory, emotion, and our hopes and fears. Often we fill in our observations of reality with the way we think things should be, based on our expectations. And when these misperceptions become part of our memory, Beyerstein concluded, they can affect new perceptions and interpretations.

Jerry Andrus

The idea that “so-called simple perceptions are anything but simple” was dramatically illustrated by magician and inventor Jerry Andrus. Based on the concept that perceptions are easily altered by expectations, Andrus has created many optical illusions and magic tricks that fool the observer. “Each person paints their picture of reality with a brush dipped in the pigments of the past,” he said. With a simple demonstration using what appeared to be a deck of cards (but which he revealed was really a thick piece of Plexiglas), Andrus illustrated how the assumptions we make about reality, based on years of ordinary, day-to-day experiences, often lead us to “see” things that do not exist. In another example of playing with expectations, Andrus removed the glasses he had been wearing since the beginning of his talk, admitting: “They contain no glass. I wear contacts.” Accompanied by abundant laughter and applause, Andrus continued his performance with a number of large optical illusions that he manipulated to produce further false perceptions.

Andrus also read a short commentary, “How Sees the Mind?” It poetically described the “rubber rulers” of perception that humans stretch to fit their subjective measure of reality. "What we should be using, wherever possible, are the objective rulers of science that resist being stretched or shrunk to fit what we want it to be. These rulers may not be perfect, but unlike ours, are made not of rubber, but of the laws of the universe.”

Susan Blackmore, senior lecturer in psychology at the University of the West of England, in Bristol, described some of the research she has conducted on out-of-body and near-death experiences. Blackmore contends that these phenomena reveal a great deal about the way our minds operate. She explained that when humans approach death, the brain releases endorphins, which can produce a morphinelike pleasure and a random firing of neurons. These physiological occurrences may result in the often reported tunnel images, bright lights, and many other bizarre “out-of-body” effects.

Blackmore also posed questions about the nature of the self, which constructs a reality based on perception. As the body shuts down, the mind is rapidly unable to sustain a model of “I” based on its usual conception of reality. The out-of-body experience, Blackmore suggests, may be “a crude attempt by the brain to hang on to the idea of self.”

Elizabeth Loftus

Elizabeth Loftus, a professor of psychology at the University of Washington, in Seattle, is a well-known expert on eyewitness testimony, and her recent work examining the malleability of memory has provided many insights into the repressed memory debate. (See her article “Remembering Dangerously” in this issue.) In some of her studies, Loftus said, she succeeded in altering her subjects’ memories of some details of scenes they had witnessed, through the use of misleading questioning, misinformation, and suggestion. Another study, using a series of crime scenarios, revealed an even larger frequency of false memories in her test groups. But could a memory of an entire event that never happened be created using these tactics?

Loftus attempted to create in the mind of a teenage subject named Chris the memory of being separated from his family in a mall ten years previously and being found by an older man. Chris entered this alleged incident in a daily journal and, gradually, he vividly “remembered” and even expanded upon the episode that Loftus had originally described to him.

Regarding therapists and patients in clinical environments, Loftus said: “I believe there is evidence that, in some cases, a significant amount of suggestion may be going on. . . . Could this kind of suggestion act in a way that is similar to the suggestion we see here?” Loftus has examined evidence gathered by private investigators and others who secretly taped their sessions with a therapist. In one instance, a therapist diagnosed "incest survivor” at the first meeting. Loftus has received many disturbing letters from families who have been torn apart after a member of the family “recovered” abuse memories during therapy sessions. Loftus concluded: “I think that this kind of activity and practice dilutes and trivializes the experience of true abuse survivors and increases their suffering.”

In addition to the scheduled speakers, James Randi and his assistant, Jose Alvarez, played a videotaped segment of an Australian “60 Minutes” TV segment. As the host of the show explained, a channeler named Jose had been making a name for himself by demonstrating his apparent ability to channel an ancient spirit named Carlos. Appearing with his sleazy manager on numerous TV talk-shows, Jose would enter a strange trance and begin to slouch over. Just as his heart rate would slow to a near-death level (always being monitored by a competent physician), the exuberant spirit of Carlos would dramatically emerge to offer his words of wisdom. The Carlos mania culminated in an appearance to a near-capacity crowd at the Sydney Opera House.

As you may have guessed, Carlos is not an ancient spirit. Carlos is a product of James Randi’s imagination, with a few tricks and some clever acting by his good friend Jose Alvarez. After Jose would enter his trance and slow his pulse (by taping a small ball under his biceps and then gently squeezing), Randi would send the astounding words of Carlos to a tiny speaker in Jose’s ear via a remote mike. It may not have been surprising that the Australian public was so eager to listen, but the ease with which Jose (and Carlos) was able to get such attention, publicity, and access to the press was disturbing.

Carl Sagan’s Keynote Address

Introduced to the standing-room-only audience by CSICOP Chairman Paul Kurtz as a “Leonardo man of thought and action” because of his broad range of scientific study and knowledge, Carl Sagan, the astronomer and author, focused his keynote address on the importance of scientific understanding. Stressing the predictive power of science and the significant role it plays in so many aspects of our culture, Sagan affirmed our responsibility to educate society about its function. “We have a civilization based on science and technology and have cleverly arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology,” he said. He also warned that it “is a clear prescription for disaster” if the circumstances are not changed.

Sagan praised the role of CSICOP and the Skeptical Inquirer in exposing unfounded scientific claims but cautioned skeptics against establishing an “us versus them” mentality by ridiculing and belittling paranormal believers. He also encouraged compassion for those who succumb to the tricks of pseudoscientific con-artists simply because they are not well versed in science, magic, and skepticism.

Sagan also discussed the rigid standards of scientific scrutiny, the complex struggle of inquiry, the great rewards of discovery, and the vigorous and uncompromising role of experimental testing in evaluating ideas. “And though it is no fun to be on the receiving end of skeptical questioning,” Sagan concluded, “it is the affordable price we pay for having such a powerful tool as science.” Sagan’s keynote address was published in the January-February SI as “Wonder and Skepticism.”

Memory: How Reliable Is It?

Carol Tavris, a psychologist and author from Los Angeles, opened the session called “Memory: How Reliable Is It?” by answering: “Not very.” Tavris has recently examined the “pop- psych” books about recovered memory. She found there was “no overlap” between what the books were promoting and what the academic researchers were discovering. Tavris metaphorically described memory as a putting together of tattered pieces that were initially experienced as seamless.

Stephen Ceci, a professor of psychology at Cornell University, and the session’s first speaker, was praised by Tavris for his extensive research on memory. Ceci cited some common types of memory errors and their interesting though sometimes sad results. He provided examples to illustrate how remembrances of contemporaneous events can frequently be mixed together, how experiences can occasionally be remembered in a self-serving way, and how highly emotional or aroused states can cause false recollections.

Ceci also described various studies in which the memories of numerous children were altered by repeated suggestive questioning. He pointed out that, according to national averages, children in court cases will often receive three and a half to eleven formal interviews prior to testifying. The number of informal, and possibly highly suggestive, discussions with worried parents and therapists is unknown. Given the fact that between 18 and 28 percent of children testifying in criminal and civil court cases are of preschool age, Ceci believes the use of children’s memories in the courts is potentially very dangerous.

“Suggestive techniques work very well if there’s something to elicit,” Ceci concluded. “The problem is the price you pay if there isn't something there.”

Richard Ofshe, professor of sociology at the University of California at Berkeley, compared the proliferation of recovered- memory therapists to the grim lobotomy operations that occurred at the rate of five thousand a year during the thirties, forties, and fifties. “We are in the midst of a crisis,” Ofshe said. "[Therapists] are subjecting people to the closest thing to the experience of rape and brutalization that can ever be done without actually touching them.” He pointed out that some of these harmful persuasion techniques are being used not only by recovered-memory therapists but also in past-life therapy, alien- abduction therapy, and during police interrogations that, in some cases, have led to sincerely believed false confessions of crimes, including murder.

Ofshe said that prior to 1980 “no human society has ever noted this supposed ability to remove from consciousness vast amounts of information.” He said that while there is no evidence for the existence of recovered memories, there is data establishing the dangers of hypnotherapy as well as the ease with which therapists can produce false memories.

Loren Pankratz, a clinical psychologist from Portland, Oregon, added a historical anecdote. Pankratz told the story of a con-artist named Davey to illustrate the perpetual unreliability of human perception. In the late 1880s, Davey was able to deceive even the best critical minds using the spirit "channeling” method of slate writing. The technique was widely popular for many years and, among those practicing it, Davey was respected as genuine and trustworthy. Research that later exposed slate writing as fakery and dismissed the anecdotal evidence of Davey’s power as “worthless” prompted one stubborn believer to say that “Davey is actually a medium who is deceiving the public and himself.”

With a degree of irony, Pankratz concluded: “Back in those old times it was really hard to convince some people that memory just isn't very reliable.”

CSICOP and the Law

Influencing Beliefs in the Courtroom: Rules of Law, Expert Testimony, and Science

Peter Huber

Peter Huber, author of Galileo’s Revenge: Junk Science in the Courtroom, and a member of the Manhattan Institute, opened the session on courtroom science, testimony, and law by citing numerous cases illustrating the problems of determining what qualifies as authentic expert testimony and valid scientific evidence. “How many times are we going to let juries vote on psychic powers?” Huber asked. He said that despite often weak scientific evidence in cases involving dubious claims, the promise of large settlements often brings them into the judicial system. For instance, many suits have been brought against Merrell Pharmaceuticals by women who believed that Bendectin, a drug the company had produced in the 1970s, caused birth defects—in spite of studies of the drug that have consistently produced evidence to the contrary.

Huber discussed how the courts have historically set standards for scientific evidence and addressed broader conceptions of setting such standards. One philosophy is to “let it all in.” This would allow new ideas and discoveries the chance to prove their legitimacy without necessarily first having been widely accepted by the scientific community. On the other hand, "letting it all in” might permit juries to legitimize a wide variety of frivolous claims. Huber said: “There is a real possibility for mischief when false claims of causality are peddled in the courts, and I think we all have a stake in trying to make sure those risks are minimized.” Despite his criticism of the court system and past methods of evidence screening, Huber said he has been heartened by recent trends.

Barry Beyerstein, of the Brain Behavior Laboratory at Simon Fraser University, followed with a discussion of graphology. He explained that graphology often appears to work because, as with astrology, subjects read their interpretations and expectations into what are only vague descriptions. By examining the size, shape, style, and proportion of the various loops and angles within handwritten samples, he said, graphologists claim they can ascertain a wide variety of personality traits—from how sexy you are to whether you are a potential pedophile. Beyerstein noted that, despite the lack of scientific evidence establishing graphology as a useful tool, graphologists advise police departments, credit unions, marriage counselors, and employers—and based on this evidence they make important decisions that can profoundly affect people’s lives.

In the criminal-justice system, graphologists have attempted to gain acceptance by aligning themselves with legitimate questioned-document examiners. Beyerstein pointed out that unlike graphologists, these examiners analyze evidence to determine the historical authenticity of a given document, not to look for character traits. Some courts, however, have used graphologists to select jurors, to counsel parole boards, and even to decide the guilt or innocence of defendants. Beyerstein cited one case in which a Denver judge, apparently believing that a change in writing style would produce a change in behavior, made imposing a lighter sentence contingent upon the defendant’s signing up for “graphotherapy.”

Gerald M. Rosen, a clinical associate professor of psychology at the University of Washington and moderator of the session, told of a court case involving post-traumatic-stress disorder (PTSD) victims to illustrate how bias effects can operate, particularly among scientists involved with the judicial system. In his research, Rosen compared the information from survivors of a recent Alaskan fishing-boat accident with the data from a similar San Fran- cisco marine accident in 1957, noting that the former occurred after PTSD was established as a genuine disorder. Rosen found that the reported symptoms and diagnoses in the two cases varied substantially. For instance, among the 27 individuals from the San Francisco incident, only 56 percent reported sleep disturbances, while 100 percent of the 20 in the Alaskan accident reported this symptom. Information Rosen had gathered from the original interviews and his own follow-up interviews of the Alaskan victims also revealed interesting facts. One plaintiff admitted that some victims had been coached on symptoms and that others had been instructed to see a doctor because “it would be worth their while.”

Rosen believes that there are a number of problems with the way PTSD is being diagnosed, especially in the atmosphere of a court case. Primarily, the litigation can present incentives for victims to exaggerate their ailments. Rosen also said that the criteria for diagnosis of PTSD consist mostly of a list of symptoms, and it is difficult for clinicians to separate actual symptoms from faked ones. Rosen concluded: “Mainstream scientists are still subject to significant bias effects. And when this comes into the courtroom, it can lead to severely compromised results.”

Timothy Moore, associate professor of psychology at Glendon College, York University, in Toronto, addressed the problem of “junk science” by discussing his participation in a case involving the heavy-metal band Judas Priest. In the summer of 1990, the band was brought to a Reno, Nevada, court on charges that it had included subliminal messages in its recordings—messages that the plaintiffs said prompted two teenage boys to commit suicide. The defense denied that the band had ever used such messages and further contended that subliminal stimuli are not capable of compelling any behaviors, let alone suicidal ones. However, as Moore pointed out, “The pursuit of isolated, distant, and mysterious causes for various mishaps results in a search for distant and mysterious experts.” One of these fringe experts, Wilson Key, has long been a supporter of the subliminal phenomenon and has claimed to have found subliminal messages in paintings by Michelangelo, in Howard Johnson’s menus, and on both sides of Nabisco crackers.

Despite the pseudoscientific testimony in support of the plaintiffs, the judge eventually ruled in favor of the defense, and justice would seem to have prevailed. Nevertheless, the decision was not made with a clear understanding of the subliminal phenomenon, Moore said, and the pendulum might have drifted to the side of junk science. He concluded by urging greater scientific literacy on the part of the judicial system.

Alien Abductions: Confrontation, Controversy

Robert Baker, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Kentucky, began the session by stating his position that almost all so- called UFO abductions are primarily a psychological phenomenon resulting from hypnotherapy. Regressive hypnosis, Baker contends, is an unreliable procedure because it unlocks the patient’s imagination: "Once you turn on the imagination, all things are possible.” Baker also said that sleep paralysis—a condition that can occur in the period between sleeping and waking—accompanied by hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations, can produce bizarre effects that may account for the vivid alien encounters so many have reported. Not only can these “waking dreams” result in startling apparitions, but they may also produce a range of physiological symptoms, including heightened audio perception, sensations of floating or falling, and even the feeling that some device has been implanted somewhere in the body. Although the predictability is low and the exact causes of such sleep disorders are not known—stress is believed to be a primary contributor—Baker reported that 4 to 5 percent of the American population have had such experiences on one or more occasions in their lives. Baker said that, except for variations in the hallucinatory content, the descriptions given by known sleep-paralysis patients are almost identical to the accounts of alleged alien abductees.

Although somewhat in agreement with Baker and other skeptics that UFO-abduction stories are difficult to accept, Thomas Bullard, folklorist at Indiana University, said that the abduction phenomenon is “an anomaly worth investigating.” He said that there is an unusually high degree of consistency in the abductees’ descriptions not only of the aliens (short, humanoid figures with large heads) but also of the sequence of events that occur during the alleged abductions. In a brief slide presentation, Bullard demonstrated that early representations of aliens varied considerably, while more recent images have had a high degree of consistency. He also disputed the claim, alluded to by Baker, that the 1977 movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind provided the model for the alien figure. He said that, of the 103 cases in his study, more than half of the 43 that had been published prior to the release of that movie contained descriptions of short, humanoid figures. Bullard maintained that there are too many experiences that cannot be easily explained through standard methods and urged skeptics to examine and investigate these UFO claims. (During the question-and-answer period, however, Baker pointed out that the burden of proof is not on the skeptics, but on those who are making these extraordinary claims.)

John Mack

John Mack, professor of psychiatry at Harvard University, drew the most attention and curiosity from the audience. His recent book, Abduction: Human Encounters With Aliens, in which he proclaims the belief that many of his patients actually have been abducted by aliens, has received extensive media coverage. Indeed, Mack is now the most visible spokesman for the abduction phenomenon. He maintains he was once intensely skeptical of such claims but now categorizes the UFO-abduction cases as “authentic mysteries.” He said he has considered other possible causes (i.e., sleep paralysis, nightmares), but the UFO-abduction cases have “a quality of their own.”

But Mack did not simply defend his position that, based on his anecdotal evidence, aliens have visited the planet. He also posed some questions regarding the polarization of skeptics and believers. Asking the audience to consider the question “What is the appropriate epistemology?” Mack said that this phenomenon may be inviting us to stretch our system of understanding realities. “Other cultures have always known that there were other realities, other beings, other dimensions. There is a world of other dimensions, of other realities that can cross over into our own world.” Which realities, beings, and dimensions, he did not say.

In closing, Mack asked why skeptics are so vehement in their attacks and wondered how they can have so much certainty. “Are we seeking to be the arbiters of reality?” he asked. CSICOP Chairman Paul Kurtz, moderator of the session, briefly responded that skeptics are simply practicing scientific methodology when they question UFO-abduction cases and other paranormal claims.

William Cone, a clinical psychologist from New-port Beach, California, said he found a great deal of the research being conducted to be "atrociously bad” and echoed the charge made earlier by Robert Baker that poorly trained researchers often impose their beliefs on patients. The patients themselves, in Cone’s experience, go public either to be paid by the media or to garner notoriety and attention from public appearances, or are simply looking for a sense of identity, wanting to belong somewhere. He said he has also diagnosed many of these people as mentally ill, paranoid, or delusional. Cone admitted he had found a subgroup of patients who do not fit his explanations, but he emphasized that “a remembrance of an event does not make the event so"—a point that would be reiterated throughout the conference.

On the recommendation of John Mack, Sharon Phillip, a hypnotherapist, spoke next. Since experiencing a UFO sighting as a teenager, Phillip said, she has had many UFO and alien encounters, once witnessing an alien materialize in a doorway. She maintains that what she encountered were not sleep-paralysis hallucinations, but conscious experiences, and urged the audience to keep an open mind in these matters.

Donna Bassett

To balance the proceedings, Donna Bassett, a researcher who had participated in John Mack’s recent study, was then called up to speak. At first Bassett seemed to indicate she was one of Mack’s “abductees.” But she quickly announced that since September 1992 she had been only posing as one in order to infiltrate Mack’s study and learn about his research methods. “I faked it,” Bassett said, “women have been doing it for centuries.” She reported that during her investigation she discovered that, despite Mack’s good intentions, his procedures were flawed — he used little or no scientific methodology. She said that during therapy sessions with Mack, many patients would often practice "overlay,” a term she said they invented to refer to their embellishing their stories. “They [the abductees] told John what he wanted to hear,” Bassett added. She said she felt that many of the patients were seeking attention. Although she believed Mack’s approach was wrong, she said that the subject nevertheless deserves study.

In response, Mack expressed his disappointment over what had just occurred. “I am saddened by this. . . . I am a little bit clearer about it when I am told that she (Bassett) was found to play this role by Philip Klass — since that’s his purpose, to destroy and undercut the credibility of this work.” Although one audience member commented that not informing Mack prior to the conference that Bassett would be speaking was ethically questionable (even though her story had already been covered in Time’s April 25 investigative report about Mack), another said that the fact that Mack had not discovered Donna Bassett as a fake called into question his whole methodology. Mack replied: “I'm not yet convinced one way or the other — whether she did in fact hoax or whether she has in fact had these experiences herself. I don't know.” After answering a few more questions (and restating the need for an "expanded epistemology”), Mack again implicated Klass in having a hand in Donna Bassett’s work.

At this time, Klass had heard enough and angrily approached the stage. Taking the microphone, he chastised Mack for making what he labeled "false innuendoes.” “Before you made accusations . . . why didn't you check with me? I could have told you that the first time I talked to Donna and her husband about you and your work was when they called me on January 9.” After a few more exchanges, Paul Kurtz intervened and brought the session to a conclusion.

Ending the session on a humorous note, Robert Baker jokingly proposed that CSICOP’s research should go in a new direction: “Sixty- nine percent of Americans believe in angels, and 32 percent claim they have had contact with them. Now that’s a lot better than for alien abductions. I think we ought to investigate angels.”

The Belief Engine: How World Views Are Formed

The session on perception and belief formation was introduced by moderator James Alcock, professor of psychology at Glendon College, York University. Alcock described sources of human perception and emphasized the ease with which our minds can make causal connections and patterns that may not exist. Our minds “take in information from the environment, combine it with aspects of memory, shape it to satisfy certain needs, and produce a belief that may or may not have anything to do with reality,” Alcock said. Contributing to this framework of belief creation is what he called “magical thinking.” As children, causal patterns are often incorrectly learned merely because one event is followed by another. Despite our expanding ability to operate with a critical perspective as we grow, fallacious beliefs that are functional and that, for example, aid our emotional survivability, can be sustained with this magical thinking, which Alcock said never completely leaves us. “We must always, to some degree, be suspicious of our own experience,” he concluded. “We must never take it as the arbiter of truth.”

Ray Hyman, professor of psychology at the University of Oregon, reinforced Alcock’s comments with a demonstration that left many suspicious of their own experience. Hyman summoned two volunteers from the audience. He asked each to select a key and to bend it using only a stroking movement and a strong will. After a few minutes with no results from his volunteers, Hyman was seemingly able to bend a key with only the power of his mind, an accomplishment he said was due to the “Geller effect.” As a professor teaching classes in critical thinking, Hyman said he performs this trick for students to illustrate the undependable nature of eyewitness testimony. After producing a bent key, his students attempt to recall, in writing, what occurred during the demonstration, as well as to provide a possible theory to explain how the effect was achieved. What Hyman has consistently found over the years is that students will not report on the most crucial aspects of the trick simply because they do not know what to look for. In proposing theories, most offer natural explanations, such as switched keys, special key knowledge, or even enhanced finger strength. However, about one-quarter of his students contend that an authentic paranormal event has occurred. And only one student has ever correctly described Hyman’s method.

Andrew Neher, professor of psychology at Cabrillo College, in Aptos, California, surveyed the audience to measure the degree of belief and disbelief in the paranormal. In his three-question poll, Neher found that most in the audience did not believe in paranormal events, are confident of their position, and are comfortable believing that paranormal events do not exist. Neher, who questioned how so many could have such a high degree of comfort in their stated positions, was answered by one audience member: “I am no more uncomfortable with a disbelief or the assumption that God does not exist, than I am with Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, or the tooth fairy. I don't find anything more interesting or more valid from one to the other.”

In discussing various motives for belief formation, Neher asserted that believers and skeptics often construct their views in similar ways. Each learns from families, friends, different organizations, and the society at large, and each tends to stereotype the other — sometimes members of their own group. Neher cautioned skeptics not to allow their biases and dispositions to prevent the scientific study of certain beliefs. “Science can direct its energies to determining what is helpful to believe, without necessarily only researching whether the belief is veridical.” Neher said that many who tend to reject science as elitist, irrelevant, or closed-minded have not been introduced to it as a process we all perform daily. “Science is not just something that scientists do somewhere else. All of us are scientists.”

Anthony Pratkanis, professor of psychology at the University of California at Santa Cruz, spoke on “How to Sell a Pseudoscience.” He delineated methods of persuasion many use to promote and sell deceptive “products.” Subtly increasing steps of commitment, creating "credible” sources and leaders to end doubt, and establishing "granfalloons” ("in the know” groups of shared social identities) are but a few of the persuasive tactics used to gain a target’s trust. These methods often incorporate widely accepted, commonplace “truths” that can be used to embellish concepts or issues to create the desired submissive effect, Pratkanis said. And — as he himself experienced after publishing negative findings in subliminal-tape studies — to dispense with troublesome opponents to your cause, innuendo and character assassination are frequently used. Pratkanis called for careful understanding of these persuasion tactics.

An Illustrated History of UFOs

James McGaha, a retired Air Force pilot and an amateur astronomer, treated the audience to an interesting and often humorous history of UFOs. In an hour-long illustrated talk, McGaha chronicled the alleged UFO encounters, media influences, and government-conspiracy beliefs dating from the 1896 airship incidents up to the sinister abduction claims of the 1990s. He showed a wide range of bizarre UFO shapes and alien forms, explaining that “UFOs parallel popular culture, particularly science-fiction movies, books, magazines, and television shows.” McGaha demonstrated that just before each of the waves of UFO-sightings over the years, popular UFO stories were often prevalent in the entertainment media. In contrast to the view held by Thomas Bullard, a speaker on the previous evening, McGaha asserted that the evolution of alien images into a creature with a small body and a large, bulbous head is indeed a result of Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. McGaha also referred to numerous alien encounters and supposed government cover-ups, including the 1947 Kenneth Arnold sighting, that he believes were simply mountaintop mirages, and the Roswell incident, in which a clerical error set in motion the amazing tales of an alien spacecraft and government secrets. The accusations that government agencies are concealing aliens and their vehicles as well as the belief that Air Force pilots are trained as UFO observers, he also dispelled as unfounded.

McGaha said we should not abandon our reasoning ability and scientific understanding of nature, despite the ever-increasing range of UFO beliefs in American culture. “Where is the evidence? There is no empirical evidence that UFOs have ever visited the planet, none — UFOlogy is clearly a belief system.”

Coverage of the 1994 CSICOP Conference will continue in the next issue.