Pigasus Award
The Pigasus Award is the name of an annual tongue-in-cheek award that was presented by noted skeptic James Randi. The award seeks to expose parapsychological, paranormal or psychic frauds that Randi had noted over the previous year. Randi usually made his announcements of the awards from the previous year on April 1 (April Fools' Day). History. The award was originally called the Uri trophy, after Uri Geller, and was first announced in the appendix of Randi's book "Flim-Flam!". The 1982 edition lists the award's "recipients" in 1979, 1980 and 1981. In "Flim-Flam !", Randi states: The bent spoon trophy is a reference to Geller's claimed spoon-bending abilities. The logo of a winged pig was designed for Randi's website by German artist Jutta Degener in 1996. The name "Pigasus" was chosen by Randi from suggestions e-mailed to him. The term is a portmanteau pun combining the word "pig" with the mythological "Pegasus", a reference to the expression "when pigs fly". Randi did not present any Uri Award for a number of years after its inception in "Flim-Flam!," but in 1997, it was revived and the name was changed to  Pigasus after the winged pig. Randi announced the recipients through his e-newsletter "SWIFT!" in which he said: "The awards are announced via telepathy, the winners are allowed to predict their winning, and the Flying Pig trophies are sent via psychokinesis. We send; if they don't receive, that's probably due to their lack of paranormal talent." The Pigasus Awards have not been presented every year. There was no mention of recipients for 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2002. Categories. "Flim-Flam!" specifies that the winner of the Pigasus Award falls in one of four possible categories: The 2003 Pigasus  awards featured only categories 1 and 4. The 2005 awards added a fifth category "for the most persistent refusal to face reality".