Apgro^etjg^or Release 2000/08/10
: CIA-RDP96-00787R000200090024-7
181
New Scientist
magicians,
an
SRI
staff
member
not
connected
with
the
project,
and
Targ
himself, who noted he had “done tricks
and
been
paid
for
it”.
But
Targ
has
very
poor
eyesight, holding
things
just
a few inches from his eyes to see detail,
so
it
is not
clear how much
he
could
catch.
Targ
is
also
sometimes
sur-
prisingly trusting: in one instance during
a
magnetometer
experiment
he
asked
Geller about
a
black mark on
his
skin
and
Geller
said
it was
a
scar;
Targ
accepted
without
checking
although he
could not have possibly known
if Geller
was telling the truth.
.
One
outside
observer who
is
highly
critical of the
controls
applied by Targ
and
Puthoff comes from
a US
govern-
ment
funding
agency.
Targ
and
Put-
hoff
had
applied
for
money
and
he
was
sent
to
SRI
to
evaluate
the
work. Thus, one would
expect
the SRI
team
to have put on the
best
possible
performance. A
reliable
source
reports
that
this
official
is
quite
interested
in
psychic
phenomena,
is
anxious
to
be-
lieve, and should have been sympathetic
to
SRI.
By
his
own
admission,
lie
watched
whatever the SRI team
chose
to show him. But he concluded that the
“controls
are
sloppy
and
inadequate
.
He
also
remarked
that when
he
sug-
gested
tighter
controls,
“Targ
said
‘bullshit’ ”.
...
f
One
of
the
potential
difficulties
of
parapsychological
investigation
is
the
sensitivity
of
the
whole
phenomenon,
and the inability of even “good
subjects
to
perform
under
many
seemingly
reasonable, controlled conditions. If one
accepts
the
existence
of
parapsycholo-
gical abilities, this
is not surprising. One
would,
presumably,
be
dealing
_ with
a
talent like musical
ability, and
it would
be
not
unreasonable
to
find
a
skilled
violinist,
for
example,
being
adversely
influenced
by
playing
before
a
group
.
of people he knew to be hostile
critics.
Also,
because
we
arc
dealing
with
“mental
energies”,
it
is not unreason-
able
to suppose that
a confirmed
critic
could
use
his
psychological
powers
to
block
those
of
the
sensitive.
Thus
the
phenomenon
will
require
somewhat
different
procedures
than
other
forms
of
research.
Some
con-
cessions
will have to be made
to keep
the subject happy and comfortable,
for
example. The
real question
is: Has
gone too far in this direction?
Screening participants
Typical of the
difficulties
of this
sort
of
research
is
that
all
those who
aid
the
investigators
are,
to some measure
at least, pre-selected for their receptiv
-
ness
to
Geller. “We reached
the
point
that on a particular day,
if
one
ol
our
better but more
sceptical
investigators
was
really
in
a
foul mood
aoout
the
whole
thing, we
just hauued lnm from
the
room. And
we
could
get
result-
hen
while
when
he
was
there we
couldn’t,”
according
to
Mitchell.
He
Uri on film
More than
a year ago SRI produced
a
film
of
Uri
Geller’s
first
set
of
tests
there
(in
November
and
December 1972). Although more like
a seminar report than a formal paper,
it
gives some
insight
into
the
SRI
researchers.
(The
film
is
entitled
“Experiments
with
Uri
Geller”
and
can be
rented
only by
“universities
and
scientific research organisations
from
Mitchell’s
Institute
of
Noetic
Sciences, 575
Middlefield Road,
I alo
Alto). The
narrator
is Bonnar
Cox,
executive
director
of
the
SRI
In-
formation
Science
and
Engineenng
Division.
The
film shows
five
tests that the
SRI team then considered acceptable
(but
only one
of
the
five was
con-
sidered
acceptable
by
the
time
the
paper was submitted to Nature). The
first test shown
is a telepathy (mind
reading)
experiment
using
picture
drawing.
Fifteen
simple
drawings
were made and
sealed
in
envelopes
which were themselves sealed in other
envelopes
(double
sealing). The
en-
velopes were
locked
in
a
safe
and
drawn
out
at random
for each
test.
The researcher then would open the
envelope
outside
the
experimental
room, look at the picture, reseal the
envelope and enter the experimental
room. While he thought of the picture
Geller would draw
it. Each drawing
seemed quite close to the
target, but
perhaps
closer
to
a
verbal
descrip-
tion
of the target than to the target
itself.
,
.
Next, the film shows a clairvoyance
test
in which
Geller
selects
the one
can out of 10 that contains an object.
The cA^rawediRoriRelfeaise
film
cans.
Using
a
cardboard
box
large enough
to hold
three rows
of
four such
cans, they are placed with
the middle two
positions
left vacant.
In each case, a person referred to as
a
“randomiser”
enters
the
room,
arranges the
cans, and leaves before
Geller
enters.
Geller
instructs
the
experimenters to remove empty cans
one at a time. In the film, ho success-
fully
finds
a
can
containing
room
temperature water and one
contain-
ing
a
steel
ball.
.
,
In
a
similar
test,
a
dice
is
placed
in
a
metal
box and
shaken.
Geller
tlien
guesses
that the
top
face
is
a
four, which
is
correct.
.
There are also two experiments in
psychokinesis
(PK).
In
one,
a
one
gramme weight
is placed on an elec-
trical
balance
and
covered
by
an
aluminium
film
can,
and
then
the
apparatus
covered by
a
glass
cylin-
der. A chart
is then shown with two
peaks,
which,
according
to
the
film,
“are
apparently
due
to
Geller s
efforts. They are
single-sided signals,
one
corresponding
to
a
1500
mg
weight
decrease,
the
other
corres-
ponding
to
an
800 mg
weight
in-
crease
... We have no ready hypo-
thesis
on how
these
signals
might
have been produced”.
Next,
Geller
is
shown
actually
“influencing”
a
Bell
magnetometer.
Moving
his hands around the probe,
he
apparently
causes
a
full
scale
deflection
of
0-3
gauss.
Finally, the film shows two unsatis-
factory events.
First, Geller
is shown
deflecting
a
compass
needle.
Next,
he
is
sqen
apparently
bending
a
stainless
steel spoon, but this
is also
Also
shown
are
two
bent
nng
“measured
to
require
150
pounds
force to bend them” and which
were
in
Geller’s
hand
at
the
time
they
were bent”.
,
The
most
striking
aspect
of
the
film is that the really dramatic cvents
all happen off camera. The first draw-
ing
that
Geller
does on
the
film
is
“the most
off-target
of the drawings
he
did”. Although -the film says that
the dice experiment was done success-
fully eight times,' the only test shown
in
the
film
is one
in
which
Geller
finally “passed”; that
even though
he guessed the number he asked that
it not be taken into account because
he
was
not
confident. ^
the
test
with the one gramme weight,
_ Geller
is never actually shown deflecting the
scale—all
the
film
shows
*s
Geller
working
unsuccessfully
witn
the
balance, and then a trace of another
(apparently unfilmed) successful test.
During the spoon bending, there
is a
break in the film and then the spoon
never leaves
Geller’s hand
until
it
is
shown to be bent—as usual, it appears
to have bent during a break m
film-
ing. If, as the team claims, SRI filmed
Geller virtually continuously, why did
this film have to contain what seemed
the weakest examples of each test.
But
it may be the bent rings winch
make the
film most
suspect.
I have
already noted the virtual impossibility
of
telling
just
when
Geller
berms
something.
Therefore,
the
aogmatic
assertion
that
“these
rings
were
in
Geller’s
hand
at
the
time
they
were
bent”,
without
any
film
docu-
mentation offered, seems more likely
^— -ation
than
stainless
steel spoon
but this
is also
mentation onerea,
ii> ij^^ij*^,-*”*
jWwsaUiW,-
'
'®
New Scientist
17 October 1074
132/
New scientist
u
Approved For Release 2000/08/10
: CIA-RDP96-00787R00020g0a0024-7.
,v
saying Ott
this
shows
pertintation
conld
have
been
made
This
.s. m
explains
it by
saying
“how
important the
individual thought
process
is”. The
less
charitable
. might
suggest
that
Geller
was
unwilling
to
perform before someone who was more
watchful than
usual.
Another
example
of
this
sort
or
choice came up
in
a
discussion
of
ex-
periments with Pat Price, also published
in
the SRI paper.
In
the
test,
one
of
the
investigators
went
to
a
randomly
selected
place
in
the Palo
Altc
area-
a motorway
toll booth, a drive-in movie,
a marina,
etc. Thirty minutes
after he
started, Price would
dictate
into
a tape
recorder
a
description
of
where
he
thought the investigator was. Transcripts
of the nine
descriptions were given
to
five judges who were asked to correlate
them
with
personal
knowledge
of
the
nine locations but with no knowledge of
which
descriptions
Price
said
were
of
which
trips. There
is
a wide
diversity,
with
two
judges
picking
6 and
of
Price’s
descriptions
as
correct*
while
two
others picked
only
3. When asked
about
the
diversity,
Targ
said
that
it
simply
showed
that
they
had
to
be
more careful in picking judges because
some
judges
were
not good
at
doing
correlations!
Good observers?
By far the most important component
of the validity of the SRI paper
is the
investigators’
abilities as observers. Two
incidents
suggest
that
although
Targ
and
- Puthoff may
be
competent
laser
physicists,
they
are
less
successful
in
this
radically
different
area. In
particu-
lar,
their
desire
to
believe may
cloud
their
discrimination.
Perhaps the most telling event
is Hal
Puthoff
taking Ingo Swann—an
experi-
mental
subject
not
described
in
the
Nature
paper—to
the
quark
detector
at
Stanford
University
early
in
1973.
The quark detector
is a highly sensitive
magnetome+er which
works by
looking
at the decay of a magnetic
field. This
is
shown
on
a
chart
recorder
by
a
periodic
function.
Puthoff
and Swann
independently
told me
roughly
similar
stories: Puthoff took Swann to the quark
detector,
where
Swann
described
in
some
detail the
inside
of the
detector,
of which he could not possibly have had
any
knowledge.
Then,
without
going
•
near
any
of
the
equipment,
for
short
times he both increased and decreased
the period of the
signal.
Dr Arthur Hebard, who designed the
equipment,
and
who
suggested
that
Puthoff
bring
Swann
there,
tells
a
somewhat
different
story.. He dismisses
the
description
of
the
inside
of
the
detector
by
saying
that
Swann
was
“talking
in
such
poetic
terms
that
he
could
have been
describing
anything”.
The
description
was
“doubletalk”
and
the
sort
of
thing
any
poetic
layman
would
use
to
describe
any
piece
of
scientific equipment.
On
the
perturbation
of
the
detector
output,
Hebard
made
two
interesting
comments.
First,
just
that
sort
of
per^
turbation AEHJjtSSf®-
—wHcTsTiare
the helium
supply
are
also
using
their
equipment.
Secpnd,
the
perturbation
simply
by
fiddling
with
the
dials
on
the recorder. Hebard
is convinced, how-
ever, that Swann did perturb the output
without
touching
the
recorder.
But
as
often happens,
his version
of the story
tells
more
than
he
realises. He
said
that
there were
several
people
in
the
room and
that
they
stood
talking
for
about 40 minutes. Swann, he said, stood
close
to
the
chart
recorder
looking
at
it
ihtently
for
minutes before
any-
thing
happened.
Hebard
is
sure
that
Swann
did not touch the
recorder, but
in a crowded room with people talking,
who
can
concentrate
on
any
single
object for 20 minutes and be sure
it
is
not touched? Hebard also added a point
that
neither
Swann
nor
Puthoff
men-
tioned—they
came back the
next
day
with
fewer
people
around
and Swann
failed to have any
effect.
One
also
has
the
comment
of Ray
Hyman—the
Oregon
University
psy-
chology
professor,
magician,
and
con-
firmed sceptic about psychic phenomena.
Hyman observed a day
of SRI
tests on
Geller
in November 1972 and concluded
that “they
don’t know how
to
observe.
Targ
and
Puthoff
recounted
incidents
we
just saw
in
completely the reverse
order, making them
miracles”.
Finally,
there
are two problems
that
apply to
all
scientists, Targ and Puthoff
included.
First,
future
funding
clearly
depends on success—there
is no money
available to prove that subjects
of their
choice have no psychic
ability.
Second,
the mystique of the hard-headed scientist
objectively
searching
for
truth
bears
little relationship to
reality;
in the real
world of science most people are trying
to
prove
the
truth
of
a
hypothesis
to
which they are already committed. Thus
it is hardly surprising to find that Targ
and
Puthoff
are
strongly committed
to
Geller and seem genuinely to believe in
his
abilities (although Targ seems more
cautious about
Geller’s metal bending).
Targ has worked
in the parapsychology
area on and
off
for
years.
Puthoff
has gone through encounter groups and
other West
Coast
fads,
and
is now
a
Scientologist
(as
is
Ingo
Swann).
In
an
area
where
observation
is
difficult
anyway,
have
the
SRI
investigators
taken enough precautions to ensure that
their natural desire to see Geller succeed
does
not
cause them
to
unconsciously
make
errors
or
misinterpret
the
data
to
Geller’s
benefit?
Omitting a success
One
test with
Geller
that
is
omitted
from the paper throws some interesting
light both on Geller and the researchers.
Whereas
the
drawings
in
the
tele-
pathy
test are described
as the “entire
set of consecutive experiments”, this
is
not the case with
the
clairvoyance
test
which
Geller
failed—his
attempt
to
draw the contents
of sealed envelopes.
The
targets
were
drawn by
an
SRI
artist
at
the
request
of
a
third
SRI
researcher who worked
with Targ and
Puthoff for a short time in August 1973
test to see inside any of the envelopes.
interesting as he was
apparently
able
to
see
inside
the box
containing the
die.
But
the
paper
does
not
report
a
curious
incident which
occurred
at
the
end
of the third day of the
test. After
the formal
test had been abandoned,
it
was
decided
to
loosen
the
precautions
and
try
again
with
six
drawings.
This
time the drawings were left lying about
the
room
so
that
it
was
possible
to
remove a drawing from the pile without
anyone
noticing,
and
Geller
was
per-
mitted to leave the room, which he did
three
times.
This
time,
Geller had no
trouble with
the clairvoyance
test, and
succeeded
in
drawing
one
of
the
pic-
tures. Commented the third researcher:
“I’m convinced he cheated.”
If he could
do
this
test under loose
conditions but
not
under
tight
conditions,
is
this
not
worth a mention in the paper?
Looking in Uri’s mouth
The
final
question
that
must
be
answered
is how the SRI paper stacks
up
against
Occam’s
Razor—is
there
a
plausible
normal
method
by
which
Geller could have done his two success-
ful tests
at SRI?
Plausibility
is hard to
define ip this situation, hut
it must take
into account anything that can be done
with
the
assistance
of
Dr
Andrija
Puharich.
As the box on the next page shows,
Puharich
is a medical electronics expert
who
developed
a
radio
receiver
which
can be hidden in a tooth. It must there-
fore be considered plausible that Uri has
a miniature radio receiver concealed on
his person. Even
if
it
is not hidden
in
his
teeth,
it
could
easily be hidden ..in
his
hair
or
in
a
wristwatch
which
he
presses
against
his
chin
to
hear. The
possibilities
are
limitless,
especially
if
Uri
is
not
carefully
searched. Because
Uri
constantly runs
his hands
through
his
hair
and
across
his
face,
no
one
would
notice him
listening to
his Dick
Tracy
wrist
radio—nor, because
of the
direct nerve
stimulation, would anyone
else hear
it.
There are two small pieces of evidence
that give some credence to
this sugges-
tion.
The
most
obvious
is
that
all
of
Uri’s
drawings
are
representations
of
words which would describe
the
target
drawing,
and
thus
are
consistent
with
radio communication. Thesecond occurred
in January when Puharich was
telling
me
that
in
any
test
Uri
should
be
“properly examined” for hidden devices.
But
then
he
suddenly
added:
“But
I
know Uri
will not submit
to
excessive
examination like total body X-radiation”.
In other words, Uri will not permit the
only test for a Puharich implanted radio
receiver.
To some measure, SRI has protected
against
radio
transmission
by
working
with
shielded
rooms
for
the
picture
drawing tests. But have they succeeded;
or
is
it possible to penetrate the room
to a radio?
To answer
this
question,
I
consulted
Robert
King,
a
senior
lecturer
at
Liindon.
King
wrote
^
J4c/
all three shielded
rooms in the College’s Electrical Engin-
Approved For Release 2000/08/10
New Scientist
17 October 1974
CIA-RDP96-00787R000200090024-7
183
eering Department. King was dogmatic:
“I
could
get
information
into
any
shielded
room.”
The
reason,
lie
ex-
plained.
is
that
shielded
rooms
are
simply not designed
to
protect
against
secretive
attempts
to
get
information
through.
The
SRI
paper
gives
only
vague
information on the room in which most
of the tests were done (SI
in the Table,
p 179 )— it says only that
it
is “a double-
walled steel room, locked by means of an
inner and outer door”. The second room
(S2 in the Table, p 179) is a “double-walled,
copper-screen Faraday cage” which ‘pro-
vides
120
dB
attenuation
for
plane
wave
radio
frequency
radiation
over
a
range of 15 KIIz to
1 GHz. For magnetic
fields the attenuation
is 68 dB at 15 KHz
and decreases to 3 dB at 60 Hz.”
King said that this is typical of screen-
ing for shielded rooms, and provides the
key
to
getting data
inside
in
this
case.
Attenuation
drops
off
very
rapidly
at
the
very
small
wavelengths
about
GHz, he
said,
so that microwaves of 10
GHz or more provide a good possibility.
Hearing with a tooth
The dream
of
spy
writers,
a
radio
receiver
that
can be
concealed
in
a
tooth,
actually
exists
and
was
in-
vented
by
Andrija Henry
Puharich
-the man who found Geller in Israel
and brought him to the US. Puharich
is
a
wealthy
56-year-old MD
who
holds 56 patents, primarily in medical
electronics.
Since
I960
his inventions
have related primarily to hearing aids
for people with nerve deafness.
But
Puharich’s
hearing
aid
is
a
unique
device
which
stimulates
cer-
tain
facial
nerves
just
as the
organ
.
of
Corti
stimulates
auditory
nervps,
and
the
person
can
actually
hear
normally
without
using
his
or
her
ears at
all. The facial hearing system
will work
with
nerves
on
the
face
and neck, on the tongue, and in the
sinuses,
Puharich
claims.
But.
for
cosmetic
reasons,
the
nerves
in
a
living
tooth
are
best.
“The
invention
comprises
an
element
applied
to
a
viable
tooth,
for
receiving electromagnetic
signals
at radio frequency, and a transducer
element
coupled
with
a
receiving
element and with
live nerve endings
of
the
tooth
for
converting
the
electromagnetic
signals
to
electric
signals
at
audio
frequency,
and
im-
parting
the
electrical
signals
to the
nerve endings of the tooth for. trans-
mission
to
the
brain,”
according
to
US Patent 2 995 633 issued 8 August,
1961.
GO'c!
Figure
Puharich tooth radio receiver.
Sicnats are received by the gold filling,
converted to electric signals in the audio
•f-equency range by the rectifier crystal,
tnc" imparted directly to the nerve
€
US
Normally,
the user would
carry
a
small transmitter in his pocket which
would
pick
up
sounds and
transmit
them to the tooth. But Puharich and
co-inventor
Joseph
Lawrence
noted
in
US
Patent
3 267 931,
issued
August,
1966,
that
the
device “may,
of
course,
be
adapted
for
longer
range transmission of radio frequency
signals”.
Although
the
device
will
receive
radio
signals
directly,
it works best
with
an
amplifier.
In
the
initial
patent,
this
amplifier
is
relatively
large,
concealed
in
two
false
teeth
next
to
the
viable
one
with
the
implant
(Figure
2).
But
by
1964,
Figure 2
Signals can be transmitted
from a radio to a receiver/amplifier
hidden in two false teeth, and then
passed on to an adjoining viable tooth
as in Figure 1. Drawing from US Patent
2 995 663
Puharich had modified the
amplifier
circuitry
(US
Patent
3 156 787)
to
he mounted
on the
one
tooth. The
drawing
(Figure
3)
“is
greatly
exaggerated
in
size
to
facilitate
description.
.
.
. The entire assembly
.
.
. advantageously
is
of
wafer-thin
construction, so as to be unobtrusively
concealed
with the
cap. ...
It
is
contemplated
that
the
various
com-
ponents
of the system
of the
inven-
tion
may
he
further
reduced,
to
micro-miniature
proportions,
through
the use of so-called
‘thin film’
circuit
fabrication techniques”.
The.
amplification
in the
1964^ and
1966
patents
is
provided by
a
feed-
back
loop
within
the
mouth,
using
either two
different teeth
(Figure 4
from the 1966 patent) or the tongue
pressed against an exposed terminal
Figure 3
By 1964, Puharich had
improved the amplifier so that
it could
be mounted on the back of the tooth.
In this drawing, the amplifier “is greatly
exaggerated in size to facilitate
description” and would, in fact, be
hidden under the tooth cap. The
amplifier has a terminal on the left
which must be touched with the tongue
to complete the circuit. Drawing
from US Patent 3’ 156 787
has
the
interesting
side
effect
that
amplification
only
works
when
the
tongue
is pressed
against the
tooth,
and thus the wearer can listen
selec-
tively
and be
undisturbed by
radio
signals
at other times.
In
another
version
of
the
device,
described
in
the
1966
patent,
an
electrode “about the
size
of a penny
which
is
covered
on
its
operative
surface
with
a
thin
film
of Mylar
could be pressed against the skm
in
“one
of
several
identifiable
areas
or
the
head
and
neck”
to
stimulate
facial nerves
and produce
the same
effect
of
hearing.
The
electrode
is
connected
to
a
receiver
similar
to
the
one mounted
in the
tooth. The
feedback
circuit
is
completed
by
a
connection to any point on the body
.
For
example,
a
quite
small
device
held
in
the hand
could
be presseo
against
the
face.
rx imparted directly to the nerve
pressea
^ of
.
system uses two teeth. Bes
2(^fe)fiQurdaA4RDR9e-W87R©0O2iO0090O2^7
Figure 4
An alternative amplifier
system uses two teeth. Based on
931
184
Approved For Release 2000/08/10
: CIA-RDP96-00787R0002&0eS<H$24J7 October 1974
Geller performs at Birkbeck
Uri
Geller
has worked
with
one
group
of
scientists
in
Britain. On
21 and 22 June,
1974, he
did
a
set
of tests
in the office of Professor John Hasted at Birkbeck College,
London
University.
Also
present were
Professor
David
Bohm, Dr Ted Bastin
(a friend of Andrija Puharich and
a
strong
Geller
supporter, who
first
introduced
Uri
to
New Scientist in 1972), Brendon O’Regan (another Geller
proDonent who wrote
the
first New
Scientist
report on
Geller
at
SRI),
theoretical
physicist
Dr
Jack
Sarfatt,
authors Arthur Koestler and Arthur C. Clarke, and several
other people.
,
_ „
In an
unpublished
paper, Hasted
reports
that
Geller
bent four keys and a
1 cm molybdenum
disc 0-32 mm
thick,
affected a Geiger counter, and deflected a compass
needle while
at the same time producing
a
pulse on
a
magnetometer. Hasted concludes that “these observations
are
consistent
with the hypothesis that Mr
Geller could
by
concentration
produce
occasional
and
rather
un-
predictable pulses of electromotive
force”.
As usual, they are also consistent with non-paranormal
explanations.
Indeed,
the
whole
set
of
tests
seems no
better
controlled
than the typical Geller show.
In
a
telephone
interview
last
month, Bohm
told me
that
“unfortunately
there were
a
lot
of people
in the
room”, and that “as far as the key bending is concerned,
we had much
better
conditions
in
his
hotel room
[in
February' 1974] where
it was much quieter”.
“I can’t assure that there were no
tricks, and no one
there could,” Bohm added. “Geller works
in a very high
state
of excitement which
communicates
to
the
experi-
menters, and
that makes
it hard to keep your mind on
what
is happening.”
According to the Hasted paper, Geller bent four brass
Yale keys through
angles of between
10°
and
40°.
“In
all cases the bending took a time of the order of minutes
to
complete,” Hasted
noted. With that much
time,
any
good magician could have bent the keys no matter how
closely the observers thought they were watching—with
the chaos that must have reigned
in the
office,
it should
have been
trivially easy.
„
The bent disc was one of ten metal objects.
Mr Geller
was not asked
specifically
to bend
this specimen
rather
than others on the table”. As I noted in the box on page
180, SRI observed a similar event and even videotaped
it,
yet they rejected
it because
of the
possibility
of
sleight-
of-hand.
The
Geiger
counter
was
connected
to
an
amplifier
and a chart recorder, and “during a total period of about
10 minutes
eight
pulses
of
duration
of the
order
of
a
second
were
recorded.
.
.
.
However,
the
loudspeaker
clicking, which was recorded on magnetic tape,
did not
always
accelerate during the
chart recorded
pulses, nor
did
a
second
Geiger counter
record
click
consistently’’.
To me,
this
is more
consistent with Uri
or
one
of
his
supporters bumping the
chart
recorder or
fiddling with
a knob on the amplifier than with any paranormal event.
As for deflecting the compass needle, the best comment
is that made in the SRI film
of
Geller: “we found later
that
these
types
of
[compass
needle]
deflections
could
be produced by a small piece of metal,
so small in
fact
that they could not be detected by a magnetometer”.
Bohm stresses that to perform, Uri must be in the right
state of mind. “My attitude
is that whatever he requires,
we must accept.” For example,
“considering the
sort
of
person
Geller
is, you
couldn’t search him—it would put
him
off”.
,
,
Bohm also noted that Geller “tends to get discouraged
• by complicated set-ups. We had some set-ups that would
have given stronger proof, but he was never in the right
state of mind”.
Microwaves
have
one
important
prop-
erty: they are reflected by metal. Thus,
microwaves
are
often
used
with wave-
guides—long
metal
boxes
which
will
carry'
the microwaves
virtually
without
loss
around
tortuous
routes.
The
air.
conditioning
system
probably
used
in
SRI buildings would make an especially
good
waveguide—a
transmitter
placed
anywhere
in the
air conditioning would
transmit to
all linked
offices. Naturally,
air conditioning ducts entering a shielded
room have
special baffles to screen out
radio
waves—but
these
are
highly
in-
effective
in
the
microwave
range.
On
the other hand, microwave transmitting
equipment
can
be
miniaturised
and
draw
very
little
power. A
microwave
transmitter for this sort of purpose need
be no bigger than a cigarette pack. And
even
though
Puharich
in
his
patents
' talks
about
his
tooth
receiver working
in the MHz range,
it should work just as
well in the GHz range. In the configura-
tion
where
the
tongue
is
part
of
the
amplifier,
Geller would even be able
to
turn
it on and off at
will, and thus not
be affected by possible continuing trans-
missions.
How
would
such
a
radio
be
used?
Perhaps the
simplest way would be
to
use
it
to bug
the room
in
which
the
target pictiAmproty^ fbr^eTea-se
and
Puthoff were
so
anxious
to
please
Uri
that they would not have quibbled
with a request from Uri
to describe the
picture
out
loud
after
they drew
it
after
all, as they say in their paper, the
shielded room provided
“acoustic
isola-
tion”.
_
,
,
Another
choice
would
involve
Shipi
Strang,
Uri’s
inseparable
companion.
According to Puharich
in
his book
Uri,
Geller
first met Shipi
in 1967 when Uri
was serving as a counsellor at a summer
charge's" was
WWl*
with
both
Shipi
and
Sliipi’s
sister
Hannah, and Uri and Shipi soon became
constant companions.
It was
Shipi who
first convinced Uri to perform, according
to Puharich. And Shipi went with Uri to
the US. Although Targ and Puthoff do
not
mention
it
at
all
in
their
paper,
Shipi was
constantly under
foot during
the tests—at least sometimes accompany-
ing
the
experimenters
during
actual
experiments.
Shipi
could
easily
have
signalled Uri in code with a transmitter
hidden
in his pocket,
for example. The
SRI paper
also notes that “ the picture
was drawn and brought near the shielded
room” which suggests that
Shipi might
have had other chances to see it as well.
In the chaos
of the computer room
for
tests 11 to
13, Shipi would hardly have
been noticed while the picture was being
decided
on
and
drawn.
The
SRI
data
shows
some
support
for
this
sort
of
hypothesis—when
the
drawings
were
under
the
control
of
an
outsider who
would be less likely to accede to Geller's
requests and the presence
of Shipi, Uri
failed
(Trials
5,
6, and
7).
Even
if
this
particular technique
will
not work, Puharich could surely
find
a
simple
way.
Four
other
possibilities
came to mind
in discussions with King:
1) Higher
frequency
microwaves
would pass through the cracks between
the
steel
plates
and
around
the
door.
particularly
good
waveguide.
With
a
transmitter
anywhere
in
the
room
" New’ Scientist
17 October 1974
Approved For Release 2000/08710
: CIA-RDP96-00787R00P20OO90Q24-17
irip rfhp
shielded
room.
if
Uri’s
request
came
via
Spectra,
fheuc
to
UelTer,
Din.
it
directly
outside' the
shielded
room,
signals would penetrate in
this way.
2)
To
get
electricity
into
a
shielded
room (for lights) without any radio tran-
sients,
the normal procedure
is
to
put
a
steel
plate
(usually
the room
wall)
between two sides of a transformer. The
60 Hz magnetic field penetrates, whereas
radio fields would not
(this
is supported
by
the
fact
that
the
copper
screened
room shows
only
a 3 dB
loss
to
mag-
netic
fields
at 60
Hz). Therefore, King
suggests low frequency magnetic induc-
tion
transmission
of
data.
Frequencies
of
5-10 Hz should pass through
double
steel plates without unacceptable
losses.
The transmitter
coil could be concealed
in
a
briefcase
left
sitting
next
to
the
wall of the shielded room. Geller would
have a coil of wire (for an aerial) under
his
belt
or
even
hidden
behind
his
teeth, and would stand close to the inner
wall.
During
a
minutes
test,
large
amounts
of information could be trans-
mitted by simple code.
3)
If SRI has
not
properly
shielded
the mains current supply
to the room,
it
would
be
possible
to
send
radio
signals along the mains (just this system
is
used
for
internal
radio
systems
in
universities,
hospitals,
and
the
like).
This could be done with
a
transmitter
smaller than
a
cigarette pack plugged
into
any
outlet
in
the
building.
Geller
*
would
simply
touch
an
electric
wire
inside the cage and his body would act
as an aerial for the tooth radio.
4) There-
is
an
intercom
connecting
the inside of
tlxe cage with the outside.
This could be like a telephone and have
a
filter to
cut
out
everything above
KHz. But
if
it does not,
it too could be
used to carry radio signals into the room
with the transmitter simply clipped onto
the communications wire.
The preceding discussion
applies only
to the extremely difficult' problem of the
shielded room. The other successful test
—guessing the die—can be much more
easily solved by radio. Mr Hubert Caddy
of
the
International
Magic
Studio,
London,
tells me that for several years
it has been
possible
to buy
a dice
for
about £30 which radios which face Is up!
It would not have been too
difficult for
Uri to have given SRI a normal die that
looked like the radio die, let them mark
the normal die as they wanted, and then
simply mark the radio
die
in the same
way and switch.
Naturally,
this
all
depends
on
the
cooperation of Puharich in perpetrating
fraud. Why would he do so? In his book
Uri, Puharich
reports
that
extra-terres-
trial powers called Hoova speak to Mm
through a voice called Spectra, and have
done
so for longer than he has known
Uri.
Uri’s power, he
says, comes from
Hoova. To have any hope of having this
report
accepted,
Puharich
needs
Uri’s
success.
If
Uri came
to
Puharich
and
said
“Andrija,
I have known you
for
a
year now and never once have I cheated
you. Now
they
are
asking me
to
do
things I may not always be able to
do,
but
if
I
fail
no
one
will
believe
in
Hoova. You
are a great inventor—give
me somethingAto he]
while."
In
often hearing the voice of Spectra, and
request
Puharich would be sure
to
obey. Thus,
Puharich need not be a party to a wide-
spread
and
continuing
fraud
to
have
helped Uri in
this way.
I have no proof
that Uri did do
his
drawings
in
tMs
way. But
it
fits
the
data at least as well as the Targ-Puthoff
paranormal
explanation.
By
Occam’s
Razor
it
is only necessary to show that
plausible normal
explanations have not
been
excluded.
To
be
sure,
by
what
might be considered a reverse Occam’s
Razor,
it must
also be shown that
the
route
to
the normal explanation
is not
more
complex
than
simply
accepting
the paranormal. But Puharich takes the
plausible
virtually
into
the
realm
of
science fiction.
Conclusion
The
ultimate
test
of
any
scientific
research,
including
the SRI work
with
Uri,
is the
ability of other
scientists
to
independently reproduce the results. As
Uri himself said on a Thames TV docu-
mentary on
15 January:
“When
I am
doing
enough
experiments
with
scien-
tists,
the
disbelief
will
drop
off.”
But
there
is
a
real
danger
this
will
not
happen—that
Uri
will
consider
the
publication
of
the SRI paper
to be
all
the
scientific
validation
he
needs.
Uri
has backed out on a written commitment
to
work
with
the New
Scientist. He
backed out on
a verbal commitment to
work
with
the
Maimonides
Medical
Centre
Division
of Parapsychology and
Paraphysics
in
Brooklyn,
New
York.
(The Maimonides team
is highly sympa-
185
did
call
in
magician James Randi
to
help
set
the
experimental
conditions.) And
Mitchell
told
me
that
Geller
“broke
several
engagements”
at SRI and
that he
did
not seem to want to do any more there
even though
“we’ve
got funding
for
it
if he
will work under conditions
accep-
table
to
us.”
Uri,
it
seems,
will
work,
only
with
scientists
such
as
those
at
Birkbeck
who
seem
loth
to
set
any
conditions at
all.
Thus,
it appears that the paper pub-
lished
this week may he the
closest
to
hard scientific evidence we will get, and
it must
be unusually closely scrutinised.
It seems clear that no matter how good
they
are
as
laser
physicists,
Russell
Targ and Dr Hal Puthoff are no match
for
Uri
Geller.
There
is
too
much
evidence that they missed out on impor-
tant
points. And their experiments
fail
the
Occam’s
Razor
test—-they
did
not
exclude non-paranormal forms
of
infor-
mation transfer that, based on Puharich's
background, must be
considered Mghly
possible.
I do not question the integrity
of the
SRI
researchers. But
science
is
filled,
with
examples
of
scientists—often
in
large numbers—seeing what
they want
to see rather than what
is there. Canals
on Mars,
polywater, and
the
supposed
double mass peak of the A 3 particle are
just three
examples.
Several
magicians
have
told me
that
scientists
are
good
audiences
because
they
are
so
easily
fooled. My
investigations
of the
Geller
phenomenon support this. The SRI paper
simply
does
not
stand up
against the
mass
of
circumstantial
evidence
that
Uri Geller
is simply a good magician..
2000/08/10
Approved For Releasaj000/08/10
: CIA-RDP96-OO787RG0O2OOO9OO24-7
PARTICIPANTS
Ted Eastin, Cambridge Language Researc!
Cambridge, England
C. T. K. Chari, Madras Christian College
Madras, India
O. Costa de Beauregard, Institut Henri F
Paris, France
Gerald Feinberg, Columbia University
New York, U.S.A.
V. A. Firsoff, Royal Astronomical Society
London, England
Harold Puthoff, Stanford Research Institi
Menlo Park, California, U.S.A.
Helmut Schmidt, The Institute for
Parapsychology
Durham, North Carolina, U.S.A.
Russell Targ, Stanford Research Institute
Menlo Park, California, U.'S.A.
Evan LIarris Walker, Ballistic Research
Laboratories
Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland,
J. H. M. Whiteman, University of Cape T<
Cape Town, South Africa
OBSERVERS
Arthur Koestler, London, England
Emilio Servadio, Rome, Italy
Charles Panati, New York, U.S.A.
SG1A
AL
INFERENCE
Switzerland
1974
PARAPSYCHOLOGY FOUNDATION, INC.
Eileen Coly—President
Allan Angoff—Chairman
Domestic and International Programs
Robert R. Coly—Administrative Secretary
PARAPSYCHOLOGY
FOUNDATION,
INC.
29 West 57th Street, New York, N. Y.
10019
Approved For Release 2000/08/10
: CIA-RDP96-00787R000200090024-7