Q: I heard about some strange lights over Phoenix that were sighted recently. I doubt they were aliens, but does anyone know what they were?

— J. Griffith

A: Yes, in fact we do. On the evening of April 21, 2008, hundreds of residents in Phoenix, Arizona, called police and local news media to report four (some witnesses said five) bright, red lights hovering silently over the city. They changed position after a while, moving from a triangular to rectangular configuration, then disappeared one by one.

The Air Force claimed they had no aircraft in the area at the time and could shed no light on the mystery. According to FAA spokesman Ian Gregor, “We did receive a number of reports from people who said they saw red lights in the skies on Monday night. Among them were some air traffic controllers [at the Phoenix Deer Valley Airport]. However, there were no unusual targets or unidentified aircraft on our radar scopes. . . . We don’t know where the lights came from” (Sunnucks 2008).

Theories abounded, with UFOs and aliens of course being very popular. Was it the beginning of an invasion? Should Earthlings begin searching for the book How to Serve Man?

The lights remained a mystery and became an international media story. The case took a twist two days later when a local television station aired a startling confession by an anonymous hoaxer: he had created the UFO lights using road flares tied to helium balloons, launching them at one-minute intervals. Some people were amused by the hoax, others were angered, and many conspiracy-minded UFO buffs were skeptical of the explanation.

It’s true that just because a person has confessed to a hoax doesn’t mean the case is solved. After all, people sometimes falsely confess to things they didn’t do. A confession (especially an anonymous one) by itself is not credible unless corroborated by physical evidence. Let’s analyze the facts of the case from a skeptical investigator’s perspective.

1. The formation of the lights is consistent with independently moving objects, not fixed lights on an aircraft. They rose into the air together, stayed in more or less the same formation while in the same air currents, then drifted apart as they gained altitude. In fact, airport officials reported that “the lights were rising as they watched” (Associated Press 2008). Thus, the lights were sighted traveling vertically up into the air (as balloons do), instead of horizontally through the air (as aircraft do). Furthermore, when the lights did move horizontally, they drifted toward the east—the same direction as the wind.
2. Air traffic controllers reported that nothing showed up on their radar. If the lights were the only visible part of a metallic spaceship or airplane, they would have appeared on radar. However, “UFOs” consisting of small balloons, road flares, and some fishing line would be invisible to radar.
3. The way the lights disappeared also supports the hoax theory. They did not zoom away at high speed, as one might expect from an aircraft. Nor did they all suddenly and mysteriously disappear. Instead, eyewitnesses reported that the lights were visible for between fifteen and thirty minutes until they disappeared one by one. This is exactly the pattern we would expect to see from flares that were lit (and launched) in sequence: they would go up, remain lit for about twenty minutes, then the first flare would extinguish. A minute or two later the second would burn out, and so on.

And, as a final nail in the coffin for the UFO buffs who really, really wanted the lights to be mysterious and unexplained…

4. One of the hoaxer’s neighbors, a Mr. Mailo, actually watched the hoaxer launch the helium balloons and flares. Mailo said the flares were lit about 8 p.m., just before the UFO lights were first sighted.

That explains the mysterious 2008 Phoenix Lights. Any object seen in the sky, especially at night, can be very difficult to identify, and it’s no wonder that the lights puzzled many people. All that is needed to create a UFO sighting is one person who may not recognize a light or object in the sky.

This is not the first time that strange lights have appeared in the dark skies over Phoenix. In 1997, similar lights were reported; the military had been dropping flares over a nearby testing range, although many UFO believers rejected that explanation as part of a cover-up. Not all UFO sightings are hoaxes—in fact most are simply misidentifications—but this case shows just how easy it is to fool the public and create a media stir.

References

• Associated Press. 2008. Mysterious lights spotted over North Phoenix. April 22. Available online at mercurynews.com.
• Sunnucks, M. 2008. “Mysterious lights in Phoenix sky ‘a nonissue,’ FAA says.” The Business Journal of Phoenix, April 22. Available online at bizjournals.com.

In the previous article, Amir Raz provides an interesting and insightful account of the Meeting of the Minds (MoM) conference. His report offers the viewpoint of a young neuroscientist who is newly encountering the world of parapsychology and its claims. I thought I might complement his description with a few comments from my perspective. I have been a critic—I hope a constructive one—of parapsychological claims for fifty years. Together, our two accounts can better convey some of the issues stemming from this meeting.

I was invited to speak as a representative of the skeptical community. As a presenter, I felt my responsibility was to directly address the issues in the statement of the meeting agenda and goals. These issues, as spelled out in advance by the organizers, were:

• to bring together a distinguished set of researchers to consider the state of the evidence for anomalous cognition
• to discuss the methodological and theoretical challenges presented by such phenomena
• to address sociological barriers that have constrained academic discussion of this topic
• to examine the process and potential impact of the meeting.

My attention was captured by the following two quotations from the agenda:

…meta-analyses of several classes of experiments published in peer-reviewed journals suggest that some effects, while small in magnitude, are highly repeatable….

Because of these and other reasons once commonly used to dismiss contemplation of anomalous cognition are becoming increasingly debatable, we believe the time has come to examine the taboo that has constrained serious scientific consideration of this evidence.

The obvious subtext of this meeting statement can be summarized in three propositions:

1. Psi (ESP and Psychokinesis) is real.
2. The evidence for psi is consistent and independently replicable.
3. The time has come for the scientific community to seriously consider the claims for psi.

My presentation directly challenged each of these propositions. I did so by using data and arguments provided by leading figures in parapsychology. I began by considering parapsychological claims of having demonstrated an “anomaly.” Since the beginnings of modern science, the scientific community has repeatedly been confronted with claims of anomalies. Some, such as meteorites, discrepancies in the orbit of Uranus, discrepancies in the advancement of Mercury’s perihelion, X-rays, and continental drift, eventually were shown not to be the result of mistaken observations or flawed methodology. Furthermore, they were supported by evidence that was consistent and independently verifiable. Given these circumstances, the claims were accepted, and scientific theories were appropriately modified to accommodate them.

Other claims, such as those for Martian canals, N-Rays, polywater, mitogenetic radiation, the “discovery” of the planet Vulcan, and cold fusion, were rejected because the evidence was inconsistent and could not be independently replicated. Interestingly, some of the defenders of these claims argued that the inconsistencies and failures of replication were properties of the claimed phenomena. The parapsychologists, who now admit that their evidence cannot be replicated, also argue that this failure to replicate is one of the unusual properties of psi!

I first addressed the apparent inconsistencies in parapsychological claims about the status of the evidence. Some parapsychologists, such as Jessica Utts and Dean Radin, repeatedly declare that the evidence for anomalous cognition is compelling and meets the most rigorous scientific standards of acceptability. Others such as Dick Bierman, Walter Lucadou, J.E. Kennedy, and Robert Jahn, openly admit that the evidence for psi is inconsistent, irreproducible, and fails to meet acceptable scientific standards. I quoted Radin’s statement in his 1997 book The Conscious Universe that “we are forced to conclude that when psi research is judged by the same standards as any other scientific discipline then the results are as consistent as those observed in the hardest of the hard sciences” (italics in the original). I also quoted from Jessica Utts’ 1995 Stargate report that, “Using the standards applied to any other area of science, it is concluded that psychic functioning has been established.” Both Radin and Utts were present during my presentation. Neither took this opportunity to retract these claims. I can only assume that they still stand behind these strong assertions.

I was hoping Radin and Utts would provide an explanation of how they can maintain such a position in the face of mounting evidence and arguments within the parapsychological community that the reality of psi cannot be justified according to accepted scientific standards. Dick Bierman, the Dutch parapsychologist, for example, carefully re-analyzed major meta-analyses of parapsychological research on mentally influencing the fall of dice, the Ganzfeld psi experiments, precognition with ESP cards, psychokinetic influence on RNGs, and mind over matter in biological systems (Bierman 2000). He looked especially at the relationship between effect size and the date when the studies in each of these research areas was conducted.

Bierman fitted a regression line to the data in each area. In all cases, the regression line revealed a consistent trend for the effect sizes to decrease with time and to eventually reach zero.¹ In addition to these linear trends from the meta-analyses, Bierman and other parapsychologists point to dramatic failures of direct attempts to replicate major parapsychological findings. These particular failed replications cannot be dismissed as being due to low power, which is the excuse commonly offered by Utts, Radin, and a few others. Bierman concluded, “In spite of the fact that the evidence is very strong, these correlations are difficult to replicate.”

Other major parapsychologists also agree with Bierman’s conclusions. Lucadou put it this way, “The usual classical criteria for scientific evidence are effect oriented. Experimental results of parapsychology seem unable to fulfill these requirements. One gets the impression that an erosion of evidence rather than an accumulation of evidence is taking place in parapsychology” (Lucadou 2001). Kennedy put it this way, “Many parapsychological writers have suggested that psi may be capricious or actively evasive. The evidence for this includes the unpredictable, significant reversal of direction for psi effects, the loss of intended psi effects while unintended secondary or internal effects occur, and the pervasive declines in effect for participants, experimenters, and lines of research. Also, attempts to apply psi typically result in a few very impressive cases among a much larger number of unsuccessful results. The term unsustainable is applicable because psi is sometime impressive and reliable, but then becomes actively evasive” (Kennedy 2003).

As the preceding quotations indicate, many leading parapsychologists acknowledge that the existence of psi cannot be demonstrated with evidence that meets currently accepted scientific standards. Most critically, these standards include the essential ingredient that the evidence has to be capable of being reliably reproduced by independent investigators. Lacking this basic ingredient, a claim cannot be considered seriously by the scientific community. Above all, it is this basic standard that has made contemporary science the preeminent—and the only—method for gaining trustworthy knowledge. The parapsychologists who admit that the evidence for psi cannot achieve this standard, however, still believe that psi exists and, in most cases, want the scientific community to take their claim seriously. How can they justify such a position?

My presentation dealt directly with this issue. Again, I was hoping for some sort of explanation or justification of this demand for special treatment. It seems to me that the parapsychologists, especially the organizers of the MoM conference, were pleading for a special exemption from the standard scientific criteria. They want the scientific community to accept their claims without having to pass the usual tests. I pointed out that this was not going to happen. N-Rays, Martian canals, and other claims of anomaly that did not pass these tests occupy the junk heap of discarded science. Why should claims of psi be treated any differently?

Finally, I speculated about what might happen if the parapsychologists, especially the organizers of the conference, achieved their goal of getting the scientific community to take their claims seriously. For example, what if the National Academy of Sciences appointed a committee to examine in detail the current evidence for psi? The committee members would obviously find the same results that the parapsychological community has already uncovered. The effect size for psi, in every major research program in parapsychology, declines over time and reaches zero. Major attempts to directly replicate a key parapsychological finding, even when possessing adequate power, fail. The scientific community, when apprised of these findings, would dismiss the parapsychological claims with even more force than they now do. Rather than earning the respect that it seeks, parapsychology’s reputation as a serious research program would suffer greatly.

I ended with a quotation from Martin Johnson, a respected parapsychologist of a previous generation:

I must confess that I have some difficulties in understanding the logic of some parapsychologists when they proclaim the standpoint, that findings within our field have wide-ranging consequences for science in general, and especially for our world picture. It is often implied that the research findings within our field constitute a death blow to materialism. I am puzzled by this claim, since I thought that few people were really so unsophisticated as to mistake our concepts for reality. . . . I believe that we should not make extravagant and, as I see it, unwarranted claims about the wide-ranging consequences of our scattered, undigested, indeed rather ‘soft’ facts, if we can speak at all about facts within our field. I firmly believe that wide-ranging interpretations based on such scanty data tend to give us, and with some justification, a bad reputation among our colleagues within the more established fields of science.

Johnson wrote those words over thirty years ago. However, they apply with even more force today. In spite of the many new directions that parapsychology has taken since 1976, the only consistent feature of parapsychological evidence is its inconsistency.

As I indicated, I took the organizer’s agenda seriously. My presentation dealt directly with each of the issues raised by the organizers: the claim that psi was real and supported by replicable evidence; the implication that the scientific community was unfairly refusing to accept parapsychological claims; and the consequences of having the scientific community seriously consider such claims. I pointed to the apparent contradictions in the claims of the organizers that the evidence for psi was convincing and scientifically warranted and the admission by many contemporary parapsychologists that the evidence for psi does not and cannot meet scientific criteria. I suggested that if, indeed, the organizers succeed in their quest to gain the attention of the scientific community, the result would be a serious blow to the status of parapsychology.

I was expecting serious consideration of my specific challenges to the assumptions of the agenda. I also was expecting that the other presenters and discussants at the conference would deal directly with these issues. I wish I could relay to you how the presenters and the conference attendees responded. Unfortunately, there was a disconnect between the stated agenda and goals and what actually took place. As far as I could tell, I was the only presenter to directly address the issues spelled out in the meeting statement. The majority of presentations were irrelevant to the conference goals. Indeed, several appeared to actively distract from the goals.

The conference organizers and the parapsychologists in attendance failed to respond or even discuss my challenges to the claims in the meeting statement. No one seemed bothered by the contradictions inherent in the claim that the evidence for psi is rock solid or the admissions within the parapsychological community that the evidence for psi is capricious and irreproducible. I have no idea why the conference failed to follow its stated agenda. Perhaps I misunderstood. Maybe the agenda was advanced not as something for discussion but rather as a set of “truths” that were to be presupposed by the participants. I do not know.

What I do know is that although I attempted to put the stated goals of the agenda on the table for debate and discussion, no one seemed eager to do so. What I also know is that the conference agenda implies two requests that the parapsychological community is putting to the scientific community. Both of them are radical and unrealistic. The first request is that the scientific community accept the claim that psi is real. The second is that they do so by exempting parapsychologists from the requirement that they provide evidence according to acceptable scientific standards. Both requests amount to changing science as we know it. Obviously, the scientific community will not, and should not, acquiesce to these requests.

Note

1. In two cases, Bierman suggests that after reaching zero, the effect size shows signs of increasing again. However, this is questionable and appears to be an artifact of fitting a polynomial to data where the zero effect size has existed for a while. Under such circumstances, a second-degree polynomial will better fit the data than will a linear regression line.

References

• Bierman, Dick J. 2000. On the nature of anomalous phenomena: Another reality between the world of subjective consciousness and the objective world of physics? P. Van Loocke, ed., The Physical Nature of Consciousness. Benjamins Publishing: New York. pp. 269–292.g
• Johnson, Martin. 1976. Parapsychology and education. B. Shapin and L. Colby eds. Education in Parapsychology 130–15. New York: Parapsychology Foundation.g
• Kennedy, J.E. 2003. The capricious, actively evasive, unsustainable nature of psi: A summary and hypotheses. The Journal of Parapsychology 67, 53–74.g
• Lucadou, Walter. 2001. Hans in luck: The currency of evidence in parapsychology, Journal of Parapsychology 65, p. 3.

“What exactly is anomalous cognition?” As a cognitive scientist, I wondered about this question as I was peering over an intriguing invitation to attend an exclusive Meeting of Minds (MoM) conference on this very topic.¹ I had been counting the days before the MoM, until finally in July 2007 about sixty researchers got together at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. To avoid media coverage, the organizers targeted a select group of speakers, and attendance was by invitation only. I was surprised when the conference turned out to be a series of presentations, including reports of what are arguably the best accounts in favor of the possibility of things such as parapsychology and psychic influence, also known as psi. The meeting brought together behavioral scientists and experimental psychologists—most of the audience for the talks—a few skeptics, and a group of self-labeled psi researchers, most of the presenters. As a special treat, a handful of renowned panelists—two Nobel laureates and two distinguished professors of psychology—offered pithy summaries of their impressions following the presentations. It did not take long to realize that anomalous cognition is a new euphemism for the time-honored claims of psi, including extrasensory perception (ESP) and telekinesis.

Initially, I was not sure whether I was invited as a scientist, a skeptic, a magician, or as a friend of one of the organizers. Although I am not a parapsychologist, I am genuinely interested in what I refer to as atypical cognition and rarely shy away from investigating areas within my purview, even those considered as fringe by most of my colleagues. For example, I have been studying the brain computations that occur during planes of altered consciousness, including the cognitive neuroscience of phenomena such as sleep-deprivation, hypnosis, and meditation. At the same time, I consider myself a skeptic—of the deferentially inquisitive rather than gravely unyielding variety—who thrives on converging independent replications of rigorous empirical evidence, not on doctrinaire viewpoints. Finally, it was nice to see among the MoM guests a few fellow conjurors who are, foremost, scientists. Their presence was reassuring, if only to avoid thinking about my answer to the phrase “Are you the best magician among scientists or the best scientist among magicians?” which I have heard one too many times. In that crowd, I was neither.

Having spoken to one of the organizers a few weeks before the meeting, it was my understanding that the conference’s leadership envisaged it as an opportunity to present some of the most compelling data sets in support of anomalous cognition and to urge “mainstream” scientists to foster sufficient open-mindedness to consider a more programmatic investigation into these fields based on these findings. That approach seemed fair and appropriate. Although it was unclear to me at that time what exactly anomalous cognition is, I thought then—as I do now—that it is certainly legitimate to advocate for the possibility of anomalous cognition, including psi. The agenda at the meeting, however, went beyond asking that “mainstream” scientists consider the possibility of psi: it intimated that scientific evidence for psi was solid and replicable. Furthermore, it went on to propose that a major goal of the MoM was to consider why scientific and lay communities do not appreciate the existence of psi.

Interestingly, a number of presenters who argued for the possibility of psi were mainstream researchers, at least in the sense that they had trained and worked in some of the world’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning. While several speakers judiciously implied the possibility of psi, a few explicitly claimed that, based on rigorous data, several anomalous phenomena were veridical. It is perilous, however, to overlook the tenuous boundary between suggesting the possibility of certain phenomena and insinuating—not to mention explicitly submitting—that such anomalies actually exist. During the MoM several speakers blurred this boundary, some in letter and some in spirit, and a few unflinchingly crossed it.

As the conference unfolded, serious issues began to surface concerning the role of scientific evidence, replicability of findings, and philosophy of science. In addition, another question gradually emerged, one that scientists seldom ponder: when is it rational to end the pursuit of a hard-to-pin-down goal? In other words, when should one stop looking for evidence in support of an elusive effect?

As a matter of good practice, members of the scientific community tend to be skeptical. Science thrives on a skeptical approach, and scientists are typically conservative in what they consider a “generally accepted view.” Two types of errors, however, stand in the way of any gatekeeper of science. One pertains to how nonexistent phenomena may pass as real or generally accepted; the other pertains to how real phenomena, which should be generally accepted, may pass as nonexistent. Scientists typically pay more attention to the former trap, and some consequently tend to be overzealous or dogmatically skeptical; members of this staunch group can be skeptical of their own belly buttons. The second trap, however, is usually less explored. If psi effects are real, then the scientific establishment needs to be careful not to deny a phenomenon that may later become a generally accepted view.

Carl Sagan popularized Marcelo Truzzi’s dictum that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Although Truzzi used the word “evidence” rather than Sagan’s “proof,” the former, too, had paraphrased earlier statements by great skeptics such as David Hume and Pierre-Simon Laplace. Most scientists still uphold the “extraordinary” motto; however, many of them might not realize that later in his life Truzzi recanted his own maxim. While we can speculate why he did, it remains unclear what constitutes an extraordinary claim. Does claiming to possess X-ray vision or that the sun will not shine tomorrow count as extraordinary? Deciding on what constitutes an extraordinary claim is probably related to our working knowledge—the proverbial a priori Bayesian probabilities with which we navigate the world. We typically use the inductive process to decide whether claims are extraordinary. It would be easier to accept X-ray vision, for example, if we suddenly discovered special receptors for that wavelength in the human body. The presence of such receptors is unlikely—if only because they have eluded us heretofore—but not impossible. That the sun will not shine tomorrow is perhaps a more extraordinary claim because our inductive experience, not to mention our knowledge of physics, suggests otherwise. In addition, while it may be difficult to agree on what would lend extraordinary support to a claim, scientists usually agree on what constitutes unimpressive evidence. Thus, for example, experimental results that do not replicate, effects that are very small and tenuous, flaws of design and methodology, insufficient sample size, inadequate statistical analyses, and lack of a theoretical basis may all contribute to weak evidence.

Conducting parapsychology experiments is an unprotected legal act: anyone can do it without a special license. At the conference, a few talks featured nonpsychologists, including physicists, engineers, and other professionals with little or no training in behavioral science, who nonetheless reported data from studies they conducted in experimental psychology. While at least some of these studies were markedly inadequate and contained glaring shortcomings, others consisted of more careful efforts, sometimes with intriguing results. Physicists with little training in behavioral science, however, are probably not the best professionals to conduct complex psychological experiments in the same way that experimental psychologists with little background in theoretical physics are likely suboptimal candidates to carry out empirical research in quantum mechanics. Of course, individuals who combine psychology with relevant interdisciplinary knowledge, including that from the exact, life, social, and engineering sciences, may have relative merits. In this regard, magicians—those performers who are well-versed in the art of human deception and trickery—may have especially good insights to offer. Whereas I have been an active magician and spent considerable time following claims of the paranormal, I am now a professional academic scientist, at least in the sense that a reputable university supports my research and salary. These credentials make me neither omniscient nor an authority on truth. But they do suggest at least some experience with and perhaps proficiency in assessing psi claims.

Science provides an evanescent form of truth. We never get there, but we can judge how close we are. One test that we can perform requires the convergence of evidence over multiple researchers, methods, labs, and periods. We should probably apply the same time-honored, scientific principle to the study of psi. The psi phenomena reported in the conference, however, tended to comprise very small, elusive effects that were difficult to replicate. In the few cases seemingly supported by replication or meta-analysis (a statistical method that can provide a more complete picture than individual small studies can), multiple caveats cast long shadows over the raw data and the inclusion/exclusion criteria of specific studies. Statistical analysis, however rigorous, is independent of the quality of the unprocessed information: it crunches both meaningful and less meaningful data indiscriminately. Thus, independent of the statistical methods, interpretation of the results is inconclusive at best.

It became clear that proponents of the existence of psi, who typically claim that evidence for psi is bona fide and replicable, largely base their claims on the results of several meta-analyses. It is precarious, however, to rely almost exclusively on the outcomes of meta-analyses for support. Meta-analytical studies are retrospective, not prospective, and confound exploratory with confirmatory investigation. In addition, in the known cases where more than one team of investigators have conducted a meta-analysis of the same research domain within psi, the conclusions have been strikingly different (e.g., a psi proponent reported a meta-analysis of Ganzfeld studies with an average effect size that significantly differed from zero with odds of more than a trillion to one while another meta-analysis of the Ganzfeld data concluded that the average effect size was consistent with zero). This lack of robustness is difficult to reconcile.

Scientists, including the better and smarter of them, are fallible beings prone to the entire spectrum of human behaviors and blunders. People, including scientists, often ask unscientific questions: do you believe that hypnosis can reduce pain? Do you suppose that Prozac can help depression? Pristine scientists, however, do not believe or suppose. Instead, they look at the data and ask whether the evidence supports the hypothesis. At least in theory, researchers’ beliefs should be immaterial to the results of their experiments, because science is about empirical evidence. In reality, however, the experimenter’s beliefs may introduce a substantive bias to the interpretation of data and sometimes even to more nuanced aspects. For example, beliefs and attitudes may bias participant recruitment and influence their expectations, affect feedback, and may even subtly permeate data collection and analysis. At the MoM, it quickly became evident that people had strong beliefs. “What kind of data would make you change your mind?” I asked many a colleague. While several associates danced around the answer with grace and elegance, most coy responses amounted to one troublesome sentiment: “none.”

In a short, informal gathering following the main MoM event, a few participants suggested that perhaps psi effects are not amenable to standard scientific scrutiny because the alleged effects, when they do occur, typically disappear soon after the initial experiment, thereby preventing replication. This “decline effect”—the tendency of psi phenomena to wane over time, sometimes reaching chance levels—is most peculiar. Another commonly reported outcome is the “experimenter effect”: a difference in participants’ performance as a function of the individual who is administering the experiment. It may be interesting to further pursue the latter, as it may also elucidate the therapeutic alliance we so desperately seek with our health practitioners. Nonetheless, we should heed Karl Popper, an influential twentieth-century philosopher of science, who taught us that a proposition or theory is scientific if it permits the possibility of being shown false—the falsifiability criterion. The history of science shows that many theories were not initially falsifiable not because they were not sufficiently well-operationalized in terms of measurable variables—as was the case in Freudian theories, for example—but because they were not fully developed. Such theories, however, have often served a valuable purpose. Proponents of psi may feel that they operate in a similar climate: they might not yet be ready for “prime time” but may want to use the controversy surrounding psi to generate interest and perhaps even a large body of research from which new theories and empirical findings can evolve.

Theory is important, and the life of the scientific theoretician is anything but easy because experiments are inexorable evaluators of one’s work. These unfriendly judges—the experiments—never say yes to a theory and in the great majority of cases assert a flat-out no. Even in the most favorable of situations, they suggest only a “perhaps.” Historically, rather than anchor their observations in a theoretical framework, most proponents of psi have focused on a technicality: their pivotal criterion for the presence of psi hinged on obtaining a statistically significant departure from chance. It became gradually evident, however, that in this way it was difficult to specify what properties typified psi and what criteria determined its absence. Nowadays, theories of psi abound, with most loosely brushing against quantum theory and generating no specific, testable, and falsifiable predictions. Such theories, some rather grandiose, appear especially disjointed, as they are not grounded in supporting experimental data.

“A wise man…proportions his belief to the evidence,” wrote Hume in his 1748 essay Of Miracles. Having attended all the talks at the meeting, the collective evidence that I have examined does not support the hypothesis that psi phenomena exist. Neither I nor anyone else, however, can reject this hypothesis and conclude that such phenomena do not exist. For example, based on insufficient evidence we cannot decisively conclude that the Tooth Fairy does not exist. But the burden of “proof” rests with those who make the extraordinary claim. On the one hand, when intriguing nascent evidence presents itself, further investigation should ensue. On the other hand, skeptics will probably continue to maintain that psi is unlikely, and proponents will almost certainly continue to look for new ways to demonstrate their claims.

The air was effervescent as each panelist offered an extemporaneous eight-minute summary. Peppering their comments with humor and panache, the psychologists were largely unimpressed by the evidence and pointed to a number of the abovementioned weaknesses. The Nobel laureates, however—one in physics and one in chemistry—echoed a favorable and more accepting tenor. One mentioned atmospheric science as a metaphor for the science of psi, suggesting that psi phenomena may be difficult to predict and replicate consistently in the same way that weather forecasts are nebulous. The other described his experiences with personal acquaintances whom he considered to be genuine psychics.

These last statements left me rubbing my ears in disbelief. On the one hand, albeit far from perfect, weather forecasts have gotten better over the past few decades and are certainly more reliable than outcome predictions from psi research. On the other hand, befriending individuals who claim psychic abilities is hardly firm grounds for scientific exchange.

Individuals, including intelligent persons, are infamously irrational, and one personal “psi experience” is often more compelling than multiple converging scientific accounts. Social psychologists have coined this phenomenon the “vividness” effect. Being a scientist, a prestidigitator, and a skeptic who is keenly aware of his bellybutton, I’d be curious to see compelling scientific demonstrations of psi (i.e., a string of multiple successful experiments by several independent investigators producing lawful and replicable outcomes). Alas, I have found none to date. But when do you conclude that the effect you are seeking is unlikely? When do you stop looking?

Data in support of psi have so far failed to meet the acceptable scientific standards of lawfulness, replicability, objectivity, falsifiability, and theoretical coherence. A group of dogmatically skeptical individuals seems to consistently reject psi research because of granitic prejudices, but navel-denying skepticism is incongruent with good science. While some scientists may indeed reject psi out of prejudice, they typically do not “discriminate” against psi; they show a similar “prejudice” against any claim that seemingly violates fundamental principles of current scientific theory. A healthy first reaction to any departure from existing frameworks is to look for defects in the supporting evidence. If such defects are not apparent, it is time to insist on obtaining independent replications. Until such evidence is forthcoming, it would be difficult for the scientific community to accept a claim for an anomaly.

Highly biased perceptions of reality may be at odds with the findings of science, and establishing the existence of paranormal phenomena might well comprise an intractable task. If compelling evidence were to materialize, however, scientists should be willing to change their minds. Members of the scientific community should be amenable, at least in some measure, to the possibility of novel phenomena. At the same time, proponents of new claims should provide compelling “proof,” and everyone should be sufficiently critical to dismiss claims that already have been found specious. While some of us may have concluded that the Tooth Fairy seems unlikely, others may keep on looking for her…. Still others may be undecided.

Note

1. Meeting of Minds. Invitational Workshop on Anomalous Cognition. University of British Columbia, July 15–16, 2007. Supported by grants from the Fetzer Institute, the Samueli Institute, the Bial Foundation, University of British Columbia, and the Institute of Noetic Sciences.

Without his knowing it, as I am sure he did for countless others, Clarke shaped and guided my professional life and interests. I remember as a school kid in the ’50s coming across in our school library the newsletter of the British Interplanetary Society, which he then headed. That was so cool! Here we hadn’t even gotten into space yet, and already there was an “interplanetary” society. Science and space seemed to be the future, and we wanted to be part of it.

His science fiction, like Heinlein’s and Bradbury’s and Asimov’s, let loose our imaginations. We may have lived in small, isolated towns, but our minds were free to roam the universe. His writings, fiction and fact, were always a combination of clear-thinking, science-informed intellect, and soaring creativity expressed in prose of absolute clarity. What a rare and wonderful combination!

His books influenced generations of us. A glance over my own shelves finds these volumes, a mere sampling of his tremendous output: (Nonfiction) Interplanetary Flight, The Exploration of Space, The Coming of the Space Age, Profiles of the Future, Report on Planet Three, and the aforementioned Carbon-Based Bipeds; (short story collections) The Nine Billion Names of God; (novels) Childhood’s End, Rendezvous with Rama, The Songs of Distant Earth, Fountains of Paradise, and of course the 2001 novel series: 2001: A Space Odyssey, 2010: Odyssey Two, 2061: Odyssey Three, and 3001: The Final Odyssey. I am now rereading my copy of The Lost Worlds of 2001, Clarke’s account of the writing of his novel and the screenplay with Stanley Kubrick, combined with never-used “outtake” chapters he wrote for the novel. These were fully developed alternative scenarios written and discarded as Clarke’s and Kubrick’s ideas clashed and evolved. Interesting reading still today.

I heard him speak in person only twice, in my Washington days, once at the Smithsonian Institution (where he inscribed my copy of Profiles of the Future to my wife and me) and once at the National Geographic Society. But his novels and nonfiction works were all freely available, and with new books coming out regularly, we didn’t have to talk with him to benefit from his inspiration. Shortly after becoming editor of the Skeptical Inquirer, I was delighted one day to receive a humorous letter to the editor from him intriguingly titled “Martian Technology,” inspired by our Viking landings on Mars and whimsically suggesting we must have found a way to camouflage the Martian canals (I published it in our Winter 1978 issue; I’m sure you all still have your copies!).

Over the ensuing years, we corresponded congenially from time to time. He was such a firm exemplar of reason and rationality, we could always count him as a friend and colleague.

In my 2000 review of Carbon-Based Bipeds, I took appreciative note of his included essay “Credo,” which stated his decidedly skeptical views about religion, and lamented that I hadn’t known of it to include in our then most recent Science and Religion issue, in 1999. We rectified that. With Sir Arthur’s kind permission, it appeared in our September/October 2001 Science and Religion special issue.

In his later years he was quite ill and friends didn’t want to bother him too often. But my one regret is that I didn’t try to engage him in discussion of a question that I think is important to our times: How disillusioned was he that we hadn’t maintained the promise and momentum of the Apollo years in pushing outward into space? The first moon landing of 1969 came almost as early as anyone could possibly have envisioned. But Clarke and most other enthusiasts thought that would be just the beginning. The year 2001 was still a long way off, and routine manned trips to the moon and beyond by the early twenty-first century seemed fully credible. How disappointing that since Apollo 17 in 1972 we haven’t even ventured beyond Earth’s orbit.

Yes, cheaper and safer unmanned spacecraft have been doing the exploring for us to wonderful effect, but no one back then thought the manned space program, once it got going, would soon become so circumscribed. Instead, it was the microelectronics revolution that took off geometrically, with Moore’s law accurately describing its enormous growth and progress. That’s what Clarke and others thought would happen with human spaceflight. What happened?

Clarke’s innate technological optimism may have gone out of style in these more cynical and economically challenged times (I hope that optimism someday will return in a more sustainable form), and his full life of ninety years has now concluded. But he will live on in our memories forever. His work will certainly endure, continually being rediscovered by new generations of inquirers, and in that way he will continue to influence and shape the future.

My acquaintance with Arthur, and my correspondence with him, arose from a mutual interest in recreational mathematics. The wall in Clarke’s early story “The Wall of Darkness” is a one-sided Moebius band. He was so intrigued by my Scientific American column on pentominoes that he wrote an article titled “Help! I’m a Pentomino Addict!” The twelve shapes played a role in one of his novels as a model of life’s endless combinatorial possibilities.

Sir Arthur not only will be remembered for his popular science fiction but also for the accuracy of his many predictions and for two memorable remarks:

“A sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” and, “When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”

Less well known, but my favorite, is the following: “I sometimes think that the universe is a machine designed for the perpetual astonishment of astronomers.”

I would particularly like to acknowledge Clarke’s contribution to my own field of understanding and protecting the Earth against cosmic impacts. I chaired the first scientific study of cosmic impact hazard, responding to a 1990 request from Congress to NASA. Our team proposed a “Spaceguard Survey” of near-Earth asteroids, and we called ourselves the Spaceguard Working Group. The name “Spaceguard” had been coined in Clarke’s novel Rendezvous with Rama, in which it described a future system to detect any incoming asteroids or comets in time to protect the Earth from a catastrophic impact. Clarke graciously endorsed our use of the term, which has become synonymous with asteroid surveys. He supported our efforts to initiate this survey and was pleased to have his name associated with such a worthy endeavor.

Partly inspired by the new attention to the impact hazard, Clarke wrote a novel in 1994 on this theme: Hammer of God. The plot concerns efforts to deflect a large comet on a collision course with Earth. This novel was acquired by a Hollywood studio and became the basis for the 1998 film Deep Impact, although Clarke himself did not write the script. Deep Impact was an intelligent film, realistically depicting the impact threat and the ways we might respond if faced with such a calamity. Unfortunately it was released at the same time as the blockbuster film Armageddon, which made no effort toward accuracy, either scientific or political. If your memory of these two impact films is dominated by the antics of Bruce Willis in Armageddon, I recommend you watch Deep Impact again. Also well worth reading is Clarke’s New York Times op-ed of August 14, 1994, entitled “Killer Comets Are Out There. Now What?” for an articulate defense of the importance of the Spaceguard Survey and future efforts to develop a defense against cosmic impacts. (The New York Times reprinted this 1994 op-ed on March 23, 2008).

All of us who have been entertained and inspired by Sir Arthur Clarke mourn his passing.

Arthur facilitated our visit, and I recall that when we arrived at the airport and announced who our host was, we were instantly moved through immigration and customs and escorted outside to our waiting transportation; this man was highly respected in his new home and once commented to me that he found it far more agreeable to be a large fish in a small pond than any other configuration of those elements that he could imagine.

Over the years, I ran into Arthur C. Clarke several more times and once had the pleasure of hearing him speak at the United Nations. His thought process was evident from his speaking manner. As in his writing, everything he delivered was clear, concise, and effective.

I was an invited guest in New York City at the premiere of the Kubrick film 2001, and I saw Arthur in tears when he began to realize just how Kubrick had ignored the subtleties of the original story; we were both dismayed by the erroneous interpretations members of the audience offered as explanations of the “psychedelic” sequences in the film. I suggest that readers examine his short story “The Sentinel” —upon which that film was based—and The Lost Worlds of 2001, then see the film again for a better understanding of what it should have shown.

Arthur was a delight. Yes, I grieve at his passing, but—much more important—I celebrate his existence. If you want to see him at his very best, look up the short story titled “The Nine Billion Names of God.” When you get to the last line, if you don’t gasp, Arthur might have bored you….

Since it was founded in London in 1882, the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) has conducted research into paranormal claims. Its founders’ hope was to validate Spiritualist phenomena and so unite science and religion (Guiley 2000, 353). Over the subsequent century and a quarter, the society’s archives have amassed an important collection of anomalous photographs that (with other collections such as the Fortean Picture Library) have been tapped for the book Ghosts Caught on Film: Photographs of the Paranormal. The compilation is by Dr. Melvyn Willin, the SPR’s Honourable Archive Officer. It is at once an invaluable compendium—a selection of curious paranormal photos, many of which are treated with appropriate skepticism—and an annoying presentation with outright fakes sometimes obfuscated by excessive credulity.

Paranormalities

Willin appropriately debunks such notorious images as the 1917 Cottingley Glen fairy photographs produced by two schoolgirls using obvious cutouts (but fooling the likes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) (16–17), and a supposed séance materialization of spirit “Katie King” that is in fact a depiction of the medium Florence Cook posing “in her underwear” (Willin 18–19). He also correctly explains some images—a “Madonna and Child” seen in a fountain’s splashing water, the face of a “cherub” gazing from a wedding posy, and the “Virgin Mary” outlined in tree branches (52–57)—as simulacra resulting from our ability to interpret random patterns, like inkblots or clouds, as recognizable pictures. Indeed, a “sacred elephant in the sky” (62–63) is merely a pachyderm-shaped cloud.

Still, Willin is unwilling, it seems, to avoid mystery mongering altogether. For example, he is too uncritical of “aura” photographs, including Kirlian photos (36–37; 12–43; cf. Nickell 2001, 142–149), as well as the allegedly psychically projected “thoughtographs” of Ted Serios (Nickell 1994, 197–198; Randi 1982, 222–227). Willin’s main focus (so to speak), as his book’s title makes clear, is on ghosts, and the majority of his questioned pictures are of that genre: here a spook, there a specter, elsewhere an apparition or phantom—a ghost (or spirit of the dead) by any other name.

However, it is important to realize that the earliest photographic processes recorded not a single ghost: not the early, impermanent experimental images of J. Nicephore Niepce in the first quarter of the nineteenth century nor the later experiments (1834–39) by Fox Talbot, who produced “fixed” prints on paper. The first practical photographic process, the daguerreotype (after L.J.M. Daguerre), which was announced in 1839, likewise recorded no ghosts. And the same is true of ambrotypes (from 1855) and tintypes (patented in 1856) (Coe 1989, 8–37; Nickell 1994, 4–29, 147–149).

Debut of Spirits

Not until glass-plate negatives came on the scene (about 1859), facilitating double imaging, did “ghosts” begin to appear in photographs. The first such fakes were produced by Boston photographer William H. Mumler. He discovered that when he recycled glass photographic plates, a faint image could remain and so appear as a dim image in subsequent pictures if the glass was not thoroughly cleaned. Spiritualism then being all the rage, Mumler went into business in 1862 as a “spirit photographer,” eventually attracting such clients as Mary Todd Lincoln, whose portrait included a “spirit” image of her assassinated husband (22–23). However, Mumler was exposed as a fraud when people recognized that some of the supposed spirits were still among the living (Nickell 1994, 146–159, 192–196).

Nevertheless, “spirit” photography was off and running, later followed—if we make a distinction that Willin does not—by “ghost” photography. The difference? The former began in the studio and moved to include the séance room, the idea being that spirits of the departed were usually conjured up, summoned to appear in order to communicate with the living. In contrast, ghost photographs were typically made at supposedly haunted sites. And whereas spirit photos were invariably charlatans’ productions, ghost photos could either be faked or appear inadvertently—as by reflection, accidental double exposure, or the like.

Willin would do well to note that ghost photos began to proliferate after portable cameras became available to amateurs during the 1880s—especially at the end of the decade when George Eastman introduced celluloid roll film for his Kodak camera (Nickell 1994 22–28, 158). Like the earliest spirit photos, those supposedly depicting ghosts showed them to look just like people, only more ethereal. In modern times, that would change when a variety of ghostly forms—such as strands of “ectoplasm” (an imagined spirit substance) or “orbs” (bright balls of “energy”)—began to appear in snapshots. The main culprit was the pocket camera with a built-in flash. The burst of light could rebound from the wrist strap to produce the ectoplasmic strands or from dust particles or water droplets to yield orbs or from a wandering fingertip, hair, jewelry, etc., to produce various other shapes or blurs (Nickell 1994, 159).

Photo Analysis

To show how additional facts and analysis can help illuminate many alleged ghost photographs, here are a few from Willin’s compendium that are especially deserving of such treatment.

Posing Spirits. A circa 1875 image by the notorious English spirit photographer Frederick Hudson depicts a seated man surrounded by shrouded figures. “Although known to dress up and pose as his own ‘ghosts’ and to use double exposure for cheating,” concedes Willin, “Hudson was ultimately believed to have leavened his frauds with much genuine spirit photography.” Reputedly, in this instance the sitter and two friends were permitted to operate the camera without Hudson’s interference.

Never mind that Hudson allegedly used a specially gimicked Howell camera; it supposedly held a framed, pre-exposed image that moved into position while the sitter was being photographed (25). There are other inherent indicators that the photograph is bogus. If the extra figures are subtracted from the picture, the composition is unaccountably bad: the sitter is positioned not only off center (being both too far to the right and too low), but also too far away, so as to leave an unusual amount of surrounding space. One can rationalize that the additional space was left to make room for the spirits, but how would they have known just where to place themselves to make a pleasing arrangement? Most likely the chair and camera had been pre-positioned by Hudson, who had already photographed the “spirits.” Still another indicator of faking comes from the figures’ wearing shrouds. This seems less a convincing attire for ghosts than a suspiciously dramatic convention (as Willin himself notes in the following case).

Haunted Doorway. A figure, shrouded head-to-toe and appearing semi-transparently before the doorway of a thatched-roof building, was supposedly photographed in the 1920s. However, the image did not surface until 1993, and its place of origin is only assumed to be “probably England.” Willin admits that “most people are suspicious of the dramatic drapery” since the majority of ghost sightings look like “real people in real clothes” (146–147). Yet he adds: “One day, technology could well tell us this apparition is exactly what it seems to be: a genuine paranormal presence.”

What it really seems to be is a staged ghost photo. There is a well-known technique for producing such fakes that does not require any tampering with the negative or other darkroom deception. It was used by some spirit photographers: while the sitter remained motionless for the lengthy exposure, a confederate—suitably attired—simply appeared briefly behind the unwitting person, the result being a photo with a semi-transparent “spirit” (Nickell 1994, 152). The same effect can be produced accidentally when someone steps briefly into or out of a scene that is photographed with a long exposure (Nickell 1994, 158–159). Several other photos published by Willin may be of this type, as he himself somewhat grudgingly admits (e.g., 76–77, 86–87, 116–117, 132–133, 144–145).

Specter on the Stairs. A famous 1936 photograph of a too-good-to-be-true ghostly figure on a staircase was made at Raynham Hall in Norfolk, England, by a pair of reporters who claimed first to see the apparition and then to quickly take a picture of it. Willin sits on the fence—or is it the banister?—on this one, acknowledging that “there appear to be inconsistencies in the photo on the stair rail,” while insisting that the negative appeared to be “genuine” and there was “a tradition of haunting” at the house (128–129). He adds, “Let the viewer decide.”

And so expert viewers have. A careful examination of the photograph (in much greater enlargement than given in Willin’s book) shows evidence of double exposure. “For example,” note John Fairley and Simon Welfare in Arthur C. Clarke’s Chronicles of the Strange and Mysterious (1987, 140), “there is a pale line above each stair-tread, indicating that one picture has been superimposed over the other; a patch of reflected light at the top of the right-hand banister appears twice.” What likely happened is that the camera was shifted slightly during a long, two-stage exposure, one with a real figure briefly standing on the stairs. Hence, the negative would be unaltered. Photo expert Tom Flynn (2008) agrees with this assessment and cites clear evidence that the photo was not flash-illuminated but shot with available light, thus requiring a long exposure. This gives away the lie of the reporters’ claim of having made a quick snapshot.

Spirit of “Old Nanna.” A 1991 photo depicts a little boy who seems to be gazing up at a bright vortex of mist that intrudes into the photo. But is he really looking at the spirit of Old Nanna, his late great grandmother, as family members have suggested? Unfortunately, no one in the room at the time the picture was snapped perceived anything out of the ordinary. Although acknowledging that “there is not enough verifiable fact to support the appearance and photographing of a spirit,” Willin cautions: “If the picture is fraudulent then the misty cloud should be explainable but it’s far too big and dense to be, say, cigarette smoke. Neither is there anything to suggest a human form but, of course, what the boy saw and what we are permitted to see could be quite different” (20–21).

Ironically, the effect is clearly due to something that Willin is well aware of—acknowledging elsewhere (72) how frequently the “camera-strap syndrome” can cause just such an anomaly. He fails to recognize it in this instance even though it has the classic appearance produced by an unsecured strap getting in front of the lens. The braiding of the strap is even evident, an effect I have captured in experimental photographs (Nickell 1996, 13–14).

Palatial Apparition. At Middlesex, England’s famed Hampton Court Palace, on October 7, 2003, surveillance-camera footage captured a spooky, robed figure emerging from open fire doors. Alarms sounded on three occasions, but each time the doors were found closed. Although Willin cites the opinion of skeptic Richard Wiseman that the figure is likely a person in a costume, he ends by wondering, “. . . could this be the genuine image of an apparition on film, one of the most rare things in the world?” (142–143).

I had studied the photograph for SI magazine (Nickell 2004) and similarly determined that the image probably depicted an actual person. Examining a high-resolution electronic copy of the photo, I found a clearly solid figure accompanied by shadow patterns that are consistent with a real, human figure appearing in ambient light. The picture thus contrasts with most traditional “ghost” photos that depict transparent, ethereal figures. I suggested that although the footage might be unaltered, the actual event could well have been staged—as suggested by the repeated opening and closing of the doors and the fact that the incidents occurred during the pre-Halloween season.

These are only a few examples from Willin’s compendium. Many others could be noted. Time and again, a spooky picture can best be explained by invoking Occam’s razor—the rule that the simplest tenable explanation (the one requiring the fewest assumptions) is preferred. And so, other anomalous photos are likewise attributable to such factors as deliberate hoaxing, reflections, rebounding flash, defects of camera or film, simulacra, and other factors—not of another world, but of this one.

References

• Coe, Brian. 1989. The Birth of Photography: The Story of the Formative Years 1800–1900. London: Spring Books.
• Fairley, John and Simon Welfare. 1987. Arthur C. Clarke’s Chronicles of the Strange and Mysterious. London: Collins.
• Flynn, Thomas. 2008. Interview by author, February 29.
• Guiley, Rosemary Ellen. 2000. The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits, 2nd ed. New York: Checkmark Books.
• Nickell, Joe. 1994. Camera Clues: A Handbook for Photographic Investigation. Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky.
• —. 1996. Ghostly photos. Skeptical Inquirer 20(4) (July/August), 13–14.
• —. 2001. Real-Life X-Files: Investigating the Paranormal. Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky.
• —. 2004. Hampton Court photo: Ghost or guest? Skeptical Inquirer 28(2) (March/
April), 13.
• Randi, James. 1982. Flim Flam: Psychics, ESP, Unicorns and Other Delusions. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.

Background

Modern spiritualism began in Hydesville, New York, in 1848. At the home of a blacksmith named John Fox, strange rapping noises began to occur in the bedroom of Fox’s young daughters, Margaret (“Maggie”) and Katharine (“Katie”). The girls claimed the noises were communications from the departed spirit of a murdered peddler. After a time, on the night of March 31 (All Fool’s Eve!), the girls’ mother witnessed a remarkable demonstration that she later described in a signed report.

Loudly, Katie addressed “Mr. Splitfoot,” saying “do as I do,” and clapping her hands. At once, there came the same number of mysterious raps. Next Maggie exclaimed, “Now do just as I do; count one, two, three, four,” clapping her hands accordingly. Four raps came in response (Mulholland 1938, 30–33).

Next, the peddler’s spirit began to answer questions by rapping, once for no, twice for yes. He claimed he had been murdered and his body buried in the cellar, but digging there produced only a few bones attributed to animals (Weisberg 2004, 57).

Before long, people discovered that the girls could conjure up not only the ghostly peddler but other obliging spirits as well. The demonstrations received such attention that the girl’s older sister, Leah Fish, originated a “spiritualistic” society. “Spiritualism” began to take on the trappings of religion, with hymns being sung at the opening and close of a session (which they called a “séance”). Following a successful visit to New York, Leah took the girls on tour to towns and cities across the nation. Everywhere people were anxious to communicate with the souls of their departed loved ones.

However, scientists and other rational-minded investigators came forth to challenge Maggie and Katie’s claims. Early on, University of Buffalo faculty members studied the girls’ raps. The examiners excluded “spiritual causation” and asserted, curiously enough, that the raps were “produced by the action of the will, through voluntary action on the joints.” In a much later investigation, the “spirits” gave out erroneous information, and investigators caused the rapping sounds to cease abruptly by controlling Margaret’s feet (Mulholland 1938, 34–38).

Then, four decades after spiritualism began, sisters Margaret Fox Kane and Katherine Fox Jencken confessed it had all been a trick. On Sunday, October 21, 1888, the sisters appeared at the Academy of Music in New York City. With Katherine sitting in a box and repeatedly nodding in agreement while a number of spiritualists expressed their disapproval with groans and hisses, Margaret revealed all from the music hall stage. She explained how she had produced the rapping noises by slipping her foot from her shoe and snapping her toes. Placing her stockinged foot on a thin plank, she demonstrated the effect for the audience. As The Evening Post reported the following day, “Mrs. Kane now locates the origin of Modern Spiritualism in her great toe” (qtd. in Christopher 1970, 181). Margaret went on to state:

I think that it is about time that the truth of this miserable subject “Spiritualism” should be brought out. It is now widespread all over the world, and unless it is put down it will do great evil. I was the first in the field and I have the right to expose it.

My sister Katie and myself were very young children when this horrible deception began. I was eight and just a year and a half older than she. We were very mischievous children and we wanted to terrify our dear mother, who was a very good woman and very easily frightened. At night when we were in bed, we used to tie an apple to a string and move it up and down, causing the apple to bump on the floor, or we would drop the apple on the floor, making a strange noise every time it would rebound. Mother listened to this for a time. She could not understand it and did not suspect us of being capable of a trick because we were so young.

At last she could stand it no longer and she called the neighbors in and told them about it. It was this that set us to discover the means of making the raps.

Margaret explained:

“My sister Katie was the first one to discover that by swishing her fingers she could produce a certain noise with the knuckles and joints, and that the same effect could be made with the toes. Finding we could make raps with our feet—first with one foot and then with both—we practiced until we could do this easily when the room was dark.” (qtd. in Mulholland 1938, 41–42)

Margaret also stated that Leah knew the spirit rappings were fake, and that when she traveled with the girls (on their first nationwide tour) it was she who signaled the answers to various questions. (She probably chatted with sitters before the séance to obtain information; when that did not produce the requisite facts, the “spirits” no doubt spoke in vague generalizations that are the mainstay of spiritualistic charlatans.)

Margaret repeated her exposé in other cities close to New York. However, explains John Mulholland (1938, 43), “It was expected that this would give her sufficient income to live but she shortly discovered that while many people will pay to be humbugged few will pay to be educated.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, then, Margaret returned to mediumship when she needed money again. After her death on March 8, 1895, thousands of spiritualist mourners attended her funeral.

Today, spiritualists characterize Margaret’s exposé as bogus, attributing it to her need for money or the desire for revenge against her rivals or both. However, not only were her admissions fully corroborated by her sister, but she demonstrated to the audience that she could produce the mysterious raps just as she said (Christopher 1970, 181).

The Discovery

The Fox sisters had seemingly fooled the world, but, after the turn of the century, new evidence for their supposed genuineness was allegedly discovered. As reported by the Boston Journal of November 23, 1904:

The skeleton of the man who first caused the rappings heard by the Fox Sisters in 1848 has been found between the walls of the house occupied by the sisters, and clears them from the only shadow of doubt held concerning their sincerity in the discovery of spirit communication.

The Fox sisters declared that they learned to communicate with the spirit of a man, and that he told them he had been murdered and buried in the cellar. Evacuation failed to locate the body and thus give proof positive of their story.

The Journal continued:

The discovery was made by school children playing in the cellar of the building in Hydesville known as “The Spook House,” where the Fox sisters first heard the wonderful rappings. A reputable citizen of Clyde, who owns the house, made an investigation, and found an almost entire human skeleton between the crumbling walls, undoubtedly that of the wandering peddler who it was claimed was murdered in the east room and buried in the basement.

Examination revealed that a false and unobserved inner wall had been built. Between this false inner wall and the original outer wall and near the center of the basement, the skeleton was found. It is interesting to know that the false wall is composed of stones like those used fifty years ago to build stone fences. This recalls a statement made over fifty years ago by Miss Lucretia Pulver, that Mr. Bell [the earlier house owner and presumed murderer] worked each night under cover of darkness, carrying stones from the fence into the cellar. The finding of the bones corroborates the sworn statement made by Margaret Fox [the girls’ mother], April 11, 1848. . . . (qtd. in Muldoon 1942, 20–24)

Additional stories appeared in other newspapers (“Bones” 1904; “Fox” 1904; “Headless” 1904; “Topics” 1904).

Figure 2. Joe Nickell examines the alleged “peddler’s trunk” at Lily Dale Museum. (Photo by Diana Harris)

This reputed discovery was trumpeted by spiritualists over the following decades, along with a “tin peddler’s pack”—actually a tin trunk (figure 2)—that was allegedly discovered at the same site (Keller 1922, 60). The trunk was later kept in the cottage that had been moved to Lily Dale spiritualist village in 1916 and used as a museum. The cottage remained there until it was destroyed by fire in the 1950s. While the trunk was saved, skeptics have long questioned its authenticity (Weisberg 2004, 266–267).

Investigation

To review the alleged discoveries at the Fox cottage’s cellar, I twice visited the site, taking photographs and making a diagrammatic sketch of the stone structure; interviewed knowledgeable persons; examined Fox-related artifacts, including the reputed peddler’s trunk at the Lily Dale spiritualist museum; with Tim Binga, conducted research at the Public Library at Newark, N.Y. (where I joked that my work was so important I had “brought my own librarian”); and studied a valuable collection of old papers, clippings, and photographs that were generously sent over to the library for our use by the Newark-Arcadia Historical Society. We also sought out rare books and journals and did much other work, all of it demanding but ultimately paying dividends.

Unfortunately, as it happens, there is reason for skepticism of nearly every aspect of the case. To begin with, the earliest published testimonies never gave the peddler’s name, only the initials “C.B.,” with the B specifically applying to the surname (Lewis 1848, 10). Only later was the name said to be “Charles B. Rosna” or some variant; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1926, I: 64, 76) insisted it was actually “Charles B. Rosma.” Another source gives “Charles Rosa” (Guiley 2000, 141).

In fact, no one has been able to find a single record or other proof of the existence of a peddler named Charles B. Rosna/Rosma/Rosa. One source (Pressing N.d., 63) was forced to conclude, lamely, that the name “might have been misspelled,” but no peddler with any similar name has ever been identified. We too looked—in vain.

Figure 3. A reputedly false inner wall (left) of Fox cottage is actually only part of a smaller, four-walled, inner foundation. (Photo by Joe Nickell)

At the old cottage site we studied the restored foundation and its double wall, the “false” interior one having ostensibly been placed secretly to hide the peddler’s corpse (Muldoon 1942, 20–21; Keeler 1922). However, it is apparent that the wall in question is actually just one of four inner walls that likely represent an original, boxlike foundation (figure 3). That foundation was apparently later enlarged into a rectangular shape by the addition of new walls around the old ones (creating unequal spaces between the walls at either end and thickening the front and rear walls at the same time). Perhaps the extra foundation resulted from the house having been expanded from a cabin into a cottage. We later discovered that the “two separate stone foundations” were confirmed in 1904 (“Headless” 1904).

As to the bones themselves, their authenticity was questioned at the time of their alleged discovery. The New York Times (“Topics” 1904) reported that the bones had created a stir “amusingly disproportioned to any necessary significance of the discovery.” That was because there was no proof either that the bones belonged to the “legendary peddler” or that the Fox sisters had done anything more than capitalize on a then-current rumor that a peddler was murdered at the site. The Times said of spiritualists’ claims about the bones, “As usual, they are taking all possible pains to render a real investigation of the affair impossible, and are assuming as true a lot of things much in need of other proof than their own assertions.”

The Acadian Weekly (“Fox” 1904) opined that while the bones might have been hidden in the wall for half a century, they might equally have been “disinterred from some cemetery and placed there for effect.” The paper referred to the original 1848 story of spirit communication at the cottage as “the old hoax.”

Eventually, the true source of the bones was reported in an editorial in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research in 1909. A physician had been asked by another publication (the Occult Review) to investigate the alleged discovery:

He reports to us that he found a number of bones there, but that there were only a few ribs with odds and ends of bones and among them a superabundance of some and a deficiency of others. Among them also were some chicken bones. There was nothing about the premises to indicate that they had been buried there, but might have been put there by boys in sport. He also reports that within a few days past he has learned that a certain person near the place had put the bones there as a practical joke and is now too much ashamed of it to confess it. Whether there is any better foundation for these incidents than for the original story it is not possible to decide, but it is certain that the probabilities that there is anything more than a casual coincidence or than a trick played on the credulity of the defenders of the Fox sisters are very much shaded. (Editorial 1909)

But then what about the peddler’s trunk, allegedly found at the same site and time as the bones? As a matter of fact, the trunk was never reported in any of the contemporary sources we uncovered. The earliest mention of it I have found is an account penned years later by one P.L.O.A. Keeler (1922), a Lily Dale medium who had a reputation for faking spirit writing and other phenomena (Nickell 2007). I examined the trunk at the Lily Dale museum, whose curator Ron Nagy (2006) conceded there was no real provenance for it nor any proof of its discovery in 1904. And the trunk’s condition appears far too good for its supposed half-century burial (figure 2).

Conclusions

The modern unearthing of the Fox cottage’s foundations did nothing to support the claim that in 1848 schoolgirls had communicated with the spirit of a murdered peddler. Instead, the excavation made it possible for everyone to see that no “false wall” had been built to hide the legendary peddler’s remains but that it was merely part of an earlier, smaller foundation. The best evidence indicates that the 1904 “discovery” of the peddler’s bones was a hoax; ditto the later appearance of the tin trunk. Therefore, the Fox sisters’ confessions stand, corroborated by independent evidence that the spirit rappings they produced were accomplished by trickery.

Acknowledgments

In addition to Tim Binga, I was assisted by many others, including my wife Diana Harris and Paul E. Loynes who did the typesetting. I also wish to thank the helpful staff of the Newark Public Library and the Newark-Arcadia Historical Society (notably John Zornow and Chris Davis), Ron Nagy at Lily Dale and Judge Harold Stiles.

References

• Bones in “old spook house.” 1904. New York Times, November 23.
• Cadwallader, M.E. 1922. Hydesville in History. Chicago: Progressive Thinker.
• Christopher, Milbourne. 1970. ESP, Seers and Psychics. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell.
• Doyle, Arthur Conan. 1926. The History of Spiritualism, in two vols. Reprinted New York: Arno Press, 1975.
• Editorial. 1909. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research. March, 191.
• The Fox House figures again in a sensation. 1904. The Arcadian Weekly Gazette, November 23.
• Guiley, Rosemary Ellen. 2000. The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits. New York: Checkmark Books.
• Headless skeleton in Fox Sisters’ home. 1904. New York Times, November 24.
• Keeler, P.L.O.A. 1922. The skeleton in the Fox cottage, in Cadwallader 1922, 59–60.
• Lewis, E.E. 1848. A Report of the Mysterious Noises Heard in the House of Mr. John D.
• Fox, in Hydesville, Arcadia, Wayne County [N.Y.]. Canandaigua, N.Y.: E.E. Lewis.
• Muldoon, Sylvan. 1942. Famous Psychic Stories, Psychic Series Volume II. Darlington, Wisconsin: The New Horizon Publishers.
• Mulholland, John. 1938. Beware Familiar Spirits. Reprinted New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1979.
• Nagy, Ron. 2006. Interview by Joe Nickell and Diana Harris, September 1.
• Nickell, Joe. 2004. Joseph Smith: A matter of visions. Chap. 35 of The Mystery Chronicles. Lexington, Ky.: The University Press of Kentucky, 296–303.
• —. 2007. Adventures in Paranormal Investigation. Lexington, Ky.: The University Press of Kentucky.
• Pressing, R.G. N.d. Rappings That Startled the World. Lily Dale, N.Y.: Dale News.
• Topics of the Times. 1904. New York Times, November 25.
• Weisberg, Barbara. 2004. Talking to the Dead. New York: HarperSanFrancisco.

The word pseudoscience is a bit slippery. It suggests something “fake” or “fraudulent”—something that is not a science but pretends to be. We can easily name some of the classic examples: astrology, phrenology, homeopathy, parapsychology, and creationism. People who promote such pseudosciences have been called “paradoxers,” because they propose ideas that superficially seem plausible but on closer examination are internally contradictory or counter to what is possible in the real world. The term has been applied to circle-squarers, perpetual motionists, and those who believe the Earth is flat. Sometimes the term “fringe science” is used.

We must admit that in the history of science, some of the early “accepted” ideas would, if judged by the standards of today’s science, qualify as pseudoscientific: astrology, alchemy, geocentric solar system models, the luminiferous ether. So how do we distinguish science from pseudoscience?

Bob Schadewald had a continuing interest in fringe science and pseudoscience. This posthumous collection of his published and unpublished materials (skillfully edited by Schadewald’s sister Lois) is a highly readable account of several varieties of pseudoscience, including Flat Earth theories, perpetual motion, creationism, and predictions of the end of the world. The unifying theme is “fringe thinkers” who create their own versions of reality, contemptuous of the models of nature accepted by established mainstream science. Schadewald treats his subjects with respect and even sympathy (he knew many of them personally), but he clearly reveals why their ideas are flawed and misguided.

Here you will find the stories of colorful characters such as Immanuel Velikovsky, who rewrote the book on solar system astronomy; Charles Johnson, who was certain that Earth was as flat as a pancake; John Keely, who claimed he could tap etheric energy to power a freight train coast-to-coast on a gallon of water; and assorted creationists, who freely engaged in “lying for God.”

One might suppose that these folks and their worldviews have little in common. Surely one who believes the Earth is flat and one who believes it is hollow cannot think alike. But, as this book reveals, they have more in common with each other than they do with mainstream science. Looming large in their thinking and their motivations was a literal belief in the King James Bible. Velikovsky used biblical sources freely. Flat earthers’ beliefs were bound up with fundamentalist religious beliefs. Creationists and flat earthers have common historical roots, and I don’t know of a single perpetual motionist who was not also a religious fundamentalist. The flat earthers were united in their contempt for the idea of gravitational force. To them, it was a sufficient explanation to observe that “things fall because they are heavy.” Even here we find a parallel to Velikovsky, whose 1950 book Worlds in Collision and three subsequent books made much of electromagnetic interactions between planets and comets while dismissing gravity as nonexistent or relatively unimportant.

Velikovsky supposed that a comet was ejected from Jupiter, went careening around the solar system brushing Earth and Mars, and finally settled down to become the planet Venus. In several passes of Earth it managed to cause the walls of Jericho to tumble, interrupted Earth’s rotation (making the Sun appear to stand still for Joshua), caused the plagues of Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, and miscellaneous other seemingly miraculous events of recorded history. Few who read these books realized that Velikovsky had published a little-known pamphlet Cosmos without Gravitation (1946) in which he declared “The moon does not ‘fall,’ attracted to Earth from an assumed inertial motion along a straight line, nor is the phenomena of objects falling in the terrestrial atmosphere comparable to the ‘falling effect’ in the movement of the moon, a conjecture which is the basic element of the Newtonian theory of gravitation.” Velikovsky clearly rejected Newtonian gravity, replacing it with electromagnetic interactions.

Bob Schadewald recognized that some pseudosciences are relatively harmless, but he considered the creationists a serious threat to the integrity of science because of their political campaign to inject their religiously motivated philosophy into public-school science courses. For this reason he attended creationist conferences (calling them “great entertainment”) to see what they were up to and was on friendly terms with many of the prominent creationist spokesmen. But at the same time, he helped found the National Center for Science Education and served on its board. This organization is on the front lines in the battle to preserve the integrity of science in the schools against the efforts of creationists to redefine science to include the supernatural.

This book can be enjoyed on several levels, for Schadewald writes with droll humor, and many of his characters have comic dimensions. Included are his interviews with Immanuel Velikovsky and flat-earther Charles Johnson. Here is the story of naturalist Alfred Russell Wallace, who in 1870 unwisely accepted a wager with flat-earther John Hampden on the flatness of the water in the Old Bedford Canal. John Worrell Keely’s story was fodder for late-nineteenth-century journalists, who delighted in reporting on his antics promoting machines that ran on etheric energy. Keely was a clever showman who kept his Keely Motor Company going for twenty-six years without producing a single product or paying a dividend to his wealthy investors. Nor did he reveal his secrets.

Concluding chapters on “The Philosophy of Pseudoscience” explore the common characteristics of these independent thinkers. This is an informative and entertaining book of continuing relevance, for pseudoscientific ideas of this sort never die but are continually reborn in new clothing.