Telepathy.
Mediumship.
Clairvoyance.
A 2005 Gallup survey found that three out of four Americans have at least one paranormal
belief.
The most commonly held conviction of those surveyed at 41% was believing in ESP or extrasensory
perception.
But has anyone ever definitively proven that they have a paranormal power or that paranormal
powers are real?
During the 1940’s, a young magician James Randi toured with a carnival performing various
magic and psychic tricks.
He became dismayed with the number of people who were certain that he had mystical powers
and wouldn’t believe that his abilities were clever ploys.
Eventually Randi became a skeptic and debunker.
In 1964, during a radio talk show James offered $1,000 to anyone who could show scientific
proof of their paranormal abilities.
Since his initial offer, James has continued to investigate and debunk various paranormal
and pseudoscience proceedings and beliefs.
In 1996 with a donation from a friend, James created the James Randi Education Foundation
[JREF], a skeptic society, set up an office in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and issued a challenge:
Demonstrate evidence of a paranormal, supernatural, or occult power and we’ll pay you a cool
$1 million.
So has anyone succeeded in winning the money?
Well, as you can imagine, a wide range of applicants who claim various powers have vied
for the prize.
The challenge works this way: an applicant submits a notarized form detailing their ability
and proposes a test to prove the existence of their powers.
JREF accepts or denies the bid based on the plausibility of the claim, possibility of
proving it, level of danger involved in proving the power and other initial guidelines.
For example, JREF famously turned down Rico Kolodzey, a Breatharian who claimed to have
survived for years without eating food.
If JREF decides to move ahead with the applicant, staff and the applicant usually negotiate
the protocol for the preliminary demonstration and arrange a time.
The rules of the demonstration vary according to the particular paranormal power meant to
be showcased.
If the applicant passes the preliminary test, then they would participate in a second final
test where they would demonstrate their power under stricter scientific protocol to earn
the $1 million.
Some interesting challengers were:
L. Colvin who claimed to be a psychic attuned to Jeopardy, the quiz game show.
He could predict with 100% accuracy which of the 30 squares used during the game would
be the Daily-Double before it appeared on the screen.
JREF referred Colvin to a group local to him, the Seattle Skeptics Society for preliminary
testing.
Colvin neither contacted Seattle Skeptics nor followed up with JREF.
Julian Goldberg claimed that he could emit a magnetic field from the palm of his hand
at least 500 times stronger than what normally arises from the functioning of the human body.
After a few emails discussing how a preliminary test would work, Julian ceased responding.
Ian Leahy claimed to be able to summon unidentified flying objects for observation in the sky.
Negotiations for a preliminary test broke down when JREF asked how could they know that
a particular UFO was summoned by the applicant rather than being Northern Lights or any other
weather phenomena that happened to be occurring during the time of demonstration.
Hawaian psychic Achau Nguyen claimed to be able to mentally send words to a person who
would accurately receive them and write them down.
Achau and friends traveled to Los Angeles where Independent Investigations Group, in
conjunction with JREF, conducted a preliminary test.
Before the demonstration Achau and his friend E, who was to receive the telepathic messages
were separated.
Each was scanned with a metal detector.
Furthermore, the men’s shoes, ears and the interior of their mouths were examined for
transmitting technology.
E was then seated at a desk in a room with only one high window.
He was given a pen and two sheets of paper with 20 blanks spaces for answers, and a cup
of water.
A camera was set up to record him and a paranormal investigator with a radio would observe him.
On a different floor, in a room with no outside windows, Achau was seated in front of other
paranormal investigators, a few cameras and a small audience.
He was given a choice of 2 sealed envelopes, each containing 30 index cards.
Upon Achau selecting an envelope, an investigator opened it and had him choose 20 cards.
The investigator then shuffled the 20 cards with his back to Achau and placed them word
side up on the table in view of the audience.
One by one, Achau went through the stack of cards, telepathically sending them to E, who
wrote the answers down.
The investigators in each room radioed each other when each word was sent and subsequently
written down.
Unfortunately Achau failed, his receiver got the word wrong 20 out of 20 times.
A few days after the test, Achau sent an email apologizing for his strong reaction to failing
the initial demonstration of his telepathic abilities and blamed his failure on the receiver
E. Achau felt that if E hadn’t been half hearted in his participation, he would have
succeeded.
In the spring of 2007, after 10 years of offering the $1 million challenge, JREF tightened their
criteria for accepting applicants.
They were receiving several hundreds of claims a year and were spending a lot of time investigating
ludicrous things.
The new rules required applicants to have a meda profile that tracked their paranormal
ability and to be endorsed by someone in academia.
JREF also made the preliminary test optional, depending on the individual investigation,
meaning that some applicants could showcase their extraordinary ability once to win $1
million.
The hope was that new rules would free up time and money, making it easier for JREF
to challenge well known professional psychics, who were making a living of the credulous
public.
Yet, in the summer of 2007, JREF agreed to let Rosemary Hunter to a preliminary test.
Hunter claimed to have the God given talent of being able to make people urinate with
the power of her mind.
While being paranormally induced to pee a participant might also experience side effects
which included laughter, red welts, drooling, uncontrollable crying and healing of minor
injuries.
Her claim was dubiously backed by a local newspaper article where the reporter felt
odd when subjected Rosemary’s power.
Protocol negotiation decided that Rosemary would have 15 minutes to use her paranormal
urination ability on JREF manager Jeff Wagg.
The guidelines for the test were: Jeff was to empty his bladder prior to the demonstration.
Rosemary and Jeff would stand for the duration of the test which would occur in a private
room.
Another JREF staff member would record the proceedings.
A second camera would live stream the demonstration.
Rosemary could touch Jeff’s hand, and speak if necessary, but couldn’t use any props,
only the paranormal ability of her mind to make Jeff pee.
Jeff was not allowed to wear a diaper or any other absorbent item, but could only participate
wearing regular pants and underwear.
So was Rosemary able to physically induce Jeff to pee?
Unfortunately, no.
Most of the time, JREF had trouble getting well known personalities who claim paranormal
abilities to rise to the occasion.
Over the years several professional psychics ignored or refused the challenge; some initially
accepting it, but later backing out with various excuses.
In 2001 during two separate appearances on talk show Larry King Live psychic Sylvia Browne
agreed to take the JREF challenge.
Later on she refused to be tested and maintained that refusal until her death in 2013.
JREF also invited psychic John Edward, and James Randi’s long time nemesis Uri Gellar,
whom James had attempted to denounce as a con man since the 1970’s to take the challenge.
Both ignored the invitation.
The applicants who have attempted a demonstration and failed always have excuses as to why they
failed.
No ever seems to believe that they simply don’t have supernatural ability.
After failing a JREF demonstration of dowsing some randomly selected cards hidden in envelopes,
Danish psychic/dowser Connie Sonne claimed she failed because ‘it wasn’t yet time
for her powers to be revealed.’
In 2008, JREF publically invited British businessman James McCormick to take the challenge.
McCormick’s company Advanced Tactical Security & Communications Ltd (ATSC) was making millions
selling a device called the ADE 651 to security forces in the Middle East and Asia.
Touted as a bomb detector, the ADE 651 allegedly could detect items including guns, ammunition,
drugs, human bodies, and ivory at distances of up to 1 kilometre (0.62 mi), underground,
through walls and underwater.
McCormick never took JREF up on the $1 million challenge.
However, investigation by JREF and other groups helped to publicize the fraudulence of the
device and start a police investigation into it.
ADE 651 was revealed to be a glorified dowsing rod.
Export of the detector was banned by the British government in 2010 and ATCS’s offices were
raided.
Eventually McCormick was arrested, convicted of fraud and sentenced to 10 years in jail.
Also in 2008, baby mind reader Derek Ogilvie agreed to take part in JREF’s $1 million
challenge as part of a UK TV documentary series ‘Extraordinary People’.
For the test, Derek chose pairs of parents and children out of a group of volunteers.
Derek was then isolated in a sound-proof room, while the babies in a different room picked
a numbered ball out of a bag, which corresponded to a specific toy that the baby was then given
the chance to hold.
Derek had to announce which toy the baby had chosen.
Derek failed, answering all 10 chances wrong.
Upon finding out that Jmes Randi had spoken to the parent and child beforehand, Derek
demanded that the test be repeated with untainted volunteers.
The test was repeated and Derek got 1 out of of the second 10 answers right, so overall
1 out of 20, a normal result conforming statistical chance.
Due to criticism that valid contenders couldn’t participate on the paranormal challenge because
of their lack of media coverage, in 2011 JREF loosened its rules.
Finally, in 2015 JREF announced Randi’s retirement and shut down the challenge.
JREF claims to have evaluated over 1,000 applicants and fielded communication with hundreds more.
No applicant has ever succeeded in their bid and made it past the preliminary demonstration.
Some saw the JREF challenge as mean spirited, skewed and/or disingenuous.
They claim that the rules are slanted in favor of the foundation and there’s no guarantee
that the foundation would pay out $1 million if a demonstration proved successful, in fact
there’s no proof that the foundation even had $1 million to give away.
Also since JREF could accept or deny applicants to test for the challenge, they simply turned
away valid challengers with unexplainable powers to exploit applicants who made ludicrous
claims and might even have been mentally ill.
JREF stated that the $1 million was held in bonds and laid out their protocol for demonstrations,
often publicly streaming the events over the web.
Critics also pointed out that no one can perform at 100% all the time, particularly under pressure
with a public audience.
If a psychic has a 50% success rate of of successful sessions, the public demonstration
could be one of the 50 times they fail out of 100 times they tried.
Even a star base pitcher isn’t able to strike out every single batter 100% of the time.
However, it would be unlikely that over 20 years of the challenge that every person with
paranormal abilities would randomly experience failure during a demonstration.
Furthermore, many of the applicants couldn’t achieve any measure of success by proving
at least 1 correct answer during the test.
A number of other skeptic societies around the world continue to offer various monetary
prizes for demonstration of paranormal powers.
However, to our knowledge no one has ever succeeded at a demonstration for paranormal
powers and no skeptic community has ever awarded a prize for doing so.
Now you get to prove your psychic abilities by choosing one of the two videos shown.
One will be the perfect video for you but we won’t tell you which one, so get that
ESP working and pick one now!