Long John Nebel

by Way Out World

  One of the most fascinating experiments I ever had come up on the radio show was apparently a demonstration of several parapsychological powers blended together. In some respects it may be the most fantastic of all the things that have come to pass in Studio Six, twenty-four floors above the Square known as Times in (with apologies to Dick Kollmar) “little ol’ New York.”

  The date was the morning of Friday, January 15th, 1960; the show was a jackpot—that is, an open discussion with no particular subject—and my guests included the Amazing Randi, Stewart Robb and Paris Flammonde. It was an easy, wandering, roving bull session, which had touched on about every phase of extra sensory perception, psychic phenomena and the occult. Then a telegram was delivered from the teleprinter which brings me messages all night long from the listeners who feel like they’d like to participate in the conversation of the morning.

  The communication was signed “Mr. Adam Kennedy (Mr. W.)”. Well, when I saw this kind of complicated signature I knew that this was going to be a great show. I heard from “Mr. W” on other occasions (although I must admit that at the time the “Mr. Adam Kennedy” part was new to me), and wild things had happened. Just to do a fast flashback for a moment, I’d like to mention the first time I ever was contacted by this anonymous person.

  It was early in my broadcasting career—if that’s what you call the kind of action I have going for me—and I was still doing the show from a small deserted (except for the engineer) studio out in the plains of New Jersey, called Carteret. It was a long, lonely haul; and I was glad when someone dropped out to kill the night with me from time to time. I don’t mean guests, because I pretty much did a solo in those days, but friends and acquaintances. On this particular night, I was gabbing away with Sam Vandivert, who had looked in for an hour on his way back into New York from a late location shooting. We had been kicking around the telepathy bit, and I guess we had kicked it pretty hard, when a telephone call came in.

  Now, in those days I didn’t have the “beeper phone” setup I use today, where both sides of the conversation can be heard by my audience. The equipment was a standard cradle phone, and when I spoke with someone who called in I had to repeat his (or her) side of the conversation into my mike. For this reason I didn’t accept calls too often when I did the bit from out there. However, on this particular night I decided to pick up the receiver when the phone light started flashing.

  The caller was a man who insisted that he could only identify himself as “Mr. W.”. He claimed that he was a very powerful telepath and he would like to prove to me once and for all that clairvoyance and telepathy were positive, absolute scientific facts. Naturally, I politely told him he was off his rocker, but I’d be happy to listen to his gaff if he could make it brief. He guaranteed me that it would take only a minute or two. He then proceeded to describe in detail a colored and patterned sports shirt my engineer was wearing and to read off, with no errors, the serial number on one of the lenses Sam Vandivert had in his equipment bag. He concluded by saying “Goodnight” very quickly and hanging up, before I could ask him a single question. Regardless of the fact that I could conceive ways the effect could have been accomplished, I have to give you a square count. It was pretty impressive.

  However, I want to get back to the January 15th event.

  “Mr. W.’s” telegram offered once again to demonstrate his extraordinary “powers” of clairvoyance by offering me the following proposition. If the panel would come to an agreement as to the random selection of a dollar bill, he, Mr. W., would attempt to “read” its serial number from where he happened to be at the moment. (The wire had a Connecticut point of origin.) He would then contact me via “beeper phone” and attempt to give me the number. The challenge was accepted, and the phone lines were cleared for Mr. W.’s call—which would be due about ten minutes after the selection of the bill.

  We decided to choose the dollar in the following way. Each person present at the table extracted two one-dollar bills from his wallet or pocket and placed them face down in front of him. Someone came up with a paper bag, and the eight bills were placed inside of it. The contents were really shaken up, and Mr. Robb put his hand into the bag, as he looked in another direction, and picked one of the bills. The chosen dollar was then silently passed around the table, and everyone had a chance to write the number down. Then, with only the persons at the table knowing what the number was, we sat back and waited for Mr. W.’s phone call.

  Seven minutes later in came through, and as I answered it my guests put on headsets so they’d be able to hear the entire conversation in the studio just as the listeners would. It was quickly agreed that there would be no build-up bits. Mr. W. would simply attempt to “read” off the serial number of the dollar bill which had been selected completely at random.

  There was about a three-second hesitation, and he began to speak the numbers slowly, about a second apart, and clearly. Almost in rhythm, but not quite a chant. Sort of like a monotone. The whole routine was extremely impressive. But, of course, you want to know if he was correct in his “reading.” Unfortunately, for the first time Mr. W. failed. Of the ten symbols on the selected dollar bill—that is, the initial letter, the eight numbers and the last letter—he got only nine out of ten!

  As he named them one by one, he read the sixth numeral as a “9,” when it actually was an “8.”

  At my pretty insistent request, the “psychic” agreed to try the same test once more. Mr. Robb pulled another bill “blind” from the paper bag, noted the number and passed it around the table. Each of us marked the numerals down, and I told Mr. W., who was hanging on the other end of the wire, to go ahead whenever he felt the “message coming through.”

  Almost immediately the voice began to read the symbols off. Much more quickly than before. In about five seconds he was finished. But for good measure he rattled the number off a second time.

  What can I tell you, friends. It was absolutely accurate. Letter-number-number-number-number-number-number-number-number-letter. One hundred percent correct!

  The Amazing Randi, who is one of the few people as skeptical as I am, had no immediate answer; and I certainly wasn’t in any position to top him in that department. Steward Robb, while not claiming that the results conclusively proved the existence of ESP, announced that “everything definitely points to something psychic being afoot.” Paris Flammonde merely asked what had happened to the paper bag with all the money.

  Calls and telegrams began to pour into the studio; by the end of the morning twenty-two states and over a hundred communities had been heard from. Belonging in neither category, but also heard from, was my regular panelist Ben Isquith, the cyberneticist. He announced he was on his way to the studio.

  “Hold everything,” he exclaimed. “This idiocy has to be straightened out, John. You and Randi sound like you’ve fallen out of your ever-loving skulls. Why didn’t you denounce that fraud?”

  “How did he do it, Ben?” I challenged. “So, if he was a fake, how did he do it?”

  “I don’t know, but tell him to call back in half an hour. I’m on my way up. We’ll have a clinically controlled experiment. Then we’ll see what this psychic can do.”

  When Ben arrived the following test was arranged. Each member of the panel, which now numbered five, and I picked a random number from what my psychologist friends call our subconscious mind. Everyone wrote his number on a small slip of paper, and these were all dropped into the paper bag. Three of the panelists had the bag held over their heads, and each selected a slip. These three numbers represented a page number. Then I chose one of the two remaining slips and the number on it indicated the word on the page selected.

  Looking around the room, Ben decided that the book to be used would be the Collegiate Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 1943 edition. The test continued, and the page number turned out to be seven-twenty-six (726). The word was “pointed arch.” But no one knew this except Isquith, who had opened the dictionary and located it in accordance with
the numbers we all had picked at random and thrown in the bag and pulled out again.

  I announced over the air that we were ready and that Mr. W. could send in the word any time he thought that he had “received” it clairvoyantly. Within ten minutes his reply came into my studio. It consisted of only two words which were, as you’ve already guessed, “pointed arch.” The Amazing Randi could offer no explanation. Ben Isquith said that the probability of such a result was almost incalculable. And I have to give you a fair shake, neighbors; for once in my life I didn’t say “I don’t buy it.” I just sat there and wondered.

  CHAPTER 14—PROPHECIES, PHILOSOPHIES AND A WRAP-UP

  “For I dipt into the future, far

  as human eye could see…”—Alfred, Lord Tennyson

  BEN GROSS, of the New York Daily News, the dean of radio and TV commentators, whom I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing many times, once said to me: “John, everyone is so concerned with the future they have no time for today.” The obvious wisdom of the remark struck me at the time; but whenever I think of the mystics and seers and fortune-tellers, and their clients, I realize even more how pointless it all can be. However, there is one man who belonged in a class by himself. His name was Michel de Notre Dame, usually called Nostradamus. This French physician was born in 1503, began writing prophecies in 1555, and died in 1566. He was the rare exception, a prophet with honor in his own land. People came from all over Europe to consult Nostradamus.

  It’s been claimed by his admirers that he saw hundreds of years into the future, and that he slipped the occultists who are in the know today a little bit of the knowledge he had about what was to come. His messages are found in endless quatrains, or brief poems. But, naturally, they have to be interpreted.

  I have to say one thing, though. I’ve heard the Nostradamus expert, Steward Robb, go through the full explanation of many of these coded messages, presenting his interpretations, and my feeling is that there’s something about the whole bit we don’t understand anything about. But don’t mistake me. I’m not in the market for the future-telling gaff either, any more than any of the others.

  Andy Sinatra, the Mystic Barber of Brooklyn, has sent me dozens of prophecies over the last few years, and his record is almost completely unblemished. None of them have ever come true. But that doesn’t discourage him; he keeps sending them in, and sooner or later he’s going to hit one right one the head.

  In the last couple of years I’ve been bombarded by “yogis” and believers in yoga to do shows on this Eastern philosophy. On several occasions I’ve booked one in, but for the most part they just bombed out. However, there were a couple of interesting exceptions. One in particular. This individual referred to himself as the “Infinite Master of Applied Yoga—Western Division.”

  My first contact with him was via phone. It was just prior to air time. My staff was setting up the show when a call came in, and so I took it myself.

  “Hello, John Nebel’s office,” I answered.

  “Good evening. I am the Infinite Master of Applied Yoga—Western Division. I am ready to appear on your program.”

  “Well, that’s fine, friend,” I replied. “Just send us a letter telling us all about yourself, and we’ll think about it.”

  “Oooooooommmmm,” moaned a controlled howl over the receiver, followed by a “click.”

  I must admit that I was just a little shook up by the bit, but I soon forgot about it as I got the show rolling that morning.

  About an hour later, I was wrapping up a commercial when I looked up into the engineer’s control room and saw one of the station’s elevator men standing there. I got the discussion rolling again and went out to see what the problem was. It was obvious to me that someone was trying to get up to the twenty-fourth floor, where the studio is located, but had no pass.

  “What’s the problem, Billy?” I asked, as I stepped into the engineer’s booth.

  “John, there’s a really weird one downstairs this time. What I mean is, he’s just about the strangest looking character who ever tried to crash the show. So, of course, I wanted to check him out before I brought him up.”

  “Well, who is he? Did he give you a name?”

  “Just this slip of paper. I guess it’s his name.”

  I looked at a dirty little wrinkled piece of paper. It looked like half of the back of a hundred-year-old envelope. In it were two words: “Rama Hathabata.”

  “What does he look like, Billy?” I asked.

  “He’s about five feet tall, thin. Big black eyes that pop out a little. He’s wearing faded old blue jeans which are cut off above the knees, and a dirty shirt that used to be white. And…”

  “And what? You stop like he had horns.”

  “And one of those hats the Bengal Lancers wear in movies with Ronald Colman! Sun helmets, they call them.”

  “You’re kidding,” I exclaimed. “No one could possibly look like that. Not even coming to this show.”

  “That’s the way he looks. Shall I bring him up?”

  “Bring him up,” I agreed.

  About five minutes later he came into the studio. He was at least twice as weird as Billy had described. Square count, friends, but nobody ever looked like this fantastic little man. If he had told me he was from Mars, I swear I might have almost fallen for the kook’s story. Actually, all he did do was to look up at me and say:

  “Nebel, John?”

  I could only nod. He slapped a rolled-up piece of paper, tied with a red string, into my hand. Then, bobbing his head, he smiled and scooted off through the door and down the hall.

  Slipping off the red string, I unrolled the sheet of paper. It turned out to be an almost three-foot-long piece of white wrapping—the kind they often use in candy stores. At the top it said: “To Señor Juan Nebel”—and just under that: “Monsieur”; and if you can figure that out, please write. But that was just the beginning. The message continued.

  “Per, as following your suggestion to forward messages to yourself. That I am doing at this time now. I think you have need of knowledge regarding something about me since you wish me to be an honored guest when on your program. Thank you.

  “I am a famous yogi.

  “I am willing to let you in on some first class absolutely must not be revealed occult knowledge.

  “You’re welcome.

  RRR

  Infinite Master of Applied Yoga—

  —Western Division (his phone number)”

  All of the rest of the page was covered with what looked like Chinese or Japanese characters. Unfortunately, I only read Korean, and so I didn’t have any idea what the gibberish was all about. Anyway I decided to call the kook, because if he was as crazy as all the rest of this business it would probably make a really great show. I figured if he worked out on the radio bit he’d be sensational on television. You never saw anything that looked like him in your entire life. Really fantastically weird.

  On the next afternoon I called the number and spoke with the “famous yogi.” The conversation was brief, since I didn’t want to kill any of the material before I got him in front of a microphone. He was booked in for the following week.

  On the night “RRR” was supposed to appear, a couple of the panelists were sitting around with me having coffee before the show when the guest arrived. I should mention that he refused to give, or answer to, any name but “RRR” (if that can be called a name) or just plain “Yogi.” Well, the gang and I were sitting around cutting up a few jackpots when this figure suddenly appeared in the doorway of the studio without a sound and said in a voice out of a “Wolfman Meets the Man from Outer Mars” movie:

  “R…R…R…is here.”

  After a couple of the guys climbed back into their skins, I went over and gave him the conducted tour into the studio, introducing him to the panel. Of course, as some of you may have figured out, this was not the strange little scroll messenger. “RRR” was almost as tall as yours truly L. J., and that’s 6’4′, but he was thinner. I d
on’t think that this character could have weighed more than a hundred and twenty pounds. He was a real living and walking rail. His eyes stared out of his head as though they were painted on the inside of the back of his skull. And, I’m levelling with you, neighbors, he wore a turban with a big hunk of glass in the middle, and a pair of white pajamas. He was, to quote a later generation than mine, “a real gasser.”

  He asked if he could spend the ten minutes before the program “meditating,” and I assumed that he’d go over in the corner, sit down, close his eyes, and—meditate. Instead he walked over beside the piano, stepped up on the bench, and lay down on the top of the instrument. Fortunately, the top was closed.

  I was so surprised I couldn’t think of anything to say. I figured that whatever he did might be even kookier, so I just let things—I mean him—lie until the clock hit midnight and we went on the air.

  A few minutes later the engineer hit the theme and the show was under way, for better or for worse, and this time I wasn’t sure which it would be. I should mention that the yogi had gotten up the minute I called him and had taken his place at the table. My first question really got us off to a great start.

  “Mr. RRR, when I received your…by the way, is that the way you wished to be referred to or addressed…as ‘Mr. RRR,’ that is?”

  “You do not have to employ the full name of which I am called. You may speak to me merely as ‘Mr. R’,” he replied.

  “Just so that I’ll understand,” I continued, “that would be the third ‘R’, I suppose.”

  “No, that is the first ‘R’,” he countered.

  “But we certainly want to give you your proper title. Possibly you wouldn’t feel comfortable if we referred to you by your first name…or should I say your first ‘R’,” I suggested.

  “You are not such doing,” he explained. “That is the formal custom in India of my part. The last name is the first name and the first name is the last name. It is as though in this your country your name was Nebel John.”

  “I see,” I lied. “But just one other point before we get into the art and science of Yogi. When I received your letter I got the impression that the small man who delivered it was you.”