ew <cteatist “17 ‘October 1974 Tr oiPRroved FOr Release 2000/08/07, York. But we met several times with an associate, Yasha Katz, in December and sct up a meeting with Geller for @ February to discuss the experiments. And on “Seeing is believing’, a documentary on Thames Television in Lozdon on 15 January, Geller declared “when I am doing enough experiments with scientists, this disbelief will But only a few days after they arrived back in Britain, Katz reported that Geller had received a bomb threat and cancelled the New Scientist meeting and some, but not all. of Getler’s remaining performances. Time passed, and Gatler’s attitude clearly changed, Katz said the New Scientist tests would have to be delayed, although he assured us that Geller had not dropped out. By then, how- ever, Geller had already backed out of several other sets of tests. And on 5 May 1974, on the New York television show Mid-Day Live on WNEW-TV, his view of scientists rad changed to: “the Stanford Research Institute has validated the work I have done with them for a year.” Finally, in June Geller told us on the telephone from New York that “I have changed my mind.... Right now I don’t have the feeling to work with your people.” In preparation for the New Scientist experiments we studied the Geller phenomenon extensively. Dr Joseph. Hanlon went to the US for three weeks in January to talk to the SRi researchers and a large number of other people who had dealt with Geller, in an effort to design effective experiments. This report is based primarily on his investi- gation. but we have not published it until now because it was felt that in: fairness to both SRI and Geller, the SRI _team should have a chance first to report on their research in a formal journal. Nature publishes the SRI report this week despite strong miszivings about both the experimental technique and the results, and that journal is certain to be criticised by some scientists who will argue that publication gives Nature’s stamp of approval to the results. But publication does not ‘jmply agreement, and Nature should indeed be con- gratuleted for exposing the paper-.to intelligent discussion by the scientific community. What follows here is New Scientist’s attempt, based on its own investigation and on the only scientific evidence available so far, to draw its own conclusions about Uri Geller. serra ” 4 . than the one who cannot get the money to go to still fhe New Scientist investigation Like witnesses to a motor accident, people who have seen Uri bend a spoon or doa drawing by telepathy . aM Because this is largely a report of my personal investiga- tion of the Geller phenomenon, it is important to make clear my own attitude and biases. I feel strongly that the next interesting breakthrough in science may well come not from expensive research by huge teams in physics and biology, tut from research by individuals and small teams into the interaction of people and themselves and their surroundings. ee . Through biofeedback, we now have control over our bodies of a sort that not so long ago was almost univer- sally agreed io be impossible. Negative ions in the air seem to affect Gur attitudes. And so on. In the past few years, these areas and others such as parapsychology have: become less the province of hopeful amateurs and more the area of trained scientists. At the same time. big” science, particularly my own field of high energy physics, has become corporate and unimaginative. Finally, tne con- tinuing squeeze on science funding puts the attention more on the scientist who can work on a shoestring rather higher energies looking for the quark. Thus the appearance of Uri Geller and the interest of « two scientists at a primarily military research organisa tion, SRI, sparked my own interest. I was responsible for: securing our first (highly favourable) report on the SRI research on Geller more than a year ago. And I was. particularly pleased that New Scientist agreed to conduct tests, and that Geller agreed. so. I began to collect material relevant to experiments with Uri, and in January I went to the US so that I would. have a background picture before we talked to him in. February. I spoke with critics and believers, talked with’ many scientists and other trained observers who had seen: Geller work, spoke with the SRI scientists and saw some’, of their videotapes, and watched many tapes of Uri's tele- vision appearances, Most of the people taiked to me as a” researcher and not a journalist. But what I found greatly. surprised me, and now that Uri has withdrawn from the proposed New Scientist investigation, I think it important to present this material to put the SRI report in coniext. “: Joseph Henlon tell widely differing stories about the same event. And explanations range from the obvious to the impossible, depending on just what the observers thought they saw The believers . Heirloom spoons, expensive jewellery, fancy watches, and even a piece o1 a meteonte—often among their owners’ most prized possessions—are now jrreparabix broken. But their owners point to them with pride, not anger, because they were destroyed by Uri Geller, ‘This amr2ing vouny Israeli is claimed to have the most phenomenal psychic powers the world has ever seen. Even somme scientists say he can break spoons: by mental powers without touching them, read minds, and make objects and disappear. The man who this year by W. H. Allen), Dr Andrija Puharich, says Geller has accomplished the task which eluded the aichemists— turned lead to gold—and that he com- municates with flying saucers and tele- ports objects thousands of miles by the power of his mind. The whole phenomenon is dominated by Geller’s own personality. He exudes _sincerity and a childlike innocence and desire to please which makes neaple really wantte Hhe and believe in’ him, ‘This is reinforced by a high failure rate, what seems to be a constant fear that he will not be able to do what he is trying, and genuine pleasure when he does suc ceed. And he is a consummate show- man, having: been a male model and a adrnit that jiis main goals in life are fame, money, and women and that he i can be childish, petulant, and extremely *: dificult to work with. It is these latter =. characteristics that caused ex-astronaut’=:: Dr Edgar Mitchell, who was Geller’s ! original funding source and a co-experi- menter on Geller at SRI, to fall out with . Geller last year. Nevertheless, Mitchell -- and others who have experienced his whims still batieve he is one af tha wast, important psychics of our time. Dag Amother aspect of the Geller persoa-'. ality is his hyperactivity and constaat ~ motion. In small groups, cither of the | press or friends. he fits from ene task to another, usually giving up the frst time and suddenly returning to it later. ine ApprovedbarRalease S0HOIRd2 . iA-RDRSE.G8AB7ROOOMOOd HOUR ices just wnat is happening and Geller reads the contents
St v + © bos Por ips every of sealed envelopes which, after he failed to read them before, were left lying around unguarded. _ This means that people often disagree on just what they have seen, and no demonstration is totally convincing. The beef of most of Geller’s supporters is built on a long series of demonstrations, none of which is watertight, but which together they find give a convincing icture. For most people, there are one or two clinching events, although the clincher for one person may be totally unacceptable to another, Joann White, Ed Mitchell’s assistant at his Institute of Noetic Sciences, in Palo Alto, California, told me in January of a Geller test at SRI using a bimorph—a brass strip with special coatings which gives a sigaal in proportion to any bend- ing. The strip was clamped in a vice and Geller was to bend it without touching it, Accordiag to White, suddenly one end of the bar began to disappear and re- appear ona lower level. Geller had clearly dematerialised part of the bar aod rematerialised it elsewhere, White said. But Dr Hal Puthoff, one of the experimenters, found it not particularly convincing and descrihed it somewhat cit - Accerding to Puthol, Gellar bad tried to bend the bar unsuccessfully on one day and then returned to try again the next. Early in the test, a piece of the bar suddenly. appeared on the table, although the signal from the bar Wharton's hands when_it was supp i WR did not AphrdvedForRel dss et 20e0/OH 07H. ClAcRDROG-O07 BROOK ZOO 110026, the envelopes an tsa serio tC would tive been possible For someone to have broken off 4 piece between tests and it nat he t noticed—the equipment was rezeroed in the morning and the film resolution was not good enough to measure the length of the bar. And there is no evidence of it actually disappearing and reappearing —on the film, it is just suddenly ‘there, he said. Yet Puthoff believes implicitly in Geller. One of the events which con- vinced him occurred when he was driving down a motorway with Geller in the car. Puthoff said he queried Geller about flying saucers, and Geller said he would prove he got his power from them and promptly stopped the car without touch- ing anything. : Reporting what you see Another problem is that even experi- enced reporters tend to misreport just what has happened. Bryan Silcock, the science correspondent of the Sunday Times, reported on Sunday 25 November’ last year: “In a taxi on the way to London airport yesterday Uri Geller bent the very tough key to my office desk without even touching it. The key was lving flat in the palm of photesravher Urvan Vrharton’s herd at toe a” But the next Sunday, 2 December, Silcock admitted error on the two most critical points: Geller had handled the key, and it was in fact concealed in convinced he is genuine, but after think- ing carefully about what happened I am _4 Farrand ta allenit ta ase ntl eline wee Ve? l7 October 19. -Uri Geller attempts to bend a journalist's key held by Devid Dimbleby ata press conference a! the BBC Lime Grove: (London) studios on *: 22 November 1973, the day before Geller's -. appearance onthe © =:- Dimbleby Tatk-In broug him to the attention of. the British public : of trickery would have been possible. ; Geller examined the key, then passed - to... Wharton who held it between th palms of his hands. Geller held h hands over Wharton’s for a few seconc ... and sure enough the key turned ov to be bent through an angie of about 1 degrees... . Geller might have distracte our attention when he frst had the ke: bent it, and put it into Brvan Wharton hands already bent.” te Journalists are not alone in havin this problem—trained scientists do ¢ well, Geller and Puharich gave a demor stration at Bell Laboratories, New Jerse: one of the world’s top research centre: on 8 June, 1973. Geller did one of hi favourite tests: reproducing a drawin in an envelope. He always stresses the the envelope is sealed and that he he never seen the drawing before. The Be report, by Charles Davidson, says “tw sealed envelopes were brought" and goe on to report Geller’s accurate reproduc tion of the drawing. But the man wh actually brought the envelopes, 1 Richard Moore, told me in January thz in fact the drawings were put into larg clasp envelopes which were not seale Further, Moore admitted. the drawinr were Gone at short notice, at Galler request, while Geller supposedly was 6 the telephone in the next office. Thu Geller could have used any of sever: magicians’ tricks—including = surrapt he drewings bein looking at the drawings. Ibut the Be report implies that neither was possibl:
paisa *, New +f work in the US on 29 October last year, in which the participants and probably miltions of viewers were convinced they ~ saw Geller bend a nail on television. I watched a videotape of the show, and this is what I saw: There were several nails a table in front of Geller. He picked ce Te uP with his right hand and gave it to |. it and. Mike Douglas, who examined showed on close: -up that it was, indeed, straight. Next, Geller picked up another nal with his left hand and held it by the bottom. With his right hand he took the nail back fromm Douglas and held it, as well, by the bottom. Then he turned to guest Tony Curtis and asked him to hold the top of doth. Still holding both by the bottom, Geller rubbed the nails. Finally he told Curtis to take the nail from his (Gelier’s) right hand—the one we saw to be straight on close up—and put it- Cown. SHI holding the bottom of the left hand nail, Geller continued to stroke, never showing the bottom. Slowly Ee lowered his finger to expose a slight. bend very close to the tip. Despite all of the show of checking to see that a nail “was straight, the audience, Curtis, and Douglas never saw. the tip of the nail until Geller said it was bent. Thus, we have no evidence that the nail was not already bent, perhaps before the show ’ began, by non-paranormal means. Magic sour grapes? Is the diversion and confusion of ob- servers accidental? Many magicians argue that it is quite intentional, and is precisely what they do all the time when they perform. Magician James Randi, a persistent Geller critic, said he talked to stagehands after the Mike Douglas show and that they told him that Geller speci- fied that they should buy a box of ten- penny nails and that he also asked them to wrap some in a bundle with tape an hour before the show. Geller walks around the studio a lot before the show, Randi said, and it would have been easy for Geller to take his own pre-bent ten- peony nail out of his pocket and put it into the bundle when no one would notice. But the magic community, with few exceptions, is strongly opposed to Geller, arguing that he is a magician too, but is earning far more money by claiming to be something more. Professional magi- cians have a vested interest, however, and have carned considerable publicity and money in their own attempts to demonstrate—apparently highly success- fully in some cases—that they can do what Geller does. Finally, the magicians note that Geller has failed to perform when large numbers of magicians are watching, or on TV when macicians help set the conditions, and has consistent iy refused to participate in any scientisc experimeat (such as New Scientist’s) that involves a magician, Nevertheless, as Geller himself said on Mid-Day Live (WINE W- TV, New York, 3 May, 1974), “everything could be dupticateg Sov 3 Fer Release:2000/08 doesn’t have t I did it the Sihentist. “VW October 1974 ne ae a ei MEPIS roved FQ LRelease 2000/98/07 : . cla. RDP96- 36-00787R900709110020 a. contained in Nike Douglas show on the CBS TV net- . . Geller events with Occam Geller’s supporters argue that he is young of his powers, and thus cannot make events happen on command or precisely where he wants. And they point to his high failure rate as being proof of this— if he were a magician, they say, he would always succeed on cue. Further, they argue that if one believes that the power of the mind can do such things, then the power of other minds should be able to block these events. Thus magicians and others who are working strongly against Geller will always make it impossible for him to perform simply by blocking him. Mitchell is “convinced that the negative thought energies of severe sceptics and critics do interfere with the process you are trying to measure” and thus such people should be banned from the room during svcien- tific tests. Why assume the paranormal ? One of the early choices someone studying Geller must make is whether to assume a normal or paranormal hypo- thesis. and most people, including myself, can- not help liking him. And when he per- forms, he really makes you want to believe in him. Combined with the ram- pant confusion that surrounds the Geller tornado wherever he works (which can mean no one ever sees an entire event), it is extremely easy to slip without realising it into the acceptance of para- normal explanations. One of my many surprises was how easily some trained scientists are drawn into acceptance, and then how each event adds to what becomes a strong belief in Geller. But scientists should be guided, at least in formal experiments, by Occam’s Razor: that one should not assume a more complex hypothesis until it is absolutely necessary, simpler explana- tions having failed, _ With Geller, this means that scientists must first convince themselves that events cannot be explained by a com- bination of magic and psychology before they postulate a paranormal explanation.. This need not imply fraud—people communicate far more than they realise by subtle looks, gestures, tone of voice, and so on. In the case of recent reports in Britain of children bending forks and spoons, they may exert more pressure than they realise while stroking the object. Y investigated a large number of in mind, I found it extremely dificult to go back and find out just what happened in a Geller event, because of the previously mentioned problem of getting accurate descriptions af the event. But T have been able to Zain aa approximate picture of what happened in many cf them. In a surprising number, the normal ex- planation was actually more plausible than the paranormal, and the paranormal was accepted only because the vitness was OIOBI07 DGHA. to Geller, event did not even realise that the and simply not yet in full control. | Geller is extremely personable - ¢ pC ROPS6-00787 their own cescription, One example is the case of Geller teleporting Pubarich's camera case from New York to Israel, which Pubarich” quotes in his book Uri and which is often | cited by Geller supporters. When 5% Puharich explained it to me in Janua despite his own belief, a normal explana. tion became obvious. “I had about 120-2, kg of equipment that I was taking to- Israel so I left all of the excess bazzave a behind. And one of the things I cidn’t bring was my camera case for my super - 8 camera with which I document a lot: of my work. One day Uri and I were at ’-: the Dead Sea and I complained to him that one of the dumb things I did was leave this camera case, which is brown, locked in a special closet I have in my .. house for my equipment. About five. hours later he called me up—we'd come - back to Tel Aviv and he’d gone to hi§ <- apartment and I'd gone to my -hotel.!> And he said ‘You know you were ; about a camera case—there js sotneching on my bed here—vyou think i?s yours?’ So I described it to him and I said ‘Look “ inside, ’cause I've ripped out some of | the inside’ and sure enough it was my 3+ camera case.” Puharich then weat to -° Geller’s apartment and identified the case as his. “To my knowledge, there is’: no way it could have gotten there except .~ by teleportation 6000 miles.” A sceptic © might think it more plausible that Geller”; simply went to a camera shop, bought a +." case, and then marked it according to~. Puharich’s own description on the phone. ...; Another similar description appeared .- in the 12 June, 1972 issue of the German newspaper  Biid-Minchen. | Reporters took Geller to a cable car which runs © up the Chiemgau mountains, and asked’. him to stop the car. “At noon the un- . canny one [Geller} boarded a cable car... gondola for the first time io Ais life... ‘I don’t think it can be Cone’, he repeated..." The gondola was suspended ia the air. % Uri Geller noticed a control panel on.) the door which governed the steering ~. mechanism. Suddenly, he cried cut, ‘Ty; think I can bring it off!’ ". Then Geller.” bounded around the car doing various tricks, and periodically changed the direction of the cable car, . Bending keys by hand? ~ Some people, however, have seen and” accepted a normal rather than para: | normal explanation. Bob McAlister, who * produces the for WNEW-TV in New York, toid about™:. one incident when Geller was there... Geller asked for a key, and McAuster _ gave him one. “We were in an aleuve_ outside the control room and Geller said ‘Lets get out of here’. He he! the key up so I could see it, thea he turned his back and as he ot: door the key went in front of nis becy right down by the groin and the other hand came to that position as he was walking through the door. He im- mediately said ‘Do you want to hold vob DOe oa g SH MI bold only showing one corner of the key." 18 wt taining programme Wonderama ::- and be wus ..
.t . . aoe so eu, tae 4s "te thea went fata a room with a lot key in someones FOV ¢ si Ral Abtease'2 of people, NY But presumably, MeaAlister commented, he hae actually bent it while going out the coor. - Thames Television Producer Terry Dixon told me about filming Geller in New York in December 1973. Dixon said that cach member of the crew did a drawing and that the drawings were sealed, first in a white envelope, theu a brown one, in San Francisco two weeks before the crew arrived in New York to talk to Geller. Each crew mem- ber had also signed the envelope. In Geller's flat, Uri was given the dozen sealed envelopes and he handled them one at a time, according to Dixon. At this point both cameraman Mike Fash, and assistant cameraman Peter George, however, noted that Fash’s envelope had fallen on the floor and both said, in- dependently, that Geller would do that éerawing. Eventually, Geller said that he neeced a long rest, and Dixon suggested they move to one of the Thames hotel rooms. Geiler agreed and suggested they take only three envelopes, which he picked (drawings by Fash, George, and Dixon). Geller suggested that they. be sealed together, but there was no Sello- tape immediately available, so the en- velopes were passed to one of Geller’s assistants, Melanie Toyofuku, who had them out of sight of the Thames crew for more than 10 minutes, according to Dixon. She had more than enough time to use any of the magician’s tricks to see inside (rubbing alcohol on the envelopes to make them transparent, holding them up to a strong light, open- ing just'a corner so that a small light can be put inside, or even opening and resealing the envelopes, among others). At the hotel room, Geller succeeded in drawing a combination of Dixon’s draw- ing (a three-dimensional box) and Fash’s (a dice). . Tightening the conditions One thing characterises all of these examples: Geller did not do his feat in the simple, immediate way in which it is usually reported. Instead, he succeeded only after unconscious help from a participant or after taking an extra step which could be used by a magician in a similar circumstance. In other words, for whatever reason, Geller worked in such a way as to make the normal explanation seem more likely than the paranormal. Uri’s sup- porters, of course, will say that these are ail accidents or coincidences, and that he does not use the opportunities they offer for tricks. To test this theory, it is worth looking at what has happened in those cases where the conditions were made tisht enough that Geller could not have sasorted to Perhaps not surprisingly, he does not perform very well. One of Geller's standard feats is to have an object put into one of ten light aluminium 35mm film cans, Geller then sclects eight empty cans, one at a time, and ay picks the one with the cl Ven EUTA TICS. Approved For Release Peer neg, . escalator.” object. On the Merv Griffin show on US TV, Geller did the trick successfully, but some people thought they saw Geller jarring the table so that the cans would shake and he could tell which was heaviest. On the Johnny Carson Tonight show on 1 August, 1973, therefore, special precautions were taken and Geller was not permitted to get near enough to the table to jar it or touch the cans. He failed. On the AM New York show, they went a step further and used heavy film cans that could not be jarred. But. Geller went further as well. Magician Felix Greenfield reported that one of the staff rang him shortly before the . show was to go on at 7 am to say that . when she arrived at §.50 am Geller was already there, and insisted that he watch while she put the objects in the cans ‘and wrapped tape around them. Green- field told her that Geller would probably remember how the target can be taped and suggested she retape them. She did and Geller failed. The Thames TV crew found that Geller could do the film can trick for them when someone was present who knew which can contained the object, but not otherwise, which suggested to them that Geller looked for their reactions. Bob McAlister of WNEW told of some, of the special precautions he took for another Geller event. “Geller said he wanted to try something big like stopping an escalator, and he suggested Bloomin&dales [department store}. But our news department suggested Gimbles because they had worked with the public relations department there before. Geller seemed quite upset and disappeared, saving ‘ve got to make a ’phone call’. When I got to Gimbles, I talked to a guard who told me that you can throw a switch on any floor to stop an escala- tor. On my advice they stationed a guard at the switch at each escalator landing. Geller did not stop the Did they see Geller cheat? At least five people claim to have seen Geller actually cheat. This is a difficult area, because if we cannot trust the reports of observers who say Geller does miracles, why shonld we give any more eredence to those Who sav he cneated? At least some of the examoles, however, seem to have supporting evidence, Perhaps the strongest case is that of Thames sound recorder Sandy McCrae, who said on television on 15 enuaey 2600168107 CIA-RDPS 2000/07 C1A-RDPSE.00 87RO007 _ film magazines are reloaded. According: -clates were “opener. -ee wee ree er Vw eee aus spoon ‘by re The full details of th 2Ouy n&Y¥, however, Or. Ort 4 OZ G23: to his comment: Film magazines contain ten minutes of: film, but a standard sound tape runs 20 minutes. Thus it is normal practice to: leave the sound tape running while the to McCrae, while the cameramen were’ < diverted reloading film, Geller attempted . to divert everyone else's attention by: referring them back to a fork he had‘ already broken. But actually saw Geller bend—by hand, not. psychic powers—the large spoon. Geller...” then called attention to the bent spoon | and filming immediately resumed. . Support for McCrae’s story comes | from producer Terry Dixon, who noted |: that McCrae had been a strong believer in Geller and before this incident was convinced that Geller was genuine. Dixon also noted that Uri and his asso-”.| interested in™='- “obsessively” the equipment, particularly how long it - took to reload a film magazine. “No one ever asked questions like that before.” Ray YWyman, a psychology professor at the University of Oregon, was called .. in to see Geller at SRI by a government ~ agency to whom Russell Targ and Dr Hal Puthoff had applied for funding. One of Uri’s demonstrations for Hyman at SRI in December 1972 was to have someone else in the room write down a ., number on the pad and then he, Geller,” would guess it. “As he wrote, Uri made a show of covering his cyes with his. hands. From my side, I could see his — eyes through his hands. Also, -I could. easily see, from George's arm motions, that he had written the number 10... Hyman also told a story, confirmed to me by one of the others present- (who | requested not to be identified), ahout a | Geller prediction. At 4 pm Geller decided he was “burned out’ and decided to go- home. About a half hour later he sud-. denly reappeared, warning one of those - present not to fly back to Washington, —, DC as planned. He said that during. - lunch he had had a premonition about... a plane crashing. But someone decided ©: to call a newspaper, and found that... there had indeed already been a plane“ crash in Washington around lunch time,®..; and the report would have been on the -° news stands and radio during the half). hour Uri was away. “ Finally, three people report that they: saw Geller cheat whea he ‘performed at < the New York offices of Time magazine. ~ in March 1973. These are perhaps the ~ weakest cases because Time is strongly opposed to Geller. Charles Reynolds, picture editor of Popular Phetography, and magician James Randi, both say they saw Geller bend a key in his hand after having attempted to divert every- one’s attention by asking for a beer can And Rita Quinn, a researcher in the picture dapartment who was anxious to believe in Geller, saw him peek between gaps in his fingers during a picture drawing test. When asked on television (Mid-Day Live, 3 May, 1974) about Randi's state- tmnent, Geller replied simply “I an) sure és87s7RUcdP6U110020-3 McCrae did note): turn to the broken fork, and suid he”: