by Joe Nickell
Figure 32.3. A medium giving readings at an outdoor service at Lily Dale, the western New York spiritualist colony.
I did obtain a transcript of John Edward’s “spirit” pronouncements on Larry King Live, and the results are revealing. They suggest that if Edward really does communicate with the dead, the spirit world must be populated with entities who have little to do but heed the call of self- promoting mystics. And while they seem able to appear virtually on demand, irrespective of distance, they must have lost many of their other faculties—being plagued with poor vision, impaired speech, and faulty memory.
Consider the reading Edward gave to the very first caller on Larry King Live, a woman who wanted to contact her mother. “O.K., Linda,” says the glib Edward, “the first thing I want to talk about is, I know you’re looking for your mom, but I’m getting an older male who’s also there on the other side. I feel like this is somebody who would be above you, which means it’s like a father figure, or an uncle, and he passes from either lung cancer or emphysema, tuberculosis; it’s all problems in the chest area.” Edward continues: “O.K., that’s the first thing. And I feel like there’s a J- or a G-sounding name attached to this.” Happily for Edward, Linda responds, “That’s my mother.” Unfortunately, despite the “hits” the woman is willing to credit, Edward is wrong on both counts, since he was not talking about the mother but some “father figure” Linda is unable to recognize. Edward does not correct the error but proceeds. “She’s got a very dominant personality” (as most mothers are no doubt perceived by their offspring), and again Linda offers, “That’s my mother. Her first name starts with ’G’ and she had emphysema.” Thus far, Linda’s persistent credulity notwithstanding, Edward has scored only one very weak hit but two clear misses, a foreshadowing of his overall performance.
Edward frequently asks questions—a ploy used by other self-styled mediums and psychics. By the information being provided in interrogative form, it maybe considered a hit if correct but otherwise will seem an innocent query. Questioning also keeps the reader from proceeding very far down a wrong path. And so Edward asks, “Does the month of August have a meaning for her, or the eighth of a month?” When Linda replies, “Not that I know of,” Edward uses another standard ploy, telling her to “write this down” and becoming even more insistent. This positive reinforcement diverts attention from the failure and gives the caller (or sitter) an opportunity to discover a meaning later. Repeatedly, Edward offers data that is subject to many interpretations. With Linda he returns to an earlier point, insisting that her mother’s spirit “is telling me that there’s a father figure that’s there, so I don’t know if your father’s passed [emphasis added] but there’s a father-type figure.” Still, Linda is unable to make the connection, replying, “No, my father—I just spoke to him on my son’s phone.” Edward helpfully suggests “a father-in-law” or at least “a male figure who’s there,” but Linda still doesn’t seem able to verify the claim. Edward is bailed out of his dilemma by Larry King who interrupts, “But the important thing is, how is she doing?” This gives Edward the opportunity to tell Linda, “Your mom is fine”—offering what I call a “moot statement” (one that cannot be proved or disproved).
In all, Edward gave eighteen brief readings on the show, offering (apart from a few ramblings) some 125 statements or pseudostatements (i.e. questions). As I score them, there were four instances of Edward being unable to make contact or supply an answer and twenty-four unverified and sixteen moot statements. I counted forty-one misses. There were about the same number of hits, forty-two (only 33.6 percent of the to-tal). Or perhaps I should say apparent hits: most, thirty-four, of these were weak hits (as when Edward envisioned “an older female,” with “an M-sounding name,” either an aunt or grandmother, he said, and the caller supplied “Mavis” without identifying the relationship). Just six of the statements seemed worthy of being termed moderate hits. (For example, Edward told a caller, “there’s a dog who’s passed also,” and she responded by saying her mother “had a dog that passed.” I rated this only a moderate hit since dogs are common pets.) And there were just two statements I felt might be deserving of the unqualified label “hit.” (Edward asked a caller, who was seeking her husband, “Did you bury him with cigarettes?” and when she responded in the affirmative, queried, “Was this the wrong brand?” The information does seem rather distinctive, but in both in-stances was phrased as a question and the second one was, of course, a follow-up.)
As these results indicate, John Edward was incorrect about as often as he was right. And considering the weaknesses of his ostensible hits, his success seems little better than might be obtained from guessing. By taking advantage of human nature, simple probabilities, the opportunities for multiple interpretations, and the technique of asking questions as a means of directing the reading, among other techniques, mediums like John Edward may give the impression they are communicating with the dead. The evidence, however, indicates otherwise.
References
Keene, M. Lamar. 1976 (as told to Allen Spraggett). The Psychic Mafia. New York: St. Martin.
Nickell, Joe, with John F. Fischer. 1988.Secrets of the Supernatural. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus, 47-60.
Van Praagh, James. 1997. Talking to Heaven. New York: Dutton.
Chapter 33
Jesus Among the Clouds
According to a Texas newspaper, a Fort Worth woman has obtained a remarkable photograph of Jesus. As reported in the Arlington (Texas)Morning News, the woman, a University of Dallas student, took the picture in 1992. She claims she was fleeing an abusive husband, traveling with her two-year-old son on a flight between Albuquerque and Seattle. Soon storm clouds appeared and a voice instructed her to take a photograph through the airplane window. Later, when her film was processed, there was a cloudlike shape of a robed figure. “I knew it was Christ,” declared the religious woman. Curiously, she seems not to have been very impressed with the picture at the time but rather put it away in a locked jewelry box on a closet shelf. However, she claims the photo recently fell to the floor (from within a locked box?) while she was rummaging in the closet for something else. Since then she has been telling others—including newspaper, radio, and television reporters—about her experiences (Fields 1997).
I spotted the distinctive picture in some clippings a staff member was sorting for me, and it was (as the saying goes) deja vu all over again. That is because the robed—and headless!—figure in the clouds is ubiquitous. I have seen it in one photo after another over the years, like a visual urban legend. In my opinion, supported by a CSICOP computer comparison, each of the photos is a derivative of a common source. Small differences are explainable by the contrast effects of multigenerational copying. In one incarnation, the picture was labeled “Cloud Angel” and circulated by Betty Malz, author of several religious books. It was accompanied by the following brief narrative:
Figure 33.1. Figure-in-the-clouds photograph has had a lengthy history, as “ Jesus,” an “angel” and (as early as 1974) a “ghost.”
A couple flying for their first airplane ride, on their honeymoon, took a whole roll of photos out the window of the plane. They were fascinated by the topside clouds, so much like Cool Whip, or Dairy Queen ice cream! The pilot announced on the intercom that they were flying into turbulence that would last about twenty minutes. Bill and his wife prayed aloud, “Oh Lord, protect us, send the Angels of the Lord to hold this plane upright and keep us safe.” Almost immediately the choppy wind subsided. The second officer got on the intercom and announced, “It is amazing. The monitor showed turbulence for twenty minutes and it was over in two minutes.” Returning home they found this photo when they picked up their prints at Anderson Pharmacy.
Unfortunately, Ms. Malz had “not kept background material” on her publications, and the alleged honeymooning couple remain unidentified. The date is unknown as well, but the event and picture are referred to in Malz s Angels Watching Over Me, first printed in 1986. The photo is a
lso consistent with verbal descriptions of a “Hugo Christ” picture of 1990. (We have been unable to locate a single copy of this picture, although it was reproduced by the hundreds in the Gastonia, North Carolina, area—over a thousand copies reportedly being circulated by Wal-Mart’s photo lab alone.) It was described as “a robed figure, arms outstretched, floating among sinister dark clouds” and was alleged to have been taken at the peak of Hurricane Hugo (“Experts” 1990). On the other hand, a computer imaging expert said of it at the time: “It’s a picture we’ve seen many, many times before. It was made in a darkroom.” He explained that the image he examined lacked the three-dimensional qualities of a genuine photograph (“Experts” 1990). Moreover, after the picture was shown on the television program A Current Affair, a Montgomery, Alabama, woman stated that twenty years previously, her sister in New Bern, North Carolina, had given her a photo exactly like it. “I knew what they were saying on TV was a lie,” the woman declared (“Jesus in Clouds” 1990). And the Charlotte (North Carolina) Observer ran an article questioning the photo’s authenticity, reporting that “experts said it was a fake and had been circulating throughout the United States for decades” (“Images” 1990).
What is clearly the same figure as the one published in the Arlington Morning News appeared as a frontispiece in Peter Haining’s 1974 Ghosts: The Illustrated History. It is attributed to a Florida man. On the other hand, the same picture illustrates chapter 19 of Hans Holzer’s Americas Restless Ghosts, which states that it was “taken in 1971 during a terrible storm in rural Pennsylvania” by a woman named Marjorie Brooks. She is described as a “friend and associate” of an “ordained spiritual minister,” the Reverend Cecilia Hood, who actually sent the photograph to Holzer. Holzer says: “There was a terrible flood and the sky was very dark. Suddenly Miss Brooks observed a figure in white in the sky and took this picture. Was it a way those from the other side wanted to reassure her of her safety?” (Holzer 1993) Whether or not this reported 1971 date represents the original appearance of the Jesus/Angel/Ghost-in-the-Clouds photograph, it is roughly consistent with the statement of the Mont-gomery woman that she had seen the “Hugo Christ” picture some twenty years before its reputed late-1989 origin. Even so, she said it supposedly originated in North Carolina rather than Pennsylvania.
Obviously this record is incomplete, but it is sufficient to suggest that we have not seen the last of the reappearing picture. Not all newspapers have been as willing as The Charlotte Observer to mention the picture s many antecedents—certainly not the Arlington Morning News, whose editors we repeatedly contacted but who always asked for more evidence, clearer photos, more time, etc., but who ultimately never felt obliged to join us in an effort to provide a corrective to the initial story by their religion editor.
References
Experts call “Hugo Christ“ photo fake. 1990. (Charleston) Evening Post, Charleston, S.C., April 12.
Fields, Valerie. 1997. Woman believes photograph reveals Jesus Christ’s image.Arlington (Texas) Morning News, May 10.
Haining, Peter. 1974. Ghosts: An Illustrated History. London: Sidgwick and Jackson.
Holzer, Hans. 1993. Americas Restless Ghosts. Stamford, Conn.: Longmeadow.
images remind us Christ is coming. 1990. The Charlotte (North Carolina) Observer, April 22.
Jesus in clouds. 1990. The Charlotte (North Carolina) Observer, April 20.
Chapter 34
Alien Implants
Science fiction author Whitley Strieber continues to promote the notion of extraterrestrial visitations. His Communion: A True Story (1987) told of his own close encounter—actually, what psychologist Robert A. Baker has diagnosed as “a classic, textbook description of a hypnopompic hallucination” (or “waking dream”) (Baker and Nickell 1992). Now, several money-making books later, Strieber offers Confirmation: The Hard Evidence of Aliens Among Us. The evidence is threefold: UFO sightings (yawn), close encounters (been there, done that), and—the hard evidence, quite literally—alien implants!
Implants are the latest rage in UFO circles, and Strieber marshals the diagnostic, radiographic, surgical, photographic, and analytic evidence that supposedly indicates—but admittedly does not prove—extraterres-trials are implanting devices in human beings. To put Strieber’s claims into perspective, we should first look at the development of the implant concept.
The notion of induced mind/body control is pervasive, with paranormal entities typically having some means of monitoring mortals as a prelude to control. Examples range from mythological beings—like Cupid, whose magical arrows infected men s hearts with love, and Morpheus, who formed sleepers’ dreams—to superstitious belief in angelic guidance, demonic possession, voodoo hexes, and zombie slaves. Folklore told of abductions to fairyland from which people returned with addled wits or sapped vitality. Popular literature brought such examples as Bram Stokers Dracula (1897) and the mesmerizing Svengali in George du Maurier’s Trilby (1894). Science fiction helped develop the alien-take-over concept, with such movies as The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). A 1967 Star Trek TV episode, “Errand of Mercy,” featured a “mindsifter,” a device used by the alien Klingons to probe prisoners’ thoughts during interrogations (Okuda and Okuda 1997).
Meanwhile, Kenneth Arnold’s 1947 “flying saucer” report touched off the modern era of UFOs and with it an evolving mythology. By the 1950s, “contactees” were claiming to receive messages from the Space People. Then in 1961 came the first widely publicized abduction case, that of Betty and Barney Hill. (Their psychiatrist concluded the couple had shared their dreams rather than having had an actual experience.) (Klass 1974) With the publicizing of the Hill case—notably by John G. Fuller’s The Interrupted Journey in 1966 and NBC television’s prime-time movie “The UFO Incident” in 1975—claims of alien abductions and “medical” examinations began to proliferate. So did another phenomenon, the abduction guru: a self-styled alien researcher and often amateur hypnotist who elicits fantasy abduction tales from suitably imaginative individuals (Baker and Nickell 1992,203).
Reports of alien implants may have begun with the alleged abduction of a Massachusetts woman, Betty Andreasson, which supposedly took place in early 1967. However, the case was not publicized widely until 1979, when Raymond E. Fowler published his book The Andreasson Affair. Andreasson, who seems to have had a predisposition to fantasize, claimed the aliens had removed an apparently implanted device, in the form of a spiked ball, by inserting a needle up her nose. Fowler speculated that the BB-size implant could have been “a monitoring device” (Fowler 1979,191). About this time, the concept of “psychotronic technology”—i.e., mind control by means of physical devices—entered ufology (Sachs 1980, 200, 262).
Andreasson’s abduction report was followed by that of a Canadian woman named Dorothy Wallis. She described a similar implant under hypnosis, which seemed to explain an earlier “compulsion” to meet with the aliens (Klass 1989,122). When we appeared together on The Shirley Show (which aired April 15, 1993), I suggested that Mrs. Wallis’s story appeared to imitate Andreasson’s. She countered that her abduction came first, but I observed that she did not come forward until about 1983 and that Andreasson’s much earlier publication gave the latter the stronger claim (Nickell 1995; Wray 1993). In time, David Jacobs, a historian-turned-abduction-researcher, found the Andreasson/Wallis-type implant to be stereotypical among abductee claimants.
The object is as small as or smaller than a BB, and it is usually smooth, or has small spikes sticking out of it, or has holes in it. The function of this device is unknown: it might be a locator so that the targeted individual can be found and abducted; it might serve as a monitor of hormonal changes; it might facilitate the molecular changes needed for transport and entrance; it might facilitate communication….Some-times nosebleeds occur after this procedure. Both child and adult abductees have seen physicians for nosebleed problems, and have discovered odd holes inside their noses. (Jacobs 1992, 95-96)
Alas, Jacobs re
lates,”Several abductees have reported that a ball-shaped object either dropped out of their nose or was expelled when they blew their nose. All of these expulsions happened before they knew they had been abducted; in each case they thought they had inexplicably inhaled something and discarded the object or lost it” (96).
Actually, one of these items did survive and was thoroughly investigated by the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) in the late 1980s. Possessed by a self-claimed abductee, the “implant” had supposedly been stuck up the man’s nose by his extraterrestrial abductors but was later dislodged when he caught a cold and blew his nose. CUFOS investigator Don Schmitt accompanied UFO historian Jerome Clark, editor of CUFOS’s journal International UFO Reporter, to meet the man in an Illinois restaurant. As Clark relates the incident, after brief exchanges, the man unwrapped the object. “Don and I stared at it incredulously. It was a ball bearing.” Despite the obvious identification, the CUFOS team sought the man’s X-rays, which “showed nothing out of the ordinary,” Clark states. Nevertheless, CUFOS went on to have the alleged implant scientifically examined, whereupon it proved to be “an utterly ordinary terrestrial artifact” (Clark 1992).
In contrast to Jacobs s similar, but generally unavailable, brain/nasal implants are the current devices. The change in the type and location of implants is remarkable. Since 1994, alleged implants have been surgically recovered, but they’ve become remarkably diverse: one looks like a shard of glass, another a “triangular” (or possibly “star-shaped”) piece of metal, still another a carbon fiber, and so on. None was located in the brain or nasal cavity, instead being recovered from such extremities as toe, hand, shin, external ear, etc.; some were accompanied by scars while others were not (Linderman 1998; Strieber 1998,171-247).
