The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) was established in 1998, seven years after the creation of its predecessor, the Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM). The OAM had been formed not because of any medical or scientific need, but because Iowa senator Tom Harkin and former Iowa representative Berkeley Bedell believed in implausible health claims as a result of their own experiences. Bedell thought that “Naessens Serum” had cured his prostate cancer and that cow colostrum had cured his Lyme disease (Jarvis 1996). He recommended “alternative medicine” to his friend Harkin, who subsequently came to believe that bee pollen had cured his hay fever (Marshall 1994).

Political wrangling, but little science, marked the history of the organization throughout the 1990s (Gorski 2001). Although the OAM was officially a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), it was managed more by “Harkinites” than by scientists (Marshall 1994; Satel and Taranto 1996). Science magazine recounted a 1993 congressional hearing held by Harkin, with Bedell as a witness:

NIH, Bedell said, should hire staffers to locate anyone who claims to have a successful therapy, search the files, and “just simply find out whether what he claims is correct.”

[Subsequent to the hearing] Bedell brushed aside questions about how his field studies could be designed to avoid bias. This is a technical detail, Bedell said, and “I'm not a scientist.” But he insisted at the hearing—and still insists—that field studies can be done quickly and easily, without fancy statistics or double-blinded controls (Marshall 1994).

The creation of the NCCAM as an “NIH Center” in 1998, followed by the appointment of Stephen Straus as its director in 1999, marked a noticeable change. Straus is the first director of the OAM/NCCAM to have legitimate qualifications as a biomedical scientist. He promised “to explore CAM healing practices in the context of rigorous science, to educate and train CAM researchers and to disseminate authoritative information about CAM to the public” (Straus 1999). Three years later he felt confident enough to tell The Scientist, regarding scientific opinions of the NCCAM, “I think there’s very little skepticism left” (Russo and Maher 2002).

This article argues that in spite of Dr. Straus’s convictions, the NCCAM continues to be committed more to pseudoscience and CAM advocacy than to rigorous science.

Pointless Research and Dangerous Promotions

Director Straus, referring to NCCAM-sponsored research, recently wrote, "Some people believe that any such undertaking is a pointless exercise” (Straus 2002). That is correct, and some of the reasons for this were evident in his short article. He noted that the herbal mixture PC-SPES was recently found to be adulterated by prescription drugs. He did not mention that when this adulteration was discovered, the NCCAM had been sponsoring four studies of PC-SPES. The studies had been justified by preliminary data suggesting that PC-SPES may be effective for the treatment of prostate cancer. That effect, however, has now been explained by the presence of diethylstilbestrol and indomethacin (Sovak et al. 2002). Nevertheless, after a brief pause the NCCAM intends to resume three of the studies “because of the promising data from the early studies of PC SPES” (NCCAM Web site 2002a).

Straus warned of “some herbal medicines . . . that interfere with the metabolism of drugs used to treat cancer or AIDS” (Straus 2002). By this he meant, mainly, St. John’s wort. But St. John’s wort has for years been recommended as a treatment for the HIV by the naturopathic Bastyr University AIDS Research Center, funded by the OAM/NCCAM since 1994 (BUARC Web site 2002). The Bastyr Web site does not mention the danger of mixing St. John’s wort with HIV protease inhibitors, although that fact had been known since 2000 (Piscitelli et al. 2000). How many people carrying the HIV may have developed AIDS or relapses because of such promotion is a mystery, but there is no indication that anyone at Bastyr or the NCCAM is wondering.

The director of the Bastyr University AIDS Research Center is naturopath Leanna Standish. She was a member of the NCCAM advisory council from 1999-2001. She is the Principal Investigator of an NCCAM-sponsored clinical trial to study “Garlic in hyperlipidemia caused by HAART [highly active anti-retroviral therapy].” But garlic is another substance that reduces blood levels of lifesaving HAART agents (Piscitelli et al. 2002), a fact that is mentioned in neither the NCCAM nor the Bastyr descriptions of the trial.

Standish is the lead author of a chapter in the major textbook of naturopathy that recommends more than 100 “therapeutic suggestions” for HIV infection and its complications (Standish et al. 1999). The authors state that these treatments constitute “comprehensive care that is concordant with several naturopathic principles” and that the program is being studied “through a three-year cooperative agreement grant with the NIH’s Office of Alternative Medicine” (now the NCCAM). In addition to St. John’s wort and garlic, some of the recommended treatments are "acupuncture detoxification auricular program,” whole-body hyperthermia, "adrenal glandular,” homeopathy, “cranioelectrical stimulation,” digestive enzymes, and colloidal silver, a toxic heavy metal that the FDA has declared useless for any medicinal purpose.

The authors offer numerous references to support the use of these methods, but all are inadequate or irrelevant. The citation for colloidal silver, for example, is a report of its use as a preservative. The authors admit, near the end of their twenty-page chapter, that proof of their assertions is lacking. Nevertheless, on the first page they have promised that the program “should guide the physician is assisting patients in optimizing their health, slowing disease progression, improving quality of life, and possibly improving immune function.”

Implausible Claims and Unacknowledged Scientific Fraud

According to the Bastyr Web site, the NCCAM also sponsors a study of "Distant Healing Therapy in HIV/AIDS.” Investigators include Standish and the late Elisabeth Targ, previously the subject of a Skeptical Inquirer column by Martin Gardner (March/April 2001). “Distant Healing” in this case means that anonymous people pray, from a distance, for patients who are unaware of it. The study is to “extend preliminary work,” by which is meant Targ’s 1998 study, famous in CAM circles (Sicher et al. 1998). The NCCAM also funds another of Targ’s distant healing studies, presumably also justified by her 1998 study. That study, however, has now been revealed as a scientific fraud (Bronson 2002). At the time of this writing neither the Bastyr Web site nor the NCCAM has acknowledged this, and the NCCAM apparently has no plans to discontinue the now-baseless current studies.

Another of Standish’s studies, sponsored by the NCCAM, is “Transfer of Neural Energy.” It proposes to find “that visually evoked potentials generated in one human brain (Subject A) by photostimulation can generate a correlated EEG signal in the brain of another human subject (Subject B) who is located at a distance (14.5 meters) and is not visually stimulated” (BURP 2003). In other words, it hypothesizes the recurrent paranormal claims of thought transmission and “remote viewing,” both of which are implausible and never demonstrated despite thousands of attempts (Kurtz 1985).

Standish was an original member of the recently formed Institute of Medicine (IOM) panel on “Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine by the American Public,” sponsored by a $1 million grant from the NCCAM (IOM Web site 2003). This panel will not consider the validity of CAM claims, but seems intended to provide justification for the NCCAM’s continued existence.

Research Centers, More Implausible Claims, and “Integrative Medicine” Centers

The NCCAM funds several “research centers,” among which is Bastyr University. Another is the Center for Frontier Medicine in Biofield Science. “Biofield,” according to an OAM publication, is defined as “`a massless field' that: (a) is not necessarily electromagnetic, (b) surrounds and permeates living bodies, (c) affects the body, and (d) possibly is related to qi” (Raso 1997). According to the NCCAM Web site, "This Center facilitates and integrates research on the effects of low energy fields. The research is focused on developing standardized bioassays (cellular biology) and psychophysiological and biophysical markers of biofield effects, and on the application of the markers developed to measure outcomes in the recovery of surgical patients.”

The center’s Principal Investigator is psychologist Gary Schwartz, a colleague of alternative medicine guru Andrew Weil at the University of Arizona. Schwartz has published a book in which he claims to have shown scientifically that “consciousness continues after death” and that mediums, including John Edward, can communicate with the dead (Schwartz 2002). A recent SI critique of Schwartz’s methods found them to be flawed in the most elementary of ways, such that no competent scientist could take his conclusions seriously (Hyman 2003).

Another NCCAM-sponsored research center will study “the effect of Therapeutic Touch on bone metabolism and on fibroblast biology, . . . on bone metabolism in postmenopausal women with wrist fractures and . . . the effect of healing touch on immune function in advanced cervical cancer” (NCCAM Web site 2002b). Therapeutic Touch consists of the waving of hands several inches from a patient. Its putative basis is a manipulable “human energy field” that can be detected by practitioners but not by any scientific instrument (Atwood 2002b). In experiments, however, Therapeutic Touch practitioners have failed to detect the “energy field” when denied visual cues (Rosa et al. 1998).

Much of the rest of the research agenda of the NCCAM, such as “cranial osteopathy” for otitis media, “In Vitro Investigation of Distant Qi Gong,” “Gonzalez Therapy” for cancer of the pancreas (coffee enemas, pancreatic enzymes, hundreds of daily “dietary supplement” pills, and hair analyses), magnets for various purposes, acupuncture for diarrhea in HIV patients, and oral shark cartilage for cancer, is either so implausible as to not warrant spending public monies or has already been disproved in other settings. Some trials appear to employ more than one method in the same study group, ensuring that even if an effect exists there will be no way to tell what caused it (NCCAM Web site 2003).

A few of the trials and research centers seem, on their face, to be legitimate. Examples of these are the Glucosamine/Chondroitin Arthritis Intervention Trial and the NCCAM’s own Division of Intramural Research.

Several grants go to medical schools for the purpose of establishing "integrative medicine” centers, which begs the question of why this should be done in the absence of evidence that “integrative medicine” works.

Cynicism and Fear

Some academic physicians view the NCCAM cynically, as simply another opportunity to get scarce grant money (CAM Director 2001). Straus himself acknowledged this in a recent interview: “people at major universities . . . become stunned thinking that we should be an easy take” (Russo and Maher 2002). Some in academic medicine are undoubtedly afraid that criticism of the NCCAM might displease Sen. Harkin who, as Chairman and/or Ranking Member of the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee, can influence the budget of the entire NIH. This could explain why, according to Straus, “our sister institutes have picked up” several grant proposals that the NCCAM was unable to fund (Russo and Maher 2002).

Straus opined that this must mean that the proposals weren't “crap,” but that is not the only possible explanation. A companion piece to this article shows, in the case of Rep. Dan Burton and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, how a powerful ideologue can dictate the research agenda of an NIH affiliate (Atwood 2003). There are also precedents for Sen. Harkin using his position to wrestle control of medical research away from scientists. In 1994, according to the National Council Against Health Fraud, resigning OAM Director Joseph Jacobs “complained that Sen. Harkin was holding the entire NIH budget hostage” until Jacobs placed three of Harkin’s choices, among them Berkeley Bedell, on the OAM advisory panel (NCAHF 1994). At the 1993 hearing reported by Science, “Bedell . . . complained that the NCI wasn't moving fast enough to validate antineoplaston therapy. Harkin responded that he would `get their attention real fast. I have been around here eighteen years, and I have figured out how to use the purse strings'” (Marshall 1994).

All of this has resulted in the establishment of a cadre of academics who have come to rely on NCCAM funds or who otherwise defend the NCCAM’s existence, with little regard for the scientific issues raised here. Thus many physicians who have not taken the time to consider CAM (and many members of the public) are led to believe that CAM claims are likely to be valid and that the NCCAM project is a noble one.

Human Studies Ethics and CAM

Clinical trials of CAM methods pose particular ethical problems. Drawing from the primary ethics literature of the past fifty years, Ezekiel Emanuel and colleagues have proposed seven universal criteria for determining if a human study is ethical: value, scientific validity, fair subject selection, favorable risk-benefit ratio, independent review by unaffiliated individuals, informed consent, and respect for enrolled subjects (Emanuel et al. 2000). All criteria must be met in order to make such research ethical.

Highly implausible or impossible methods, such as homeopathy, craniosacral therapy, “psychic (distant) healing,” Therapeutic Touch, EDTA chelation for atherosclerosis, the chiropractic “subluxation theory” and many other CAM claims are what Emanuel and colleagues refer to as “trifling hypotheses.” Human studies of such methods are, a priori, unethical, quite apart from any political impetus to conduct them. This is both because of the exploitation of subjects for questions that lack “scientific or clinical value” and because such research is a waste of resources: “Comparing relative value is integral to determinations of funding priorities when allocating limited funds among alternative research proposals” (Emanuel et al. 2000). In particular, one might add, if those funds are public. Thus the current federal allocation of $110 million per year for the NCCAM might be weighed against the $5 million per year allocated for research on spinal muscular atrophy, a devastating childhood disease that some scientists believe would be on the verge of a therapeutic breakthrough but for want of adequate funding (Cohen 2002).

These ethical arguments are not refuted by the contention that a significant fraction of the population may wish such studies to be done, or even by the argument that demonstrating such methods ineffective will benefit society. These are the usual arguments favoring the existence of the NCCAM and CAM research programs in academic medicine, and are often made even by skeptics. But such contentions are irrelevant to the ethical issues and as such are expressly discouraged, as a basis for the Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval of NIH-sponsored study proposals, by the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR 2001): “The IRB should not consider possible long-range effects of applying knowledge gained in the research (for example, the possible effects of the research on public policy) as among those research risks that fall within the purview of its responsibility” (CFR §46.111).

Nor does the virtual certainty that some subjects would use an implausible therapy, even in the absence of a clinical trial, render such a trial ethical: “the IRB should consider only those risks and benefits that may result from the research” (as distinguished from risks and benefits of therapies subjects would receive even if not participating in the research) (CFR §46.116).

Plausibility also figures in informed consent language and subject selection. How many subjects who are not wedded to “alternative medicine” would be likely to join a study that independent reviewers rate as unlikely to yield any useful results, or in which the risks are stated to outweigh the potential benefits? Are informed consents for such studies honest? In at least one case cited in the following paragraph, the answer is “no.” Nor may subjects who prefer “alternative” methods be preferentially chosen for such research even if they seek this, because “fair subject selection requires that the scientific goals of the study, not vulnerability, privilege, or other factors unrelated to the purposes of the research, be the primary basis for determining the groups and individuals that will be recruited and enrolled” (Emanuel et al. 2000).

The Office for Human Research Protections recently cited Columbia University for failure to describe serious risks on the consent form of its “Gonzalez” protocol for cancer of the pancreas, funded by the NCCAM (OHRP 2002). The study proposes to compare the arduous “Gonzalez” method, which is devoid of biological rationale, to gemcitabine, an agent acknowledged by the investigators to effect “a slight prolongation of life and a significant improvement in . . . quality of life.” Nevertheless, a letter from Columbia to prospective subjects states, “it is not known at the present time which treatment approach is best [sic] overall” (Chabot 1999). The claim of clinical equipoise, or uncertainty in the expert medical community over which treatment is superior—necessary to render a comparison trial ethical—is not supported by the facts (Freedman 1987).

The proposed Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy in CAD will likely violate several ethical requirements, including lack of scientific validity, lack of value, biased subject selection, and unfavorable risk-benefit ratio. It will be unlikely to recruit subjects—other than those already predisposed to such treatment—unless it presents dishonest consent information (Atwood 2003).

Advisory Councils

There are two councils charged with advising the director of the NCCAM on matters related to research funding and clinical trials: the National Advisory Council for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NACCAM) and the Cancer Advisory Panel for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAPCAM). It might be expected that the membership of these councils reflects the Center’s professed commitment to the rigorous, skeptical inquiry of “complementary and alternative” methods. The director, however, has no formal role in selecting the council members. The members of the NACCAM are appointed by the Secretary for Health and Human Services, with these stipulations: “Of the eighteen appointed members, twelve shall be selected from among the leading representatives . . . of the health and scientific disciplines in the area of complementary and alternative medicine. Nine of the twelve shall include practitioners licensed in one or more of the major systems with which the Center is involved” (NCCAM Charter 2000). The members of the CAPCAM are appointed by the director of the NIH, but with the requirement that "of the fifteen members, eleven shall be nonfederal,” including the Chair, and “nonfederal members will be selected based on their knowledge and expertise in the fields of complementary and alternative therapeutic cancer treatments” (CAPCAM Charter 2002).

Thus it can be predicted that the councils will be biased, prima facie, in favor of the very methods that the Center is charged to submit to skeptical scrutiny. An examination of the rosters of the two councils supports this prediction. Among the NACCAM members in the past three years were Standish and two other naturopaths. In 2000 one of them, Anna MacIntosh, recommended “Gerson Therapy” for cancer and multiple sclerosis (NCNM Web site 2000). This is a regimen of “detoxification” with coffee enemas and a diet including huge quantities of juices made from fruits, vegetables, and raw calf’s liver. The National Cancer Institute had evaluated Gerson’s claims in 1947 and again in 1959, and found them to be baseless (Barrett and Herbert 2001).

The third naturopath on the NACCAM is Konrad Kail, who explains "patient-centered care” this way: “If I see a patient who has pain in his arms because his neck is out of alignment, I explain to them that we can do spinal adjustments, acupuncture, homeopathy, or we can do all three. Then I wait for their [sic] choice” (Morton and Morton 1997).

Another recent member of the NACCAM is Marilyn J. Schlitz, reported by skeptic Dr. Tim Gorski to be “an astral voyager `remote viewer' who was praised by Russell Targ for having `achieved the greatest statistical significance of any remote-viewing experiment so far conducted' in exploring tourist sites in Rome from her home in Detroit, Michigan” (Gorski 2001). Schlitz is a co-investigator with Standish in the aforementioned “transfer of neural energy” study.

On the CAPCAM still sits Ralph Moss, one of the original “Harkinites.” His Cancer Chronicles newsletter has suggested that homeopathy and other implausible treatments can cure cancer (Moss 1995). He has also accused the Mayo clinic of being “fraudulent” (Moss 1993) because of its study that demonstrated the ineffectiveness of laetrile (Moertel et al. 1982). This exposes the fallacy of the social usefulness of studies that disprove sectarian methods.

In considering the rosters of the two councils, one is reminded of physicist Robert Park’s account of a 1995 Senate press conference announcing the release of Alternative Medicine: Expanding Medical Horizons, the report of a workshop sponsored by the Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM workshop 1992). The press conference was hosted by Sen. Harkin. According to Park (2000):

Perhaps the strangest part of the press conference consisted of brief statements by individual members of the editorial review board of what they saw as the most important issues for the Office of Alternative Medicine. One insisted that the number-one health problem in the United States is magnesium deficiency; another was convinced that the expanded use of acupuncture could revolutionize medicine; and so it went around the table, with each touting his or her preferred therapy. But there was no sense of conflict or rivalry. As each spoke, the others would nod in agreement. The purpose of the OAM, I began to realize, was to demonstrate that these disparate therapies all work. It was my first glimpse of what holds alternative medicine together: there is no internal dissent in a community that feels itself besieged from the outside.

Conflicts of Interest

Many NCCAM grant recipients have conflicts of interest regarding the Center. Several grant recipients are or have been members of the NCCAM Advisory Council or the Cancer Advisory Panel. Several members of the "Expert Panel to Assess NCCAM Research Centers,” including the Chairman, are either grant recipients or are affiliated with institutions that receive NCCAM grants (Expert Panel 2002). Several members of the recently formed IOM panel on “Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine by the American Public,” itself sponsored by the NCCAM, are recipients of NCCAM grants (IOM Web site 2003). No member of that panel has demonstrated expertise in the rigorous evaluation of CAM methods.

Conclusion

Straus has written that the NCCAM “was created to foster and build a research enterprise that subjects complementary and alternative medicine to open-minded, hypothesis-driven investigation” (Straus 2002). That is inaccurate. The NCCAM was created by a few advocates who believed in implausible or disproved health claims, including laetrile, and who felt that the scientific “establishment” was unfairly suppressing them (Gorski 2001; Atwood 2002a; Sampson 2002). As such, the Center’s role has been more one of advocacy than of science. Calls for its abolition have been reasoned and comprehensive (Stalker 1995; Science 1997; Halperin 1998; Sampson 2002).

After more than ten years and $200 million, OAM/NCCAM-sponsored research has not demonstrated efficacy for any CAM method, nor has the Center informed the public that any method is useless (Green 2001). It continues to fund and promote pseudoscience. It continues to be influenced by powerful ideologues.

The problem with so-called Complementary and Alternative Medicine, in a nutshell, is that it is an assortment of implausible, dishonest, expensive, and sometimes dangerous claims that are exuberantly promoted to a scientifically naïve public. The NCCAM, so far, has not been part of the solution.

Acknowledgments

The author is indebted to Wallace Sampson and Elizabeth Woeckner for invaluable discussions and for tips on hard-to-find sources related to the content of this article.

References

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John Edward MaGee Jr. (known as John Edward) and James Van Praagh are probably the two most famous mediums in the United States today. Their shows Crossing Over and Beyond, respectively, were both running in the fall and winter of 2002-2003. Both syndicated shows had their host speaking with (or "reading”) audiences (or “sitters”) and claiming to make connections with the deceased friends and/or family of the audience members. Some of the shows featured readings of celebrities or individuals with special stories to tell.

Both mediums enjoy considerable success. Van Praagh sells lots of books and has a number of celebrities as clients.

Edward, also, hawks books, and has been on the air since June of 2000. Both men continue to play to large audiences around the country. Even Skeptical Inquirer has included articles about them. (1)

Last August, when Van Praagh started taping Beyond a few blocks from the Center for Inquiry-West in Hollywood, our homegrown Independent Investigations Group (IIG) sprang into action. (The IIG consists of a dedicated group of inquirers who participate with CFI-West staff in hands-on investigations.)

Hot Reading

James Van Praagh

Several IIG members attended two separate Beyond tapings, descending in groups of seven or eight to the studio after a briefing at CFI-West. We split up into smaller groups with our well-hidden recording gear, and went to work.

Before the actual tape date, a number of us who had requested tickets received phone calls from Van Praagh’s production people asking who we wanted to contact and what our story was. These calls seemed to be searching for candidates for the more intense, one-on-one readings Van Praagh included in each show.

On the day of the tapings, we split up in order to have a better chance of spotting plants in line as the audience waited outside the studio. We all signed fake names on the voluminous release form (see below), and engaged in conversations about fictitious friends and relatives. If any of these stories made their way into a reading, we'd know the information had been obtained somewhere in or near the studio.

Upon entering the studio, we noticed standard audience microphones hanging from the ceiling, and speakers placed along the floors. We also monitored both Van Praagh’s and his warm-up woman’s pre-show conversations. That proved to be interesting.

While phone-interviewing audience members might be a conduit of information to Van Praagh, it’s also consistent with the best interest of the producer trying to find compelling content. Indeed, Van Praagh’s in-studio readings were so unimpressive that our suspicions of hot reading were lowered. If he had his researchers gleaning spicy tidbits for his readings, they weren't doing a very good job, for he often struggled in his efforts. Some of the remote one-on-one segments were more impressive, but those generally took place in the sitter’s homes where many clues to his or her life might be noticeable. We don't know if producers leaked information to Van Praagh or not, and we never saw raw footage of what went on at the remote tapings. Editing, as I will discuss later, could have played a crucial role.

We saw no evidence of spies in line trying to draw information from people. We gave no information beyond the contact data on the release form. None of our fake names or stories turned up in readings. Before Van Praagh’s taping began, loud music was played which would have made it extremely difficult to hear a conversation from the audience microphones.

Van Praagh was guilty of at least one cheat that could be considered a hot read. Before tape was rolling, he signed some books and was chatting with members of the audience. He learned during one conversation that a woman in the audience was from Italy. When the cameras were rolling, he asked who in that section was from another country. If one hadn't seen the earlier conversation, the woman raising her hand in the affirmative would have been impressive, when in fact he knew quite well what the response would be.

John Edward

I attended a taping of John Edward’s Crossing Over in Queens, New York, alone in November of 2002. Crossing Over looked like a production that had a few years under its belt. There was a waiting room instead of a long line outside, the security was a little better (I had to show a real I.D.), and they seemed to run a much tighter ship, though I did get my pocket-sized digital recorder inside with no problem.

Again, there were no indications of anyone I saw collecting information. Edward, too, played music fairly loudly, making it tough to hear normal conversation. And again, none of his readings contained the kind of specific information that would raise an eyebrow of suspicion. In fact, during most of the show I witnessed, John Edward was a bad cold reader. He, too, struggled to get hits, and in one attempt shot off nearly forty guesses before finding any significant targets.

Both Edward and Van Praagh potentially have a big advantage when they shoot special segments with celebrities. Many famous people have reams of biographical information available on the Internet that would at least aid in a session with a medium. We saw no direct evidence that such information was being used, but it’s certainly out there for the taking.

Cold Reading

Cold reading, in a nutshell, is an interactive technique where one fishes for information while giving the appearance of receiving that information from supernatural sources. Both of these men rattle off gobs of guesses until they find a vein of hits with one of their audience members. They are very adept at steering out of dead ends and helping the crowd forgive and forget their mistakes.

In the context of a studio audience full of people, cold reading is not very impressive. Consider that the audience at each of the tapings we witnessed consisted of about 200 people, in three sections of sixty-to-seventy each. If the average person’s address book holds about 150 people (2) (mine has well over 300), we can probably be safe in presuming that we actually know many more people than those whose numbers we have. But let’s use the 150 figure as a very conservative estimate of an active database from which most people have to draw.

This means that when John Edward or James Van Praagh asks a section of his audience, “Who’s Margaret?” he is hoping there is a Margaret in the 10,000 people in the database of that section. If there is no answer, they open the question up to the whole audience’s database of over 30,000 people! Would it be surprising for there to be a dozen Margarets in such a large sample?

I submit that these databases are so large that they explain the occasional amazing-sounding home run of a hit. I saw John Edward swinging for the fence by asking who died from getting hit by lightning. When no one answered even after he amended the guess to mere electrocution, he remarked that you'd think you'd remember if you knew someone who passed from something like that.

Let’s not forget that when a medium initiates a conversation with an audience member or group of members, he enjoys the benefit of visually appraising whomever he’s speaking with. When conversing with a group of ladies over sixty, Edward guessed the names Helen and Margaret as the peers and parents of the women, not Tiffany or Courtney, names more likely to be given to younger people. Any good cold reader uses visual clues to refine his guessing.

John Edward in the studio of his show Crossing Over on the Sci-Fi channel on July 7, 2000. Edward chats with recently and not so recently departed people during the course of the show. © Frances M. Roberts

Audience Preparation

Both shows went through a lot of effort to get their audiences in the right frame of mind before taping. People came to the tapings to contact a dead loved one. The Crossing Over instructions put it bluntly. “If you feel you will be too embarrassed, too frazzled, or just not interested, we ask that you give up your seat to someone who is anxious for a reading.”

The audience was admonished not to expect to be read, and that some things the host would say would make sense, others wouldn't. Much of the pre-show rhetoric seemed to be aimed at keeping our expectations low. Both men were very self-effacing, charming, and good-humored, endearing themselves to the audience.

The eight-page letter Edward sent out to his audience included sections entitled "Information For A Positive Session” and “Recommended Things To Think About.” The latter began with the subsection “Know your entire family tree.” He reminds us to remember dates, to visualize spouse’s families, estranged family, and stepfamilies-even pets. Your personal database, after all, is only as good as your ability to recall it.

After a rather New Agey, meditative preface, Van Praagh’s warm-up person was emphatic about reacting openly to what James was saying. How’s he supposed to know if he’s on the right track? she might as well have said.

Please Release Me . . .

Anyone attending either Crossing Over or Beyond had to sign a four-page appearance release. (Standard releases are one page.) Edward’s release had the feel of a document written by someone just accused of cheating. It seemed to focus on representing that attendees had no outside contact with Edward or his staff, or in documenting that fact if they had. This tone was reinforced vigorously in the studio where we were reminded constantly not to talk about ourselves or those who we were trying to contact. It was as if the specter of Harry Houdini were floating above the stage pointing a finger.

Van Praagh’s release-also four pages-included a nondisclosure section that reads in part: “Neither anyone acting on my behalf, nor I . . . shall speak to any newspaper reporter, print or television journalist or other media representative or source about any aspect of my participation in the Series. . . .”

Cut, Cut, Cut and Print

We decided that the best way to see if any editing wizardry was taking place on these shows was to record segments of the live taping and compare those to the edited versions America saw on the air. What we found was one of the keys to the TV psychic kingdom.

I have some experience sitting in an editing room trying to turn large amounts of raw videotape into small amounts of polished gold. So I know that virtually everything you see on TV has been precisely edited for both time and content. We cannot indict these programs for editing the footage recorded in the studios, but it should be understood that the aired tape does not represent how the readings went in the studio. The aired versions of these programs show a much more successful account of the readings. Here are two examples.

This is what aired...

Van Praagh: You were saved by someone. A car thing, or something where you were . . .

Woman: We actually had a car accident four months after my husband died. And we were in a very bad collision.

Van Praagh: You almost died, honey. Because I'm being told by your husband that you were saved, Ok?

This is what happened:

Van Praagh: You almost died, honey. Because I'm being told by your husband that you were spared, you were saved, Ok? You were saved, all right? And I know (3). . . something about Jesus here, Ok? Saved with Jesus, or something about Jesus, and if you believe in Jesus, or a religious element. And I don't know, maybe a church with the name Jesus in it? Or there is something about Jesus. Or there’s . . .

Woman (interrupting): Well, we're Jewish! (Big laugh from the audience.)

John Edward’s editor fine-tuned many of the dead-ends out of a reading riddled with misses. Here, the italicized parts never made it to air.

Edward: Ok, just so you know in my reference, how I got it was a funny thing. So whatever race you went to go see, that you had taped, something funny happened at it, because I would have thought you went to a comedy show. Ok. Just so you know that you viewed it, he viewed it as a funny thing. Ok.

Now the twenty-sixth is significant your grounding birthday anniversary but there’s a twenty-sixth connection. I also feel like I don't know if . . . I think there’s a Michael that’s passed as well. I know your Michael’s [to the woman] here, but I've got a Michael who’s passed who’s connected here as well. And I think he either had cerebral palsy, or he had like a neural muscular disease.

It’s a name like Michael or Mark, Mick, an “M” name I feel like he like cerebral palsy, he had something like spina bifida-there’s like that kind of a feeling. Are you sure it’s not for you? That’s not for you? . . .

Man: No

Edward: Positive?

Man: Positive.

Edward: He’s with you or behind you, but he’s right here. Who would have like a penny or a like coin that’s like laminated or saved?

Woman: I would.

Edward: Then this is for you guys. So somehow you guys are connected to this kid. Or to this-it might not have been a kid, but he feels like he’s a kid to me. There’s an “M.”

We saw James Van Praagh stop tape during a one-on-one, prearranged reading after missing all but one of his first six or seven guesses. He then restarted the tape and used the one correct guess at the beginning of the new session. I think most people would call that cheating. Skeptics and television viewers everywhere should be mindful that a good editor can make a pitcher bat a thousand, magician David Blaine levitate above a sidewalk, and a former-dance instructor sound like he’s conversing with dead people.

Television psychics generally have a pretty good recipe for appearing to possess paranormal ability. Large audiences gobble up these unreality shows like popcorn.

Skeptics have been served these hot and cold reading techniques for ages, and we saw nothing new or surprising in their methods. The “hit” rate we witnessed for both John Edward and James Van Praagh was disappointing at best. But the fat got “cleaned up in post” (production), as they say in Hollywood.

The mixture of a well-prepared and uncritical audience made it easy to create an atmosphere of cooperation and success in the studio. Strict appearance releases and competent editing made it easy to keep the lid on mistakes and make the medium seem impressive.

Postscript

Apparently, Hollywood wasn't big enough for both men; mega-distributor Tribune Media Services dropped James Van Praagh in January 2003. Trade magazine Daily Variety said it best with their headline, ”Beyond Sees White Light.”

Acknowledgments

Thanks go out to the members of the Independent Investigations Group who participated in this investigation, with special thanks to Milt Timmons and Margery Kimbrough for help with transcription, and to Roger Schlueter for editorial notes.

Notes

1. See Joe Nickell’s Speaking to the Dead? In the November/December 2001 SI. Also, Ray Hyman’s “How Not to Test Mediums” (SI January/ February 2003) strongly critiqued the so-called 'Afterlife' experiments that made use of mediums including John Edward.
2. According to Matt Ridley, author of The Origins of Virtue (Penguin Viking 1996).
3. Here, Van Praagh is saying, “I know” to some unseen voice or spirit.

It wasn't until this past June that I finally had a chance to visit that reputedly privileged place. The center of all things extraterrestrial in that valley is of course the UFO Watchtower (although “elevated platform” would be a better description). It contains a saucer-shaped gift shop and an unimproved campground (see www.ufowatchtower.com; also, this column, May/June, 2002).

Judy is a pleasant middle-aged woman who owns and operates the UFO Watchtower. She seems to genuinely enjoy receiving visitors in her gift shop, filled with alien tchotchke. If it’s alien, she has it: dolls, balloons, key chains, pens, etc. Outside, little alien figurines dot the property, pointing the way to the campground or the exit, or just carouse on old farm implements. These aliens are archaically painted green, as in the days when UFOs were objects to be sighted-the present-day aliens, whose primary occupation seems to be abducting humans, are generally acknowledged to be gray. “We discovered that there are two large vortexes in front of the dome,” writes Judy in her newsletter. "Two psychics marked the centers of them for me and suggested that a rock garden be built so visitors could rest, relax, and meditate in it.” The result is an extraterrestrial cactus and rock garden filled with hub caps, the remains of old satellite dishes, and miscellaneous post-industrial detritus splotched with green paint, intending no doubt to create an eerie atmosphere-with some degree of success.

Not surprisingly, the degree of paranormality in this Alien Valley seems to have been greatly exaggerated. Judy herself claims only that twenty-one sightings have occurred since the opening of her UFO Ponderosa in May 2001, an average of less than one sighting a month. Of these, she has seen fifteen herself. Most of the sightings sound like a description of lights in the sky, a characterization she agreed with. When you get out into dark skies away from city lights, there are plenty of lights in the sky that might be called UFOs by those who are so inclined. “There haven't been any landings here,” she added. One female camper, says Judy, claims to have stepped outside her tent to behold a UFO that looked like a roulette wheel spinning in the sky above her. Unfortunately, she did not awaken her husband, asleep in the tent, to confirm the sighting.

The lack of photos on display in the gift shop is surprising. One would expect that any place worthy of being called a UFO Hot Spot would boast of numerous clear, unambiguous photos taken of the phenomenon by those who come hoping to see it. The lack of such photos suggests a corresponding lack of a genuine phenomenon. I noticed the same thing during my 1996 visit to some of the hottest of the UFO Hot Spots in Mexico (see chapter 21 of my book UFO Sightings).

If UFOs really were hovering around those parts on practically a daily basis, as some claim, and given that there was no shortage of people with cameras, the fact that nobody in those areas could show you clear and convincing photos of anything unusual pretty well refutes the claims that Mexico is under siege by extraterrestrials. (Another UFO Hot Spot is reputed to be in Pine Bush, New York, near the Hudson Valley, which is also where Whitley Strieber claimed to have encountered his “visitors.” It, too, is reported to be rather “cool” at present.)

Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate as I entered the Mysterious Valley. Colorado weather is notoriously unpredictable, and a storm started to brew just as I approached the area. Lightning could be seen striking the ground. Later it cleared, and a modest stream of visitors came to climb the tower. By sunset it had cleared beautifully, and the night was exceptionally clear. The valley floor is extremely flat, so lights from distant farms, towns, and vehicles ring the horizon, twinkling like stars. The landscape is very quiet. The effect was indeed impressive and eerie, but unfortunately I didn't see anything in the sky that didn't belong there. But you know how reluctant paranormal phenomena are to reveal themselves when skeptics are present.

We still have no clear explanation from the Zeta about the failure of their prediction that Earth would stop rotating and flip its poles this May (this column, May/June, 2003). An update to the Web site www.zetatalk.com dated May 15-the very doomsday itself-states, “This is the last update, no further ZetaTalk anticipated.” It boasted of a 68 percent success rate for seeing Planet X during April, but only for “those educated, who had done their homework and followed the imaging session, noted our words as to what to look for, and oriented themselves in the sky.” Apparently other people didn't see anything. Nancy Lieder, the Zeta representative here on Earth, further informs us that MJ12, the supposedly ultra-secret crashed UFO panel, has “committed suicide to prevent itself from being misused.”

But Nancy and her diehard believers still apparently cling to the belief that Planet X is nonetheless on its way. During June she posted numerous accounts of supposedly bizarre phenomena such as unexplained booms, sunspots, a ring around the Moon, and the Sun “rising and setting in the wrong place.” These are labeled as “signs of the times,” and are attributed to the proximity of the dangerous Planet X. Nancy insists that Earth’s rotational stopping and flipping is indeed still going to occur, but she refuses to specify the hour or date. Her followers are carefully noting the times of sunrise and sunset, and the position of the Sun going down, to see if Earth’s expected careening might have already begun.

We previously mentioned the low state of activity in the UFO field (this column, September/October 2002), which seems to have cooled off almost as much as Internet stocks. Indeed, things are so slow that MUFON has recently closed its headquarters in Colorado. However, the UFO field has not been totally without interesting new developments. The Web site UFO Casebook carries an account originally published by MUFON of how Cordell Hull, the Secretary of State under president Franklin Roosevelt, allegedly showed a visitor four dead aliens in glass jars in the sub-basement of the Capitol Building way back in 1939 (see www.ufocasebook.com/hull.html). A “wrecked round craft” was also said to be nearby. The source of this story is a letter from Lucile Andrew of Ashland, Ohio, who claims that her father, the Reverend Turner Hamilton Holt, a cousin of Hull, was shown these wonders, but was of course sworn to secrecy. The tendency in UFOlogy of late has been to push back the date of supposed saucer crashes well before the famous incident in Roswell in 1947.

The online news service www.ananova.com reported on May 14 that police were investigating “gnome reports in Ecuador.” Several residents of the town of Quininde saw what they described as a “gnome” near the center of town. “They all described the creature as being very small, green and ugly.” Marco Preciado told Diario Extra online: “It was less than three feet tall and I saw it three times. I tried to follow him but he disappeared.” Joseph Trainor’s Web site, www.UFO roundup.com, reported on May 14 that the ousted dictator Saddam Hussein’s speech of May 5 may have literally been “out of this world.” “According to UFO Roundup’s Middle East correspondent Ayesha al-Khatabi, some residents of Baghdad claim to have heard Saddam’s 15-minute broadcast over their household radio sets . . . there was some question as to whether the speech was made from the Moon or from a gigantic disk-shaped UFO orbiting Earth.” If so, the capture of all of the Most Wanted Iraqi Deck of Cards will never be completed. Also in that same issue, “The U.S. government said it will seek to block the airing of a video found by Navy rescuers in Antarctica that purportedly reveals that a massive archaeological dig is underway two miles (3,200 meters) beneath the ice. . . . The Atlantis TV production crew that shot the video is still missing.” The archaeologists are reportedly confirming the existence of a legendary city previously known only through the writings of the fantasy/science fiction author H.P. Lovecraft. The April 30 issue of UFO Roundup reveals how "The Russian Navy has reportedly recovered a large triangular UFO, which crashed in Kaliningrad harbor after overflying a naval base. The crash caused minor damage to a Russian destroyer.” None of these bizarre stories appear to be written tongue-in-cheek-apparently no matter what kind of implausible story gets told, somebody somewhere is eager to believe it.

As the producer responsible for bringing Cosmonova’s* latest public planetarium show, “UFO-The Truth is Here,” to reality, I knew that one aspect of the UFO phenomenon that would be important to cover would be that of fake photographs. Ever since so-called flying saucers were first spotted in the 1940s, a variety of people around the world have created fake images that they claimed were authentic. The vast majority of these images have been exposed as the frauds they are. And yet even today there are those who continue this peculiar hobby. Rather than feature such photos as part of the program, I thought that the best example for our audiences would be to provide examples that were made specifically for the show.

The first step was coming up with UFOs that would serve as my examples in these photos. Since it would not be visually interesting to show the same vehicle in every picture, I needed a variety of different models. Time constraints did not allow me to salvage together parts of different existing plastic kits, so I had to find another alternative. I located a small model company in California, Lunar Models, that makes unusual kits with a science fiction theme. They offer a series of resin-cast models based on “famous” UFO sightings.

Because the most appealing way to show these images was as 35mm slides projected in a montage, I bought seven kits from Lunar Models. Working with resin models was a challenging experience, like working with a model cast out of hard white soap. Each had surface imperfections treated with a hobby knife, sanded where needed, and then finished off with two coats of flat white primer spray paint. Any gluing had to be done with super glue-type adhesives and due to the variety of their compositions the model manufacturer couldn't guarantee results.

Cosmonova technician Olle Linder looks at one of the UFO models through the 35mm camera during photography. In the background can be seen the solid green cloth that was backlit by photoflood lights in order to get an even, uniform color that would help in “cutting out” the UFOs from the background of the final photographic prints. © 2001, Cosmonova.

The final color schemes for the models were based on information about “actual” UFOs found on a Web site by a well-known UFO photographer, “Billy” Meier of Switzerland. To achieve a metallic luster for the models I used a special finishing compound over the white primer coats known as Rub 'n' Buff. I had used it nearly thirty years ago when I made models of military aircraft, and much to my surprise the company that made it was still in existence.

One of the finished UFO models after photography against the green cloth background. You can also see the aluminum “fork” made by Olle Linder, one of Cosmonova’s technicians, to hold the model on the tripod. This special mount allowed the UFOs to be turned in whatever direction was needed to get the best view of each model. © 2001, Cosmonova.

While working on the seven UFO models, I also took photographs that would become the background plates for the UFOs to appear against. In order to make the scenes more interesting I chose several well-known sites around the Stockholm area that would be easily recognizable. I also included scenes that showed everyday locations appropriate to the models and the concept.

A UFO seems to have suddenly appeared, flying right by the tower at Skansen in Stockholm. Note the horizontal motion blur that simulates the speed of the vehicle and the leaves that appear over the right end of the UFO. It is this sort of small detail that adds an extra sense of reality. © 2001, Cosmonova.

Often fake UFO photos look too composed and without foreground objects in the images that would help to make identification possible. Both of these considerations were taken into account. For the background photos I tried to act as if I had been somewhere, looked up, saw something strange in the sky, and took a quick photo before the object disappeared. Foreground objects were also included in every image. This is most evident in the fake photo "taken” at Skansen, Stockholm’s historic open-air park. More about that later on.

A UFO dips down so close to the water of Grönviken (“Green Bay”) off the island of Rindö that its reflection can be seen on the surface. Fortunately the author had his camera ready as he stepped out of his house that morning. This image was the hardest one to create because of the need to get the reflection to look as real as possible. © 2001, Cosmonova.

Just as important was how the background photographs themselves were taken. As each shot was made-with the same camera, lens, and film type-I also noted the date and time and used a compass to find the direction in azimuth that the camera was pointing at the time the photo was taken. All of this would be useful later in putting together the final fakes.

This UFO model was based on those that were supposedly photographed by Californian George Adamski in the 1950s. It seemed to be the most appropriate choice to show over some of the antique buildings in Stortorget, Gamla Stan ("the Great Square, Old Town”), Stockholm, once the center of the capitol city. © 2001, Cosmonova.

Once the background plate photos came back from the lab, they were scanned at high resolution and saved as JPEG- format files. Imperfections, such as dust and small pieces of hair on the photographic prints, were digitally removed from the scanned images using a software program called Paint Shop Pro (PSP). Similar to Adobe Photo Shop, PSP would also be used to composite the final images together.

A UFO “from” the Pleiades star cluster hovers over a pastoral scene northeast of Stockholm, Sweden. This photomontage is very reminiscent of the images made by Switzerland’s “Billy” Meier. © 2001, Cosmonova.

Before the completed UFO models could be photographed, I had to locate the Sun’s position for each of the background plates. Since I already had the date and time that these photos were taken, it was a simple matter to use an astronomy program called Starry Night Pro to calculate both the altitude above the horizon and azimuth around the horizon for the Sun. This would allow the UFOs to have the same lighting and shadows as the real objects photographed in the background plates, thereby avoiding another common fake UFO attribute: mismatched shadows and lighting.

Kaknästornet is the tallest building in Scandinavia, no doubt the reason for the interest of the alien craft flying over the Swedish Museum of Science and Technology (directly below the tower). © 2001, Cosmonova.

The UFO models were now ready for the “star treatment.” We photographed them against a very large piece of solid green cloth that was lit from behind with photoflood lights so that the green would be an even color. One of our technicians at Cosmonova who helped me with the model shoot, Olle Linder, had once worked at Swedish Television as a lighting technician, so he was aware of this little detail to make the background as good as possible to make the final digital composition easier. This green acted in exactly the same way as the Chroma Key process (used in films and television) in order to separate foreground objects from their backgrounds and add in different backgrounds at a later time. In this case I was going to use this green color to “cut out” the UFO models and superimpose them in front of the background plate images. To aid in the background removal, the bracket and tripod head used to hold the models was also wrapped in a piece of the same green cloth.

Each UFO model was positioned after looking at a copy of the background plate that it was to be placed in so that it would have the most interesting attitude as far as the lighting in the scene was concerned.

A break in the clouds splashes sunlight on a UFO passing over a Viking Line ferryboat bound for Finland as the ball-shaped Globen Sports Arena basks in shadow. © 2001, Cosmonova.

The same camera, lens, and film type used to photograph the original background plate photos was also used to photograph the UFO models. This is a trick that Hollywood has used with much success in special effects-intensive films such as Woody Allen’s Zelig and Forrest Gump. Hollywood cinematographers keep such good records of their shoots that it is often possible to go to these records and find out which type of lens was used to make a particular scene in a film. By using the same type of lens-and in some cases the very same lens-to shoot a modern actor against a Chroma Key screen, it is possible to digitally add an actor into another, older film. One famous example from Forrest Gump is the titular character receiving the Medal of Honor from President Lyndon Johnson in the White House. Since the UFOs were supposed to have been photographed flying over a particular landscape or location, it made sense to use this same Hollywood special effects trick.

To match up the relative positions of the Sun and the camera with respect to where the model was to go in the background plates, I made two very simple tools for measuring angles. The first was an enlarged copy of a 360-degree protractor to serve as an azimuth reference for placing the camera and light source in the correct position relative to the model sitting on the tripod before the green cloth background. The second tool was a variation of the enlarged protractor, but this one had only to be 180 degrees since I needed it only to determine the altitude above the horizon for our “sun,” a bright photo lamp on an adjustable height light stand mounted on wheels. This enabled us to wheel the “sun” around to the correct azimuth and then raise it to the proper height above the horizon to duplicate the date and time of day that the background plate photo was taken. When the photographic prints of all the UFO models came back from the lab, they too were scanned in at high resolution and cleaned up with PSP just as the background plates were earlier. The UFOs were then carefully “cut out” from the green background color by using a special selection tool in PSP that could be told what color to select and delete. One of the simplest ways for investigators to determine if a UFO photo has been faked is to look for the wire, string, or thread that suspended the model. Unless the picture has been purposely copied many times to blur out fine details, photo investigative techniques can usually pick out the line running to the model. To avoid this give-away I decided that the final images would be digitally composited together in PSP by using its layering feature.

Another clue that a UFO may have been faked is that the UFO itself may be too sharp and well defined in the photograph when compared to other distant objects. Things at a distance appear to be a little fuzzy due to properties in the atmosphere (such as dust and moisture) so this too was taken into account.

I made a new copy of each background plate shot and then, one at a time, added in a particular copy of a cut-out UFO on another layer in the most realistic looking position. The size of each UFO was an important consideration since they also had to look believable; too large and the UFOs would look like models, too small and they would not look like anything interesting. But at the same time they also had to be far enough “away” from the camera to make the UFOs believable.

One image that received some special treatment was the so-called “grab shot” from Skansen. To make the final image seem more realistic, I made a copy of the part of the background plate that had some tree branches. I pasted this copy onto a separate layer in PSP, cleaned up the sky from all around the leaves and then sandwiched the UFO in front of the background plate, but behind the layer with the branches, which was aligned over their original position on the background. This made it appear that the UFO was physically passing behind the trees as it came around the Skansen tower. A little horizontal motion blur on the UFO made it look as if it was travelling at a fast speed, a little faster than the camera’s shutter speed could record.

One of the hardest images to get right was the “Gulf Breeze” UFO that was seen passing so close over a large body of water (the bay in front of my house) that it reflected on its surface. This required making up multiple layers for the UFO that included a version that was mirrored, rippled, and faded in brightness to look as if it were the reflected image. To get this right I looked at a variety of photographs of water with real reflected objects, then achieved the result through trial and error.

The UFO planetary show’s main character “Karl S. Andersson” (played by actor Fredrik Dolk) says, “With a camera, some models, a computer, and a painting software program anyone-with a little time and a little patience-can create impressive UFO photos that would fool just about anyone.” Anyone, that is, except for those who investigate such seemingly incredible images and understand how easy it is to make them.