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17 October 1974 Volumo 64 Number 919
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Uri Geller and Science
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New Scientist 17 October 1974
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Uri Geller and Science
Is Uri Geller the world's most gifted psychic, capable of bending metal without .
touching it and discovering the contents of closed boxes with incredible accuracy ?
Or is he the biggest hoaxer of our time, able to convince trained scientists
that they saw things which never actually happened ? This week, Nature publishes
the first scientific paper on Geller-a report on tests at the Stanford Research
Institute. And in this special issue of New Scientist, Dr Joseph Hanlon reports
on both our own investigation and the SRI paper
...
Geller and
New Scientist
Uri Geller was first brought from Israel by a scientist --
Dr Andrija Puharich-and has given demonstrations at
the Bell Laboratories, New Jersey; the Goddard Space
Flight Center, California; Birkbeck College, London; and
other research centres. New Scientist first reported on
Geller two years ago (vol 56, p 360) and more than a
year ago (vol 59, p 95) reported on early results from
the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). Geller first came
to national attention in Britain on 23 Nevember 1973
when he appeared on the Dimbleby Talk-In on BBC tele-
vision, where he reproduced a drawing in a sealed
envelope, bent a fork, and apparently started a dud watch.
Two scientists, Professor John Taylor and Dr Lyall
Watson, appeared on the programme with him. Geller
stressed that he baffled the scientists-a point supported
by both Taylor and Watson-and said he was anxious to
participate in research with British scientists.
Geller was a sensation on British television, generating
far more interest than he had in appearances on national
television in the US. And science was an important part
of this-if Geller had simply appeared as a magician, he
would have attracted much less attention. Yet Geller had
indeed baffled the scientists, and it was at least possible
that he had powers previously unknown to science.
For this reason, New Scientist took the unusual step of
setting up its own small research panel and on 26 Novem-
ber invited Geller to participate in experiments. (New
Scientist, vol 60, p 603). We told Geller that the committee
would consist of a member of the Society for Psychical
Research (SPR), a research psychologist, the editor and
one other representative of New Scientist, an independent
journalist with a major newspaper, and a professional
magician. Geller accepted our invitation quickly, in a
letter on 3 December. Although our initial letter to Geller
did not actually name the members of the committee, they
had already been chosen and were Denys Parsons of the
SPR, psychologist Dr .Christopher Evans of the National
Physical Laboratory (who was responsible for the New
Scientist parasychology questionnaire, vol 57, 5 209). the
editor of New Scientist Dr Bernard Dixon (a biologist),
Dr Joseph Hanlon (a physicist), international magician
David Berglas, and Alan Brien of the Sunday Times. We
later added a statistician, Professor D. J. Finney of the
University of Edinburgh, and a forensic scientist, Dr
Julius Grant
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E mained high. By

171
Kew Seentist 17 October 1974
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the time Gellef accepted our. o!
York. But we met several times with an associate, Yasha
Katz, in December and set up a meeting with Geller for
8 February to discuss the experiments. And on "Seeing is
believing", a documentary on Thames Television in
London on 15 January, Geller declared "when I am doing
enough experiments with scientists, this disbelief will
drop off."
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 Geller's remaining performances. Time passed, and
Geller'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 3 May 1974, on the New York television
show Mid-Day Live on WNEW-TV, his view of scientists
had 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
misgivings 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
imply agreement, and Nature should indeed be con-
gratulated 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.
The author comments
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, but from research by individuals and small
teams into the interaction of people and themselves and
their surroundings.
Through biofeedback, we now have control over our
bodies of a sort that not so long ago was almost univer-
sally agreed to be impossible. Negative ions in the air seem
to affect our 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, the con-
tinuing squeeze on science funding puts the attention
more on the scientist who can work on a shoestring rather
. than the one who cannot get the money to go to still
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.
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 talked 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 context.
Joseph Hanlon
The New Scientist Investigation
Like witnesses to a motor accident, people who have seen Uri bend a spoon or do a drawing by telepathy
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 of a
meteorite-often among their owners'
most
prized possessions-are now
irreparably broken. But their owners
point to them with pride, not anger,
because they were destroyed by Uri
Geller.
This amming young Israeli is claimed
to have the most phenomenal psychic
powers the world has ever seen. Even
some scientists say he can break spoons .
by mental powers without touching
them, read minds, and make objects
appear and disappear. The man who
brought him to the US, and UK and
this year by W. H. Allen), Dr Andrija
Puharich, says Geller has accomplished
the task which eluded the alchemists-
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 neople
really want to like and believe in bim.
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
performer in Israci. On the other
fame, money, and women and that he
can be childish, petulant, and extremely
difficult 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 believe he is one of the most
important psychics of our tine.
Another aspect of the Geller person-
ality is his hyperactivity and constant
motion. In small groups, either of the
press or friends. he flits from one task .
to another, usually giving up the Erst
time and suddenly returning to it later
so that keys and spoons are suddenly
wrote the Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : GIA-RDP96-00787R0007.001 10020-3lises just what is
admit that his main goals in life are
happening and Geller reads the contents

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Scientist 17 October 19.
. Uri Geller attempts to.
bend a journalist's key
held by David Dimbleby
at a press conference a'
the BBC Lime Grove
(London) studios on
22 November 1973, the
day before Geller's
appearance on the
Dimbleby Talk-In broug
him to the attention of
the British public
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
belief 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
picture. For most people, there are one
or two clinching events, although the
clincher for one person may be totally
unacceptable to another.
John 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 signal in proportion to any bend-
ing. The strip was clamped in a vice and .
Geller was to bend it without touching it.
According to White, suddenly one end
of the bar began to disappear and re-
appear on a lower level. Geller had
clearly dematerialised part of the bar
and rematerialised it elsewhere, White
said. But Dr Hal Puthoff, one of the
experimenters, found it not particularly
convincing and described it somewhat
differently. According to Putbot, Geller
bad tried to bend the bar unsuccessfully
on che 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
did not
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
Iving flat in the palm of photographer
Bryan Wharton's hand at the time."
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
Wharton's hands when it was supposed
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too se
possible for someone to have broken off
a piece between tests and it not ha
convinced he is genuine, but after think-
ing carefully about what happened I am
forced to admit in warnte land
1 .! _ J
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 hi
hands over Wharton's for a few second
. . . and sure enough the key turned or
to be bent through an angle of about 1
degrees. ... Geller might have distracte
our attention when he first had the key
bent it, and put it into Bryan Wharton
hands already bent."
Journalists are not alone in havin
this problem-trained scientists do a
well. Geller and Puharich gave a demor
stration at Bell Laboratories, New Jersey
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 ha
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 reprodu(
tion of the drawing. But the man wh
actually brought the envelopes, 1
Richard Moore, told me in January the
in fact the drawings were put into larg
clasp envelopes which were not seale
Further, Moore admitted. the drawing
were done at short notice, at Geller
request, while Geller supposedly was o
the telephone in the next office. Thu
Geller could have used any of sever:
magicians'
tricks-including surrept
drawings bein
e envelopes an
looking at the drawings. But the Be
report implies that neither was possible
.

New Scientist 17 October 1974
173
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-
of a magiciad's"
Mike Douglas show on the CBS TV net-
work in the US on 29 October last year,
in which the participants and probably
millions 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
cn a table in front of Geller. He picked
che up with his right hand and gave it to
Mike Douglas, who examined it and
showed on close-up that it was, indeed,
straight. Next, Geller picked up another
nail with his left hand and held it by the
bottom. With his right hand he took the
nail back from Douglas and held it, as
well, by the bottom. Then he turned to
guest Tony Curtis and asked him to hold
the top of both. Still holding both by the
bottom, Geller rubbed the nails. Finally
be told Curtis to take the nail from his
(Geller's) right hand-the one we saw
to be straight on close up-and put it .
down. Still holding the bottom of the
left hand nail, Geller continued to
stroke, never showing the bottom. Slowly
be 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-
penny 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 magicians help
set the conditions, and has consistently;
refused to participate in any scientific
experiment (such as New Scientist's)
that involves a magician.
Nevertheless, as Geller himself said
on Mid-Day Live (WNEW-TV, New
York. 3 May, 1974), "everything could
Geller's supporters argue that he is
young and simply not yet in full control.
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 scien-
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. Geller is extremely personable
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.
I investigated a large number of
Geller events with Occam in mind. I
found it extremely difficult to go back
and find out just what happened in a
Geller event, because of the previously
mentioned problem of getting accurate
descriptions of the event. But I have
been able to gain an approximate picture
of what happened in many of them. In
a surprising number, the normal ex-
planation was actually more plausible
than the paranormal, and the paranormal
was accepted only because the witness
was strongly committed to Geller. In
normal explanation was contained in
their own description.
One example is the case of Geller
teleporting Puharich's camera case from
New York to Israel, which Pubarich
quotes in his book Uri and which is often
cited by Geller supporters. When
Puharich explained it to me in January,
despite his own belief, a normal explana-
tion became obvious. "I had about 120
kg of equipment that I was taking to
Israel so I left all of the excess baggage
behind. And one of the things I didn'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 bim
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 his
apartment and I'd gone to my hotel.
And he said 'You know you were talking
about a camera case-there is something
on my bed here-you think it'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
camera case." Pubarich then went 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
. Reporters
newspaper
Bild-München.
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 in his life,
'I don't think it can be done', he repeated.
The gondola was suspended in the air.
Uri Geller noticed a control panel on
the door which governed the steering
mechanism. Suddenly, he cried cut, I
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 programme Wonderama
for WNEW-TV in New York, toid about
one incident when Geller was there.
Geller asked for a key, and McAllister
gave him one. "We were in an alcove
outside the control room and Geller
said 'Let's get out of here'. He beld
the key up so I could see it, then be
turned his back and as he opened a :
door the key went in front of bis body
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
the ke
2Ocht. And be was
only showing one corner of the key."
be duplicatedApproved For Release :2000/08/07 | CIA-RDR9600787R00070011005555 I'll hold it'-
doesn't have
'to thean that I did it the
event did not even realise that the

He then went into a room with a lot
of people, Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000700110020-30 TY, however,
it.
key in someone's hand and "bent
But presumably, McAlister commented,
be had actually bent it while going out
the door.
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, then
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
drawing. Eventually, Geller said that he
needed a long rest, and Dixon suggested
they move to one of the Thames hotel
rooms. Geller 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 all 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 tight enough that Geller could not
have resorted to such tricks. 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 35 mm film cans, Geller
then selects eight empty cans, one at a
time, and finally picks the one with the
object. On the Mery 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 5.50 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
Bloomingdales [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,
saying 'I'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
escalator."
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
dnes miracles, why should we give any
more credence to those who say he
cheated? At least some of the examples,
however, seem to
have supporting
evidence.
Perhaps the strongest case is that of
Thames sound recorder Sandy McCrae,
who said on television on 15 January
that he saw Geller bend a large kitchen
spoon by band. The full details of the
and lend strong support 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
film magazines are reloaded. According
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 McCrae did not:
turn to the broken fork, and said he
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-
ciates were "obsessively" interested in
the equipment, particularly how long it
took to reload a film magazine. "No one
ever asked questions like that before."
. Ray Hyman, 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 eyes 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), about 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 when 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 Photography,
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
opener. And Rita Quinn, a researcher in
the picture department 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-
inent, Geller replied simply "I am sure
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Through a lenscap darkly
One of Uri's more dramatic feats is to apparently project his image onto a
film even though the camera has a lenscap taped on. Such pictures have
appeared in several places, including the News of the World (2 December.
1973). Geller also projected his image through the lenscap of Yale Joel, the
ex-Life photographer who took our cover picture. But he may have made a
mistake, and the US magazine Popular Photography (June 1974) was able
to suggest a distinctly non-paranormal explanation.
The photo (Figure 1) was taken "through the taped on lenscap" of a
Pentax equipped with a 17 mm Takumar extreme wide-angle "fisheye" lens.
The photo was taken in Geller's New York apartment. Joel admits that
Geller had the camera for several minutes while he (Joel) was out of the
room, and so Uri might have been able to untape the lenscap.
Figure 1 Photo Uri took of himself "through taped-on
lenscap" of Yale Joel's Pentax
Figure 2 Photo of Seth Joel looks remarkably like Uri's,
but . . .
Figure 3 . . . it was taken by holding the lenscap just a bit
away from the camera
Figure 4
Picture of Seth Joel taken with 50mm lens.
Is this what Uri intended?
But it was the sharp circle with the bumps that lead Joel and Popular
Photography to their answer. After some experiments, Yale Joel was able
to produce a photo of his son Seth (Figure 2) that looks remarkably like
Geller's. The sharp circle is the lens cap and the bumps the thumb and finger
holding the lenscan. Figure 3 shows how the picture of Seth was taken,
although Popular Photography found that one person could do it without
help.
Geller apparently knows a lot about cameras, but did he outsmart himself
on this one? Popular Photography suggests that what he expected was
Figure 4. This is a picture of Seth taken in precisely the same way, only
with a 50-inm lens on the Pentax instead of the fisheye. No sharp circle, no
fingers.
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,3,76
TransatlaApproveatFor Release
Investigating the Geller phenomenon
second-hand is all well and good, but
the strongest impressions necessarily
come from personal contact with Uri. I
have seen Uri work twice, once as part
of a transatlantic telepathy experiment
conducted by the Sunday Mirror (10
December, 1973) and the other in the
Montcalm Hotel, London (19 June,
1974).
In the Mirror test, Geller was in New
York, connected to the Mirror office in
London by transatlantic telephone. In
the Mirror office were Clifford Davis,
the Mirror TV editor who arranged the
test; Professor Arthur Ellison of City
University and chairman of the execu-
tive committee of the Society for
Psychical Research; Dr Christopher
Evans of the New Scientist panel; Ronnie
Bedford, Mirror science editor; Patricia
O'Flanagan and myself from New
Scientist; the Thames TV crew; and
about a dozen spectators. Yasha Katz
of Geller's staff, and Sidney Young,
from the Mirror, were with Geller in
New York. The attempt lasted nearly
two hours, and covered a variety of
tests. Katz listened on the New York
end of the telephone and later told
New Scientist (during one of his meet-
ings to discuss our experiments) that
Geller's biggest success was seeing a
photograph of a car.
setting all
call that a partial success". Then Young
2000/08/07 CIA-RDP96-00787R000700110020+3g "a fat sausage
"can you tell us what the three are,
just in case one of them matches?"
Geller declined and more long silences
followed. Finally, at 20 minutes Uri said
he could not do it. But Ellison said:
"Would you like to tell us anything
about the patterns you were getting in
your mind when we were all concen-
trating on the picture?"
Geller replied that he had drawn
three different sets of things. First,
"three people appeared in my mind
with something white underneath"
Second, "something long". Ellison im-
mediately replied "that sounds likely,
it could be described as something long".
Then Geller said it was like an animal
-a dog or a horse standing sideways.
With no further encouragement at this
point, he moved on to the third drawing
-which he described as something
triangular with a semi-circle coming out
of the left side-"a mountain, sort of,
with something coming out". Finally, he
said he had words in his mind: "pattern,
horse, animal, dog, dog, dog".
Although this drew no encouragement
from Ellison, he continued to press the
dog-asking if there was a photo of a
dog. somewhere in the room. There
wasn't. Only the "something long" had
drawn a positive response from Ellison.
Next Geller said that of the three
impressions the "biggest one" was the
with, at the rear, a part that comes
down and looks like, say, an elephant's
foot, then goes along toward the front
and becomes a sort of a breast".
Ellison laughed and gave a negative
response. Geller then announced that
he was finished, and asked Ellison what
the photo was.
Ellison said it was a police car, and
Geller then claimed to have written
down the word "car" even though he"
had not mentioned it before with the
list of words in his mind. Later, he
claimed to have written down the word
"car" twice.
To me, at least, this was hardly a
success. Guided by Ellison, he drew a
shape that could have been an animal,
a car, a table, a hill, or almost any-
thing. Later in the nearly two-hour.
telephone call, however, Geller made
remarks like "I am happy I got the
drawing".
When I asked him afterwards, Ellison
answered immediately that Geller had,
indeed, gotten the car. He called the
test "remarkable" and noted that Geller "
"didn't say a cup or a tree or a human
being". Actually, of course, Geller did
mention people and his drawing could
have been a cup-it was Young who
said it might be a pig or a car. But
most important, Ellison seems to have
been totally oblivious to the amount of
Photo which Uri Geller
attempted to see in the
Mirror transatlantic
telepathy test,
10 December 1973
In fact, the event was not so clear
cut. At my request, Patricia O'Flanagan
had provided a set of sealed envelopes
containing simple photographs which no
one but she had seen. When Uri was
already on the telephone, she gave me
the sealed envelopes and I selected one,
which turned out to contain a photo of-
a police car and a policeman. Professor
Ellison was on the London end of the
`phone and concentrated on the photo,
attempting to transmit it to Geller. We
could all see and hear Ellison and hear
Geller.
The photo transmission experiment
took 33 minutes-the first half being
primarily long silences followed by en-
second-an "object that was wide, long,
and bright in colour". "Very good,"
replied Ellison. Geller then went through
another series of words-table, flower,
telephone-which drew no support from
Ellison.
Then, 28 minutes into the test, Geller
began drawing and Sidney Young came .
on the 'phone to describe what he was
drawing. It could be "a car or & pis",
Young said, which drew a favourable
response from Ellison. Then Young said
it looked "like a child's wooden toy-
the sort of thing you get from Czecho -.
slovakia where it is just a semblance
of a car or a pig-not wheels, not legs,
sort of rounded". .
help he gave Geller during the entire
time. He permitted Geller to offer him,
three basic shapes from which he chose
one, then guided Geller to something
that was only vaguely right, and finally
accepted Geller's statement that it was,:
indeed, correct. This is a good example
of how Geller is able to draw people
into helping him and wanting to believe
that he has succeeded, even up to the.
point of reporting an event that did not
happen.
Nothing appeared in the Sunday
Mirror about the trial, which surprised
me as Geller was hot news at the time.
Only later did I find that Geller had
insisted and Davis accepted that nothing
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.

New Scientist
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Uti bends my key-and rips his trousers
My second chance to watch Uri work
was 19 June when editor Dr Bernard
Dixon and I met with Uri in the lobby
of the Montcalm Hotel, London, for
more than an hour.
We sat in a secluded corner of the
lobby and chatted for a long time. Then
Uri offered to try some of his skills
for us. He tried to reproduce pictures
which Dixon and I drew but eventually
"passed" (he said he saw nothing clear on
his "mental screen") each time. Next
he suggested he try bending metal. I
gave Uri my housekey, which he worked
with unsuccessfully.
Dixon commented afterwards that he
was struck by the extent to which Geller
stressed his failures- constantly saying
be did not think he could do it and
telling us stories about his failures on
TV and elsewhere. Indeed, he talked far
more about failures than successes. The
effect. of course, is to make everyone
around Geller exceedingly anxious that
he should succeed.
Geller suggested we move to the next
room-an empty dining room with a
few soft chairs near the door. He con-
tinued to attempt to bend my key.
Noting that it was often easier to bend
an object when it was near other metal,
he rubbed the key against an upended
metal floor ashtray and other metal
objects. Even with just the three of
us, a high degree of chaos prevailed-
at one point I was sent looking for
metal and at another looking for a pad.
Hotel staff who passed-who by now
seemed used to the events-added
comments. But still nothing unusual
happened.
Finally Uri suggested we move into
the corner and sit down on a sofa
behind a low coffee table. Bernard
Dixon was sent to fetch Geller's jacket.
Geller sat down first and I walked
around the table and was just sitting
down; Bernard was walking across with
Geller's jacket. Thus neither of us was
watching Geller closely. Suddenly Geller
lurched forward, spreading his legs so
rapidly that he split his trousers. His
hands were down in front of him.
After joking about the ripped trousers,
he held the key from the point end,
enclosing most of it in his hand, and
continued his efforts to make it bend.
Geller's hand was slightly arched, how-
ever, and I could see clearly that
the key was already slightly bent.
Suddenly he said it was bending, and
slowly moved his hand down the key
to expose the bend. The bend was not
. large and he put the key on the coffee
table to show the bend-carefully hold-
ing it in a V position so that both ends
were off the table and the bend touch-
ing. Ne reposted many times that it
was still bending and to prove this he
pat it back down on the table, now in
an L position, with an entire flat side
touching so that the other end was
higher off the table than it had been
the first time. As far as I could see,
however, the key was no more bent
I cannot actually say that I saw Uri
bend my key by non-paranormal means.
.
But I can offer an explanation that I
find more plausible than previously un-
identified mental forces. First, it should
be noted that keys are surprisingly easy
to bend, particularly for a person like
Geller with strong hands. Few of us
ever try it, however, and we assume it
is difficult.
But anyone, including me, can bend
a key on the edge of a chair. Sitting in
a chair with your legs slightly spread,
reach down to the bottom of the chair
seat and you will feel part of the
chair frame. Holding the head of the
key in both hands, put the point on the
top of the frame and press down. You
will be surprised how easily the key
bends. With practice, you can do this
with a quick, casual movement in which
you pull the chair forward, towards a
table.
-
To me, the most plausible hypothesis
is that knowing neither Bernard nor I
were concentrating at that moment, Uri
put the key on the metal rail at the
front of the sofa (his hands were in
the right place) and then suddenly slid
forward. Because the coffee table was
too close to the sofa, he had to spread
his legs quickly, splitting his trousers.
Faces and flowers
After the key bend, Uri again tried
telepathy. After a couple of unsuccess-
ful attempts-as before he always
passed, never showing a final drawing.
despite attempts on his part-he finally
did one drawing. I drew a simple flower
(1), Uri made two attempts (2 and 3)
which he rejected, and then said that
I had drawn a face (4). It is, as he
noted, not too far off because it does
have a basic circle with lines coming
out from it. The final drawing (5) is
his explanation-that he drew a circle
with bumps and then guessed at the
eyes and then the rest of the face.
Uri's relative lack of success, his own
explanation of how he did the drawing,
and some
observations
Dixon allowed us to piece together
by Bernard
afterwards a non-paranormal hypothesis
for this effort as well. First, it should
be noted that in the early attempts
which Uri passed, we had time to think
and were drawing relatively unusual
figures such as a complex fork and an
integral sign. But by the time Geller
1
0
2
3
-
4
5
Picture drawing test at Montcalm Hotel, London, 19 June 1974.
Joseph Hanlon drew a simple flower (1), and Uri made two
then when I Approved ForRelease 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000700110020-3 He explained
1
(5) that he had drawn the circle and hair and then guessed at
the eyes end rest of the face
.
-
177
0
1

· 1.78 .
New Scientist 17 October 1974
made an
left with him-
and draw objects quickly-thus the
simple flower.
More
important,
however,
was
Bernard's observation that after each
drawing. we would carefully hide the
drawing. but then Geller would ask us
to draw the picture again in our mind.
"I found I was making slight head
movements, tracing the shape of the
drawing. I tried not to, but found it
difficult if I was really concentrating
hard and tracing the shape as Uri
suggested. Watching Joe Hanlon I noted
the same effect."
Looking at my drawing and Geller's
efforts and explanations, it seems that
Bernard's hypothesis holds up well. The
head motions for 'a flower would be a
large circle, several short back and
forth motions (petals) and one long
curving up and down motion (the
stem). This is precisely what Uri drew
in his first two attempts (2 and 3)
exhibiting the fact that it is difficult
to tell from head motions precisely
where on the circle the other lines
should go. Dropping the long up and
down motion, and putting the short
motions all on the top, seems to suggest
.
E
bumps and guessed at the face. Be-
cause of the haste with which I drew
the picture, he could be sure that it
was one of the common ones.
Not an experiment
My investigation of Geller has been
surprising to me in two important ways:
first, that every Geller event that I could
investigate in detail had a normal ex-
planation that was more probable than
the paranormal one; and second, the
really strong desire of people to suspend
disbelief and accept Geller. On the latter
point, I must admit that I, too, was
strongly taken with Geller, and that I
`could not help liking him and being
swept up by his enthusiasm-despite
the fact that I was looking for tricks.
Many people believe implicitly in
Geller-often based on a very few
demonstrations of his powers, swept on
by their own desire to believe and by
the force of Geller's personality. Indeed,
some supposedly objective scientists now
talk of the "Geller effect" as a fact.
But as Uri himself told me, "a stage
Ifit stage is under
my conditions". Only controlled scientific
tests will tell whether Geller actually
has paranormal powers.
But we can use our experience with
Geller the performer to help develop
and evaluate tests with Geller the ex-
perimental subject. And if there is any.
lesson to be learned, it is that Occam's:
Razor must be our guide-we must
reject all normal explanations before we
consider the paranormal ones.
In some cases, normal explanations
would not mean that Geller is cheating."
It is possible, at least, for someone to
reproduce drawings watching a nodding
head without realising quite how it is
happening. But we must also accept the
fact-made all the more difficult by
Geller's likeability-that a normal ex-
planation for key bending must imply
fraud. And on the evidence of Uri's
performances, this possibility must be
seriously considered.
So far, there is only one published
result of scientific tests with Geller. In
the next section, I have tried to look
at these experiments in the light of
what I have found out about Geller:
as a performer.
The Stanford Research Institute investigation
Did SRI "validate" Uri Geller? After months of experiments, in a paper this week in Nature SRI reports the
only two sets of tests it considers successful-one of telepathy and the other of clairvoyance.
Although the authors state that Geller bent many pieces of metal, he never did so under experimental
conditions. The paper fails to show that many of the same difficulties of Geller's public performances
occurred in the lab, too. Nor does the paper note that by using an ingenious device invented by his mentor
Dr Andrija Puharich, Geller could have done both successful fests by non-paranormal means
The investigators
Stanford Research Institute, in Menlo
Park, California, is the site of the only
attempt at controlled scientific tests of
Uri Geller. SRI was originally estab-
lished by Stanford University to do
military research. After student protests
in the 1960s, it was nominally split off
from the university. Since then, military
funding .has decreased and SRI has done
increasing amounts of commercial con-
tract research.
The Geller study has been done by
Dr Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ. Both
are laser physicists with a continuing
interest in psychic phenomena who
joined SRI primarily to do psychic re-
search (although when funding is short
they do return to laser work). Puthoff
is 33 years old and joined SRI in 1971.
Ile is the author of a laser textbook,
Fundamentals of Quantum Electronics
(John Wiley & Sons, 1969), and holds
patents for a tunable Raman laser and
other optical devices.
Targ is 40 years old and joined SRI
in 1972 after ten years at Sylvania,
where he worked on gas lasers aud
Targ has been president of the Para-
psychology Research Group of Palo
Alto, and invented an "ESP Teaching
Machine". In a paper to the IEEE
(Institute of Electrical and Electronic
Engineers) International Symposium on
Information Theory in January 1972, he
and biofeedback techniques, it "may be
possible to teach and enhance ESP
phenomena" (Parapsychology Review,
July-August 1972, p 9).
Together, Targ and Puthoff have in-
vestigated several subjects in addition
to Geller. Initial funding for the project
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179
they had an $80 000 grant from NASA
(National Aeronautics and Space Ad-
ministration),
apparently relating to
Targ's ESP teaching machine. But they
remain chronically short of money.
Funding for the Geller work has come
primarily from wealthy individuals ---
particularly from Judith Skutch, a weal-
thy Geller supporter in New York, and Dr
Edgar Mitchell. Ex-astronaut Mitchell
conducted an unauthorised ESP experi-
ment in space in February 1971 and two
years ago set up his Institute of Noetic
Sciences in Palo Alto to encourage
psychic research.
Geller has been to SRI several times
over an 18-month period beginning in
November 1972. Mitchell and another
Geller supporter, Dr Wilbur Franklin of
Kent State University, assisted in the
first series of tests. The clairvoyance
experiment with a die reported in the
SRI paper, published this week in Nature
(vol 251, p 602), comes from this set
of tests. (Copies of the 18 October issue
of Nature are available for 45p from
Macmillan Journals, 4 Little Essex Street,
London WC2.)
The paper
The SRI paper reports on three tests
with Geller, as well as several tests
with other subjects. In the first in
August 1973, Uri was asked to reproduce
target pictures drawn by experimenters
at other locations. "At the beginning of
the experiment either Geller or the
experimenters entered a shielded room
so . that from
that time forward
Geller was at all times visually, acousti-
cally, and electrically shielded from
persommel and material at the target
location. Only following Geller's isola-
tion from the experimenters was a
target chosen and drawn, a procedure
designed to eliminate pre-experiment
cueing. Furthermore, to eliminate the
possibility of pre-experiment target
forcing. Geller was kept ignorant as to
the identity of the person selecting the
target and as to the method of target
selection," Targ and Puthoff report in the
paper.
Altogether. 13 trials were conducted
(see Table). For virtually every trial,
the conditions were changed-often
several conditions were changed at the
same time-so that it is difficult to
correlate his successes and failures with
different conditions.
In four cases (1-4) the targets were
chosen by putting an index card into
2 dictionary to pick a page, then open-
ing it and drawing the first word on the
upper left that "could be drawn". Three
targets (8-10) were chosen from an
already prepared target pocl. Three
(5-7) were targets "blind to experi-
ibenters and subject, prepared independ.
cotly by SRI scientists outside the
experimental group following Geller's
isolation" -- Geller declined to attempt
any of these three. Fically, three targets
(11-15;
Were
chosen by computer
laboratory personnel and drawn on a
cathode
is primari
all cases someone knew what the draw-
ing was. In three cases, however (5, 12,
Geller picture drawing test at SRI
Trial
Geller
location
Target
location
Target _
Outcome
.
1
S1
A
Firecracker
poor
2
S1
A
Grapes
good
3
S1
B
Devil
poor
C
S1
Solar system
good
Picture prepared by outsider
5
C
S1
Rabbit
pass
6
S1
A
Tree
pass
7
S1
A
Envelope
pass
Picture chosen from target pool
8
S1
D
Camel
good.
9
S1
A
Bridge
fair
10
S1
A
Seagull
good
Picture drawn on computer crt
11
S2
E
Kite
good
12
S2
E
Church
poor
13
S2
E
Arrow through heart
fair
Locations:
S1: double walled steel room
S2: double walled copper screen Faraday cage
A: adjacent room 4.1 m from S1
B: office 475 m from S1 .
C: room just outside S1
D: room 6.75 m from S1
E: computer room 54 m from S2
Outcomes:
Pass means Geller did not do a drawing. Other evaluations are by the author
(JH) based on drawings published with the Nature paper. In general, the
drawings seem to be based on a verbal description of the target drawing,
rather than either the target word or the target drawing.
Good: good pictorial representation of a word or phrase which would
describe the entire target picture. Trial 2 is a bunch of 24 grapes (word:
grapes) and the Geller drawing precisely fits that description. Trial 4 includes
the sun, earth, saturn, two other circles, and the words "solar system".
Geller has drawn, in a totally different arrangement, the sun, saturn, several
circles, and what appear to be satellites. Both could be described verbally
as "solar system" or "sun and planets". Trial 8 is a drawing which could
be either a horse or a camel and Geller has drawn a horse. Trial 10 has a
large flying bird and a small bird on the ground. Geller's drawing has a
large and small bird. The birds do not resemble each other, but both
drawings are described well by "large bird with small bird under it". Trial
11 is a kite, which Geiler has drawn. The two are about as dissimilar as
1.wo line drawings of a kite could be.
Fair: pictorial representation of some of the words which would describe
the target picture. Trial 13, for example, is an arrow through a heart. Geller
has drawn an arrow inside a box. Again, the target and Geller's drawing are
dissimilar, despite the fact that they describe the same word "arrow".
Poor: pictorial representation of a few words which might be used to
describe the target picture. In trial 1, the dictionary word was firecracker,
and the drawing is a simple firecracker with a lit fuse. Geller's response
appears to be to the word "noisemaker" and includes a drum and words
like "noise" and "pow".
Special notes:
5-target in shielded room with no one there to view it
6, 7-attempted to make EEG record of Geller, which failed because "he
found it difficult to hold adequately still for good EEG records"
11-picture displayed on front of cathode ray tube display screen
ad stored in computer memory
Approved For Release 2000/08107: CTA-RDP96-00787R000700110020-30 no picture-
13 -- picture drawn on screen and displa
888
Picture from dictionary
.

New Scientist 17 October 1974"
180
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No metal bending
"It has been widely reported that
Geller has demonstrated the ability
to bend metal by paranormal means.
Although metal bending by Geller has
been observed in our laboratory, we
have not been able to combine such
observations with adequately controlled
experiments to obtain data sufficient
to support the paranormal hypo-
thesis," Targ and Puthoff declare in
the paper published this week in
Nature.
Indeed, the SRI team spent most
of its time on metal bending-by far
the most spectacular Geller feat-
and considerably less time on the per-
ception tests finally published.
In one test which I saw the video-
tape of, Uri was asked to bend a
carefully checked metal bar. He was
unsuccessful, and asked for something
else. The SRI team provided a special
checked spoon. Next he asked for
more metal round him for inspiration,
and that was supplied. Finally he
gave up, but the spoon was set up
for the next day and all the other
metal, including the original bar, just
dumped in the corner of the room.
The next day, he started on the
spoon. and again asked for more
metal. The original bar was among
the extra collection, and Uri switched
quickly back to that. But as only the
spoon had been set up and checked,
there was no way to see that Uri or
someone else had not taken the bar-
or any of the other metal-out of the
room overnight, bent it, and brought
it back in the morning.
.
Later Uri moved on to still other
pieces of metal in the pile. Finally he
selected a pair of tweezers which no
one had paid attention to because of
the concentration on the spoon and
bar. Finally, he broke the tweezers,
but even Targ considered it all so
suspicious that it was not included in
the paper. The possibility of sleight
of hand-in this and all other metal
tests with Uri-was too great even
for SRI.
and 13), the picture was not actually
being viewed by anyone at the time of
the test.
In all ten cases where Uri did a
drawing, it had some connection to the
target and in some cases Uri's picture
was extremely good-for example, when
the target drawing was a bunch of 24
grapes, Uri also drew a bunch of 24
grapes.
Perhaps the most striking factor which
runs through all 10 pictures, however,
.is that Uri seems to be drawing neither
the target word nor the target drawing.
He appears to base his drawing on the
words which would be used to describe
the target drawing.
Clairvoyance
The other two tests reported in the
SRI paper are of clairvoyance-seeing
something in a closed container which
no one can know by normal means.
Geller succeeded once and failed once.
7 In the second test reported in the
SRI paper, also conducted in August
1973, an SRI artist drew . 100 target
pictures of everyday objects and other
SRI personnel sealed them with black
cardboard in envelopes and then sealed
the envelopes in other envelopes. Five
targets were drawn from the pool each
day. Each day Geller attempted draw-
ings of everyday objects, but only rarely
came close to the target picture. "The
drawings resulting from this experiment
do not depart significantly from what
would be expected by chance".
In the third test in the SHI paper,
conducted before the pther
November
or
December
1972,
Uri
succeeded spectacularly well. A 34 in dice
was placed in a steel file card box (3 in
× 4 in × 5 in). The box was shaken
and put on the table, and Uri drew a
picture of the uppermost dice face. Then
the box was opened. The experiment
was performed 10 times, with Uri being
correct eight times and passing twice.
Unlike the telepathy test, the conditions
were not varied-the dice and the box
apparently remained the same.
Targ and Puthoff conclude: "A channel
exists whereby 'information about a re-
mote location can be obtained by means
of an as yet unidentified perceptual
modality."
In these experiments, they write,
"we concentrated on what we con-
sidered to be our primary respon-
sibility-to resolve under conditions as
unambiguous as possible the basic issue
of whether a certain class of paranormal
perception phenomena exists." They con-
tinue that "at all times we took measures
to prevent sensory leakage and to pre-
vent deception."
But were Targ and Puthoff vigilant
enough, and have they really shown
unambiguously that paranormal percep-
tion exists?
Welcome to the circus
A dry scientific paper can never
capture the feeling of an experiment.
In this case, the Targ-Puthoff paper
totally fails to communicate the circus
atmosphere that surrounded all of the
deliberately &"
accidentally,
a degree of chaos where he feels com-
fortable and we feel uncomfortable.
Then he bends something."
SRI has filmed or videotaped many
Geller tests. The tapes show that Geller
constantly bounces up and down, touch-
ing everything in sight and running his
hands through his hair. In the middle of
a test, he frequently jumps up and flits
about the room, stopping the test dead.
Just as suddenly, he will go back to the
test-or to a different one he abandoned
earlier. He frequently asks for objects,
often from outside the test room, to
give him moral support: press clippings'
from past triumphs, pieces of metal,
coins, etc. And he will discuss at length
what objects to choose and where to
put them. He draws technicians and
other observers into the experiment by
asking them to help him concentrate, or
to get other objects, or to pick a number.
Geller also tries to convince people
that things happened differently than
they did. In one tape I watched, he
tried to say he had not "passed" when
he had, in fact, done so. In another,
he said that something was bent when
it really wasn't. Also, Geller constantly
needs reinforcement. He frequently
stops and says "I can't do it", thus put-
ting the experimenters in the position
of repeatedly telling him that he really
can, and thus possibly convincing them-
seives in the process.
Mitchell commented that "Hal [Put-
hoff] and Russ [Targ] were so eager
to keep Geller around that they worked
themselves into a box by meeting his
every whim. If he threatened to walk
off they would relent and do what he
wanted. Of course, they lost control of
the situation and it got worse and worse
and worse." Mitchell-a strong believer.
in Geller's abilities who was present for
many of the tests-admitted that during
the tests they should have demanded
"that he curb his impulsiveness, that.
he should not touch equipment, that he
keep his hands properly in view of the
camera at all times, and that he cut
down his chatter when we were trying
to work. It becomes distracting and he
uses it, not consciously to distract, but
to create a climate of too much noise
and muss and bustle."
There are also long periods when he
does nothing but stand and concentrate.
A single test can take several hours of
alternating excitement and boredom. The
vigilance of the experimenters is sure
· to flag during that time.
Assume he will cheat
.The experimenters are conscious of
the possibility of dishonesty. "I feel
confident that Geller will cheat if given
a chance," Targ told me, and he seemed
highly sceptical of some of Geller's
metal bending attempts. But whether
their vigilance against cheating was
rigorous enough is open to dispute.
If Geller is cheating, he is probably
using sophisticated magic and psycho-
logical trickery. But the SRI team has
never called in a professional miagician.
Approved For Release 2000/08/07. CIA-RDP96-00787R000700110020-3" two amateur

'New Scientist 17 October 1974
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181
· 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 bas
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-
boff 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, he
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' ".
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 are 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 SRI
gone too far in this direction?
Screening participants
Typical of the difficulties of this sort
of rescarch is that all those who aid
the investigators are, to some measure
at least, pre-selected for their receptive .:
ness to Geller. "We reached the point
that on a particular day, if one of our
better but more sceptical investigators
was really in a foul mood about the
whole thing, we just banned him from
the room. And we could get results
then, 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
November
(in
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, Palo
Alto). The narrator is Bonnar Cox,
executive director of the SRI In-
formation Science and Engineering
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
Erst 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 gaite 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.
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, he 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
then 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,
be apparently causes a full scale
defection of 0.3 gauss.
Finally, the film shows two unsatis-
factory events. First, Geller is shown
deflecting a compass needle. Next,
he is seen apparently bending a
stainless steel spoon, but this is also
:
Also shown are two bent rings
"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 events
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 is, even though
he guessed the number he asked that
it not be taken into account because
he was not confident. In the test
with the one gramme weight, Geller
is never actually shown deflecting the
scale-all the film shows is Geller
working unsuccessfully
with
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 io film-
ing. If, as the team claims, SRI fimed
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 which
make the film most suspect. I have
already noted the virtual impossibility
of telling just when Geiler bends
something. Therefore, the dogmatic
assertion that "these rings were in
Geller's hand at the time they
were bent", without any film docu-
mentation offered, seems more likely
The cansApproved ForRelease 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787R0007001009gration than
in physical contact with the spoon.
especially good observation.

132
New Scientist 17 October 1974
explains itAbproved For Release 2000/08/07 : @IA.RDR96-00787R00070011002013esting as he was;
"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 of
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 Alto 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 7 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
magnetometer 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 "doubleteli;" 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
coraments. First, just that sort of per-
turbation often occurs when other people
Who share the helium supply are also
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 intently for 20 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? Hcbard 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 15 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 13 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 Gelier 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.
As Targ and Puthoff report in the paper,
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 in this situation, but 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. The second occurred
in January when Puharich was telling
me that in any test Uri should be
"properly examined" for bidden 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
Imperial College, London. King wrote
rooms in the College's Electrical Engin-
using their Approved For Release 2000/08/07. CIA RDP96-00787R000700110020-3! three shielded

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New Scientist 17 October 1974
183
eering Department. King was dogmatic:
"I could get information into any
shielded room." The reason, he 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 roon
(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 Kllz 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 ]
GIIz, he said, so that microwaves of 10
GHIz 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 bim to the US. Puharich
is a wealthy 56-year-old MD who
Holds 56 patents, primarily in medical
electronics. Since 1960 his inventions
bave 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 nerves,
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
simuses. 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
U'S Patent 2 995 633 issued 8 August,
1961.
Gold fing
Enomed
Rectifier
crystal
Nerve
Thements
Centol
puip
-
Figure 1 Puharich tooth radio receiver.
Sigra's are received by the gold filling.
converted to electric signals in the audio
lescency range by the rectifier crystal,
and im parted d'rect's ic the nerve
encros of the lie tocth. Drawing from
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 23
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
be 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 be further reduced, to
micro-miniature proportions, through
the use of so-called 'thin film' circuit
fabrication techniques".
The ampliSeation in the 1964 and
1966 patents is provided by a fecd-
back loop within the mouth, using
either two different teeth (Figure 4
from the 1966 patent) or the tongue
pressed against an exposed terminal
on the back of the tooth (left of
Tongue
nerves
Tooth
nerves
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 skin in
"one of several identifiable areas of
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 pressed
against the face.
Amplifier
R.F.
C
Ou'cut
Feedback coupling
Figure 4 An alternative amplifier
iem uses iwo ieeth Based on
US Paten Approved For Release 2000/08/07c CIA-RDP96-00787.R000700110020331
.

New Scientist . 17 October 1974
Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000700110020-3
Geller performs at Birkbeck
Uri Celler 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
proponent 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 GHIz range. In the configura-
tion where the tongue is part of the
ainplifier. 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 picture was being viewed. Targ
and Puthoff were so anxious to please
.
.
picture out loud after they drew it-
after all, as they say in their paper, the
shicided 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
camp for teenage boys, and one of his
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.
Indeed, King notes that the space
Uri that they Approved ForRelease 2000/08/07" CIA-RDP96-00787R000700110020-3mld provide a
with a request from Uri to describe the
Hannah, and Uri and Shipi soon became
particularly
good waveguide. With a
transmitter anywhere in the room
.

dentApbr8ved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000700110020-3
185
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 30 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 the cage with the outside.
This could be like a telephone and have
a filter to cut out everything above 3
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, Pubarich reports that extra-terres-
trial powers called Hoova speak to him
through a voice called Spectra, and have
done so for longer than he has known
Uri. Uri's power, be says, comes from
Eoova. To have any hope of having this
report accepted, Puharich needs Uri's
success. If Uri carre to Piberich end
sald "Andrije, 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
.
if Uri's request came via Spectra,
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 this 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-
thetic to Geller, but it 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 be 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 en 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 Pubarich's
background, must be considered highly
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, 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.
me something Podroved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000700110020-3
while." In his Book,
Poharich tells of
often hearing the voice of Spectra, and
.