The face of Jesus was “discovered” in a forkful of spaghetti in a Pizza Hut billboard advertisement in DeKalb County, Georgia, in May of 1991. Joyce Simpson said she was debating whether to quit her church choir as she was leaving a gas station when she felt compelled to look up. “And I saw Christ’s face,” she said (Guevara-Castro and Viele 1991). Subsequently, dozens of motorists claimed to have seen Jesus shrouded in spaghetti and tomato sauce on the chain’s billboard. God works in mysterious ways, but this tactic seems unnecessarily convoluted. On the other hand, compared to being abducted by aliens, seeing a face in a blob of spaghetti is small potatoes.

Sometimes perceptual illusions or faulty reasoning can have more pernicious consequences. For example, in 1986 a Philadelphia jury awarded a woman more than $900,000 in damages because she claimed her psychic powers had been damaged during a CAT scan conducted at Temple University Medical School (New York Times, March 29, 1986). Her complaint was supported by the “expert” testimony of a doctor. Unfounded fears are not unusual, but when they are accorded further esteem by a credulous judge or jury we risk surrender to the irrational. What the courts take seriously is believed to be serious by the common citizen. While science can supposedly provide some protection against litigious foolishness, sometimes science itself seems to be part of the problem.

How do scientific beliefs influence courtroom deliberations? More specifically, what happens to an extraordinary claim when it plays a pivotal role in a high-stakes criminal trial? Within the scientific community there are accepted methods and procedures for establishing the truth or falsity of an extravagant claim (Gardner 1981), but the courtroom is a different kind of forum. It is adversarial in nature. What happens to scientific consensus in court, especially if scientific information is distorted, misrepresented, or perhaps not science at all? Peter Huber has described what he calls “junk science” (Huber 1991), and according to Huber junk science may (and often does) wreak havoc with scientific integrity and with justice.

This article explores the issue of junk science in the context of a specific trial-the Judas Priest trial that unfolded in Reno, Nevada, in the summer of 1990. Two teenage boys, James Vance and Ray Belknap, had attempted suicide. At the time of the shootings, Belknap died instantly. Vance was severely injured but he lived, only to die of drug complications three years later. The plaintiffs (the boys’ parents) alleged that subliminal messages hidden in the heavy metal rock music that Vance and Belknap listened to contributed to their suicidal impulse. This trial is interesting for a number of reasons. First, it provides a classic example of junk science. Second, the trial established a legal precedent that has already influenced the ruling in a similar subsequent suit. Third, it provides a good forum for illustrating some important and often misunderstood aspects of subliminal perception.

Judas Priest was a British heavy metal rock band-one of the first of that genre. Their popularity peaked in the mid-70s. The album in question (Stained Class) was produced in 1978; the shootings took place in December 1985. It was alleged that a particular subliminal phrase in one of their songs ("Better by You Better Than Me") on the album triggered a suicidal impulse. The phrase at issue was “Do It.” In isolation, this phrase has little meaning unless there is some antecedent to which the “It” refers. Moreover, the antecedent could not have been anything that was audible on the record (or visible on the album cover), because such material would have been protected by the First Amendment. Consequently the plaintiffs were in the difficult position of having to acknowledge that the boys were suicidal to begin with, and that the subliminal phrase “Do It” triggered the already existing disposition.

First Amendment Protection and the Denial of Summary Judgment

The defendants denied any and all knowledge of subliminal messages, and they denied having engaged in any tricks or mischief during production of the record. Nevertheless, the case went to trial. The defense was unsuccessful in arguing that any and all speech (including subliminal speech) should enjoy First Amendment protection. In a pre-trial motion, Justice Jerry Carr Whitehead ruled that subliminal speech does not deserve protection because it does not perform any of the functions that free speech accomplishes. Since the recipient of a subliminal message is unaware of it, the message can’t contribute to dialogue, the pursuit of truth, the marketplace of ideas, or personal autonomy. There is no information exchange. No arguments are possible if recipients are unaware of the message’s presence. People also have a right, the judge added, to be free from unwanted speech. Since subliminal materials cannot be avoided, they constitute an invasion of privacy. For all these reasons, subliminals were not afforded First Amendment protection (Vance v. Judas Priest 1989b). This ruling makes logical sense if a subliminal message could have the power attributed to it by the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs thus achieved a major victory in getting the case to trial in the first place.

While First Amendment protection has never been absolute, the exceptions have been narrow and carefully limited. Speech that is obscene, libelous, or an incitement to lawlessness is not protected by the First Amendment. Justice Whitehead’s ruling provided another exception-subliminal speech. We may not have seen the last of trials concerning allegations about subliminal influences (Dee 1994). A few months after Judas Priest’s acquittal, Michael Waller, the son of a Georgia minister, shot himself in the head while listening to Ozzy Osbourne’s record Suicide Solution. His parents claimed that subliminal messages may have influenced his actions. The judge in that trial granted the summary judgment because the plaintiffs could not show that there was any subliminal material on the record. He noted, however, that if the plaintiffs had shown that subliminal content was present, the messages would not have received protection under the First Amendment because subliminal messages are, in principle, false, misleading or extremely limited in their social value (Waller v. Osbourne 1991). Justice Whitehead’s ruling in the Judas Priest trial was cited to support his position.

Liability ‘Science’

If a car accident causes severe injury or death, it may be more appealing and more comforting to the driver if the cause of the accident can be attributed to a mechanical defect rather than to operator error. It may also be more appealing and more lucrative to lawyers interested in liability. Liability science often assumes that every ill has a distant cause-often a technological cause. Food additives, environmental toxins, and mechanical defects have all been alleged culprits in liability suits within the last two decades. The Judas Priest suit was a product liability case. An allegedly defective product was placed on the market and it caused harm. According to Timothy Post, one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, the subliminal message triggered the suicides. The defense denied placing any subliminal messages, and further contended that subliminal stimuli are not capable of compelling any behaviors, let alone suicidal ones.

One of the threats to scientific integrity mentioned by Huber (1991) has to do with abandoning the usual scientific meaning of the term causality. From a scientific perspective, we typically want to understand a phenomenon by discovering all the causal factors that contribute to it. According to Huber, however, liability science has its own rules. Liability science likes to simplify matters. A specific potential cause is selected and other contributing factors are ignored. It is assumed that no other variables were operating except the one of interest. The standard scientific approach is abandoned. Multiple risks are disregarded-especially obvious, ubiquitous, taken-for-granted risks-and all attention is focused on remote and (perhaps) implausible causes that implicate negligence on the part of someone else.

There was some evidence of this approach-the tendency to subvert the meaning of causality-at the Judas Priest trial. In his final ruling, the judge explicitly stated “the deceased and their parents are not on trial. The court is not to judge the lives of the decedents or evaluate their families.” (Vance v. Judas Priest 1990, 2-3). The plaintiffs were obliged, however, to acknowledge some degree of risk, otherwise the “Do It’s” would have been meaningless. What were some of these risk factors? According to the clinical psychologist who testified for the defense, both boys had serious, long-term adjustment problems. Both were violent and abusive in their relationships. They felt socially alienated; they were emotionally distressed, often depressed, and impulsive. Vance once broke another student’s jaw in a fight at school. Both had a history of drug abuse, petty crime, school failure, and unemployment. Family backgrounds were violent and punitive. Belknap had attempted suicide before and had expressed suicidal intentions. Just prior to the shootings, Belknap gave out some of his Christmas presents early and indicated a desire for his sister to name her baby after him if anything happened to him. Most of these factors were mentioned by the judge in his final ruling. They were included “reluctantly” to show that the deceased were at high suicide risk (see Litman and Farberow 1994). Was this a reasoned departure from the “subverted causality” that often typifies liability cases? Who can say? The concession may simply have been an artifact of the logical necessity for the plaintiffs to recognize the high-risk status of the boys. At any rate, multiple causes were recognized, albeit somewhat grudgingly. The judge stated that “[t]here exist other factors which explain the conduct of the deceased independent of the subliminal stimuli. . . . [t]he deceased had propensities which made them a high suicide risk” (Vance v. Judas Priest 1990, 31-32).

The Plaintiffs’ Experts

The pursuit of isolated, distant, and mysterious causes for various mishaps sometimes results in a search for distant and mysterious experts. Experts are invited to provide support for the contentious claim. When courts are tolerant of a subverted sense of the meaning of causality, they may also be tolerant of fringe experts. There were several at this trial. One of them was Wilson Key. He is the man who pretty much single-handedly popularized the myth of subliminal advertising. He sees subliminal conspiracies everywhere (Key 1973, 1976, 1980, 1989), so it was not surprising that he was present to support the plaintiffs’ claims. While Key provided extensive pre-trial testimony, his contribution to the actual trial was negligible. It is possible that he undermined his own credibility with the court by opining that subliminal messages could be found on Ritz crackers, the Sistine Chapel, Sears catalogues, and the NBC evening news. He also asserted that “science is pretty much what you can get away with at any point in time.”

The most influential expert to testify for the plaintiffs was Howard Shevrin, whose credentials were unassailable. He has conducted research on subliminal influences for over twenty years and has a respectable track record of publications in peer-reviewed books and journals (e.g., Shevrin 1988). Shevrin’s argument was that subliminal commands are especially potent because the recipient is unaware of their source and attributes the directive or the imperative to himself-to his own inner motivational state. While there is a certain logic to this, Shevrin was hard-pressed to describe any research that supported his opinion. The argument also presupposes that a command or directive is inherently compelling-that because it is an imperative in a linguistic or syntactic sense, it compels compliance in a psychological sense. According to Shevrin, when we consciously experience a command, we can ignore or comply with commands as we see fit, but if the command is subliminal, it may become part of our ongoing stream of motives, feelings, and inner promptings. It can therefore add an increment to any current predisposition that may be present, such as suicide. The fallacy lies in assuming that an imperative message has some inherently motivating effect. His position also required the assumption that a suicidal disposition requires a trigger or precipitant in order to be acted on. This assumption does not square with the research literature on adolescent suicide (Maris 1981). Shevrin was nevertheless persuasive. He provided an apparently respectable conceptual framework for explaining how such a mysterious and almost magical force could operate.

The Defendants’ Experts

Three experts were called by the defense: myself, Anthony Pratkanis (a professor of social psychology from the University of California at Santa Cruz), and Don Read (a cognitive psychologist from the University of Lethbridge). I testified about methodological and interpretational flaws in some specific investigations of subliminal auditory stimuli (e.g., Borgeat and Chaloult 1985; Borgeat, Elie, Chaloult, and Chabot 1985; Henley 1975) and about the dubious empirical foundation underlying psychodynamic constructs. It was my opinion that there was no scientific support for the proposition that subliminal directives could induce behaviors of any kind, let alone suicide. Pratkanis reiterated some of the main points of my testimony regarding the history of research on subliminal influence, and described a recently conducted experiment (since published) showing that subliminal self-help tapes were ineffective (Pratkanis, Eskenazi, and Greenwald 1994). He also expressed additional misgivings about the validity of the Borgeat studies-studies Shevrin had cited as supportive of his position. Pratkanis resisted the intimation by the plaintiffs’ lawyers that scientific findings were not of an enduring nature-that what is known today may be abandoned and replaced by a new opinion tomorrow. Finally, Don Read provided an eloquent description of research on the comprehension and retention of reversed speech (see Vokey and Read 1985).

Scientific Opinion vs. Scientific Evidence

The judge may have been seduced by psychodynamics, but perhaps not entirely convinced. Although Shevrin was successful in helping obtain the exception to First Amendment protection, he did not prevail during the actual trial. The ruling about subliminal effects stated: “The scientific research presented does not establish that subliminal stimuli, even if perceived, may precipitate conduct of this magnitude. . . . [t]he strongest evidence presented at the trial showed no behavioral effects other than anxiety, distress or tension” (Vance v. Judas Priest 1990, 31). The judge’s conclusion about subliminal effects is not too far from the consensus to be found among most cognitive psychologists. Well-established subliminal effects are rather modest in their magnitude and nature-semantic activation of single words under highly constrained conditions (see Holender 1986). To quote from a recent influential review: “. . . unconscious cognition is severely limited in its analytic capability” (Greenwald 1992, 775).

At one point during pre-trial testimony, Bill Peterson (one of the defense counsels) asked Shevrin to describe the empirical basis for his opinion: “What experiments are you referring to when you say you’re referring to a body of literature, experiments on which you base your conclusion that subliminal messages may be sufficient to induce suicidal behavior?”

"I’m basing my opinion, my expert judgment, on a corpus of literature, on hundreds of experiments,” said Shevrin.

"Name one,” said Mr. Peterson (Vance v. Judas Priest 1989a, 138-139).

Shevrin eventually alluded to three or four studies (e.g., Kupper and Gerard 1990; Silverman 1982; Smith, Spence, and Klein 1959)-none of which demonstrated anything remotely close to subliminal commands influencing motives. In fact, very few published studies have attempted to use subliminal directives, and those that have used them produced singularly uncompelling evidence for subliminal influences on intentionality (e.g., Zuckerman 1960; see Moore [1982] for commentary).

Shevrin’s position was supportive of the plaintiffs’ claims. Moreover, if logically extended, it constitutes an endorsement of auditory subliminal self-help tapes. If Shevrin’s position were valid, subliminal self-help tapes should be effective for a substantial number of people. Users are predisposed and some may even be preoccupied with changing their behavior in the direction of the affirmations on the tapes. Those messages should, therefore, according to Shevrin’s logic, alter and increase the listeners’ inner motives. There is ample evidence, however, that subliminal self-help tapes are therapeutically useless (Greenwald, Spangenberg, Pratkanis, and Eskenazi 1991; Merikle 1988; Merikle and Skanes 1992; Moore 1988; Pratkanis, Eskenazi, and Greenwald 1994; Russell, Rowe, and Smouse 1991).

While Shevrin’s testimony may have been logical, it was not good science. The judge, to his credit, appears to have made a distinction between a scientific opinion based on personal conviction and the logic of psychodynamics, and one based on empirical support.

Pseudoscience

Up to this point, science has not fared badly. With respect to causality, the judge found that there were factors independent of the subliminal stimuli that made the decedents a high suicide risk. With respect to the scientific literature, he found that the research had not established that subliminal stimuli could have the sorts of effects postulated by the plaintiffs. There were other aspects of the case, however, in which scientific thinking fared less well. Pseudoscience sometimes plays a role in court because of dubious “experts” who are willing to attest to just about anything. In these situations, junk science appears in court because experts have been invited to educate the judge or jury. Another reason that junk science gets into court is because it already resides in court in the form of pre-existing beliefs about the phenomenon at issue.

The judge’s beliefs about subliminal perception are reflected in his ruling that denied summary judgment and in his final judgment. In the latter he provided what he called a “history of subliminal stimuli.” The title itself reveals some confusion. It is not the history of subliminal perception, nor the history of subliminal influences, but rather the history of subliminal stimuli. The difference is not irrelevant. Determining the subliminality of a stimulus requires some labor-intensive scientific analysis. The arbitrary and capricious use of the phrase “subliminal stimuli” by journalists (and some social scientists) has resulted in frequent reports of “subliminal” effects in the absence of any demonstration of subliminality.

What information formed the basis of the judge’s beliefs about subliminal perception? The references contained in his history essay consisted of several articles or book chapters from law journals, written by lawyers. He also cited information obtained from: Saturday Review, New York Times, Omni, Time, High Times, and TV Guide. The law articles, plus many of the magazine articles, contain numerous references to James Vicary and Wilson Key. Key’s expertise has already been described. Who was James Vicary? In September of 1957, James Vicary claimed to have conducted a study in Fort Lee, New Jersey, in which he projected the subliminal messages “Eat Popcorn” and “Drink Coke” onto a movie screen during movie showings to audiences (see Moore 1982; Pratkanis 1992; Rogers 1993). Initial press releases reported that over 45,000 people had been tested in this way and that on-site sales had increased dramatically. Five years later Vicary acknowledged that he had had only a small amount of data-too small to be meaningful. Soon after that he dropped out of sight completely. At best this so-called study was a shallow and meaningless empirical exercise. At worst, it was a complete fabrication (Rogers 1993). Media coverage was nevertheless heavy and continues to this day. Surveys have demonstrated that there is widespread belief in subliminal manipulation and that the techniques are “taught” in high school and college courses (Block and Vanden Bergh 1985; Synodinos 1988; Zanot, Pincus, and Lamp 1983).

Implicit, if not explicit, in both Vicary’s alleged demonstration, as well as media descriptions of the phenomenon, is the assumption that invisible or inaudible stimuli are inevitably unconsciously perceived. Portions of the judge’s ruling reflect this assumption. His historical review of subliminal stimuli is more a review of media coverage of the topic rather than a scientific history, let alone a recent scientific appraisal. This popular, simplified, and exaggerated notion of subliminal persuasion is reflected in some of the other rulings, and it is in these rulings that scientific truth fared less well. Here is what needed to be demonstrated by the plaintiffs:

1. An inaudible (but technically identifiable) “message” was physically present on the recording.
2. The message was deliberately placed there.
3. The message was subliminal.
4. The message contributed to the suicides.

As we have already seen, the judge rejected the fourth proposition, but what of the other three? The judge assumed that the technical presence of a “message” (item 1) was synonymous with its being subliminal (item 3). This assumption is the result of the mythological heritage of Vicary and all the media coverage since then. The judge’s ruling stated that “. . . the ‘Do It’s’ on the record were subliminal because they were only discernible after their location had been identified and after the sounds were isolated and amplified. The sounds would not be consciously discernible to the ordinary listener under normal listening conditions” (Vance v. Judas Priest 1990, 18). The problem is that sounds that are not consciously discernible are not necessarily unconsciously discernible either. Many stimuli are not consciously discernible because they fall outside the range of our sensory apparatus. Consequently they do not initiate any neurological activity-conscious or unconscious. The error consists of equating the physical presence of the signal with subliminality.

Physical Presence vs. Psychological Consequence

Empirical studies of subliminal perception indicate that, with rare exceptions, the phenomenon appears to be confined to a certain range of stimulus intensities (Cheesman and Merikle 1986). This range places the stimulus below a threshold of subjective or phenomenal awareness, but above an objective detection or discrimination threshold. In other words, subliminal perception is not perception in the absence of stimulus detection. It occurs when our introspective reports are at odds with or discrepant with objective measures of detection. It is not unusual for subjects to profess to be guessing or to claim ignorance of a stimulus’ identity when they are nevertheless making use of stimulus information. What this means is that no amount of expensive hardware or analyses of the signal can tell us if a signal is subliminal. Subliminality can only be determined by an analysis of the perceptual consequences of stimulation. Signal detection methods in which the human perceptual system is used as the measuring instrument might have provided a clearer picture of whether the recording in question actually contained a detectable message that could conceivably have influenced behavior (e.g., Merikle 1988; Moore 1995).

A physical analysis of the signal is not necessarily completely uninformative. Such an analysis could help determine the presence of a signal which might, after further analysis, turn out to be subliminal. The judge assumed that if an inaudible signal was present, that signal was therefore subliminal even though neither the plaintiffs nor the defense presented evidence establishing subliminality. It should be emphasized that even if subliminality had been established, it would not necessarily follow that the message would have the influence attributed to it by Shevrin. His claim, however, could have been obviated by the finding that the signal was not, in fact, subliminal.

Was the signal deliberately placed there? Who can say? The judge’s opinion was that the signal at issue was simply a coincidental convergence of a guitar chord with an exhalation pattern. Under what circumstances could one confidently infer purposeful deception? Conceivably, the length and complexity of an inaudible signal might guide decisions about whether its placement was accidental or deliberate. Walt Disney Inc. was recently accused of inserting the “subliminal” directive “All good teenagers take off your clothes” into the animated family film Aladdin. At around the same time the letters S-E-X were alleged to have been surreptitiously embedded in a scene from The Lion King (Globe & Mail, Nov. 7, 1995). Walt Disney Inc. has emphatically denied attempting any kind of subliminal titillation.

In March of 1994, someone discovered that Jessica Rabbit had no underwear for a very short time during the animated movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (Globe & Mail, March 17, 1994). In this example, there were at least three offending frames-unnoticeable unless the tape is advanced frame by frame. Were they deliberately planted there for some nefarious reason, or were the artists just saving some ink or playing a practical joke? It’s hard to know, but the physical presence of an uncovered Jessica tells us nothing about the perceptual or psychological consequences of her undressed state. It is probable that under normal viewing conditions the contents of the frames are completely and thoroughly masked by the subsequent material. In the absence of the appropriate tests, however, one cannot simply assert that stimuli are (or are not) subliminal. In none of these examples is it possible to know definitively if the signal or image was subliminal, nor if it was deliberately planted.

Perception is an active, constructive process. Consequently, people often see or hear what they are predisposed (or encouraged) to perceive (Vokey and Read 1985). A diligent search entailing the isolation and amplification of dozens of snippets from a three-minute heavy metal rock recording would probably yield some intelligible words or phrases that would not be intelligible under normal listening conditions. In fact, it would be surprising if a few such “discoveries” were not made. The fact that the signal in question on the Stained Class album was not contained on any particular track of the 24-track tape argues further against the possibility of deliberate chicanery.

Further Confusion

The two most credible witnesses testifying for the plaintiffs were, in the judge’s opinion, Shevrin and Mrs. Rusk. Mrs. Rusk was a guidance counselor at Vance’s school. Vance, the boy who survived the suicide attempt, was questioned about the circumstances of the shootings by Mrs. Rusk in the spring of 1986. Mrs. Rusk’s testimony was that Vance said, “We got a message. It told us just Do It . . . It [the record] was giving us the message to just Do It.” This statement reflects conscious awareness on Vance’s part of the presence and nature of the “Do It” message. Recall that Shevrin’s position was that the subliminal message “Do It” was influential precisely because it was subliminal. The boys were unaware of receiving the prompt from an external source and, therefore, misattributed its source or origin to their own inner motivation. These two pieces of testimony are logically contradictory. They cannot both be correct. If, as Shevrin claimed, the message was subliminal, the boys should have been oblivious to its presence and its meaning. It is the unconscious nature of the message which, according to Shevrin, affords it the exceptional influence he ascribed to it. On the other hand, if they could actually hear it, as Vance indicated to Mrs. Rusk, then the message was not, by definition, subliminal, and was thus (a) protected by the First Amendment, and (b) not especially influential. The judge seemed unaware of this logical conundrum: “This testimony [Mrs. Rusk’s] gives support to the premise that both James and Raymond subliminally perceived ‘Do It’ from the record” (Vance v. Judas Priest 1990, 30). In fact, Mrs. Rusk’s testimony refutes the notion that the signal was subliminal. Shevrin was well aware of this difficulty. When the plaintiffs’ lawyers suggested to him that Mrs. Rusk’s testimony supported the notion that the “message” had been retained in the boys’ memories, he expressed concern that Mrs. Rusk may have been influenced by media reports, and/or that she was having trouble recalling what Vance had reported to her. Apparently, the plaintiffs’ lawyers did not understand the logic of their own expert’s testimony. At this point one wonders who was minding the store.

Defining ‘Expertise’

At issue in this trial was the claim that a subliminal directive incited suicide. From a scientific perspective, this is an extraordinary and prima facie implausible proposition. There is not now, nor has there ever been, any reliable empirical evidence that subliminal stimulation can produce anything other than fairly brief and relatively inconsequential reactions. Further, there is no evidence whatsoever that subliminal directives can compel compliance, and no such evidence was presented at the trial. Perhaps with the help of the defendants’ experts, the judge came to realize that subliminal directives do not have the influence attributed to them by the plaintiffs. A more thorough grasp of the issue might have yielded a summary judgment, thereby precluding a long and expensive trial. By denying summary judgment, Justice Whitehead assumed the validity of the plaintiffs’ central claim-namely, that subliminal messages can influence human motivation.

There have been numerous legal commentaries on the Judas Priest ruling. Most of the post-trial controversy has concerned the question of First Amendment protection for subliminal messages. If such surreptitious manipulation is ineffective, then First Amendment protection from it becomes moot. Judging from legal scholars’ commentary on Justice Whitehead’s rulings, his understanding of the scientific issues was no worse than the rest of the legal community’s (cf. Blen 1992; Dee 1994; Locke 1991). Similar to the judge’s description of subliminal stimulation, legal commentators’ reviews contain copious references to Key, Vicary, and other nonscientists whose backgrounds are anything but scientific. Key’s books constitute quintessential pseudoscience; they contain no citations, no references, and no documentation for any of his proclamations. While Key’s testimony per se does not appear to have been of much significance at the trial, his extravagant and well-publicized claims had had twenty years to infiltrate the North American psyche (including the legal profession’s), where scientific literacy is not a dominant feature (Burnham 1987).

In the final analysis, however, it was not the obvious pseudoscience that misled the court as much as the misleading opinions of the well-qualified expert-Shevrin. His views, while imaginative and logical, were anomalous with prevailing scientific understanding of the phenomenon at hand. A long resume and a prestigious affiliation are no guarantee of a scientifically valid opinion. An expert whose testimony is unique, idiosyncratic, and unconfirmed by the broader scientific community is not educating the court in the way that Frye v. United States (1923) intended or that more recent rulings have encouraged (Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals 1993; R. v. Mohan 1994). These recent rulings have emphasized the need for expert testimony to be reasonably well grounded in theories, methods, and procedures that have been accepted and validated by other scientists in the same field. It is not at all clear that Shevrin’s testimony met this standard. It is clear, however, that the courts are generally ill-prepared to meet the challenge of evaluating the scientific validity of expert evidence (Miller, Rein, and Baily 1994), especially in the social sciences (Richardson, Ginsburg, Gatowski, and Dobbin 1995). A rigorous application of Daubert’s admissibility criteria might well disallow any testimony based on Freudian principles because of its inherently unfalsifiable nature (Crews 1995). The need for systematic judicial education on scientific principles is now a recognized priority. Eventually, improved scientific understanding will result in more equitable court rulings. In the meantime, as long as the legal community’s scientific literacy skills are so little able to permit distinctions between sense and nonsense, the public will continue to be entertained by (and foot the bill for) trials like that of Vance v. Judas Priest.

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Note

1. This paper is based, in part, on presentations at the annual conference of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, held in Seattle, Wash., June 25, 1994. (Symposium title: Influencing Beliefs in the Courtroom: Rules of Law, Expert Testimony, and Science), and at the Ontario Criminal Lawyers Association annual conference, Toronto, October 27, 1995 (Session title: Deceptive Research: Good Science/Bad Science).

As if he were a trained physicist on a par with any Nobel laureate, Arnold blithely posits a subatomic “pyrotron” as the mechanism for SHC (99-106), and he casually opines that “extreme stress could be the trigger that sets a human being ablaze” (163). In the many cases in which the alleged SHC victim had been a careless cigarette smoker or in which the victim’s body was found lying on a hearth, Arnold dodges the issue of SHC by invoking “preternatural combustibility” (84), an imagined state in which a body’s cells reach a heightened susceptibility to ignition by an outside spark. To understand Arnold’s approach we can look at a few of his major examples, those cases which are treated at chapter length.

Arnold leads off with the 1966 case of Dr. John Irving Bentley who was consumed by fire in the bathroom of his home in Coudersport, Pennsylvania. About all that was left of him-in recognizable form-was his lower leg that had burned off at the knee; it was lying at the edge of a hole about two and a half by four feet which had burned into the basement.

Spontaneous human combustion? Actually the infirm ninety-year-old physician had a habit of dropping matches and hot ashes from his pipe upon his robes which were spotted with burns from earlier occasions. He also kept wooden matches in both pockets of his day robe-a situation that could transform an ember into a fatal blaze. Apparently waking to find his clothing on fire, Dr. Bentley made his way into the bathroom with the aid of his aluminum walker-probably at an accelerated pace-where he vainly attempted to extinguish the flames. Broken remains of what was apparently a water pitcher were found in the toilet. Once the victim fell on the floor, his burning clothing could have ignited the flammable linoleum; beneath that was hardwood flooring and wooden beams-wood for a funeral pyre. Cool air drawn from the basement in what is known as the “chimney effect” could have kept the fire burning hotly (Arnold 1995, 1-12; Nickell and Fischer 1984).

In chapter 6, Arnold relates the fiery death of a widow, Mary Reeser, who perished in her efficiency apartment in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1951. The case, a classic of SHC, has long been known as the “cinder woman” mystery. Except for a slippered foot, Mrs. Reeser’s body was largely destroyed, along with the overstuffed chair in which she had been sitting and an adjacent end table and lamp (except for the latter’s metal core). The rest of the apartment suffered little damage. “Nor,” adds Arnold, “did the carpet beyond her incinerated chair show signs of fire damage!” (76)

In fact, the floors and walls of Mrs. Reeser’s apartment were of concrete. When last seen by her physician son, Mrs. Reeser had been sitting in the big chair, wearing flammable nightclothes, and smoking a cigarette-after having taken two Seconal sleeping pills and stating her intention of taking two more. The official police report concluded, “Once the body became ignited, almost complete destruction occurred from the burning of its own fatty tissues.” (Mrs. Reeser was a “plump” woman, and a quantity of “grease"-obviously fatty residue from her body-was left at the spot where the immolation occurred.) As the fat liquefied in the fire, it could have been absorbed into the chair stuffing to fuel still more fire to attack still more of the body (Arnold 1995, 73-91; Nickell and Fischer 1984). We will discuss the “candle effect” more fully later on.

In chapter 15, Arnold relates the case of one Jack Angel, who told him “an incredible incendiary tale.” Angel stated that in mid-November 1974, while he was a self-employed traveling salesman, he awoke in his motorhome in Savannah, Georgia, to find that he had a severely burned hand, which later had to be amputated, plus a “hell of a hole” in his chest, and other burns-in the groin area, and on the legs and back “in spots!” Angel claimed one of his doctors said he had not been burned externally but rather internally, and he claimed to be a survivor of SHC. Interestingly, his clothing had not been burned, and there were no signs of burning in his motorhome.

Unfortunately, when Arnold and I appeared on a Canadian television show to debate SHC, Arnold was unaware of an earlier story about the injuries that Angel had told-in court. I revealed it on the show for the first time (courtesy of fellow investigator Phil Klass), thus publicly embarrassing Arnold, who has ever since been trying to rationalize away the evidence.

As it happens, a 1975 civil-action suit filed by Angel’s attorney in Fulton County Superior Court tells how Angel (the plaintiff) was in his motorhome and “while Plaintiff was in the process of taking a shower, the water suddenly stopped flowing from the shower plumbing.” In attempting to learn why there was insufficient water pressure, Angel “exited said motorhome and attempted to inspect the hot water heater. In making said inspection, the pressure valve on the hot water heater released and as a result, scalding hot water under tremendous pressure was sprayed upon plaintiff.” The complaint claimed that the defendant, the manufacturer of the motorhome, was negligent both in the design of the heater and valve and in failing to provide adequate warning of the damage. The suit was later transferred to federal court where it was eventually dismissed for costs paid by the defendant.

Arnold attempted to rebut this evidence, for example, by quoting some motorhome mechanics, but it does not seem that he gave the mechanics the full facts in soliciting their statements. For instance, forensic analyst John F. Fischer and I did not postulate “a bad valve” (as Arnold quoted the servicemen as stating we did in Fate magazine). Indeed, Arnold has repeatedly dodged-even outright omitted-powerful corroborative evidence, such as the water pump’s drive belt being off, the water pump’s drive pulley being loose, and the water heater’s safety relief valve being in the open position! In our investigative report John Fischer and I listed more than a dozen additional corroborative factors, including the unburned clothes, which were especially consistent with scalding. We even included the opinions of two doctors whom Arnold cites as having diagnosed “electrical burns” as if their opinions-which were again apparently based on incomplete information-were more harmful to our position than his (Arnold 1995, 227-36; Nickell with Fischer 1992, 165-75).

Arnold’s next major case is that of Helen Conway, who perished in 1964 in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Except for her legs, her body was largely destroyed along with the upholstered chair in which she sat in her bedroom. The destruction took place in only twenty-one minutes (according to the fire marshal), although Arnold uses “commonsense deduction” (and an assumption or two) to whittle the time down to just six minutes (which becomes “a few seconds” in the caption to a photograph). Arnold asserts Mrs. Conway’s body “exploded.”

In fact Mrs. Conway was an infirm woman, who (according to the fire marshal) was also “reported to have been a heavy smoker with careless smoking habits.” He added: “Cigarette burn marks were evident about the bedroom.” (It is curious how people who are careless with fire are those who attract SHC.)

Apparently the fire took less time to destroy Mrs. Conway’s torso than it did the body of Mary Reeser, but it may have begun at the base of the seated body and burned straight upward, fed by the fat in the torso, and may have thus been a much more intense fire-not unlike grease fires that all who cook are familiar with. Indeed, in searching through the dense smoke for the victim, an assistant chief sank his hand “into something greasy” that proved to be the woman’s remains.

As to the bits of scattered debris that Arnold cites as evidence of “Spontaneous Human Explosion” (388), they could have been scattered by the chair’s heavy right arm having fallen across the body at one point. Another possibility is revealed by the fact that the assistant fire marshal stated, “There wasn’t debris scattered all over” (384), even though bits of debris are indeed shown in photos of the scene (illus. facing p. 212). In other words, the scattering may not have originally been present at the scene but could have been due to splashback from the firemen’s high-pressure spray that was used to extinguish nearby flames. It is important to note that it is only Arnold-and not the fire officials, who actually blamed the fire on a dropped cigarette-who claimed the body exploded (378-92).

The fifth and last of Arnold’s chapter-length cases is that of a fifty-eight-year-old retired fireman named George Mott. He died in 1986 in the bedroom of his home outside Crown Point, New York. His body was largely consumed along with the mattress of the bed on which he had lain. A leg, a shrunken skull (reported to have shrunk to an implausibly small size), and pieces of the rib cage were all that remained that were recognizably human. Arnold insists that there was no credible source for the ignition.

Whether or not we agree with Arnold’s dismissal of the theories of two fire investigators-first, that an electric arc shot out of an outlet and ignited Mott’s clothing, and second, that an “undetected” gas leak had been responsible-there are other possibilities. Mott was a man who formerly drank alcohol and smoked heavily. The day before he died he had been depressed over his illnesses which included respiratory problems and high blood pressure. What if, as could easily happen in such a state of mind, he became fatalistic and, shrugging off the consequences, opted for the enjoyment of a cigarette? This possibility gains credence from the fact that he was not wearing his oxygen mask although he was in bed and his oxygen-enricher unit was running. On top of the unit, next to the mask, was an otherwise puzzling canister of “barn burner” matches, yet there was no stove or other device in the room they would be used for. (At least Arnold does not mention a stove or other device being in the room. If there was, then we have another possible explanation for the fire, and there are additional potential explanations in any case-each more likely than SHC.) (Arnold 1995, 393-411)

Now Arnold cites the Mott case as a quintessential one of SHC, based on the process of elimination. He does not allow SHC to be eliminated, however, although there is no single instance that proves its existence and no known mechanism by which it could occur. And so he often dismisses what he feels is unlikely in favor of that which the best scientific evidence indicates is impossible. Such thinking has been called “straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.”

In fact Arnold’s process-of-elimination approach here as elsewhere is based on a logical fallacy called “arguing from ignorance.” As the great nineteenth-century scientist Justus von Liebig explained: “The opinion that a man can burn of himself is not founded on a knowledge of the circumstances of the death, but on the reverse of knowledge-on complete ignorance of all the causes or conditions which preceded the accident and caused it” (Liebig 1851).

In his relentless drive to foster any sort of mystery, in this and other cases, Arnold raises many attendant questions. For example, he wonders why extremities, such as a victim’s leg, and nearby combustibles are not burned. The answer is that fire tends to burn upward; it burns laterally (sideways) with some difficulty. Anyone with camping experience has seen a log that was laid across a campfire reduced to ashes by the following morning while the butt ends of the log remained intact. Thus, outside the circle that burned through the carpet covering the concrete floor of Mary Reeser’s apartment was found her slippered foot, because Mrs. Reeser had a stiff leg that she extended when she sat. Beyond the circle some newspapers did not ignite, while a lamp and table within it did burn. Similarly, Dr. Bentley’s intact lower leg extended outside the edge of the hole that burned through his bathroom floor.

Beyond this matter of proximity, Arnold cites other examples of fire’s “selectivity” that puzzle him. For example, in the Mott case, he wonders why matches near the burning bed did not ignite, while objects in other rooms suffered severe heat damage. The answer is one of elevation: Heat rises. In Mrs. Reeser’s apartment, due to the accumulation of hot gases, soot had blackened the ceiling and walls above an almost level line some three and a half feet above the floor, there being negligible heat damage below the smoke line but significant damage above it: for example, plastic electrical switches had melted. Thus, in George Mott’s house, reports Arnold, “On the counter directly beneath the melted towel holder sits an unopened roll of Bounty towels, upright. Ironically, it and its plastic wrapping were undamaged except for a glazed film on the top!” (Arnold 1995, 398)

Other factors relevant to heat-damage “selectivity” include the object’s composition, density, confinement (for example, in a cupboard), placement on a surface that either radiates or retains heat, or its placement relative to convective currents, cinders carried aloft, and so forth.

While acknowledging that there is often a source for the ignition of the body, Arnold points to the sometimes extreme destruction-of the torso especially-as evidence, if not of SHC, then of preternatural combustibility, the imagined heightening of the body’s flammability. In the nineteenth century, alcohol consumption was thought to cause increased flammability, but we now know that its only effect is in making people more careless with fire and less effective in responding to it (Nickell and Fischer 1984).

Arnold and other SHC advocates are quick to suggest that bodies are difficult to burn (which is true under certain circumstances). According to popular SHC writer Vincent Gaddis, “the notion that fluid-saturated fatty tissues, ignited by an outside flame, will burn and produce enough heat to destroy the rest of the body is nonsense” (Gaddis 1967).

Actually the reference to “fluid-saturated” tissues is correct but misleading in Gaddis’ attempt to suggest that an external source of ignition could not cause such extreme destruction to a body because the great amount of water would retard burning. In fact the argument works more strongly against the concept of SHC than for it, there being no known means by which such fluid-saturated tissue could self-ignite. On the other hand, it is a fact that human fatty tissue will burn, the water it contains being boiled off ahead of the advancing fire.

Referring specifically to claims of SHC (and favorably citing research done by John F. Fischer and me), a standard forensic text, Kirk’s Fire Investigation, states:

Most significantly, there are almost always furnishings, bedding, or carpets involved. Such materials would not only provide a continuous source of fuel but also promote a slow, smoldering fire and a layer of insulation around any fire once ignited. With this combination of features, the investigator can appreciate the basics-fuel, in the form of clothing or bedding as first ignition, and then furnishings as well as the body to feed later stages; an ignition source-smoking materials or heating appliances; and finally, the dynamics of heat, fuel, and ventilation to promote a slow, steady fire which may generate little open flame and insufficient radiant heat to encourage fire growth. In some circumstances the fat rendered from a burning body can act in the same manner as the fuel in an oil lamp or candle. If the body is positioned so that oils rendered from it can drip or drain onto an ignition source, it will continue to fuel the flames. This effect is enhanced if there are combustible fuels-carpet padding, bedding, upholstery stuffing-that can absorb the oils and act as a wick. (DeHaan 1991, 305)

Dr. Dougal Drysdale of Edinborough University agrees:

The idea that the body can burn like a candle isn’t so far fetched at all. In a way, a body is like a candle-inside out. With a candle the wick is on the inside, and the fat on the outside. As the wick burns the candle becomes molten and the liquid is drawn onto the wick and burns. With a body, which consists of a large amount of fat, the fat melts and is drawn onto the clothing which acts as a wick, and then continues to burn. (Drysdale 1989)

Experiments show that liquefied human fat burns at a temperature of about two hundred and fifty° Celsius; however, a cloth wick placed in such fat will burn even when the temperature falls as low as twenty-four° Celsius (Dee 1965). In an 1854 English case, a woman’s body had been partially destroyed in the span of two hours; it was explained that “beneath the body there was a hempen mat, so combustible, owing to the melted human fat with which it was impregnated, that when ignited it burnt like a link [i.e., a pitch torch]” (Stevenson 1883, 718-27).

Even a lean body contains a significant amount of fat, which is present even in the bone marrow (Snyder 1967, 233, 242). Indeed, “once the body starts to burn, there is enough fat and inflammable substances to permit varying amounts of destruction to take place. Sometimes this destruction by burning will proceed to a degree which results in almost complete combustion of the body,” as police officials reported in the Mary Reeser case (Blizin 1951). Moreover, in general, “women burn hotter and quicker than men, because proportionally, women carry more fat” (Bennett n.d.).

Arnold tries to compare favorably the partial destruction of bodies that occurs in his SHC cases (in which limbs, large segments of bone, and other matter may remain, although that which does is rarely quantified or described scientifically) with the more complete destruction typical of crematories. But this is an apples-versus-oranges comparison at best. As Drysdale (1989) explains:

In a crematorium you need high temperatures-around 1,300° C, or even higher-to reduce the body to ash in a relatively short period of time. But it’s a misconception to think you need those temperatures within a living room to reduce a body to ash in this way. You can produce local, high temperatures, by means of the wick effect and a combination of smouldering and flaming to reduce even bones to ash. At relatively low temperatures of 500 ° C-and if given enough time-the bone will transform into something approaching a powder in composition.

It is interesting that the major proponents of SHC — Michael Harrison (Fire from Heaven, 1978), Jenny Randles and Peter Hough (Spontaneous Human Combustion, 1992), and Larry E. Arnold (Ablaze!, 1995) — are all popular writers who are credulous as to other paranormal claims. They stand in contrast to the physicists and chemists, the forensics specialists, and other scientists who question - on the evidence - the reality of spontaneous human combustion.

References

• Arnold, Larry E. 1995. Ablaze! The mysterious fires of spontaneous human combustion. New York: M. Evans and Company.
• Bennett, Valerie (crematorium superintendent). n.d. Quoted in Randles and Hough 1992, p. 50.
• Blizin, Jerry. 1951. The Reeser case. St. Petersburg Times (Florida), August 9.
• Dee, D. J. 1965. A case of “spontaneous combustion.” Medicine, Science and the Law 5: 37-8.
• DeHaan, John D. 1991. Kirk’s fire investigation, 3rd ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Brady.
• Drysdale, Dougal. 1989. Quoted in Randles and Hough 1992, p. 43.
• Gaddis, Vincent. 1967. Mysterious fires and lights. New York: David McKay.
• Harrison, Michael. 1978. Fire From Heaven. New York: Methuen.
• Liebig, Justus von. 1851. Familiar letters on chemistry, letter 22. London: Taylor, Walton and Maberly.
• Nickell, Joe, and John F. Fischer. 1984. Spontaneous human combustion. The Fire and Arson Investigator 34 (March): 4-11; (June): 3-8. This was published in abridged form in Joe Nickell with John Fischer, Secrets of the Supernatural (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1988, 149-57, 161-71).
• Nickell, Joe, with John F. Fischer. 1992. Mysterious realms. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
• Randles, Jenny, and Peter Hough. 1992.
Spontaneous human combustion. London: Robert Hale.
• Snyder, Lemoyne. 1967. Homicide investigation, 2nd ed. Springfield, Ill.: C.C. Thomas.
• Stevenson, Thomas. 1883. The principles and practice of medical jurisprudence, 3rd ed. Philadelphia: Lea.

Don’t be surprised or shocked if you discover that a good friend-a well-educated, intelligent person-believes in UFOs, or that he or she suspects that the U.S. government recovered a crashed extraterrestrial craft and ET bodies in New Mexico and has kept them under wraps for nearly half a century. Don’t be surprised if your respected friend, or a member of your own family, is convinced that ETs are abducting thousands of Americans and subjecting them to dreadful indignities.

The really surprising thing is that you do not believe in crashed saucers, alien abductions, and government coverup if you spend even a few hours every week watching TV. There are many TV shows that promote belief in the reality of UFOs, government coverup, and alien abductions. And they attract very large audiences-typically tens of millions of viewers. Often they are broadcast a second, possibly even a third time.

TV has become the most pervasive means of influencing what people believe. That explains why companies spend billions of dollars every year on TV advertising to convince the public that Brand X beer tastes best, that you should eat Brand Y cereal, and that a Brand Z automobile is the world’s best.

According to a recent survey reported in Business Week magazine, our children spend nearly twice as much time watching TV as they do in school.

Consider the problem that TV created for the Audi 5000 automobile and the claim that the car would suddenly accelerate and crash into the front of an owner’s garage when the automatic transmission was in neutral. The Audi 5000 was introduced in 1978, and during the next four years only thirteen owners complained of a mysterious sudden acceleration incident. Then, in November 1986, CBS featured the alleged Audi 5000 problem on its popular 60 Minutes show. During the next month, some fourteen hundred people claimed that their Audi 5000s had experienced sudden acceleration problems (P. J. O’Rourke, Parliament of Whores, Atlantic Monthly Press, 1991, pp. 86-7). Subsequent investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board revealed that the problem was the result of driver error-stepping on the accelerator when they intended to step on the brake.

Here’s another example: several years ago, a man who claimed he had found a hypodermic needle in a Pepsi-Cola can became an instant celebrity when he appeared on network TV news to describe his amazing discovery. Within several weeks, roughly fifty other persons around the country claimed they too had discovered hypodermic needles in Pepsi-Cola cans. Investigation showed all these reports were spurious.

TV’s brainwashing of the public on UFOs occurs not only on NBC’s Unsolved Mysteries and Fox network’s Sightings, but also on more respected programs such as CBS’s 48 Hours and ones hosted by CNN’s Larry King.

Why pick on the TV networks? Cannot the same criticism be leveled at the print media? No. Generally, even cub reporters know that when writing an article on a controversial subject they should try to present both sides of the issue. If they fail to do so, their older and wiser managing editors will remind them. An article may devote 60 or 70 percent of its content to pro-UFO views, but with TV the pro-UFO content typically runs 95 percent-or higher.

TV news programs do try to offer viewers an even-handed treatment of controversial subjects. Thus it is not surprising that many viewers assume they are getting an equally balanced treatment in TV shows that follow the news, such as Unsolved Mysteries and Sightings. This is especially true when the show is CBS’s 48 Hours, hosted by news anchor Dan Rather.

This “schizophrenic” policy would be less troubling if such TV programs were required to carry a continuous disclaimer, such as “This program is providing you with a one-sided treatment of a controversial issue. It is intended solely to entertain you,” or at least if such a disclaimer were voiced by the host at the beginning and the end of such a program. But alas, at best there is only a brief disclaimer which typically says: “The following is a controversial subject.”

Consider a typical NBC Unsolved Mysteries show dealing with the Roswell “crashed-saucer” incident. The show, which aired Sept. 18, 1994, included an appearance by me. Prior to the taping of my interview, I gave the producer photocopies of once top-secret and secret Air Force documents that had never before been seen on TV and that provided important new evidence that a flying saucer had not crashed in New Mexico.

These documents, dating back to late 1948, revealed that if an ET craft was recovered from New Mexico in July 1947, nobody informed top Pentagon intelligence officials who should have been the first to know. One of these top-secret documents, dated December 10, 1948, more than a year and a half after the alleged recovery of an ET craft and “alien” bodies, showed that top Air Force and Navy intelligence officials then believed that UFOs might be Soviet spy vehicles.

When the hour-long Unsolved Mysteries show aired, I appeared for only twenty seconds to discuss the early history of the UFO era. Not one of the once top-secret and secret documents, which disproved the Roswell myth, or my taped references to these documents, was used.

On October 1, 1994, the famed Larry King aired a two-hour special program on the TNT cable network. It’s title was “UFO Coverup? Live From Area 51.” (Area 51 is part of an Air Force base in Nevada where new aircraft and weapons are tested. UFO believers allege that one can see alien spacecraft flying over the area and that the government has secret dealings and encounters with aliens there.)

Approximately one hour-half the two-hour program-was broadcast live from Nevada. For this hour, four pro-UFO guests were allowed to make wild claims, without a single live skeptic to respond. To give viewers the illusion of “balance,” the show included pre-taped interviews with Carl Sagan and with me. Sagan appeared in five very brief segments, averaging less than fifteen seconds each, for a total of one and one-quarter minutes. I appeared in four brief segments for a total airtime of one and a half minutes.

So during the two-hour show, the audience was exposed to less than three minutes of skeptical views on UFOs, crashed saucers, and government coverup. And because Sagan and I were taped many weeks earlier, neither of us could respond to nonsense spouted by the four UFO promoters who appeared live for an hour.

Some weeks earlier, when I went to the studio for my taped interview for this Larry King show, I handed producer Tom Farmer photocopies of the same once top-secret and secret documents I had given to Unsolved Mysteries. Once again I stressed that these documents had never before appeared on any television show. Yet not one of these documents was shown during the two-hour program.

Near the end of the program, Larry King summed up the situation in the following words: “Crashed saucers. Who knows? But clearly the government is withholding something. . . .” In fact, it was Larry King and his producer who were withholding the hard data that would show that the government is not involved in a crashed-saucer coverup.

Larry King ended the program with these words: “We hope that you learned a lot tonight and that you found it both entertaining and informative at the same time.”

If you were looking for a truly “informative” program on UFOs, you’d expect to find it on the Science Frontiers program broadcast on The Learning Channel, right? Wrong!

Last spring, The Learning Channel’s Science Frontiers program aired a one-hour program titled “UFO.” Not one of the many “UFO experts” interviewed on the program was a skeptic. The British producer sent a film crew to Washington-where I live-to interview pro-UFOlogist Fred Whiting, who was given nearly three minutes of airtime. Whiting assured the viewers: “There is indeed a coverup.” But I was not invited to be interviewed.

In early 1994, I received a phone call from a producer of the CBS show 48 Hours, saying they were producing a segment on the Roswell crashed saucer and would like to come down from New York in mid-April to interview me.

In late March 1994, I visited Roswell in connection with a new crashed-saucer book that was making its debut there. Not surprisingly, the CBS film crew from 48 Hours was on hand and they did a brief interview with me. In an effort to inform the viewers of the 1948 top-secret document, I pulled it out of my pocket and held it up in front of the CBS camera. And I promised to provide the producer with more such documents, never before shown on TV, when they came to Washington for the more lengthy interview.

CBS never came to Washington for my interview. And when the show later aired, with Dan Rather as its host, CBS opted not to include any of the brief interview with me in Roswell-holding up the once top-secret document.

Young children, and their parents, will experience similar “brainwashing” when they visit Disney World’s new “Tomorrowland” in Orlando. A new dynamic exhibit is called “Alien Encounters and Extra-TERRORestrial Experience.” To encourage parents and children to visit the new UFO exhibit, in mid-March 1995 Walt Disney Inc. broadcast a one-hour TV show on ABC titled “Alien Encounters from New Tomorrowland.”

The show began by showing several brief home-video segments of bogus “UFOs” while the narrator intoned: “This is not swamp gas. It is not a flock of birds. This is an actual spacecraft from another world, piloted by alien intelligence. . . . Intelligent life from distant galaxies is now attempting to make open contact with the human race. Tonight we will show you the evidence.”

The Disney show included the Roswell crashed-saucer case with considerable emphasis on government coverup. At one point, the narrator noted that Jimmy Carter had had a UFO sighting prior to becoming president. The narrator added: “Later, when he assumed the office of president . . . his staff attempted to explore the availability of official investigations into alien contacts.”

Then, as the camera rapidly panned a typewritten document, it zoomed in on the words “no jurisdiction,” and the narrator said: “As this internal government memo illustrates, there are some security secrets outside the jurisdiction even of the White House.” The implication was that even the president did not have access to UFO secrets.

In reality, the memo was an FBI response to a White House inquiry about FBI involvement in investigating UFOs. The memo said that the FBI had “no jurisdiction” to investigate UFO reports and referred the White House to the Air Force. But the camera panned and zoomed so fast no viewer could read the memo.

Near the end of the program the narrator said: “Statistics indicate a greater probability that you will experience extraterrestrial contact in the next five years than the chances you will win a state lottery. But how do you prepare for such an extraordinary event? At Tomorrowland in Disney World, scientists and Disney engineers have brought to life a possible scenario that helps acclimate the public to their inevitable alien encounters.”

More recently, Walt Disney Inc. has purchased the ABC television network. I won’t be surprised if Disney and ABC use UFOs to attract more viewers.

For the tiny handful of those who produce TV and radio shows dealing with claims of the paranormal who truly want to provide their audience with both sides, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) is an invaluable resource in providing the names of experienced skeptics. The same is true for print-media reporters. If TV shows on UFOs are 95 percent “loaded” to promote belief, without CSICOP they would be 100 percent loaded.