When the local Pennsylvania newspaper announced that the Prophecy Club would be holding a three-hour seminar conducted by “Hayseed” Stevens concerning prophecy and oil in Israel, curiosity overwhelmed me. After a forty-year career of research and geology teaching, I had a fair idea of Israel’s geology and the origin of its tiny oil production. Such a case for personal “enlightenment” was not to be missed. The following report on that January 8, 1998, seminar is a small window on the fundamentalist movement in America and its application of creation science.

The Prophecy Club has a network of local chapters, with its headquarters in Topeka, Kansas. It is a fundamentalist Christian organization with television programs scheduled on eight stations. It also has radio programs on fifty-eight AM and FM stations and six shortwave stations as well as on six satellite channels. Its January/February 1998 newsletter, distributed at the seminar, lists a total of “765 new conversions” and “2,441 rededications” during the last year as “determined by show of hands and public confessions at its sessions.” This particular presentation was one of twelve being made from Boston to Spokane by “Hayseed” Stevens in January and February 1998. The newsletter lists fifty additional seminars to be taught across the nation by four other speakers during this same time period, each charging $7 per person admission. Advertised seminar subjects include how America is being taken over as part of a “New World Order,” prophecies of financial crisis, secret codes embedded in the Bible, and prophecy warnings about governmental plans concerning the use of UFOs to “destroy the religions of the world and switch them to the religion of the Antichrist.”

Joining approximately 150 other people, I paid at the door and entered the rented lecture room at a local convention center. At the back of the room were five sales tables laden with video tapes, recordings, and a variety of pamphlets of prophecy and doom. Following an opening prayer, the head of the local chapter introduced Harold “Hayseed” Stevens, who responded with another prayer ended by a lackluster chorus of “Amens.” Intent upon engaging his audience, Hayseed requested a lustier “Amen.” Eagerly embracing his role as cheerleader, he cried, “If I told you that the Philadelphia Eagles had just won the Super Bowl, what would you say?” “Amen!” “Even better. Now what if I told you that Jesus Christ was coming tomorrow?” A thunderous “Amen!” followed. After finally warming up his audience, Stevens directed the group to repeat after him, “The greatest oil field on Earth is under the southwest corner of the Dead Sea.” Throughout the rest of the talk, at about ten minute intervals, he led his audience in this same rousing cheer.

Now, with an involved and receptive audience, Stevens proceeded to describe his early fundamentalist religious life growing up on a sharecrop farm in Texas, his sinful life as a professional football player, and his final conversion to Christian evangelism. According to his tale, one day God told him to go into the oil business. With God’s direction he developed Hayseed Stevens Oil, Inc., as well as an international oil company called Ness Energy International. After a few years, God told him to go drill for oil in Israel and He would reveal the oil’s location.

Stevens described going to Israel in 1980 with eleven other Christian businessmen to meet with Menachem Begin. When Begin told them that he knew nothing about oil, Hayseed whipped off his Texas-style ten gallon hat and gave it to Begin announcing that the gift would help him understand the oil business. At once, the miracle occurred! The hat fit and Begin said to him, "Maybe you should be the one to come and find oil for us in Israel.” As proof that such an event took place, Stevens showed a photo of the group with a big white Texas hat in front of Begin and concluded that, “miraculously, within two hours God showed me the location of the world’s greatest oil field. . . . Now repeat after me . . .” And the crowd thundered, “The greatest oil field on Earth is under the southwest corner of the Dead Sea.”

Stevens described the origin of this Israeli oil bonanza by using a version of geology straight out of creation science. A large 1992 poster from the Creation Evidence Museum was displayed with the title “Creation in Symphony” as Stevens gave glowing attribution of the work to his friend, the “brilliant” creationist writer Carl Baugh. The proposed model involved a 6,000-year-old Earth with a molten interior at 10,000 degrees. Floating above the molten interior and keeping the surface “insulated” was a huge layer of hydrocarbons, the mother lode of Earth’s petroleum resources. Above this and just below the crust was a layer of water in some strange kind of density inversion. Slow seepage of the water layer produced the humid jungle-like conditions of the Garden of Eden with its great vapor canopy. To create Noah’s flood, God used an earthquake to rupture the crust and allow the trapped water layer to pour forth as the Biblical “fountains of the deep.”

According to Stevens, that Dead Sea fault zone marks the boundary of Earth’s greatest tectonic plates. (In reality the fault is only a medium-scale plate boundary separating the African plate from the Arabian plate.) After the escape of the waters, this deep fracture tapped the mother lode layer of petroleum which bled upwards to form the asphalt and tar seeps in the region of Sodom and Gomorrah. According to Stevens’s interpretation of prophecy, God originally intended all this oil to be the basis of Israel’s future riches and greatness. But unfortunately, the people became evil and undeserving so God caused the fault to move. The resulting friction ignited the oil and it exploded under Sodom and Gomorrah. Somehow the heat was so intense that it created an “entirely new form of sulfur which melted at 10,000 degrees and rained down on those evil people as fire and brimstone.” The intensity of the heat converted the rock to salt (a chemical process that would certainly have delighted the alchemists of the Middle Ages). As evidence of this, Hayseed showed satellite photos and crude versions of Geological Survey of Israel seismic cross sections with a big salt plug at the southwest corner of the Dead Sea basin in the vicinity of Sodom and Gomorrah. Encouraged, the audience enthusiastically joined him in his incantation, “The greatest oil field on Earth is under the southwest corner of the Dead Sea!”

Returning to his satellite photos, Stevens explained that the new salt plug blocked the upward flow of the huge petroleum layer destined for Israel. Thus diverted, the oil flowed eastward into the great reservoirs of the Middle East. Even though a geologic plumbing system that would allow this flow is almost impossible to imagine, problems such as that were never discussed. Instead, Stevens changed direction to focus on the fact that 85 percent of the world’s known oil resources are presently under Islamic control. He assured his audience that with his drill hole through the salt plug to tap the mother lode of petroleum, he would change that imbalance by making Israel the greatest oil producing nation on Earth. Quoting Isaiah 60:5 he declared, “Then you shall see and be radiant, your hearts shall thrill at the glorious deliverance; because the abundant wealth of the Dead Sea shall be turned to you. Unto you shall the nations come with their treasures.”

Stevens pointed out that this drill site along the Dead Sea is at the lowest point on Earth and as everyone knows, fluids flow downhill. Thus, the well will not only tap the mother lode but will eventually drain the Arabian oil fields (by some unstated but geologically unthinkable mechanism). In accord with prophecy, the enraged Arabs will attack Israel at the final battle of Armageddon. The plains near Mt. Carmel, according to Stevens, cover a vast reservoir of oil, and it is across these plains that the Arabs will attack. God will ignite the underlying oil to incinerate the Arabs and ensure the victory of the righteous, at least according to Stevens’s reading of the book of Revelations.

My strongest impression of the evening was of the interplay of prophecy, prophets, and profits. The entire talk was sprinkled with overhead projections and handouts of about twenty verses of Biblical prophecy. Most prophecies were supplemented by Stevens’s interpretation inserted in parentheses. Considerable strain seemed to be required of the English language to make Biblical statements conform to oil exploration and the present world of geopolitics. However, once these prophecies were accepted there could be no doubt that, “Repeat after me . . . !”

In 1985 Stevens organized a consortium to drill at the Dead Sea site, but the drill string sheared off at about one mile depth. He is now planning to drill a 19,000-foot, $25 million well through the salt plug, and his company is about to offer public stock sales for this venture. If the evening’s talk was a promotion, it was done as a soft sell but the phone number listed on the handouts to reach his company was clear, as was the possibility of merging prophecy with profits. Stevens pointed out that God’s plans even include the former Shah of Iran’s financing of a 42-inch oil pipeline that was completed across Israel from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, but never used because of the Shah’s fall. This pipeline passes within a few miles of the drill site and is now standing there empty, waiting to take the supposed 200,000-barrel-a-day production that will result just as soon as the well is completed.

The more immediate financial aspects of the evening were well covered starting with the $7 admission charge ($7 3 150 = $1,050) to cover rental of the room, etc. The plethora of video tapes for sale, mostly at $20 to $40, certainly met their production cost as did several thin pamphlets selling at $5 to $10 each. Considering the admission cost it was surprising to see an additional offering with helpers passing collection plates through the audience. The number of $10 and $20 bills and personal checks in those plates was impressive. Following the mid-evening break Stevens proceeded to extol the great works done by the Prophecy Club and to propose that this warranted an unheard-of second special collection. He noted that no one should feel any pressure to contribute and that this offering should be from the heart. He made a show of announcing his personal check for $1,000. As the plate was passed this second time, he kept rephrasing the theme that this offering should be voluntary, that there was no peer pressure to do God’s work, and so on. I watched in amazement as people around me wrote additional checks and put more $10 and $20 bills into the plate.

The evening concluded with a revival-style prayer session complete with exhortations to anyone who had sinned and wanted redemption to raise their hands while everyone, with one exception, bowed their heads. Stevens acknowledged these secret hands and counted them as part of the increasing list of recipients needing prayer. With an “Amen,” Stevens invited everyone who felt the evening had been a success to stand and let it be known. In response, 149 people stood, waved their hands in the air and shouted “Hallelujah” and “Amen.”

Hayseed Stevens folded his oil operations into and took over the Kit Karson Corporation, a 19-year-old oil company listed as KTKC on the NASDAQ. In 1996 KTKC reported its total assets as $1,604 with a net loss of $1,179. After the takeover, the July 23, 1998, SEC annual report for KTKC lists Stevens as president, holding 56.5 percent of the common stock, which has “no par value.”

The latest Church of the Mail Newsletter from Hayseed Stevens announced that on October 13, 1998, the Israel Oil Company had granted him drilling rights for 32,000 acres at the southwest end of the Dead Sea. The first was well slated for April 2000 at a cost of $30 million and an expected depth of 19,000 feet. To judge the effect of this news on the market, the December 8 share price of KTKC was $0.24, nearly its lowest point in a 52-week trading range of $0.21 to $13.75. In early summer 1999 KTKC changed its name on the NASDAQ to NESS, one of Hayseed’s early names for his company. On July 2, 1999, NESS traded at $0.48 per share.

Whatever happens with his oil explorations, I'll always find that January evening one to be remembered and certainly one not easily confused with any other lecture on oil resources. “Right now we are only one well short of finding (repeat after me) the greatest oil field on Earth . . .”

Pilgrims currently stream to the home of Audrey Santo who has been bedridden since 1987, when, at the age of three, a near-drowning left her in an unresponsive condition. Visitors to the home chapel, converted from a garage, report healings after being shown statues that drip oil and communion wafers that bear smears of blood.

Skeptics may not be guilty of excessive doubt when they wonder how and why a tragic figure who cannot heal herself is able to heal others. The Catholic Church is often skeptical of such extra-canonical phenomena as well. It has distanced itself from Medjugorje (where six children supposedly conversed with the Virgin Mary), and the local bishop proclaimed the Medjugorje affair a fraud.

Interestingly, a year after Audrey’s accident, her mother, Linda Santo, spent $8,000 to take her to Medjugorje in hopes of a miracle. As even a sympathetic priest admitted: “On a rational level, this was an extremely absurd idea. It was absurd. It should not have been done. It was medically wrong. And I think from all kinds of angles, sane people would say it was even spiritually wrong” (Sherr 1998). Expecting her daughter to be cured, Linda Santo bought her sandals so she could walk. But as it happened, instead of being helped, Audrey suffered a sudden cardiac arrest. She was revived but had to be returned home by air ambulance at a cost of $25,000-a bill her grandmother mortgaged her home to pay. Linda Santo’s response to the near-fatal incident was to blame it on the proximity of a Yugoslavian abortion clinic (Harrison 1998; Sherr 1998).

Skepticism of miracle claims is often warranted. For example, newsmen from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation were able to borrow one of the Quebec "bleeding” statues and to have it scientifically analyzed. The blood had been mixed with pork fat so that, when the room warmed from pilgrims’ body heat, the mixture would liquefy and run like tears. A more innocent explanation was afforded the tree-splotch “Virgin” in Los Angeles: A tree expert determined a fungus was responsible. There seems, however, little incentive for Church prelates to adopt a critical stance. Clerics who debunked a perambulating and weeping statue in Thornton, California, in 1981, for example, were denounced for their efforts by religious believers who called them “a bunch of devils” (Nickell 1993, 67-68).

Nevertheless, in the Santo case, the Worcester bishop appointed a theologian and two psychologists to form an investigating commission. Their preliminary report was issued on January 21, 1999, and I appeared that evening on The NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw to offer a brief skeptical view of the case.

Among other things, the commission members showed skepticism toward claims that Audrey is a “victim soul” (one who suffers for others). Stating that this is not “an official term in the Church,” the report noted that “It was used in some circles in the 18th and 19th century when there was a fascination with suffering and death.” It remained to be determined, the commission concluded, that Audrey demonstrated “cognitive abilities” or “at the age of three was, and presently is, capable of making a free choice to accept the suffering of others.” In fact, doctors say that Audrey exhibits “akinetic mutism"-a comalike state. Except for her eyes, which restlessly blink and wander, the tragic teenager remains virtually motionless. When ABC’s 20/20 reporter Lynn Sherr placed her hand in Audrey’s she received, she thought, a slight squeeze, but when she tried again there was no response (Sherr 1998).

Nevertheless, Linda Santo rejects the idea that her daughter is unresponsive: "She cannot speak, but she knows everything. She is not in a coma . . . she’s in that room with her Jesus seven days a week, adoring him, waiting on him, serving him, and he’s blessing her.” She even says that Audrey appears to people-"in person or in dreams"-and when she does so “is moving and speaking” (Harrison 1998).

Linda Santo believes Audrey has worked many miracles. She cites the case of a young man injured in a motorcycle accident whose doctors had reportedly said he would never be able to walk again; yet on the same day his mother had gone to see Audrey he began to walk without his crutches. Actually, according to his personal physician, there had been a good likelihood-a 75 percent chance-that he would indeed walk (Sherr 1998).

Another case cited by Linda Santo concerned a woman supposedly healed of liver cancer through Audrey’s intercession. In fact, however, the patient’s oncologist pointed out that she had already begun a new cancer treatment and that it had clearly begun to work even before she had gone to see Audrey. The woman continued to regard the remission as a miracle even when the cancer returned, spreading to her brain ("Desperate” 1999).

On the 20/20 segment, titled “The Miracle of Audrey” (first broadcast October 4, 1998), Lynn Sherr asked, “Is this 14-year-old child a miracle worker, a messenger of God? Or is this all a cruel hoax, exploiting a sick and innocent girl?” Elsewhere a spokesman for the bishop confessed to having qualms about a disabled child being placed on public display. On one anniversary of Audrey’s accident, she was exhibited at a Worcester stadium with some 10,000 people in attendance. At the Santo home a window was added to Audrey’s bedroom through which pilgrims could stare at the “miracle” girl and pray for her to intercede with God on their behalf. (The window is reminiscent of one in a mobile-home carnival exhibit through which spectators could view “Siamese” twins as they watched TV.) However, the practice was discontinued by order of the bishop.

In preparing the 20/20 segment a producer called Skeptical Inquirer magazine and discussed with me the phenomenon of weeping icons. Of those that were not due to simple condensation or “sweating,” I said, approximately 100 percent were fakes, judging by my experience. That includes oil-yielding icons, which typically involve a non-drying oil (like olive oil) that can stay fresh-looking indefinitely.

We discussed the possibility of using surveillance cameras to monitor the Santo statues, but I pointed out that if trickery were involved it was unlikely that such an investigative technique would be permitted. As Lynn Sherr would subsequently report on camera, “We wanted to do our own test with a surveillance camera in the [home] chapel, but the family prefers to let the commission finish its work first.”

Unfortunately, the commission members seem woefully ill-prepared to investigate trickery. Sherr asked commission member Dr. John Madonna, “Did you see any way that anybody was pouring oil or making the oil appear on those objects?” He replied: “No. Especially after we did our examination behind the pictures and under the statues and so forth and found that there was no way that these objects were being fed the oil.” Another member, Dr. Robert Ciotone, stated: "We found nothing, no source of the oil.”

Actually, the conditions under which the statues and other objects yield oil are consistent with the surreptitious application of a non-drying oil. According to Sherr: “Although no one claims to have seen an object actually start to spout oil"-a very significant fact-"the commissioners were astounded when a religious icon they brought along oozed oil that night.” Of course no surveillance cameras were monitoring the icon during that time.

On an episode of CBS’s 48 Hours titled “Desperate Measures” (1999), a reporter asked Linda Santo how one would know whether someone in the household was simply applying the oil “in the middle of the night.” She replied, “You don't know.” “Are you doing this?” Linda was asked. “No,” she replied.

Linda Santo did permit 20/20 to take a sample of the oil. It proved to be 75 percent olive oil, “the rest unidentifiable,” according to Sherr (1998). She added: “Other independent tests have all yielded different results-in other words nothing conclusive.” In fact, analysis of one sample by a Pittsburgh laboratory revealed it to be 80 percent vegetable oil and 20 percent chicken fat, according to The Washington Post, which ordered the test (Weingarten 1998).

The commission’s report, while noting that the source of the oil was not yet explained, did correctly conclude, “One cannot presume that the inability to explain something automatically makes it miraculous.” (In other words, the commissioners were duly noting the logical fallacy of an argument ad ignorantiam-literally an appeal “to ignorance.”) The report added, “We must be careful not to identify this oil as 'holy oil'"-that is, oil blessed by a Catholic priest and used to anoint the ill-and insisted it not be used or offered as such. Prior to this, the Santos distributed packets of oil-soaked cotton balls, often receiving money and other donations in return.

Taken together, the evidence relating to the oil exhudations raises strong suspicions. First, there is the lack of any scientific proof for the alleged phenomenon: not a single case of a weeping effigy has ever been scientifically verified. In fact the history of such reported occurrences is a litany of deception, including self-deception. In the Santo case there is no mere misperception, since the presence of copious amounts of oil-including the "spontaneous” filling of chalices-has been well established. Moreover, the fact that the oil has not been observed to flow strongly suggests prior application. And the varying test results seem less consistent with a genuine phenomenon than with an attempt to adulterate the oil in hopes of confounding the analysis. The presence of chicken fat-which, along with common vegetable oil, is readily available in a home kitchen-seems particularly telling. So does the observation of one volunteer that there tends to be an increase in oil on days pilgrims are expected ("Desperate” 1999).

Even the timing of the phenomenon is suspicious, beginning long after Audrey’s accident and following other traumas including her father’s several-years desertion of the family and her mother’s diagnosis of breast cancer. According to Lynn Sherr (1998), ” . . . [J]ust as it seemed that God wasn't listening, the Santos believe he sent them a sign. With no warning and no logic, they say oil suddenly coated a religious portrait in their living room.” This was a picture of the Image of Guadalupe-itself a faked “miracle” picture! (Nickell 1993, 29-34)-and it occurred after national media attention had focused on several other instances of “weeping” images.

The phenomena that accompany the Santo oil exhudations are also suspect, in part because cases of bogus weeping images have often been attended by other easily faked miracles (Nickell 1993). In this case there are “bleeding” pictures and communion wafers. Especially troubling are reports that stigmata-wounds imitating Jesus’ crucifixion-have “mysteriously” appeared on Audrey’s body, and on Good Fridays she has reportedly been seen to lie with her arms outstretched, as if crucified. According to one reporter, “Her parents say they cannot explain how their daughter, who cannot normally move herself, becomes positioned in this way” (Harrison 1998).

Although we live in a scientific age, there has been a resurgence in magical thinking, resulting in a revival of religious fundamentalism, the rise of the "New Age” movement, and an increase in “miracle” claims. The appeal is widespread, although it may be especially strong among the economically disadvantaged, where human despair and superstition may coexist. (The Santo phenomena, for example, take place in the midst of Portuguese immigrant families.)

People seem to hunger for some tangible religious experience, and wherever there is such profound want there is the opportunity for what may be called "pious fraud.” Money is rarely the primary motive, the usual impetus being to seemingly triumph over adversity, renew the faith of believers, and confound the doubters. An end-justifies-the-means attitude may prevail, but the genuinely religious and the devoutly skeptical may agree on one thing, that the truth must serve as both the means and the end. Ultimately, neither science nor religion can be served by dishonesty.

References

• “Desperate Measures.” 1999. 48 Hours (CBS-TV), June 24.
• Harrison, Ted. 1998. Miracle child. Fortean Times December, 40-41.
• Nickell, Joe. 1993. Looking for a Miracle. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
• —. 1997. In the Eye of the Beholder. Free Inquiry Spring, 5.
• Sherr, Lynn. 1998. The Miracle of Audrey. 20/20 (ABC News transcript no. 1848), October 4.
• Weingarten, Gene. 1998. Tears for Audrey. The Washington Post July 19.

I couldn't believe my eyes. It was a Sunday night, on the ten o'clock news. Right between a report on Y2K and another on a fine against a local construction company, Fox 5 News in New York saw fit to give us a “special report” on who built the pyramids. The graphic behind the announcer, on a backdrop of the Gizeh pyramids, asks the question: “Alien Architects?” The announcer plugs the upcoming Fox television network special “Opening the Lost Tombs: Live From Egypt,” then segues into the story with the campy introduction, “There are many mysteries in Egypt, like the pyramids. Who built them and how did they do it?” With that she introduces Fox News correspondent David Garcia, who begins his voice-over to video of the pyramids: “The ancient future, a civilization of contradiction.” Immediately we hear another voice in an Arabic accent, “a pyramid was a tomb,” followed immediately by another similar voice, “the pyramid has never been a tomb.”

This is how it begins, and it only gets worse. Besides the ramifications of this news report for the whole field of journalism-the way it was conducted, and the shoddy journalism it represents-there is the then-upcoming special that this “news report” was plugging, which aired the following Tuesday (March 2, 1999). Although that show might be excused as “entertainment,” when the same thing is done on a regular news hour, amidst real news, such an excuse is inadequate. And as I eventually discovered, it would even be ethically questionable for Fox to call its live special “entertainment.” One scholar who participated in it told me he agreed to take part in the show for no fee, on the basis that it was a “news” program. “They certainly used the word 'news',” he told me, “using that as the reason why 'no one' who was interviewed was getting paid.” If that is true, and if Fox does claim the show was entertainment, then it is pulling a fast one.

Questionable Sources

On the ten o'clock news, after we are told that the pyramids have never been a tomb, correspondent Garcia continues, “Still, modern day scholars debate not only what they are, but why they are-who, or what, built them?” He treats both claims as if they are exemplary of real scholarly debate. Does Garcia really think that? He could not be reached for comment. Then we see a man identified onscreen as “Fadel Gad, Egyptologist.” What news does he have for us? Why, just this: “Were the Egyptians thinking of UFOs at that time? Yes! A very sophisticated, highly intelligent species that had intercepted this planet Earth and had caused the evolution and the exploration of the human consciousness.” A real Egyptologist is saying this? This is what Fox News is reporting. Though I later found that Mr. Gad has extensive field experience and a master’s degree in Egyptology, he has authored no known publications, and is not a member of the International Association of Egyptologists.¹ But there is one more thing: Fadel Gad just happens to be a co-executive producer of "Opening the Lost Tombs.” This is not mentioned in this news report. Here is a real blurring of the line between news and entertainment, with producers being portrayed as unbiased experts on news stories to drum up interest in their future entertainment programs.

The thrust of the report was definitely not skeptical. Garcia tells us that "traditional Egyptologists” consider “even the mention of UFOs or other-world intelligence [as] heresy,” as if this were about opinion and dogma, with rival opinions as good as any other, instead of being about facts and evidence. The only skeptic presented was Zahi Hawass, “Undersecretary of State,” a truly renowned Egyptologist, widely published in the field, with a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania (all far more than Fadel Gad can claim). But Dr. Hawass was not listed as an Egyptologist-instead, he was identified as an establishment bureaucrat (though it wasn't mentioned, he would also be involved in the upcoming special). Hawass explains, “People like to dream. If you meet someone who is not an archaeologist, they love to dream.” Recounting the claims of aliens, he concludes, “That’s a dream! My job is to let you dream, but you have to know a little bit about reality.” That is all Hawass gets to say against the ideas of Mr. Gad. No other experts or information are presented on this matter. This furthers the impression that the debate is about opinions, not facts, about heretics fighting the establishment and being arrogantly dismissed as dreamers.

Eventually, Garcia tells us, “also preserved are records, etched in stone, supporting evidence not of this Earth.” This is a tacit approval of the alien hypothesis by a mainstream journalist on a major network’s regular ten o'clock news hour. This is not a tabloid; this is supposedly a mainstream source. Yet there is no hint of skepticism.

What is this “supporting evidence” not of this Earth? Gad again: “The records indicate that we came from another place, we came from the stars.” Do they? A picture is then shown of some Egyptian hieroglyphs resembling rings, and we hear Gad declaring “they look like flying saucers!” Then comes a picture of a carving of an Egyptian in a ceremonial headdress, followed by Gad’s voice again: “They are showing figures with antennas on their head. Very mysterious.” No other interpretation is offered, no one is given the chance to rebut Gad’s reading of these glyphs.

Garcia finishes with a sappy catch-phrase ending, typical of this brand of TV journalism, “A higher intelligence, or merely dedicated hard work? Which theory is correct? Neither is proven. It is the mystery of Egypt,” an overt declaration that the aliens theory is just as good as any other, that it hasn't been “proven” that the pyramids are man-made. If the Fox network can be this gullible, or this incompetent, or this shifty, on a subject where information and experts abound, how can anyone trust anything else they report?

By now I was dreading the Fox special. I had already found the Fox Web site promoting all kinds of pseudoscience, uncritically, from mummy curses to aliens to psychics. No real journalism appears on the Web site at all, virtually no skepticism, and no references or authorities. Statements are made as if they were facts. The Titanic was sunk by a mummy’s curse; the pyramids may have been built to signal space travellers; the fifty-year-old predictions of “the celebrated American psychic” Edgar Cayce suggest the pyramids were built ten thousand years ago; that the Sphinx shows damage from the Great Flood; and a secret hall of records from Atlantis would be found under it in the late 1990s-conveniently, the very time that Fox planned to explore, live on television, new shafts opened up “beneath” the Sphinx (not exactly-more like behind it).

“Forget about everything you've ever seen or heard about” the Sphinx and the pyramids, Maury Povich says as the show begins. Then there’s a cheesy voice-over, asking the questions that set the tone for the rest of the show. “Are there clues to man’s destiny? Was it Atlantis that taught Egypt how to build? Are we the descendants of astronauts from another world?” The entire two-hour show is littered with New Age authors pushing their theories, interspersed with more interesting archaeological tours led by Zahi Hawass. Hawass is a wonderful scientist, and clearly loves his job. He embodies the excitement of archaeology, and is eager to share it with others. Around this backbone of “reality,” which included the new, “live-on-TV” discovery of an intact mummy, the exploration of an unused tomb, and the first-ever public viewing of the tomb of Osiris, the content is entirely lopsided in favor of the "heretics.” The “reality” aspect of the show is also suspect; much of it seemed staged. It was apparent that Hawass had explored many of these sites before, identifying art and translating inscriptions, in preparation for the show (and then, perhaps, “setting them up” by covering them with sand). Moreover, many archaeologists, whose comments can be read in the ANE Digest archives, note that Hawass was providing a very bad example of how to conduct a dig. Some even said they would use the video to instruct students on what not to do.²

A Parade of Paranormal Purveyors

We are given a tour of all the outlandish theories at the start of the program, with longer, corresponding monologues popping in and out as the show progresses, apparently to fill dead time between setting up archaeological sites for the TV cameras. In each case an author pitches his theory, with the title of his book appearing on screen. We are thus led through the entire gamut of “heretical” Egyptology today. The narrative quaintly portrays these guys as the “doubters” and “skeptics” who are challenging supposedly tired, old views. About these theorists, who posit lost civilizations and alien visitors, Povich tells us, “their ideas, or at least some of them, are not quite as wacky as you might suspect.” Indeed, “they are vigorously challenging mainstream archaeologists like Zahi Hawass.” When at last we get some comment from Hawass, sanity is championed, though not permitted a fair fight. He is only given time to say the obvious: “There is no evidence at all, existing in any place in Egypt, about this lost civilization.”

So who are these purveyors of the strange? First, the views of Edgar Cayce, the deceased psychic mentioned in the Web site, are espoused by John Van Auken of the Edgar Cayce Foundation. He tells us we will be enlightened by the discovery of the secret hall of records containing the truth about our past. Then there is Richard Hoagland, author of The Monuments of Mars. We are descended, he says, from Martian refugees who settled at Gizeh. Robert Bauval is there, author of The Orion Mystery. The three pyramids of Gizeh were built thousands of years earlier than we think, according to him, since they must have been aligned with the Orion constellation, which was only possible in 10,500 b.c. We get to hear from John Anthony West, author of Serpent in the Sky. The Sphinx, he insists, must have been built in 12,000 b.c. in order for so much erosion to have occurred (and, of course, the fact that the head was refashioned is to him further proof of its fantastic antiquity). Graham Hancock, author of Heaven’s Mirror, makes an appearance. He believes, among other things, that “an earlier civilization” that emphasized the soul rather than technology was destroyed in a great flood, and the survivors settled in Egypt. He says we are “technologically brilliant” but “spiritually barren” and so we should look to this ancient civilization for guidance.

Who gets to speak on behalf of the real scholars? Several-but none of them are asked or allowed to comment on any of the other theories being touted on the show. Among the genuine experts, who give brief talks on ordinary facts and theories not related to the New Age claims, are Bob Brier, an Egyptologist from Long Island University; Dieter Arnold from the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Gaballa Ali Gaballa, Secretary General of the Egyptian Antiquities Council (actually the Supreme Council for Antiquities), and, though it is not mentioned (as in the case of Hawass in the previous Sunday’s news report), a leading Egyptologist with a Ph.D. from Liverpool University; Aidan Dodson, an Egyptologist (now at the University of Bristol) commenting on the King Tut dig; and Nicholas Reeves, author of The Complete Tutankhamun, who talks about how good forensic evidence suggests the boy king was murdered (Dr. Dodson weighs in on this one, too).

Mixing and Matching Expert Theories

The only credible expert with unorthodox ideas was Robert Schoch, author of Voices of the Rocks. Though not mentioned in the show, he holds a Ph.D. in geology and geophysics from Yale and has been a faculty member at Boston University since 1984. But the way his testimony is treated is part of a worrisome trend. By interweaving comments by both Schoch and West, Schoch’s geological observations are depicted as supporting West. But Schoch only dates the core body of the Sphinx to around 5000 b.c. (as opposed to 2500 b.c. as is normally believed, or 12,000 b.c. as West argues), based on his estimation of the rates of rain erosion.³

Schoch told me he did not see the show, so could not comment on how his views were portrayed. But as far as I can tell, he certainly does not advocate West’s theory, and it seems a bit shifty to present them as if they are a tag team supporting a common view. But Schoch’s claims very specifically do not encompass the head or hind quarters of the Sphinx, and he also notes that his dating falls within the period of known megalith civilizations (the walls of Jericho, for example, were built in 8,000 b.c.). But this is not the theory presented on the show. Instead, the scene turns on two occasions to Schoch to argue about water erosion data, during the monologue of John Anthony West, who argues “if the water-weathering theory is correct” then there was “a very ancient and highly sophisticated” (stone carving is “highly” sophisticated?) "civilization existing at a time when no civilization is supposed to have existed.” When? In 12,000 b.c. Povich then says this may be the “last monument” of a vanished civilization. When he rhetorically asks if there is further evidence, he turns immediately, not to any archaeologist or historian, but to Edgar Cayce-the psychic.

But that is not the most disturbing part of this story. Schoch is shown arguing that “there were moist periods, rainy periods, in Egypt that clearly predate the modern Sahara desert.” Then at once we see West, who follows, “this kind of a rainy period prevailed in Egypt around from the time when the last ice age broke up,” and thus the Sphinx had to have been built around then. There is no qualification or distinction made here between the two views. Schoch is very plainly being presented as if he is West’s co-theorist. Lest we be mistaken, Povich introduced the whole segment by saying “as we have seen, many suspect ancient Egypt was influenced by a vanished genius culture. For one group, the rock of the Sphinx speaks the truth.” But wait, isn't Schoch’s book called Voices of the Rocks? This seems an almost deliberate attribution of West’s odd theory to Schoch, as if his book argues for a lost civilization (it does not - it isn't even about the Sphinx, although it briefly mentions it). We are led here to believe that Schoch and West are the “one group” Maury is talking about. This is a dangerous license to be taken with serious scholarship.

There were other “experts” as well. Christopher Frayling, listed as a “popular culture historian” and author of The Face of Tutankhamun, tells us that “the most convincing explanation of the curse” of King Tut is that “some energy” of some kind was pent up in the tomb and released, affecting all who were associated with it. Fortunately, Dodson’s account at least lets us judge for ourselves, since he reports how Lord Carnarvon died from an infected mosquito bite that was cut while shaving-a more plausible account, at least of his death. We are not told about any of the other “dozen” (Maury Povich) or "thirty-five” (Fox Web site) people who died under “mysterious circumstances,” so Fox does not help us decide what to believe here.⁴ The way Dodson’s narrative is abused, however, pushes ethical boundaries yet again. Interspersed with his otherwise historical account we hear others interject fantastic comments: Povich tells us that “at the precise moment of [Lord Carnarvon’s] death” there was a blackout in Cairo, and Frayling adds that Carnarvon’s pet howled and died in England. Are we being led to believe that Dodson endorses this account?

When asked, Dodson said he could not confirm any of the claims inserted into his monologue. However, he doubted that there were a “dozen” mysterious deaths, and added that Cairo’s power system is so notoriously bad that a blackout would not be a supernatural coincidence. Is it ethical to splice factual statements when the speakers do not share each other’s views? This is the very same thing done to Schoch. I asked Dodson if he would have liked to respond on TV to any of the claims made on the show (not just those littering his own segment). He said he would, but “with such off-the-wall ideas, it’s almost impossible to even try to rebut them. There’s just no point of connection between reality and fantasy!”

This abuse is matched by yet another example. Povich introduces the “monuments on Mars” theory again later in the broadcast, adding that “recent exploration suggests it may be so.” Immediately we hear a replay of a real news report, over the sight of a rocket launch. The news anchor’s voice declares, “All the talk tonight is about Mars and whether American scientists have the proof that life once existed on that planet.” Immediately, we move to Hoagland, and Viking orbiter images of the “face” on Mars. But wait . . . are we being told that there was a real news story about this, that “American scientists” were really asking whether this was proof of life on Mars? The recording sure sounded to me like a report on the evidence of microbial fossils in a Martian meteorite, but I have no way of knowing, because that part was cut out. If this is what they did, isn't this dishonest? This seems a serious ethical question.

Eventually we get to the expected tie-in with the previous Sunday’s news report. Besides being told repeatedly that the Egyptian constructions were "seemingly supernatural” in their technical perfection,5 the hieroglyphs that "prove” our extraterrestrial origins are shown again. This time, Hoagland is our interpreter, despite the fact that even Fox won't stoop so low as to claim he has any expertise in this matter. We are shown a wall inscription, which Hoagland says has pictures of “high-tech things” like “helicopters and land speeders and spaceships and the Millennium Falcon.” To prove his point, the Fox production team overlays video of an Apache helicopter to show the similarity. According to Ms. Griffis-Greenberg, an Egyptologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who saw this broadcast, this interpretation is absurd, but not new to her - it has cropped up on the Usenet so many times she is tired of answering it. But she was glad to explain yet again, and referred me to more credible sources.

I spoke to several other Egyptologists who were amazed that this was being done on television, although one said to me that he expects this sort of thing now, "It is just what TV does.” But what do the experts say about this “helicopter” glyph? This will serve as an example for all the rest: the “helicopter” is in fact the Abydos palimpsest. A palimpsest is what is created when new writing is inscribed over old. In the case of papyri, old ink is scraped off, but in the case of inscriptions, plaster is added over the old inscription and a new inscription is made. The image described as a helicopter is well known to be the names of Rameses inscribed over the names of his father (something Rameses was known to do quite frequently). A little bit of damage from time and weathering has furthered the illusion of a “helicopter."6 What we should ask is why no Egyptologists were questioned about this, something well known in the literature? As one of them said to me, “We don't live under rocks!” It would not have been hard to get an expert to clarify the meaning of the "helicopter"-they had several experts on camera already. Hawass is heard saying the claim of aliens coming from space and building the pyramids “is nuts,” but he is never asked to comment on any specific details of the arguments being made. This is a very one-sided investigation. The people are not being fairly informed.

The show did conclude on an encouraging note, however. West’s theory was tied to Cayce’s claim of a lost hall of records beneath the Sphinx, and when the tomb of Osiris is being explored with Hawass, he is asked his opinion of the Cayce theory. His response? “It’s a myth . . . but to be fair,” he adds with a humorous tone, “I did not excavate this tunnel yet,” pointing down a shaft perhaps leading in the direction of the Sphinx, “then really I don't know.” Hopefully the audience will catch his sarcasm.

Hawass was also given (almost) the last word: “People like to dream. And I like to let them dream. But my show gives them a little of reality. I believe that all that we found today, this is the reality.” And indeed he is right-for despite all the “wacky” theories, the only real facts that were exposed on the show were of that very reality: the pyramids were tombs built for mummified corpses buried only thousands, not tens of thousands, of years ago. The pyramids were built without secret history or technology; no Atlantis; no aliens; no amazing hall of records. Just an exciting, fascinating, thoroughly human, and definitely Egyptian, historical reality.

Notes

1. Fadel Gad is president of Joy Travel International (11600 Washington Pl., Suite 209, Los Angeles, CA 90066). He was travelling and could not be reached for comment. His resume cites official posts, from Inspector of Antiquities to Director of Excavations at Saqqara, excavations from 1973 to 1980, and a master’s degree in Ancient Egyptian Art and Archaeology from Cairo University, 1981. He runs tours for organizations as diverse as The Institute of Noetic Sciences and the University of California, and works a lecture circuit on “Egyptian mythology.” I contacted many people who met him, and all praised him as an ethical businessman and all-around nice guy. For online, mostly New Age, references to Fadel and his unusual teachings see:
   • visionmagazine.com
   • intuition.org
   • instadv.ucsb.edu.
2. There was much discussion about this Fox special: see uchicago.edu.
3. See R. M. Schoch, “Redating the Great Sphinx of Giza,” KMT: A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt, 3:2 (Summer 1992), pp. 52-59, 66-70; T. L. Dobecki and R. M. Schoch, “Seismic Investigations in the Vicinity of the Great Sphinx of Giza, Egypt,” Geoarchaeology, 7:6 (1992), pp. 527-544; R. M. Schoch, “L'Age du Sphinx de Gizeh: Vers Une Revision Dechirante?” Kadath, Chroniques des Civilisations Disparues, 81 (Winter 1993-1994), pp. 13-53).
4. See David Silverman, “The curse of the curse of the pharaohs,” Expedition, 29:2 (1987), pp. 56-63.
5. The pyramids are still made of the most primitive of permanent construction materials (stone) and no super-technological cutting tools have been found. See also Robert Bianchi, “Pyramidiots,” Archaeology, 44 (Nov-Dec 1991), p. 84, and Daniel Boorstin, “Afterlives of the great pyramids,” The Wilson Quarterly, 16 (Summer 1992), pp. 130-8.
6. See finart.be. See also Juergen von Beckerath, Handbuch der Aegyptischen Koenigsnamen, Muenchner Aegyptologische Studien 20, pp. 235-237; Omm Sety and Hanny El Zeini Abydos: Holy City of Ancient Egypt, 1981, p. 187; and Shafik Farid, ed., The Temple At Abydos, 1983, Simpkins Splendor of Egypt series, 1983, p. 8. I would like to thank Ms. Griffis-Greenberg for her help.

Previously, these guides have dealt with step-by-step instructions on how to do something (buying a car, writing a resume, gardening, etc.), and parts of this book deal with how people can supposedly learn to use their intuition, get a spirit guide, etc. The authors are trying to put psychic powers in the same realm as cars, resumes, and gardens-everybody knows those things actually exist; similarly, the authors declare that everybody is psychic. They proclaim it to be real, and simply move on from there.

The authors do acknowledge the existence of skeptics, and even specifically mention CSICOP and James Randi. But their understanding of skepticism is quite skewed. They claim that skeptics have to prove “that psi doesn't exist” and wonder what they will say “when evidence finally arrives that proves psi exists as a natural force.”

They also take several potshots at skeptics. In comparing the logical and rational mind versus the intuitive mind, they say the former needs proof while the latter is “trusting,” and the former is “critical” while the latter is “loving.” Obviously, it’s better to be trusting and loving than critical! Less subtle is their claim that, before it happened, skeptics would have “been as unbelieving” of a claim that Charles Lindbergh could complete his flight as they are now of astral travel. It’s hard to believe the authors didn't know they were setting up such a blatantly false straw man argument, but if that is truly what they think about skeptics, it’s no wonder they vilify them as having closed minds and even say “the public may confuse these two types of extremists-fanatical followers of all things paranormal and ever-suspicious skeptics.”

Oddly, the authors themselves seem to fall into the category of “fanatical followers of all things paranormal.” Indeed, it’s hard to believe they have not lost their life savings to a confidence artist by now, since they seem to believe absolutely everything associated with the paranormal.

They cite several well-known “psychics” to support their claims, including Uri Geller. (Amusingly, they state that “skeptics continue to debunk Geller and his feats.” Since they seem to fully believe in his powers, this implies they don't know what the word “debunk” means.) They cite firewalking as an example of an “unsolved mystery,” ignoring the fact that one does not need to be in any sort of special trance state to do it. They talk of hypnotically regressing people to past lives, ignoring the vast amount of evidence dealing with false memory implantation. They cite therapeutic touch and Kirlian photography as valid-the latter is even “proof that auras exist.” They claim that Einstein had a “psychic experience” because he “is reputed to have formulated the Theory of Relativity while resting.” They cite the Fox Sisters as having invoked spirits to “rap on and levitate objects,” ignoring the fact that they later admitted it was a hoax. They perpetuate the incorrect claim that the late Jeane Dixon predicted President Kennedy’s assassination. Such inaccuracies are only the tip of the iceberg.

It is intriguing that they repeatedly try to claim scientific backing for some of what they say, but don't, of course, cite anything specific. They even claim that “one thing that physicists and psi scientists agree on is that physics and psi probably follow the same set of natural laws.” They appear to want to have the credibility associated with the word “scientific,” without having to deal with any of the rigors of the scientific method.

The book is not completely devoid of good advice. There is one small paragraph that says, “Certain types of schizophrenics also report hearing voices, and if you start hearing voices out of the blue, your first stop should be your doctor’s office. We also recommend that you make sure you're truly hearing psychic information before acting on your premonitions. And whatever you do, don't try anything dangerous because you think it’s based on your intuition!” But that’s pretty much the extent of it.

Their message is, quite plainly, that “everyone is psychic.” Period. There is no doubt. And if you dare to question the supposedly positive results of psi studies, then you're just as bad as those who “ridiculed” Galileo, Newton, and Einstein!

Well, they certainly put skeptics in their place. Thankfully, that place is somewhere outside the realm of The Complete Idiot’s Guide.