The Origins of Spirit Photography

The practice of spirit photography was officially born in 1862 when William H. Mumler, a Boston photographer, discovered that in a picture he had taken of himself there also appeared the image of his dead cousin. Photographic techniques were still at a rudimentary stage: the first working photographic process, the daguerreotype, had been developed only twenty-two years earlier by Louis-Jacque-Mandé Daguerre. Therefore photography was a relatively young art when Mumler announced that he had been able to capture a ghost on film. The public rushed enthusiastically to his studio to get pictures of dead relatives.

The fundamental technique used by every spirit photographer simply involved taking a picture of the client. It was only in the developing process that one or more extras in the form of ghostly faces were added to the photograph. Usually, the clients would recognize in these images a dead relative or friend.

When it was discovered that some of Mumler’s most famous pictures contained extras resembling people still quite alive, even believers became suspicious. One of Mumler’s most touching photos, displayed by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle during his lectures, was later shown to be a fake. It showed a crowd of mourners at the London Cenotaph on Armistice Day; above the crowd was a fog of spirit faces—those of fallen heroes, it was supposed. However, it turned out that some of the spirits were faces of living football players, and one belonged to the living African boxer Battling Siki.

Mumler’s trick was to use double exposures, a technique almost unheard of in those days, by which he had been able to superimpose faces from other pictures onto the pictures belonging to his clients. He was accused of fraud and taken to court; at the trial, however, he was acquitted. Mumler later died in poverty in 1884.

The Case of the Crewe Circle

At the turn of the century, one of the most famous spirit photographers was William Hope (1863–1933), a member of the Crewe Circle—a group of spiritualists from Crewe, England, whose members appeared to be able to register the faces of spirits on photographic plates simply by holding the plates in their hands. It was further claimed that the plates could be furnished by Hope’s clients themselves. Even Conan Doyle obtained a picture made in this fashion resembling his dead sister.

However, in February 1922, psychic researcher Harry Price (1881–1948) of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), along with a magician named Seymour, conducted an investigation into the methods of the Crewe Circle. Along with fellow SPR researcher Eric J. Dingwall and magician William S. Marriott, they devised a plan that consisted of presenting Hope with a set of glass negatives that had been secretly marked with X-rays. The trap worked: when Hope returned the plates, the one containing the “extra” spirit image showed no sign of the markings; this meant that Hope had switched a prepared plate for the secretly marked one. “In the above case,” began the Price accusation that appeared in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, “it can, we think, hardly be denied that Mr William Hope has been found guilty of deliberately substituting his own plates for those of a sitter…. It implies that the medium brings to the sitting a duplicate slide and faked plates for fraudulent purposes.”

Spiritualists denounced the report as part of a conspiracy against Hope, and Conan Doyle, who was then vice president of the Society for the Study of Supernormal Pictures, took up the defenses of the Crewe Circle. He begged Price to reconsider his position, hoping to settle the controversy “in some honorable fashion.” Conan Doyle wrote, “It makes an open sore in the movement.” Price, however, refused to recant his report, so Conan Doyle started working on a pamphlet on spirit photography detailing his side of the affair. He talked about the case to Houdini in a letter he wrote on April 13, 1922:

I have written a book on Psychic Photography with special reference to the Crewe Circle. The evidence in their favor is overwhelming, tho’ what happened on a special occasion with 2 amateur conjurers, out for a stunt, and a third (Dingwall) behind them is more than I can say. We find that another test was independably [sic] carried out about the same time, when the Kodak Co. marked a plate. The mark was found by them all right afterwards, and also an extra. Our opponents talk of one failure and omit the great series of successes. However, truth wins and there’s lots of time.

Houdini was not impressed. He had tried to get an audience with Hope in December 1921 but was informed that the medium’s engagements would keep him busy for months. Houdini then asked fellow British magician DeVega (Alexander Stewart, 1891–1971) if he would sit for a photograph with Hope. During the sitting, DeVega was sure that the slide he had loaded had been changed for another one and told Houdini. His skepticism toward Hope, then, seemed to be justified. Conan Doyle, however, was still convinced that Hope’s spirit photos were genuine, as he reported to Houdini in his letter dated August 6:

We seem to have knocked the bottom out of the Hope “exposure.” The plates were marked by X-rays and we find by experiment that X-ray marks disappear on a 20-second exposure, which was the exact time given. Our time is continually wasted over nonsense of this sort, but I suppose it has to be done.

Belief Never Dies

Famous photo of Mary Todd Lincoln with the “spirit” of her husband, President Abraham Lincoln. (William H Mumler from Wikimedia Commons)

Conan Doyle’s letter worried Houdini because he had already started to talk publicly about the “unmasking” of the Crewe Circle. The magician then contacted Harry Price, who at the time was experimenting to see whether X-ray markings really disappear on exposure. At first the results seemed to confirm Conan Doyle’s theory; however, further experimentation proved that X-rays do not disappear with prolonged exposure, thus proving that the plates had been switched. Meanwhile, Conan Doyle continued working on his pamphlet The Case for Spirit Photography, which he eventually privately published in the early twenties.

However, having lost one possible explanation for the disappearing marking, the spiritualists had to account for it in another way. One possible solution was that the investigators did not actually give Hope the marked plate in an attempt to frame him, and this is what Conan Doyle suggests to Houdini in his letter of October 29:

The Hope case is more intricate than any Holmes case I ever invented. I am sure now that there was trickery on the part of the investigators and that the marked plates were not in the packet when taken to the dark room. One of them was returned by post anonymously undeveloped to the S.P.R. Now, since Hope and the College people knew nothing of the test, until four months later, how could they return an undeveloped plate, for how could they pick it out as a marked one, since the marking only shows on development? Clearly it was done by one of the Conspirators, and he could not have picked it out of all the other plates in the dark room, even if he had access to it. It is clear to me therefore that it never went to the dark room at all, but was taken out before. My pamphlet is ready but I hold it back in the hope of learning who the rascal was.

After receiving this letter, but without revealing his source, Houdini wrote to Harry Price on November 18 asking whether these allegations were true: “There is a rumor afloat here that the Crewe circle were ‘framed.’ There is talk about an undeveloped negative being sent back anonymously. Have they any reason at all to claim that they were ‘framed’?”

Actually, the return of the undeveloped plate could also be explained by Price’s hypothesis of fraud: if Hope had switched the marked plate for a previously exposed one, he would still possess the plate that Price had originally brought. The controversy between Conan Doyle and Price would resurface again during the following months, and Houdini would find himself right in the middle of the two opposing parties.

Price, for example, reprinted the results of his experiments with the Crewe Circle in the booklet Cold Light on Spiritualistic Phenomena because, he explained in the booklet’s preface, “the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research is printed only for circulation among its Members and Associates.” The booklet caused quite a stir among spiritualists, and Conan Doyle entreated Price for years to take it out of circulation: “I do feel strongly that the popular sixpenny pamphlet designed to ruin a man who had 17 years of fine psychic work behind him is wrong . . . my belief is that you yourself did not write it. However so long as your name is on [it] we can only go for you.” In his autobiography, Confessions of a Ghost Hunter, Price recalled, “Arthur Conan Doyle and his friends . . . abused me for years for exposing Hope.”

As for the magician Marriott (see also my column “William S. Marriott’s Gambols with the Ghosts,” SI, March/April 2003), he was able to score a point with Conan Doyle. In 1921 a journalist named James Douglas had a photo of himself taken by William Hope that, when developed, showed the presence of a spirit extra. Douglas was so impressed by the phenomenon that he issued a public challenge to anyone who could duplicate the feat without using psychic powers. Marriott accepted the challenge and performed not only in front of Douglas but Conan Doyle as well. He produced a picture of Douglas and Conan Doyle with a young woman and a picture of Conan Doyle with little fairies dancing in front of him. He then explained in detail how he had manipulated the photos, and Conan Doyle felt compelled to write a public statement: “Mr. Marriott has clearly proved one point, which is that a trained conjurer can, under the close inspection of three pairs of critical eyes, put a false image upon a plate. We must unreservedly admit it.”

This episode, however, did not convince the believers even though the saga came to an end in 1932 when Fred Barlow, a former friend and supporter of Hope’s work and former secretary of the Society for the Study of Supernormal Pictures, gave a joint lecture along with Major W. Rampling-Rose to the SPR to present findings gleaned from an extensive series of tests on the methods Hope used to produce his spirit photos. The two, who presented their case in depth in Volume 41 of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, concluded that the “spirit extras” that appeared in Hope’s photographs were produced fraudulently. It was only Hope’s death at Salford hospital during the publication of the report that ultimately ended the debate. The believers would soon start to find extras of his face in the spirit photographs of others.

The case of William Hope and his Crewe Circle deserves to be remembered today because it shows that it is practically impossible (and futile) to try to convince someone who wants to believe even in the face of quite convincing contrary evidence.

The psychic then attempts to cause the hands on the TV host’s watch to move backward by way of his “psychic powers.” While doing this, he invites the viewers to concentrate on their own watches, which the psychic is also trying to fix. Suddenly, on the host’s watch we see that the time has gone back two hours! Now is the time to check if something has happened in the homes of the viewers: they are invited to call the TV station and tell about their experiences. The phones in the studio’s offices start ringing with miracles being reported with each call: a watch, stopped for many years, now runs perfectly; another one has jumped ahead one hour; a Rolex watch, whose whole inside mechanism needed to be replaced at an estimated cost of nearly $1,000, now works perfectly. Over twenty-four more phone calls from people reporting to have seen their broken watches being fixed follow!

But that’s not all: dozens of other people call to say that their spoons, forks, and keys have bent; a glass of water has begun to boil; a TV set has gone off; and much, much more (see table 1 for a description of the phenomena reported by TV viewers during this hour of broadcasting).

The episode just described really took place in 1992 when, as a guest on a popular Italian TV show, L’Istruttoria (The Inquest), I had a chance to test a theory I was rather curious about. With the complicity of the show’s host, I intended to pose as a psychic and duplicate a demonstration that, during the 1970s, had made famous a man who claimed to possess real psychic powers: Israel’s Uri Geller.

For a few years, Geller had been able to convince people (including scientists) that he could bend keys and forks, guess drawings in sealed envelopes, and predict future events with the power of his mind. After various investigators showed that his claims had no scientific basis (Randi 1975; Marks and Kamman 1980; Gardner 1981), his career as a psychic superstar faded.

One of the most convincing performances of this charismatic character was, in fact, his apparent ability to cause strange phenomena to happen directly inside the houses of TV viewers. After this phenomenon regularly occurred (as dozens of phone callers could testify each time), the most obvious conclusion for most of the audience was that the phenomenon had to be real because Geller could not possibly have had so many stooges faking support for his claim.

The paranormal, however, most likely has nothing to do with this demonstration; the explanation in fact could lie more easily in an interesting effect of mass suggestion. It was not the first time I posed as a psychic to test this theory. In 1989, in fact, James “The Amazing” Randi asked me to claim psychic powers on a radio show in order to later demonstrate, during the Exploring Psychic Powers Live! TV show, how anyone could duplicate this phenomenon just by the clever use of suggestion. I did as Randi instructed and went on the radio show and claimed that as I was talking incredible things would start to happen in the houses of the listeners.

After only five minutes or so, about twenty people called reporting the strangest things: a television set had turned on all by itself; a cat was behaving strangely; a picture had fallen from the wall; a bulb in a lamp had exploded; a book on spiritualism had fallen from the table; the whole computer network of a lawyer’s office had gone down; and much more.

There was nothing extraordinary about those things. They happen often but nobody pays much attention them or thinks that they must be related to some psychic phenomenon; however, after the listeners had been alerted by me to watch for unusual phenomena, almost any event that occurred while I was talking could easily be interpreted as evidence for my claims by the most suggestible people.

Let’s try, then, to understand the psychological conditions that can generate and enhance a similar belief in some listeners.

Persuasion in Action

We are obviously dealing with some of the major principles of persuasion, including the reciprocity principle, the authority factor, the motivation and coherence principle, the shortage principle, the sympathy principle, and the social confirmation principle. Robert B. Cialdini has summarized these principles very clearly. According to Cialdini, these principles come into play almost automatically and therefore are easily exploited by those who know how they work. Let’s see how these principles apply to the situations described above.

First of all, the “psychic” sets the stage: he presents himself to the public as a believable person. In my case, at the beginning of the radio broadcast, the host told his listeners that some Italian universities were conducting experiments on my powers; on TV, I was able to demonstrate my claimed powers by bending and breaking a spoon, correctly guessing a drawing sealed in an envelope, and making some radish seeds germinate in my hand. In other words, I had offered something solid to the viewers: convincing demonstrations of extraordinary powers. The reciprocity principle, which states that we have to reciprocate when we’re given something, was then activated. In this case, in exchange for my demonstration the TV viewer might have felt more obligated to give what I had to say more attention.

Furthermore, in both cases my claims were not doubted by the hosts: both expressed their belief in their reality and pretended they were very puzzled. This way, I was benefitting from the authority factor, a principle whose strength has been clearly shown by Stanley Milgram. Owing to the sense of compliance toward authority, which is profoundly infused in human beings, some spectators may well have surrendered to the judgment of the hosts and undertaken the same attitude of wonder that the hosts exhibited toward my claims. At this point, the message we wanted to get through—namely, that I had real psychic powers—was already appearing as a consistent hypothesis by a considerable number of the viewers.

For the persuasion to be effective, however, the spectators had to feel motivated to participate in the experiment—and what better motivation than the possibility of personally living an extraordinary experience and coming face-to-face with the supernatural? This persuasion was especially effective because I was constantly repeating that these phenomena didn’t happen all the time and didn’t happen to just anyone: only the few “chosen” ones could live this wonderful experience. This is the shortage principle: an experience appears more attractive if its availability appears to be limited.

Also, the fact that I had an unassuming attitude (and that I apologized various times in case the demonstration failed) helped to make me more likeable: without acknowledging it, the spectators were wishing for everything to go well and were ready to act their part toward achieving this aim.

At this point, the spectators were ready to interpret anything happening in their houses (no matter how prosaic) as proof of the reality of my psychic powers. There was still one more very important persuasive factor that played a role as soon as the phone calls started arriving: the social confirmation principle. “If so many people call to say that their cat is behaving strangely or that their watches are working again,” some spectators may have wondered, “maybe I should call in to say that the light went off for a few seconds!”

The illusion created by the number of phone calls coming in was that all the spectators tuned into that same channel were personally experiencing some spectacular demonstration of psychic phenomena—a fact that inevitably nourished further phone calls and could have very well resulted in headlines on the following day’s newspapers had we not revealed the experiment. In reality, the small percentage of spectators calling was enough to quickly jam the switchboard of the TV station for a few hours.

Conclusion

Considering the complexity of the world in which we live, it is natural that people, in making their decisions, do not take advantage of all the available data but rely only on some isolated and representative item. This “economy” strategy to proceed by shortcuts inevitably leads us to make inferences on the basis of incomplete data; consequently, wrong decisions are often made. As Cialdini (1984) wrote: “We need simple, reliable, and effective rules of conduct. But if the tricks of the sharks undermine their functionality, we loose faith in these rules; we then use them less, and we find ourselves ill equipped in facing the burden of decisions that today’s life places upon us. We can’t surrender to this without fighting. The stakes are too high” (217).

References

Cialdini, Robert. B. 1984. Influence: How and Why People Agree to Things. New York: William Morrow and Company.

Gardner, Martin. 1981. Science: Good, Bad, and Bogus. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.

Harris, Ben. 1985. Gellerism Revealed. Calgary: Hades International.

Harris, Richard Jackson. 2009. A Cognitive Psychology of Mass Communication, fifth edition. London: Routledge.

Marks, D., and R. Kamman. 1980. The Psychology of the Psychic. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.

Pratkanis, Anthony. Age of Propaganda. New York: A.H. Freeman and Company.

Randi, James. 1975. The Magic of Uri Geller. New York: Ballantine. Reprinted as The Truth About Uri Geller (1983). Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.

Project Alpha magicians Steve Shaw (with fork), Michael Edwards, and James Randi were featured on the cover of the Summer 1983 SI.

Fourteen years ago, I was astonished to read a brief article in the January 1997 (vol. 61, no. 846) Journal of the Society for Psychical Research (JSPR) written by parapsychologist Alexander Imich, a retired chemist and president of the Anomalous Phenomena Research Center in New York. His article, titled “Joe A. Nuzum, A Little-Known Psychic,” describes Nuzum as being “of the D.D. Home¹ class.” The article consisted of a long list of miracles that Nuzum appeared to have performed over the years. However, my astonishment was due not to the impressiveness of the list but rather to the following facts: 1) the conditions under which these presumed miracles took place were not described in the article; 2) all of the “phenomena” described belonged to the classic conjurers’ and fakirs’ repertoire; 3) it appeared that no magician was ever present at any of Nuzum’s demonstrations; and 4) there was no reference to the fact that Nuzum himself was a magician.

Banachek and Project Alpha

Banachek

Today Nuzum, though still claiming on his website to have “mastered many mind-over-matter studies,” runs a magic shop in Pennsylvania. I contacted mentalist and friend Banachek who, under his real name of Steve Shaw, was one of the celebrated alumni of Project Alpha (in which young magicians fooled scientists into thinking they had extrasensory perception [ESP]). Steve confirmed to me that he was a friend of Nuzum at the time of Project Alpha. They lived in the same town, had been friends for at least five years, and used to exchange tricks and ideas on magic. However, it appears that Nuzum—who had specialized in escapology at the time—was impressed by the press coverage that Steve had been able to gather while pretending to be a psychic, and he wanted to achieve the same result.

Nuzum started to perform mentalism tricks, most of which were pretty standard purchased items, and with these he convinced psychiatrist Berthold Schwartz that he was the real thing.

Schwartz had already been “amazed” by Steve during Project Alpha, and he continued to believe that Steve really had psychic powers even after the hoax was revealed. When Steve tried to explain to him via letters that Nuzum was a colleague and was just performing conjuring tricks, Schwartz refused to listen.

Steve told me:

There is a big difference between what Joe Nuzum is doing and what I did. My fiasco was an experiment. For years parapsychologists had lamented that the only reason there was no scientifically documented evidence under proper scientific controls was because of the lack of proper funding to perform such controls. We had countered and believed that this was not the case and the lack of such documentation lay in the parapsychologists’ pro-biased beliefs when they entered such experiments. MacDonald Douglass gave a half a million dollars to study . . . Psychokinetic Metal Bending, PKMB, to Washington University. Here was our chance to prove our point.

I went in not to take advantage, not to gain anything, not to take money, trips and vacations (unlike Joe), but simply to prove a valid point. I went in knowing full well that I was going to expose the fraud I was perpetrating. It became very hard at times. These were good people, with good hearts, who became my friends. It was very hard knowing I was going to have to hurt these people who had become a personal part of my life. Had I known they would mean so much to me, maybe I would have done things a little different, I certainly would have kept my distance emotionally.

On the other hand, I should have read the signs in Joe Nuzum. I should have known that he certainly would not have cared about hurting other people or lying to them; in retrospect I should have known that Joe would have had no problem using people for his own benefit.

Project Alpha was designed to show how competent magicians can complete the same tasks as self-proclaimed psychics. It appears, however, that some experts still don’t believe the phenomena aren’t genuine.

A “Challenge” Met

Because my comments (along with those of James Randi) were published in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, Imich decided to give us a reply (JSPR 61[848], July 1997). However, his words regarding our doubts, I regret to say, were quite disappointing. As usually happens in such cases, our real question was avoided.

As Randi and I had pointed out in our letters, the fact that the effects presented by Nuzum looked as if they were taken directly from a magic catalog should have raised flags. We did not insist, as Imich implied, that Nuzum’s effects were necessarily done by trickery. But they at least may have been done in such a way. What is the real question, then? Given the highly suspect nature of Nuzum’s demonstrations, it was for Imich of the utmost importance to ascertain that they were not the result of trickery. The only way to do this was to ask a competent magician to participate in the tests. Randi, Steve, or I would have loved to attend such demonstrations, but the suggestion was ignored.

Surprisingly, however, Imich wrote:

The crusaders against the paranormal usually do not tackle difficult cases. They prefer to deal with events easier to criticize. Mr. Randi, too, does not mention the “Gray’s Anatomy case,” an event out of the range of magical technique and much more difficult to discredit. I have challenged Mr. Polidoro to repeat this event, but I am not sure if he himself is a magician.

Aside from the fact that this was the first time I had heard of such a “challenge” (and the fact that Imich did not appear to have any qualification to judge whether an event is “out of the range of magical technique” or not), what most surprised me about this accusation was that in my letter I suggested a possible explanation for just one of the effects described by Imich, the “Gray’s Anatomy case”!

I wrote, in fact:

Mr Imich, for example, describes an effect by Nuzum he witnessed, in which the corner of a selected page of a book appeared inside an envelope. A simple suggestion: Mr Imich could invite Nuzum to perform the same phenomenon again, but asking him, this time, never to touch the book (not even to take it [off] of the shelf). It would be interesting to see if the same phenomenon will manifest again (provided, of course, that both book and page are chosen at random by the experimenter, and not “suggested” by Nuzum . . .).

Apparently Imich overlooked these lines in my letter.

Remembering this episode today, however, gives me the chance to also stress once more that it is not the duty of the critic to reproduce a claimed miracle. As should be widely known by now (but is apparently not to many researchers), the burden of proof always rests on the claimant. In this particular case, I would have considered it quite impressive if Nuzum could perform his miracle with a book provided by me. I would have made sure not to let him get anywhere near the book before the test, a precaution that Imich did not take. Quoting from his notes (JSPR, 61[846]: 336): “He took from my book-shelf a volume of Gray’s Anatomy and [he] opened it at page 354” (emphasis added).

In a postscript to his article, Imich added that a report about “the latest, never-previously-described paranormal events produced by Joe Nuzum” was in preparation. Fourteen years later, some are still waiting for some reliable proof of at least one real phenomenon produced by this self-proclaimed psychic. However, we stopped holding our breaths a long time ago.

Note

1. Victorian British medium Daniel D. Home, sometimes referred to as a super-psychic, was supposedly capable of moving objects, levitating, and producing all manner of supernatural phenomena at will.↑

Everyone knows the tragic tale of Victor Frankenstein, the man who, in the 1818 novel by Mary Shelley, succeeded in bringing back to life a corpse, only to immediately lose control over it. But the human dream of creating artificial life goes far beyond the creature that terrified Victorians.

This dream belongs to the Roman poet Ovid, whose short story "Metamorphosis," dating back to 8 ce, tells the story of Pygmalion, King of Cyprus, who modeled a female statue in ivory. He called her Galatea and fell in love with her, considering the statue to be well above any flesh and blood woman. Pygmalion ended up praying to Aphrodite to let him marry the being he had created, and the Goddess relented. Ovid tells how Pygmalion saw his statue slowly coming to life, breathing, and opening her eyes.

With his story, Ovid meant to underscore the devotion of the artist to the product of his work, which can go as far as identifying oneself in it. Ovid did not imagine that he was writing the prototype of many modern science-fiction tales!

Creatures without Control

Much older than Ovid's Galatea, however, is the figure of the golem, a sort of giant created by magic in Jewish mythology who first appears in the Bible. Jews link the word gelem ("raw material"), which appears in the Old Testament (Psalm 139:16), to the figure of Adam before life was infused into him.

In classic tradition, the golem is a strong and obedient creature made of clay that a rabbi can activate for servitude just by writing on his forehead a word meaning "God is truth." By erasing one of the letters of this word, the word that remains means "God is dead," and the golem stops.

In a version of this tale set in seventeenth-century Poland, of which traces can be found in a letter dated 1674, a golem became an unstoppable menace for his master. The master, Rabbi Elija Ba'al Schem from Chelm, asked the golem to take off his shoes; when it kneeled down, the clever Rabbi wiped the word life from the creature's forehead. The golem then died, but he fell upon the rabbi and killed him.

The most famous version of the story, however, dates from the eighteenth century and is set in Prague's ghetto. Here, the golem--created by beloved Rabbi Jehuda Löw Ben Bezalel at the beginning of the seventeenth century--was a defender of the Jewish people from persecutions and anti-
Semitic pogroms. The rabbi, however, lost control over the golem, and it began to destroy everything it met. Once the rabbi regained control over the situation, he decided to deactivate the golem and hide it in the attic of Prague's Old-New Synagogue, in the heart of the old Jewish quarter, where--according to the legend--his body still rests today. (Czech investigator Ivan Mackerle went searching for the golem's body in the roof space of the synagogue but couldn't find anything useful; his interesting report can be found in Fortean Times 238, July 2008).

Androids and Humunculus

Other examples of artificial creatures with human-like features can be found in Greek mythology as well. Cadmus, founder of Thebes, buried dragon's teeth, which transformed into soldiers. Hephaestus, god of metalwork, created mechanical slaves, ranging from girls made of gold and with a sentient mind to three-legged tables that could move by themselves.

Inuit legends tell of the Tupilaq, an avenging monster created by a wizard to hunt and kill an enemy. But the Tupilaq can be a double-edged sword, for a victim who knows magic can stop the creature and turn it back on its creator.

In the fourteenth century, philosopher, theologian, and scholar Saint Albertus Magnus was the first to use the word android to define living beings created by man through alchemy. According to legend, Albertus was able to build a real android made of metal, wood, wax, and glass. He gave it the power of speech and used it as a servant at the Dominican monastery of Cologne.

It was in the Middle Ages that technology allowed people to not only imagine but to build the first mechanical automatons, which were mainly moving dolls used to embellish bell towers and churches. Even Leonardo da Vinci showed interest in the subject; project plans dating to about 1495 show a mechanical knight in armor. In da Vinci's plans, the figure should have been able to stand up; move his arms, head, and jaw; and emit sounds from his mouth due to a complex percussion mechanism hidden in his chest. It is possible that the mechanical knight was just an idea da Vinci drew up for Duke Ludovico Sforza, for whom he worked at the time, to liven up parties at the Sforzesco Castle in Milan. Nobody knows if it was ever built.

It was only in the eighteenth century that automatons became sophisticated figurines able to write, dance, do magic tricks, perform acrobatics, and play chess and musical instruments. However, even then they were just mechanical creatures controlled by man without a will of their own--unlike the homunculus, which according to alchemical tradition was a real human being created in vitro. Paracelsus, the Renaissance alchemist, went so far as to write a recipe for creating a homunculus. The recipe began with a man's semen, which was left resting for forty days in a vial kept warm by a horse stomach and fed with human blood. After forty weeks the contents of the vial would supposedly transform into a real boy--complete and perfect but smaller than a human baby and, like the golem, lacking a soul.

Frankenstein and Pinocchio

At the start of the nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution was in full swing. Taking inspiration both from the experiments of Luigi Galvani (who used electrical arcs to induce movement in a corpse) and from the golem story, in 1818 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley anonymously published her celebrated gothic novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. It's the story of a Swiss scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who, shocked by the death of his mother, cultivates an impossible dream: creating an intelligent human being with perfect health and a long life. Frankenstein's illicit studies, which include dissecting corpses stolen from cemeteries, allow him to obtain the knowledge necessary to turn his dream into reality. But the creature, deformed and with superhuman strength, escapes his creator.

Even more so than the golem, then, the figure of Frankenstein (a name often misapplied to the monster itself) became a real modern myth, drawing his mythical power from the fear that technological progress can escape man's control. It is no surprise, then, that many consider Frankenstein the first true science-fiction novel.

Throughout the 1800s, there were stories and novels telling of unusual mechanical or artificial creatures. In "Sandman" (1815), writer E.T.A. Hoffmann told the story of a love between a man and a mechanical doll. The Steam Man of the Prairies (1815), a dime novel by Edward S. Ellis, is about a big mechanical steam man used to carry coaches across prairies.

Luis Senarens, known as the "American Jules Verne," in 1885 imagined the first mechanical man activated by electricity in his book Frank Reade and His Electric Man. The following year, Frenchman Mathias Villiers de l'Isle-Adam first used the word android in a novel, L'Eve Future, in which he imagined inventor Thomas Edison creating an almost perfect artificial woman.

Even in my country of Italy, the subject has fascinated our literati. Ippolito Nievo, in his 1860 novel Storia Filosofica dei Secoli Futuri (Philosophical History of Future Centuries), imagined that in the future there would be "man-machines," which he labeled an invention "that surpasses anything man has ever imagined." Much more modestly, but with a genial stroke of fantasy that still warms the hearts of children today, Carlo Collodi imagined in 1883 that a block of wood could take on life and transform into a boy, Pinocchio. It's true that Pinocchio is a fairy tale, but the story contains all of the fundamental elements of future tales about androids (including Steven Spielberg's sci-fi movie A.I.: Artificial Intelligence).

Robots and Androids

It wasn't until 1921 that the very first true robots made their appearance in the three-part drama by Czech author Karel Čapek titled R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots). These robots (more properly androids because they have human features) are the product of Rossum's factory and are used as low-cost laborers. The dream of the owner of the factory is to free the human race from slavery and physical work, but the effects are catastrophic. Humanity reacts by embracing all sorts of vices and idleness, allowing robots to take control and aim for inevitable human extinction.

But if R.U.R. was the first to introduce the word robot, the most famous android of the 1920s certainly is femme-bot Maria from Fritz Lang's film Metropolis (1927). The complex plot devised by Lang, set in a disquieting future world with strong class separation, sees Maria as an evil creature who creates dissent among the masses in revolt.

Although certainly the most famous, Lang's robot was not the first mechanical android in cinema. That medal goes to magician Harry Houdini, who in 1919 introduced one such creature in his cliffhanger serial for the cinema titled The Master Mystery. Here, the robot, called Automaton, is at the service of a criminal gang against whom Houdini, star of the series, has to fight. By the end of his adventures, Houdini is able to destroy the armor of the robot and discover--hidden inside the robot--the boss of the gang. It was, then, a half robot. Or perhaps it could have been called a cyborg: a cybernetic organism made of both artificial and biological parts.

From the 1930s on, the idea of the automaton, the robot, or the replicant artificially created by man has become very popular and is constantly seen in sci-fi novels and films. From the many books about robots by Isaac Asimov to movies like Westworld, Star Wars, Terminator, Blade Runner, Alien, RoboCop, Star Trek, and so on, the subject has never lost its appeal. It will certainly continue to fascinate people, at least until the day when robots become so common that nobody takes notice of them anymore. If such a day ever comes, that is.

At CICAP, the Italian Committee for the Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, every year we receive a few dozen requests from people claiming to possess some kind of psychic power. Many disappear after we ask for more details. Of those who remain, we almost always find that they are sincere and honest people who really believe they possess the powers they claim. Very rarely does someone try to deceive or cheat us.

Some time ago, we received a letter from a woman, R.G., who claimed she can peer inside sealed boxes with some sort of X-ray vision and describe what is inside with a 60 to 70 percent rate of success. She wanted us to test and verify her powers. In letters and phone calls she explained that we could use any kind of box and any object we liked.

We gladly accepted her proposal and invited her to the University of Pavia, where, with the help of colleagues such as chemist Luigi Garlaschelli and physicist Adalberto Piazzoli, we have often tested psychics.

Once in Pavia, she agreed that the testing situation was ideal, that the people there were not hostile, and that she was confident she would succeed. It is very important to establish this beforehand to prevent excuses if the test fails. She read the protocol for the experiment that we had prepared in advance according to her claims, and she signed it.

No ‘Fitting’ Allowed

We had previously selected twelve objects, each one different from the others in shape, color, and material. These objects were taken to a different room from the one where the test was taking place and randomly numbered from 1 to 12. An experimenter then chose a random number, picked up the corresponding object, wrapped it in paper in order to avoid any clues from sound (the psychic confirmed beforehand that paper didn’t block her visions), put it in a wooden box kept firm by two rubber bands, and finally brought the box within view of R.G. (The experimenter who placed the objects inside the box had to stay away from R.G. in order to avoid any involuntary nonverbal communication.) This procedure took place for each object, and each object was chosen only once.

When R.G. saw the box for the first time, she asked us to remove the rubber bands around it because they could confuse her images. We agreed on the condition that nobody could touch or get close to the box after it was placed on a table.

We then gave R.G. a list of the twelve objects in order to help her decide. She had to concentrate on the box and then indicate on the list the object that best matched her visions. This was done to av­oid “fitting” a general description to more than one object; her vision could match one, and only one, object on the list. If she wished, she could switch one guess for another before the end of the test.

The correct answers would be given only at the end of the session. As usual, we videotaped the whole test.

‘I See Something Square....’

Sitting six feet away from the box with her husband beside her, R.G. concentrated for a few seconds and then described her perceptions: “I see something square... a bit thick... something dark... straight...” She then pointed to the rubber stamp on the list.

The test went on until she reached the last object: “It’s something rigid,” she said. “Straight but... not a cube. It has only one color... looks like a pen, a tube... could be the key.”

At the end of the test, we compared R.G.’s guesses to a list of the objects in the order in which they were presented. Out of twelve objects, she got only one match—exactly what one would expect by chance.

R.G. tried to justify her unsuccessful performance by saying that the conditions (to which she had previously agreed) were not the ones she was accustomed to. She then tried to accommodate her descriptions to the objects actually presented. For example, the object that she had indicated was a key turned out to be a mirror. “Well, I was right after all,” she said. “It was something straight, not a cube and only had one color.” The lady seemed to have forgotten that she also had said the object looked “like a pen, a tube.”

There’s No Place Like Home

We had designed our protocol on the basis of what R.G. said she could do (and in conditions under which she said she could succeed). We had tried to accommodate her needs. However, the failure bothered her, and she insisted that this was not the procedure she used at home. Usually, she said, she needed two series of objects: one for the test, the other to be kept in front of her so that she could compare her visions with a replica of the actual object and not with a word on a list. This was the first time she said something of the kind to us.

So, even though the official test was over, we agreed to perform an informal trial. We looked for twelve double objects in the laboratory and proceeded as before. Again, the result was quite clear: one hit in twelve trials.

Still, R.G. was unconvinced and repeated that, at home, she would usually get six or seven objects out of ten and proceeded to indicate two more differences with our test. At home, her husband could use the same object more than once, and this gave her more freedom of choice. Furthermore, she needed some encouragement; she needed to know if she was right or wrong immediately after her guess.

Some of us were against the idea of performing a new test and changing the protocol again. However, after clearly stating on camera that the test was not to be considered a proper, scientific test and that it was done only as another informal trial, in view of future tests, we decided to try.

Since this demonstration proved to be very quick to prepare, we did twenty-eight trials with a choice of the same seven objects for each trial. R.G. was right on six cases. Even this demonstration was not considered significant (in order to have a minimum of significance, p=0.02, with seven objects and twenty-eight trials, nine to ten hits are re­quired).

At the end of our meeting, we suggested that R.G. repeat the test as we had performed it that day at home. This way, we thought, maybe she would realize that once the possibility of adapting one’s “visions” to the correct object in the box is ruled out, the results can be only random (unless she really possessed psychic powers, obviously). We said that we would invite her back if, following this procedure, she could still obtain a 60 to 70 percent success rate.

A few years have passed now, but we have never heard from her again.

Debora Moscogiuri was a mystical seer living in Manduria (Taranto) in southern Italy. During ecstatic periods, she could supposedly see and receive messages from the Madonna, which she would then deliver to worshippers. Other phenomena were said to take place in and around the seer's home, including religious icons (pictures and statues) allegedly weeping blood. As is usually the case, none of these phenomena had been carefully investigated or documented, nor were DNA tests performed to ascertain the origin of the blood.

In 1995 one of Moscogiuri's statues of the Virgin Mary allegedly began to drip olive oil. Sealed containers, such as small bottles or jars, left in the proximity of the statue were later found to be partially filled with oil. These had been tied with ribbons, taped, sealed with wax, and placed inside plastic bags. At Moscogiuri's request, some olive leaves were placed inside the bottles before they were sealed.

This phenomenon was reproduced when Dr. Giorgio Gagliardi, a physician from Milan, prepared two such wax-sealed containers: one was kept in his office and a second identical one was sent to Manduria, which was returned to him weeks later with some oil in it—still sealed. Nothing had happened inside the jar kept in Milan. Realizing that wax and tape seals are inadequate against tampering, Gagliardi asked us about secure, "tamper-evident" containers.

Evidence of Tampering

When testing psychic claimants, it is sometimes necessary to allow the subject to take some target material away from the laboratory in order to try and obtain a psychic effect on it in his home. Until a short time ago, the importance of using foolproof containers when conducting this kind of experiment was not fully recognized. Consider, for example, the naiveté with which some parapsychologists investigated the claimed psychokinetic powers of children and teenagers in the past. Since children and teenagers were thought unlikely (or unable) to cheat, they were too readily left alone with target material, such as spoons or pieces of metal to bend. Then, when bends were found in the material, psychic investigators immediately assumed that some kind of psychic force was at work. Later investigations showed these suppositions to be wrong, and now stricter controls are (or should be) used when testing psychic claims.

Preparing "fool-proof" containers (e.g., bags, envelopes, or boxes), which do not allow the subject access to the item contained inside, has always been a challenge. However, preventing access to the item (e.g., by placing it in a steel safe) is probably not as important as making sure that the container is "tamper-evident," meaning it is prepared in such a way that any improper attempt to open it can be easily detected. Special security items are now used to this end. The old sealing wax, for example, has been replaced by self-adhesive labels that show signs of physical tampering, such as attempts to peel it off or the application of heat or solvents. These strips also carry unique identification numbers, used to determine when someone has replaced a strip with a duplicate after opening the container.

Sealing the Tubes

Returning to our investigation of Debora Moscogiuri, Luigi and I confirmed with Gagliardi that the kind of seals he had used could be easily opened and later replaced. Therefore, we prepared a set of sealed test tubes as follows: a) an olive leaf was put into each glass test tube; b) the tubes were flame-sealed on a Bunsen burner, taking care not to scorch the leaf inside; c) each tube was numbered in several positions using a vibrating glass-etching instrument; d) each tube was checked for invisible gaps by holding it under water (in such conditions small air bubbles would escape from those imperfectly sealed); e) the tubes were weighed on a precision lab balance (tared just prior to this operation), recording all digits within a milligram of precision; f) each tube was then photographed with additional close-up lenses to record the etched number and shape of the sealed tip, where the glass had been melted.

When these tubes were slightly heated, the leaf inside gave off a few tiny droplets of water. The general look was quite different from that of oil, the total weight of course did not change, and the droplets were re-absorbed after a few days. Thus we decided not to worry about this detail. Each tube could then be identified by its weight and photograph, and each was "tamper-evident," as there is no way that glass can be melted and resealed exactly in its original shape.

Eight of these vials (numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10) were delivered to Moscogiuri through Gagliardi and Father Civerra, a Catholic priest who followed the seer. We did not know the whereabouts of the sealed tubes, nor what was happening to them at the other end of Italy.

Surprise, Surprise!

Two notable events followed. We received news from Civerra, wherein he reported a mystical vision by Moscogiuri of the Blessed Virgin: she had seen a large tongue of flame (of the Holy Ghost) approach the tubes and take one of them away, leaving just seven (the number of the Virgin's sorrows). Later, there was speculation that some of our tubes contained oil.

Through the intermediacy of Gagliardi and Civerra, we managed to get our tubes back. We then examined them during a videotaped meeting attended by both Gagliardi and Civerra. Afterward, all participants signed a statement of the results. Civerra had put the tubes we had prepared into a jar and then into a plastic bag; each of these containers had been wax-sealed. For the reasons given above, we disregarded these extra security measures and requested that only our tubes be taken out and checked. It should be noted that when asked, Civerra admitted that he had no way of verifying whether his wax seals had been tampered with and replaced.

It turned out that: a) one of the eight tubes (number 3) was missing; b) tubes 1, 2, and 7 were intact and did not contain any liquid; c) tube 4 had a broken tip that had produced a small gap, but no liquid was present; and d) tubes 6, 8, and 10 contained a yellow viscous liquid.

A comparison with the photographs of the originals showed that the tips had been melted and resealed. The shapes of the tips were clearly different. One of the tubes had been tampered with on the side, and the glass was deformed, leaving a large bubble. One tip was also slightly cracked. All three of these phials contained traces of a black substance, and the leaf was partially or completely carbonized.

It was quite apparent that some crude tampering had occurred, which was indicative not of a miracle but, on the contrary, of some sort of fraud carried out by somebody in Moscogiuri's group. However, Civerra did not accept our suggestion of fraud, claiming that he placed more trust in his own external wax seals and that any deformity in the tubes was due to the "Holy Ghost's flame" in Moscogiuri's vision.

Despite Civerra's claim, we concluded that such flame-sealed glass test tubes—prepared with the few simple control procedures described above—could actually be a useful tool in the hands of researchers testing psychokinetic abilities.

As for Debora Moscogiuri, it appears that she still claims to have visions and periodically receive messages from the Virgin Mary, but strangely enough, materializations of oil inside containers no longer take place. l

Acknowledgment

This study would not have been possible without the work of Luigi Garlaschelli.

In February 2009 the family of a recently buried man found his tombstone moved aside. After this occurred three more times, they called the police to find out who was disturbing their relative’s resting place. The police decided to place a hidden camera in front of the burial spot, and the resulting footage amazed onlookers.

A Chilling Mystery

“[It’s] Absurd, [and] it really gave me the creeps,” Anna Van der Meer, spokesperson for the Fryslân police, told the media. “When I saw the video I was flabbergasted. You can see the stone slide aside, almost falling to the floor. Then it comes to a halt against another gravestone of an adjacent grave, leaving the tomb open. How is that possible? I don’t know, the lid weighs around 400 kilos. Furthermore, in the video you can clearly see that the stone is standing still then unexpectedly, in the blink of an eye, it slides aside over a distance of about a yard. I have never seen anything like this in my whole career. We have no possible explanation.”

This poses quite a challenge for a mystery detective. Since I was planning a lecture tour of northern Europe, I called on my good friends at the Stitching Skepsis, the Netherlands’ group of skeptics. Jan Willem Nienhuys, secretary of the group, told me that no one in Aaslum was really afraid or concerned about what had happened, not even the priest of the church where the graveyard was located.

Since I was going to be in the Netherlands soon, I was hoping to witness the sliding of the stone firsthand, but Jan Willem explained to me that the stonecutter had taken the lid back in order to roughen the bottom part. He later secured it in place with pegs and cement, preventing any further movement. From that moment, the phenomenon stopped.

I was then able to count on the help of another good friend from the Stitching Skepsis, Gert Jan van’t Land, who got in touch with the police investigators. Unfortunately, the police refused to make available their files or any other formal information about the investigation because of the Dutch Law on the Protection of Police Information. However, Inge Oevering of the Nethe­rlands Forensic Institute told Gert Jan, contrary to what newspapers had reported, that they did not conduct any investigation into the tombstone or the tape made on the graveyard. The Dutch “CSI-investigators” therefore could not provide any insight or information on the case. Gert Jan was also able to ascertain that Paul Andriessen, a Dutch geology professor incorrectly cited in the national newspapers as having studied the videotape, never saw the recording of the moving tombstone. He had only received a telephone call from a journalist who was interested in his opinion about the case.

A Freezing Solution

What is the most likely explanation for this unusual phenomenon? Some ghoul or ghost?  According to the police officers who watched the video, the tape shows only a straight downward movement of the tombstone along the longitudinal axis of the grave and no upward movement of the tombstone, as had been reported in some media. Also, the movement occurred in the afternoon, and the tape shows sunny conditions and some melting snow or ice on the tombstone.

If the police officers in Fryslân gave a correct account of what was on the tape, the opinion of Gert Jan, who is preparing a detailed report on this event, is that the most likely explanation is unusual but not unlikely. The movement was almost certainly caused by water, under the right meteorological circumstances, entering into the crevice between the tombstone and the rectangular stone framework supporting the tombstone.

Several ingredients were needed to make the tombstone move in a straight slide along its longitudinal axis. The fact that the tombstone did not lie completely flat but at a slight angle was a prerequisite for movement by the force of gravity. The very smooth surface of both tombstone and supporting stone was the second ingredient in making the slide possible.

But the final solution lies in the fact that, as church sexton Tjerk Smits explained, every time the tombstone moved, the meteorological conditions were always the same: a cold night with temperatures below freezing, a bit of snow or ice on the tombstone, and sunny weather in the afternoon.

This all leads to the following scenario, as explained by Gert Jan:

Water from rain or melting snow entered the crevice between the tombstone and the supporting piece of granite; low temperatures formed a small layer of ice in the crevice. Since ice needs more space than water, the contact between the tombstone and the supporting pieces of granite probably diminished, [and] more and more the tombstone came to rest on a small layer of ice. The power of expansion of freezing water is considerable—in fact it was used in ancient quarries to split stones. The ice could very well have formed a bridge between the tombstone and the supporting pieces of granite keeping the tombstone in place. The afternoon sun probably heated the black tombstone, and the ice in the crevice melted. As more and more ice melted, the friction between the stones became less and less until the force of gravity won and the tombstone started to move. After [the tombstone] started to move  (it “yielded”), downward movement continued until it was halted by an adjacent gravestone. Continuing movement after a sudden start is a normal phenomenon. It is well known in mechanics that friction between moving parts is less than friction between parts that are not moving.  It can be seen in avalanches: after movement starts, it continues.

The tombstone had been constructed in October 2008. Since then, it appears it was just waiting for the right circumstances that would make movement possible.

Acknowledgment

Thanks to Gert Jan van’t Land, Jan Willem Nienhuys, and all my friends at the Stitching Skepsis for their kind help and assistance.

According to tradition, the Ark, as a physical manifestation of God, possessed extraordinary power able to evoke disasters and defeat enemies. It is thanks to the Ark, for example, that Joshua is able to part the River Jordan. It’s the Ark that destroys the walls of Jericho and allows the Hebrew people to conquer the city.

The Bible implies that the Ark was figuratively last seen in the sky. “Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and within his temple was seen the Ark of his Covenant.” Some believe that the Ark really existed and are convinced that it is hidden on Earth.

The Lost Ark

According to common interpretation by biblical scholars, the Ark was destroyed in 587 bc, when Babylonian troops led by King Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple. Some researchers, however, do not accept this interpretation.

“There is no report that the Ark was carried away or destroyed or hidden,” says Richard Elliot Friedman, professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Georgia. “There is not even any comment such as ‘And then the Ark disappeared and we do not know what happened to it’ or ‘And no one knows where it is to this day.’ The most important object in the world, in the biblical view, simply ceases to be in the story.” Actually, there is a quite detailed description in the Old Testament about the Philistines (enemies of the Israelites) carrying the Ark away: “Then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. When the Philistines took the ark of God, they brought it into the temple of Dagon and set it by Dagon” (1 Samuel 5: 1-5).

Among various hypotheses, there are those who think that the Ark was taken from the Temple before the arrival of the Babylonians. In the First Book of Kings, we read: “And it came to pass in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, that Shishak [Shoshenq I, founder of the twenty-second dynasty] king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem: And he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king’s house; he even took away all: and he took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made” (1 Kings 14:25-26, King James Bible).

And if Shoshenq I took away the treasures, perhaps he took the Ark as well. That premise inspired George Lucas and Steven Spielberg when they wrote Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981, which popularized Indiana Jones as the adventurous archeologist engaged in finding lost relics. When Shoshenq was king, the capital of Egypt was in Bubasti on the Nile delta, which was near Tanis. In the Spielberg film, Indiana Jones finds the Ark in Tanis.

Others have imagined epic adventures in which Templar Knights found the Ark, hid it in a secret underground chamber below Solomon’s Temple, and then took it, along with many other treasures and relics, to some mysterious locale like Chartres Cathedral in France or Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland.

Perhaps more realistic is the discovery made by James Bruce, one of the earliest explorers of Africa, around 1760. Bruce found a document from which it was possible to infer a possible link between Ethiopia and the Hebrews. According to this text, the Ethiopian Queen of Saba (or Sheba) had a child by King Solomon named Menelik. According to legend, Menelik stole the Ark from the temple and took it to Ethiopia around 950 bc.

This piece of information remained relatively unknown until English journalist Graham Hancock decided to investigate it. “The idea that the Ark of the Covenant could be hidden in Ethiopia stimulated my imagination and my curiosity,” says Hancock.

In Axum, Ethiopia, there is a temple that allegedly houses the Ark. “There were many facts that needed explaining. The fact that there existed a population of Hebrews in Ethiopia practicing the Old Testament, the fact that a Christian country worshiped a pre-Christian relic, the fact that there was no other country that claimed to own the real Ark. . . . [These are] mysteries for which I wanted to find the answers,” says Hancock.

He researched the legend of the Ark for two years and wrote a 600-page book, The Sign and the Seal: The Quest for the Lost Ark of the Covenant. His conclusions, however, are less than impressive. At the end of his investigation he found himself chatting with the guardian of the temple in Axum, who forbade him to enter. No one, except for the guardian, could see the Ark. And so the only proof of the existence of the Ark rested on the testimony of the guardian.

Mystery fosters curiosity, and owing to the fact that no one can see the Ark in Axum, Hancock made a fortune thanks to mere speculation. Perhaps in the temple there is a replica of the Ark built according to biblical descriptions, but not even this is certain.

An Electricity Storage Device?

Apart from the possible resting place of the Ark (assuming it really existed), another question that many have tried to answer is what this mysterious object could be. Some believe the Ark has supernatural powers; some see the Ark, the Ten Commandments, and the frequent conversations that Moses had with God as proof of ancient contact with more evolved beings, probably extraterrestrials. Erik Von Däniken, for example, was convinced that the Ark was some kind of radio receiver through which aliens passing in spaceships communicated their will to the prophet. “I seem to remember,” says Von Däniken, “that the Ark was often surrounded by flashing sparks and that Moses made use of this ‘transmitter’ whenever he needed help and advice. Moses could hear the voice of his Lord but could not see his face.”

There is no mention of flashing sparks in Exodus, and Von Däniken eventually changed his mind. He later claimed that maybe the Ark was a miniature nuclear reactor. He suggested that the machine stored water from the night dew, then green algae (chlorella) was added, and manna came out of the machine. The reaction needed to form manna was radiation.

The thought that the Ark was some kind of anachronistic technological artifact is quite appealing to some. Two British enthusiasts, Michael Blackburn and Mark Bennett, researched the topic (Fortean Times, 2006). The Bible says that those who carried the Ark had to be dressed in a specific way and that no one could touch it. In one instance, it appears that the Ark was in danger of falling from the cart, and a man named Uzzah jumped forward in order to stabilize it—he died instantly.

What if the Ark, wondered Blackburn and Bennet, was no less than a primitive electrical condenser? The description in the Bible (a wooden box covered in gold with two golden cherubs facing each other on the lid with wings outstretched and almost touching) reminds one of the Leyden Jar, a very simple device that accumulated and stored a large amount of static electricity that when discharged could deliver a very powerful jolt. “The cherubim would act as the positive and negative terminals,” say the two authors. “Using the example of the 500 gram, coffee-jar-sized Leyden Jar, and assuming that this could store a charge of approximately 200 volts, the Ark would have held the equivalent of 125 such jars, giving it a comparable, if not greater, potential voltage, as well as, more importantly, allowing for a much longer discharge time,” Blackburn and Bennet explained.

All of this is interesting speculation, even though such a hypothesis raises more questions than it answers. How did the ancient Hebrews discover the properties of static electricity? How could they electrically charge the Ark before taking it into procession? And what could be the use of a similar object, apart from producing a strong electrical discharge?

An Invention of the Ancient Egyptians?

The Ark, in fact, should be seen not as a real object but as a symbol, say modern historians of the Old Testament. “I see an enormous disparity between the historical fact and the narration of it,” says Gianantonio Borgonovo, teacher of Exegesis of the Old Testament at Catholic University in Milano, Italy. “Every narration must have a link to some historical fact, but here there is none. What I mean is that when there was the Ark nobody talked about it, now that there is no Ark everybody talks about it.”

It is a fact that no biblical-era figure writes about the Ark except for the prophet Jeremiah, “But his text had been rewritten and corrected a century later, when the Temple had already been destroyed. Another contemporary, Ezekiel, could have talked about the Ark but didn’t,” explains Borgonovo.

Borgonovo continues, “probably, there never was in Solomon’s Temple an object called ‘The Ark of the Covenant.’ It is just a highly symbolic image that, not accidentally, becomes an object of reverence for Christians, which contains the Ten Commandments, some manna, and Aaron’s staff. So, the question now becomes: Why choose the Ark as a symbol? This is a likely consequence of the Egyptian origins of the Hebrew tradition. It was Tutankhamun, in XIV century bc, who gave the most beautiful description of the Ark.”

It was the forgotten pharaohs who depicted the possible origin of the Ark’s tale on the decorated walls of the East-facing pillars of the palace of Ramses II in Luxor. There one can still see a symbolic representation of the feast of Apet, an Egyptian holiday that announced the culmination of the flooding of the Nile, on which the New Year’s harvest depended. On the wall there is a drawing that appears to show an ark carried on long poles supported by the shoulders of a group of priests. This, however, is not a box but a miniature boat carried by sedan-bearers, as in the Biblical tradition.

The link between Apet’s feast and the Ark of the Covenant is clear if one believes that ancient Egyptians used to carry their gods in procession inside the miniature boats. During Apet’s feast, then, “arks” contained small stone representations of the pantheon of Egyptian gods, just like the Ark of the Hebrews contained the stones of the Ten Commandments, symbol of the God of Israel. l

Reference

• Blackburn, Michael and Mark Bennet. Re-Engineering the Ark. Fortean Times 207, March 2006, pp. 48-55.

It is something that many of us have experienced, at least once. Many don’t take notice, but others do and wonder if the cause of such interference lies inside them.

“The fact that so many witnesses are making claims which seem to involve a Street Light Interference (SLI for short), that they are doing so in apparent good faith, and doing so independently of one another and without awareness, that the effect may constitute a phenomenon in its own right, these circumstances encourage us to proceed on the basis that SLI, whatever its nature, does indeed occur.” These are the words of Hilary Evans, English author, fellow researcher and friend, who in 1993 founded “Project SLIDE”.

Says Evans: “Project SLIDE was created simply as a first step towards defining and assessing the apparent phenomenon. As its name implies, it sets out to be little more than an exchange of information between those who are interested.”

The idea is that there appears to be an effect that is not consistent with our current knowledge of how people interact with the physical world, and which occurs in specific circumstances.

Four explanations for SLI have been proposed.

Delusion

“A primary question must be: does SLI occur at all, or are the alleged witnesses deluding themselves?” wonders Evans. “Until the phenomenon is scientifically tested, it is not possible to give a decisive answer to this question. However, SLI has not the ‘appeal’ of witchcraft or abductions: there is nothing like the same psychological pay-off. Individuals seeking to enhance their reputation for possessing special gifts will not find much to flatter themselves with in SLI. In short, it seems highly unlikely that all SLI experiences are delusory.”

Energy Fields

Some believe that what is causing street lamps to turn off could be some kind of “energy” emitted by the human body. Eyewitnesses report that the turning off of the lamp happened while they were tired, stressed, furious, or sad. Some others, however, think it might be some kind of static electricity produced by their body.

However, the only form of energy known to science produced by the human body comes via food and breathing and is then used by the body to walk and work. There are no other energies produced or emitted by the human body (except for body warmth, of course). Static electricity is not produced by the human body but by rubbing things, usually synthetic clothes, in a dry climate. It has nothing to do with one’s state of mind. Furthermore, the static electricity produced by a polyester jacket has no way of interacting with street lamps, usually high above street level.

Paranormal Phenomenon

Paranormal phenomenon is the least likely possibility. Science has never confirmed that the human mind can cause physical effects at a distance, which is what seems to be occurring in SLI. “However,” says Evans, “SLI does have one great advantage over most psychokinetic experiments: the subjects of the effect—the street lamps— are not easily manipulated.” The only problem is that experiments to test SLI are not easy to conduct since this appears to be a phenomenon that just happens at random and is not produced by one willing for it to happen.

Mechanical Effect

“The fact that a mechanical device is involved logically suggests that a mechanical explanation should be looked for,” says Evans. But what kind of explanation?

In order to answer this, we need first of all to determine what kind of lamps we are talking about. I asked Mario Bonomo, professor of illuminating engineering at the University of Milano, to illuminate me. “The most common ones, almost all over the world, are sodium vapor lamps. These are gas-discharge lamps that use sodium in an excited state to produce light.” There are two varieties of such lamps: low pressure and high pressure. Low pressure are those that produce the characteristic yellow light, while high pressure give a whiter light that allows colors to be recognized. Street lamps usually have low pressure bulbs.

“These bulbs take three to four minutes to light up and have a lifespan of 8,000 hours, two years approximately,” continues Bonomo. “When a bulb reaches the end of its life it shows a behavior that could explain SLI. Older lamps need a higher tension than the one they receive. This means that when they are turned on, the tension is sufficient. But when they reach their maximum luminosity, the tension required is more than what is received. This causes the lamp to turn off. Now, in order for it to light up again, the bulb needs to cool off first. And this takes a few minutes. After this, the process, known as cycling, starts again from the beginning until the bulb is substituted with a new one.”

This could explain the repeated turning on and off of the lamps. But how can we explain it when it is not just one lamp turning off but all the lamps on a street?

“There are two possible causes,” says Bonomo. “The first one is that the bulbs on that specific street are all the same age and, thus, they all get old at the same time, producing clustered but random on and off cycles. However, if street lamps in a specific street turn off all at once, then the problem lies in the central electric-control panel. There usually is one that controls all the lights in a specific block, or one every 200 square meters. A power failure or a short-circuit can cause all the lamps controlled by that panel to turn off.”

Finally, if the connection between the lamp and its socket is faulty and gets interrupted for some reason, even for a fraction of a second, the bulb turns off and then it will need a few minutes to turn on again. A contact, especially if already faulty, can be interrupted even by some minor vibration, like a kid kicking the lamp post, a large truck passing in the street, wind rocking the bulb, and so on.

The Power of Suggestion

This is all very interesting and could actually explain much of the SLI phenomenon. However, in order to understand fully what might be taking place here, it is important to consider the observer bias as well. Our mind is drawn by significant coincidences, and so we are much more likely to notice when a street light near us turns on or off than when a street light is in a steady state.

It could just be, then, that SLI is a mix of different natural factors. The normal behavior of bulbs getting older, observer bias, and maybe something else, like the fact that some specific lamps, such as those in gardens or on patios, have infrared sensors that can turn them on or off when something is moving within range. Other lamps are programmed with a timer that turns them on or off at specific hours. Some people realize this is the cause of such changes in the lights.

Evans, however, feels that there is something more in SLI and, thus, he says we should proceed as though the phenomenon exists. “For one very good reason, the fact [is] that a good many people are reporting the experience as though an actual phenomenon is involved. Certainly, people can be mistaken or deluded, and we must keep this possibility in mind. But that, too, is something that would have to be proved before we would accept it; and until such time as it is proved, it is right to respect the testimony of people who claim these experiences at first hand.”

The whole thing, however, could become really significant when the same person, at different times and with different lamps, over a consistent period of time, keeps on noticing anomalous behavior of street lamps. So far, however, nobody seems to have had this experience.

Further Reading

1. You can download for free Hilary Evans’s booklet, The SLI Effect, Assap Publications, at assap.org.

“Are you sure you took everything?” asked the slender one.

“Of course!” said the shorter one, who was carrying a backpack. “I checked the inventory. I even took the infrared goggles and a telescopic steel rod.”

“Really?”

“Well . . . as a form of self-defense. You never know.”

The two reached a tall, black gate.

“It’s locked.”

“Hold this,” said the shorter one, handing the backpack to his colleague. After searching it, he took out a large ring with a dozen keys attached.

“Here they are! They assured me that with these there would be no problems.”

“We’ll see. . . .”

One at a time, the short fellow inserted the keys in the keyhole. But not one worked.

“Damn! I knew it. We should have checked first that it worked.”

The road was empty. Only one car had passed since Slender and Shorty stopped by the gate, but it did not slow down. The dark shadows hid them from the light.

“All right, if that’s the way it has to be. . . .”

Slender shined a pocket light into the keyhole. “It’s an old Wally model, there should be no problem.”

Shorty took a leather case out of his pocket and opened it. There were a dozen different lockpicks. One was chosen, and the operation started. “It should be no problem,” puffed Shorty, who was crouched on his legs while trying to pick the lock, sweat dripping from his face. “Yeah, it’s easy when you just hold the light and someone else has to do the dirty job.”

“Cut the chatter. Let’s move along.”

After a few more attempts there was a reassuring “click.” The door was open.

“Quick!” snapped Slender. “Stand up.”

“What . . . ?”

“I said quick, get inside!” Slender pushed his mate in the dark hallway and closed the gate. “Don’t say a word.”

They both hid behind a wall, holding their breath. A police car passed by without stopping.

“That was close!” sighed Slender.

Shorty protested. “Close for what? You make it seem like we are two burglars here!”

Slender smiled. “Yeah, and it’s more fun, isn’t it?”

“We are here on a scientific mission,” continued Shorty. “We are not on a secret hunt to rob lost treasures or something like that.”

Slender turned on his pocket light and did not reply. They were in a dark corridor, but down the hall a door that led to the field outside could clearly be seen. It was open when they reached it.

When they stepped outside, the pocket light was no longer needed. The moon was quite bright, but the field, full of a thousand flickering flames, was more luminous. Quite an unexpected view—surreal but almost romantic. Slender regretted he was there with Shorty and not with his girlfriend.

However, it was indisputable: a cemetery at midnight was a sight not to be missed.

Luminous Fungis and Earth Lights

The two mysterious figures in the story above are my friend and colleague Luigi Garlaschelli and myself. Actually, Luigi is not that short, but I needed an easy descriptor for him. And since he is just a little shorter than I am . . . my apologies, Gigi!

The night visits at the Major Cemetery in Pavia, Italy, took place some time ago when we decided it was time to investigate the “will o’ the wisp” phenomenon. Of course, we obtained official permission from the county administration—“scientific purposes” was the reason we gave for our requested visit. We were quite fascinated by this rare luminous phenomenon, a source of all kinds of supernatural tales.

Also known as ignis fatuus, Latin for temporary fire, will o’ the wisps are in fact said to be ghostly lights, usually seen around graveyards and marshes at night. They look like faint flames or a flickering, glowing fog, usually green, that sometimes appears to recede if approached. Folklorists have collected all kinds of legends related to these mysterious lights, including the fact that they could be some form of spirit lights or have a paranormal origin. Science, however, has precious few facts to offer.

Some have proposed that Armillaria, a parasitic kind of fungi known also as “honey fungus,” could be responsible for some of the apparitions. Some species of Armillaria are bioluminescent and may have been mistaken for will o’ the wisps.

According to another theory, the wisps are nothing more than barn owls with luminescent plumage. Hence, the possibility of them floating around reacting to other lights could explain their strange behavior.

In the 1970s, John Derr and Michael Persinger of the Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, put forth a theory that these lights may be generated piezoelectrically under a tectonic strain.

The theory suggests that the strains that move faults also cause heat in the rocks, vaporizing the water in them. Rocks and soils containing piezoelectric elements such as quartz (or silicon) may also produce electricity, which is channeled up through soils via a column of vaporized water until it reaches the surface, somehow displaying itself in the form of earth lights. If correct, this could explain why such lights can behave in an electrical and erratic—or even apparently intelligent—manner.

Persinger thinks that his theory can be used to predict the manifestation of earthquakes and, along the way, explain many UFO sightings. “When the specific equations between UFO reports (the contemporary label for luminous events) and earthquakes in the central U.S.A. between 1950 and 1980 were applied to the 19th century (earthquakes were recorded then), there were predictable peaks in the numbers of luminous events for specific years,” says Persinger.

“Although there were no reports of ‘UFOs’ in the historical newspapers, there were reports of ‘odd air ships’ and ‘phantom balloons.’ The massive ‘flap’ of 1897, through several tens of states in the southeastern U.S.A., was followed by one of the largest earthquakes in the region.”

As interesting as this theory sounds, and as interesting as it would be to discover whether UFO “flaps” of the past century have been followed by major earthquakes or not, we wanted to test a different kind of will o’ the wisp. The kind that is said to appear in the presence of freshly buried bodies.

Decaying Bodies

One of the most popular scientific explanations for ghost lights is that the oxidation of hydrogen phosphide and methane gas produced by the decay of organic material may cause glowing lights to appear in the air. And this phenomenon is said to occur more easily in the proximity of “fresh” burials.

Thus, we positioned ourselves, with video cameras rolling, in an area of the cemetery where burials had taken place that same day and a few days before. The idea was to document on film the formation of a will o’ the wisp.

Luigi had even built an aspiring pump that would allow him to “suck” the wisp inside a hermetically sealed container in order to later test its chemical composition in the lab. In fact, Luigi has now been able to replicate the lights in his laboratory at the Department of Chemistry in Pavia with the help of his colleague Paolo Boschetti.

At first, the idea was to test the “cool fire” effect. Luigi explains it this way: “According to one hypothesis, the will o’ the wisp is a sort of cold flame, inconsistent with a normal combustion of methane, as reliable eyewitnesses have reported. ‘Cool flames’ can indeed be generated if vapors of suitable organic compounds (such as ethyl ether) come in contact with a hot surface kept at temperatures around 200–300°C [392–572ºF]. These luminescent pre-combustion haloes are sufficiently cool that a hand or a piece of paper can be put in them without being burned.”

The main objection to this interesting hypothesis is that the necessary vapors are not known components of marsh gases, and the presence of surfaces at such high temperatures is difficult to find in nature.

“It is often stated that the phenomenon originates from the spontaneous combustion of gases generated underground by anaerobic fermentation processes,” continues Luigi. “These gases consist mainly of methane and carbon dioxide. Small amounts of phosphine (PH3) and diphosphine (P2H4) [self-igniting on contact with the air] would act as a ‘chemical match’ for the combustible methane.

“Although this hypothesis is one century old, the presence of PH3 in marsh gases has only recently been demonstrated. If the will o’ the wisp indeed is a hot flame, this conjecture might be correct.” If, on the contrary, a will o’ the wisp is a cool “flame,” then the cold chemiluminescence of some compound naturally occurring in marsh gases appears to be a more appealing explanation.

Luigi reconsidered a century-old experiment conducted by German chemists in which phosphine, oxygen, and an inert gas were fed through three small nozzles at the base of a vertical glass tube. By carefully adjusting the flow of the inlets, a faint flickering luminescence could be seen in the dark near the top of the tube due to the chemiluminescence of phosphine.

Luigi built the necessary equipment with a 500 mL flat-bottomed flask, in which he put some solid phosphorous acid. The flask was stoppered by a silicone septum through which a mixture of air and nitrogen was stored on water within a gas tank and fed by a needle. A second needle in the septum provided for the necessary outlet. The flask was flushed with nitrogen and put on a hot plate that was heated to 200°C (392ºF).

“It works!” shouted Luigi, probably feeling a little like Dr. Frankenstein.

The decomposition of phosphorous acid generated phosphine, and a fog formed in the flask. When the air and nitrogen stream was fed into the phosphine vapors, a faint, pale-greenish light was clearly visible in the darkness.

The success in the lab, however, was not matched by success in the field. We spent the entire night at the cemetery, but nothing happened except buzzing and biting mosquitoes. After that there have been repeated visits to cemeteries, graveyards, marshes, and the like, and Luigi has started to carry with him a very sensitive phosphine detector—a portable Draeger Xam-7000—but so far with no luck.

Being able to reproduce spooklights in a lab is one thing. But to see it up close with your own eyes in a cemetery at night is quite another. Hopes are still high, however. There never is a shortage of fresh burials, and hunting season for will o’ the wisps is always open.