Project Alpha
Encyclopedia
Project Alpha was an elaborate hoax
orchestrated by the stage magician and skeptic James Randi
. It involved planting two fake psychic
s, Steve Shaw
(now better known as Banachek) and Michael Edwards, into a paranormal
research project. During the initial stages of the investigation, the researchers came to believe that the pair's psychic powers were real. However, more formal experiments, as well as criticism from both the parapsychology community and Randi himself, led them to dismiss their initial trust. The hoax was later revealed publicly.
The success of Project Alpha led Randi to use variations of the technique on several other occasions. Perhaps the most famous example led to the downfall of TV evangelist and faith healer
Peter Popoff
, when Randi had a man pose as a woman with uterine cancer, which Popoff happily "cured." In another example, Randi worked with performance artist José Alvarez, who posed as a channeller known as "Carlos," who was presented on Australian TV and soon had a wide following. After this hoax was exposed, the artist was constantly approached by people who believed him to be genuine, even if he told them directly that he was an actor.
and believer in the paranormal, awarded a USD
$500,000 grant to Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri
, for the establishment of the McDonnell Laboratory for Psychical Research. He intended the money to be used for serious study of psychic
phenomena in a controlled setting. The lab was led by physicist
Peter Phillips, who decided to focus on spoon bending
by children, also known as "psychokinetic metal bending," or PKMB.
Before the testing had started, James Randi had written to the lab with a list of 11 "caveats" they should be wary of, and his suggestions on how to avoid them.
These included a rigid adherence to the protocol of the test, so that the subjects would not be allowed to change it in the midst of the run. This had been the modus operandi
of Uri Geller
while being tested at Stanford Research Institute; whenever something did not work, he simply did something else instead. The researchers then reported this as a success, when in fact the original test had failed. Other suggestions included having only one object of study at any time, permanently marking the object or objects used so they could not be switched, and having as few people in the room as possible to avoid distractions. Randi also offered his services to watch the experiments as a control, noting that a conjurer would be an excellent person to look for fakery. Phillips did not take Randi up on the offer because of the skeptic's reputation of being "a showman rather than an unprejudiced critic" and his perceived hostility towards psychic claimants. In his letters, Randi even told the researchers that the subjects were fake, but the researchers did not check out their backgrounds.
Throughout the early phases of the project, many people claiming to have psychic powers presented themselves to the lab. The vast majority quickly proved to have no such ability, or, just as commonly, used sleight of hand
to make their "abilities" work. Many of these were convinced what they were doing was "real". However, after a short while it became apparent that two young men, Steve Shaw and Michael Edwards, were much more successful, and the lab started to focus their energies on them. In fact, the two young men were "plants," friends of Randi whom he had met some time before as part of his magician's trade. Part of Randi's instructions to these men was to tell the truth if they were ever asked if they were faking the results; they were never asked this question directly. The researchers assumed that the participants would have no qualms about lying in their answer to a straightforward question if they were also lying about their abilities.
Because the studio was set up to allow people in front of the camera to see themselves on monitors, Edwards found that one particular camera operator was on guard to capture any attempts at sleight of hand, but he simply "randomly" picked the man to be a volunteer for audience participation, and he was replaced by a less competent cameraman. This was also a clear violation of one of Randi's caveats; the test run should have been stopped at this point and recorded as a failure.
The two were so successful at spoon bending that several other tests were invented. In one they were given pictures in sealed envelopes and then asked to try to identify them from a list shown to them later. The two were left alone in a room with the envelopes, and although there was a possibility that they would peek, this was "controlled" by examining the envelopes later. The envelopes were held closed with four staples, which they simply pried open with their fingernails, looked at the picture, and then resealed by inserting the staples back into the same holes and forcing them closed by pressing them against the table.
Another test was electronic; they were asked to influence the burnout point of a common fuse
. After they "worked it" with their mind, an increasing amount of current was run through it until it blew. The two proved to have amazing abilities in this test after a few trials, eventually causing the fuses to blow immediately once they "got used to it." In fact they were simply palming
the already blown fuses and then handing them back to the experimenters. They also found that by pressing down on one end of the fuse in its holder, or just touching it briefly, the instruments recorded unusual results that were interpreted by the experimenters as psi
effects.
In one instance, Shaw and Edwards were asked to move small objects in a sealed transparent container, normally small bits of paper balanced on an edge. Shaw and Edwards realized that the "sealed" container really wasn't. They spotted small openings and blew through them.
Other examples included their ability to make digital clocks stop working properly (Edwards put it in a microwave for a few seconds), or make images appear on film just by staring at the camera (Shaw spat on the lens). In an example of a sort of Rorschach
test, the experimenters later described the images as being various bits of the female anatomy, which, "of course," young men (such as Shaw and Edwards) would be interested in.
In one particular experiment, Shaw tried to get them to say on film that he was not allowed to touch the object he was supposed to bend in the experiment (he had already secretly done that, and with them affirming that he could not and had not touched it, the 'miracle' would look even greater). When Shaw asked: "Can I touch it?", the reply was, to his surprise: "You do what you have to do."
The researchers explain these apparently inexcusable inadequacies in experimental protocols by drawing a clear distinction between two different stages of an investigation: the exploratory, informal experiments and the formal experiments. During the exploratory phase, the researchers would simply be trying to determine whether there is a phenomenon that could be worth further investigation, which often implies the use of much more complicated protocols and expensive equipment. In doing so, they are also trying to set up a comfortable, relaxed atmosphere that is believed to be conducive to psychic phenomena. It is during this stage that Shaw and Edwards were able to convince the researchers of psychic abilities. However, when the scientists moved on to tightly controlled experimental conditions, Shaw and Edwards were no longer able to replicate the effects and were now considered "no longer worthwhile to fly them in, if they were only going to produce such meager results."
, using common sleight of hand to fool the researchers.
Randi started to leak stories that the two were a plant of his, which reached the lab a week later and were considered to be a joke, due to the length (21 months) and the lack of precedence of plot. The story had been widely circulated by the time the meeting was held the next month. Reactions were varied; some thought it was simply a lie, others that Randi was pulling off a hoax, and still others concluded the entire experiment was dreamed up as a conspiracy by Randi and Phillips to discredit the field.
Upon returning from the meeting, Phillips immediately changed the test protocols. The two found that they were no longer able to fool the experimenters so easily, and in most cases, not at all. During this time the lab started releasing additional reports that seriously toned down the success rate. In their own words, "We did not conclude that they must be frauds, but only that after extensive testing, they were not behaving nearly as psychically as they had led us to expect." This improvement of protocols later led James Randi to list a "straight spoon" award to Phillips in a press release of his "bent spoon" awards, but that award was omitted from the list of awards published by Omni magazine and the Skeptical Inquirer
; it was reported in the latter in a subsequent letter to the editor.
At this point Shaw and Edwards were so famous that they were asked to travel widely and present their powers. Many other psi investigators interviewed the two and gave glowing reviews, thus tainting themselves in the eventual aftermath.
Randi decided to end the project and announced the entire affair in Discover magazine. The resulting crash of the parapsychology field was immediate and deep; many of the researchers who endorsed Shaw and Edwards after the August meeting were now burned in the process. One went so far as to claim that the young men really did have psychic powers, and that they were now lying about being magicians. The bad press was so widespread that the McDonnell Lab was shut down.
The Skeptical Inquirer
revealed that Shaw was a fake psychic in their fall 1980 issue. At the time neither the authors (McBurney and Greenberg) nor the editor (Kendrick Frazier
) knew that Shaw was part of Project Alpha. Shaw had, in fact, posed as a fake psychic prior to Project Alpha, and his high school paper ran a story about his powers. In addition, rumors that the psychics were fake reached the researchers, but they didn't believe them. According to the researchers,
The complaint of psi investigators for years had been that they did not have enough funding for their experiments. However, in Randi's opinion it was not funding but the experimenters that were the problem. With $500,000 from McDonnell, Randi felt that lack of funding could no longer be blamed for any failure. Randi's purpose was to show that no matter how much money was spent, there would still be no reliable results. The researchers, however, point out that Randi avoids making the distinction between exploratory and formal investigations and should recognize that the formal experiments dismissed the magicians' psychic claims.
Some within the parapsychology community were outraged, with Dr. Berthold Schwarz declaring "Randi has set parapsychology back 100 years!" Randi's approach also raised outcries concerning ethical considerations and doubts about positive effects on methodology awareness, both within the parapsychology and the skeptic communities. But Randi reports that other parapsychology researchers have contacted him with praise, describing the project as "splendid and deserved," "an important sanitary service," "commendable," and "long-needed."
Hoax
A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...
orchestrated by the stage magician and skeptic James Randi
James Randi
James Randi is a Canadian-American stage magician and scientific skeptic best known as a challenger of paranormal claims and pseudoscience. Randi is the founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation...
. It involved planting two fake psychic
Psychic
A psychic is a person who professes an ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception , or is said by others to have such abilities. It is also used to describe theatrical performers who use techniques such as prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot...
s, Steve Shaw
Banachek
Banachek is an American mentalist. Banachek has written books on mentalism, such as Psychological Subtleties, and invented various magic and mentalism effects, including the Penn & Teller bullet catch and the original "buried alive." Banachek is also the Director of the James Randi Educational...
(now better known as Banachek) and Michael Edwards, into a paranormal
Paranormal
Paranormal is a general term that designates experiences that lie outside "the range of normal experience or scientific explanation" or that indicates phenomena understood to be outside of science's current ability to explain or measure...
research project. During the initial stages of the investigation, the researchers came to believe that the pair's psychic powers were real. However, more formal experiments, as well as criticism from both the parapsychology community and Randi himself, led them to dismiss their initial trust. The hoax was later revealed publicly.
The success of Project Alpha led Randi to use variations of the technique on several other occasions. Perhaps the most famous example led to the downfall of TV evangelist and faith healer
Faith Healer
Faith Healer is a play by Brian Friel about the life of faith healer Francis Hardy as monologued through the shifting memories of Hardy, his wife, Grace, and stage manager, Teddy.-Synopsis:...
Peter Popoff
Peter Popoff
Peter Popoff is a German-born American faith healer and the president of Peter Popoff Ministries. He conducts revival meetings and has a national television program...
, when Randi had a man pose as a woman with uterine cancer, which Popoff happily "cured." In another example, Randi worked with performance artist José Alvarez, who posed as a channeller known as "Carlos," who was presented on Australian TV and soon had a wide following. After this hoax was exposed, the artist was constantly approached by people who believed him to be genuine, even if he told them directly that he was an actor.
Peter Phillips' experiments
In 1979, James S. McDonnell, board chairman of McDonnell DouglasMcDonnell Douglas
McDonnell Douglas was a major American aerospace manufacturer and defense contractor, producing a number of famous commercial and military aircraft. It formed from a merger of McDonnell Aircraft and Douglas Aircraft in 1967. McDonnell Douglas was based at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport...
and believer in the paranormal, awarded a USD
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
$500,000 grant to Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
, for the establishment of the McDonnell Laboratory for Psychical Research. He intended the money to be used for serious study of psychic
Parapsychology
The term parapsychology was coined in or around 1889 by philosopher Max Dessoir, and originates from para meaning "alongside", and psychology. The term was adopted by J.B. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement for the term psychical research...
phenomena in a controlled setting. The lab was led by physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
Peter Phillips, who decided to focus on spoon bending
Spoon bending
Spoon bending is the apparent deformation of objects, especially metal cutlery, either without physical force, or with less force than normally necessary...
by children, also known as "psychokinetic metal bending," or PKMB.
Before the testing had started, James Randi had written to the lab with a list of 11 "caveats" they should be wary of, and his suggestions on how to avoid them.
These included a rigid adherence to the protocol of the test, so that the subjects would not be allowed to change it in the midst of the run. This had been the modus operandi
Modus operandi
Modus operandi is a Latin phrase, approximately translated as "mode of operation". The term is used to describe someone's habits or manner of working, their method of operating or functioning...
of Uri Geller
Uri Geller
Uri Geller is a self-proclaimed psychic known for his trademark television performances of spoon bending and other supposed psychic effects. Throughout the years, Geller has been accused of using simple conjuring tricks to achieve the effects of psychokinesis and telepathy...
while being tested at Stanford Research Institute; whenever something did not work, he simply did something else instead. The researchers then reported this as a success, when in fact the original test had failed. Other suggestions included having only one object of study at any time, permanently marking the object or objects used so they could not be switched, and having as few people in the room as possible to avoid distractions. Randi also offered his services to watch the experiments as a control, noting that a conjurer would be an excellent person to look for fakery. Phillips did not take Randi up on the offer because of the skeptic's reputation of being "a showman rather than an unprejudiced critic" and his perceived hostility towards psychic claimants. In his letters, Randi even told the researchers that the subjects were fake, but the researchers did not check out their backgrounds.
Throughout the early phases of the project, many people claiming to have psychic powers presented themselves to the lab. The vast majority quickly proved to have no such ability, or, just as commonly, used sleight of hand
Sleight of hand
Sleight of hand, also known as prestidigitation or legerdemain, is the set of techniques used by a magician to manipulate objects such as cards and coins secretly....
to make their "abilities" work. Many of these were convinced what they were doing was "real". However, after a short while it became apparent that two young men, Steve Shaw and Michael Edwards, were much more successful, and the lab started to focus their energies on them. In fact, the two young men were "plants," friends of Randi whom he had met some time before as part of his magician's trade. Part of Randi's instructions to these men was to tell the truth if they were ever asked if they were faking the results; they were never asked this question directly. The researchers assumed that the participants would have no qualms about lying in their answer to a straightforward question if they were also lying about their abilities.
Steve Shaw and Michael Edwards
Shaw and Edwards (18 and 17 respectively at the time Alpha started) were skilled amateur magicians who managed to fool the researchers with fairly simple tricks during the first stages of investigations. The project had originally started with spoon bending, so the two quickly developed a way to accomplish this trick. Contrary to one of the caveats Randi noted in his letter, the test setup included not one, but many and all sorts of spoons on the table, labeled with paper on a loop of string instead of some permanent marking. When starting to bend a spoon they would actually pick up two or more and remove the labels, which they were allowed to do, because they claimed they were in the way. They would then simply switch the labels when putting them back and wait. The spoons were measured before and after the experiment, and since all sorts of spoons were used, simply switching the labels would produce different measurements, causing the scientist to believe that something paranormal had happened. In other cases, they would drop one of the spoons in their lap and bend it below the table with one hand, while pretending to bend a spoon in their other hand, distracting the scientists.Because the studio was set up to allow people in front of the camera to see themselves on monitors, Edwards found that one particular camera operator was on guard to capture any attempts at sleight of hand, but he simply "randomly" picked the man to be a volunteer for audience participation, and he was replaced by a less competent cameraman. This was also a clear violation of one of Randi's caveats; the test run should have been stopped at this point and recorded as a failure.
The two were so successful at spoon bending that several other tests were invented. In one they were given pictures in sealed envelopes and then asked to try to identify them from a list shown to them later. The two were left alone in a room with the envelopes, and although there was a possibility that they would peek, this was "controlled" by examining the envelopes later. The envelopes were held closed with four staples, which they simply pried open with their fingernails, looked at the picture, and then resealed by inserting the staples back into the same holes and forcing them closed by pressing them against the table.
Another test was electronic; they were asked to influence the burnout point of a common fuse
Fuse (electrical)
In electronics and electrical engineering, a fuse is a type of low resistance resistor that acts as a sacrificial device to provide overcurrent protection, of either the load or source circuit...
. After they "worked it" with their mind, an increasing amount of current was run through it until it blew. The two proved to have amazing abilities in this test after a few trials, eventually causing the fuses to blow immediately once they "got used to it." In fact they were simply palming
Palming
Palming is a technique for holding or concealing an object in the palm of the hand. It is used frequently by magicians to conceal the presence of a card, coin, or other object. When done skillfully, the hand containing the palmed object appears to be completely empty.-Methods:Methods for palming...
the already blown fuses and then handing them back to the experimenters. They also found that by pressing down on one end of the fuse in its holder, or just touching it briefly, the instruments recorded unusual results that were interpreted by the experimenters as psi
Psi (parapsychology)
Psi is a term from parapsychology derived from the Greek, ψ psi, 23rd letter of the Greek alphabet; from the Greek ψυχή psyche, "mind, soul".-Etymology:...
effects.
In one instance, Shaw and Edwards were asked to move small objects in a sealed transparent container, normally small bits of paper balanced on an edge. Shaw and Edwards realized that the "sealed" container really wasn't. They spotted small openings and blew through them.
Other examples included their ability to make digital clocks stop working properly (Edwards put it in a microwave for a few seconds), or make images appear on film just by staring at the camera (Shaw spat on the lens). In an example of a sort of Rorschach
Rorschach inkblot test
The Rorschach test is a psychological test in which subjects' perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed using psychological interpretation, complex algorithms, or both. Some psychologists use this test to examine a person's personality characteristics and emotional functioning...
test, the experimenters later described the images as being various bits of the female anatomy, which, "of course," young men (such as Shaw and Edwards) would be interested in.
In one particular experiment, Shaw tried to get them to say on film that he was not allowed to touch the object he was supposed to bend in the experiment (he had already secretly done that, and with them affirming that he could not and had not touched it, the 'miracle' would look even greater). When Shaw asked: "Can I touch it?", the reply was, to his surprise: "You do what you have to do."
The researchers explain these apparently inexcusable inadequacies in experimental protocols by drawing a clear distinction between two different stages of an investigation: the exploratory, informal experiments and the formal experiments. During the exploratory phase, the researchers would simply be trying to determine whether there is a phenomenon that could be worth further investigation, which often implies the use of much more complicated protocols and expensive equipment. In doing so, they are also trying to set up a comfortable, relaxed atmosphere that is believed to be conducive to psychic phenomena. It is during this stage that Shaw and Edwards were able to convince the researchers of psychic abilities. However, when the scientists moved on to tightly controlled experimental conditions, Shaw and Edwards were no longer able to replicate the effects and were now considered "no longer worthwhile to fly them in, if they were only going to produce such meager results."
Revelation and aftermath
In mid-1981, the two were fairly famous in the psi world, and even outside it, and Phillips decided to release a research brief at a workshop of the Parapsychological Association Convention (August 1981). According to the researchers' official version, Phillips also wrote to Randi to ask for a tape of fake metal-bending, which was to be shown alongside the recording of Shaw and Edwards. The researchers were looking for opinions and critical input from the parapsychology community and finally released a revised abstract that reflected the received criticism in its conservative and skeptical language. After the announcements in the press, Randi wrote to the lab again and stated that it was entirely possible the two were magiciansMagic (illusion)
Magic is a performing art that entertains audiences by staging tricks or creating illusions of seemingly impossible or supernatural feats using natural means...
, using common sleight of hand to fool the researchers.
Randi started to leak stories that the two were a plant of his, which reached the lab a week later and were considered to be a joke, due to the length (21 months) and the lack of precedence of plot. The story had been widely circulated by the time the meeting was held the next month. Reactions were varied; some thought it was simply a lie, others that Randi was pulling off a hoax, and still others concluded the entire experiment was dreamed up as a conspiracy by Randi and Phillips to discredit the field.
Upon returning from the meeting, Phillips immediately changed the test protocols. The two found that they were no longer able to fool the experimenters so easily, and in most cases, not at all. During this time the lab started releasing additional reports that seriously toned down the success rate. In their own words, "We did not conclude that they must be frauds, but only that after extensive testing, they were not behaving nearly as psychically as they had led us to expect." This improvement of protocols later led James Randi to list a "straight spoon" award to Phillips in a press release of his "bent spoon" awards, but that award was omitted from the list of awards published by Omni magazine and the Skeptical Inquirer
Skeptical Inquirer
The Skeptical Inquirer is a bimonthly American magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry with the subtitle: The magazine for science and reason....
; it was reported in the latter in a subsequent letter to the editor.
At this point Shaw and Edwards were so famous that they were asked to travel widely and present their powers. Many other psi investigators interviewed the two and gave glowing reviews, thus tainting themselves in the eventual aftermath.
Randi decided to end the project and announced the entire affair in Discover magazine. The resulting crash of the parapsychology field was immediate and deep; many of the researchers who endorsed Shaw and Edwards after the August meeting were now burned in the process. One went so far as to claim that the young men really did have psychic powers, and that they were now lying about being magicians. The bad press was so widespread that the McDonnell Lab was shut down.
The Skeptical Inquirer
Skeptical Inquirer
The Skeptical Inquirer is a bimonthly American magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry with the subtitle: The magazine for science and reason....
revealed that Shaw was a fake psychic in their fall 1980 issue. At the time neither the authors (McBurney and Greenberg) nor the editor (Kendrick Frazier
Kendrick Frazier
Kendrick Frazier is a science writer and editor. He was the editor of Science News for several years. Since 1977 he has been the editor of Skeptical Inquirer, the journal published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry [CSI. He is a member of the executive council of CSI, an international...
) knew that Shaw was part of Project Alpha. Shaw had, in fact, posed as a fake psychic prior to Project Alpha, and his high school paper ran a story about his powers. In addition, rumors that the psychics were fake reached the researchers, but they didn't believe them. According to the researchers,
The rumor seemed unlikely to be true for several reasons: the two young men came from different states and had never met before being brought to the MacLab; if they were both conspiring with Randi, then the plot had gone on for 21 months. What critic would be so persistent in engaging in fraud and conspiracy on such a time-scale? There seemed to be no precedent. Nor was it possible to track down how reliable the rumor might be.
The complaint of psi investigators for years had been that they did not have enough funding for their experiments. However, in Randi's opinion it was not funding but the experimenters that were the problem. With $500,000 from McDonnell, Randi felt that lack of funding could no longer be blamed for any failure. Randi's purpose was to show that no matter how much money was spent, there would still be no reliable results. The researchers, however, point out that Randi avoids making the distinction between exploratory and formal investigations and should recognize that the formal experiments dismissed the magicians' psychic claims.
Some within the parapsychology community were outraged, with Dr. Berthold Schwarz declaring "Randi has set parapsychology back 100 years!" Randi's approach also raised outcries concerning ethical considerations and doubts about positive effects on methodology awareness, both within the parapsychology and the skeptic communities. But Randi reports that other parapsychology researchers have contacted him with praise, describing the project as "splendid and deserved," "an important sanitary service," "commendable," and "long-needed."
External links
- Truzzi, MarcelloMarcello TruzziMarcello Truzzi was a professor of sociology at New College of Florida and later at Eastern Michigan University, founding co-chairman of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal , a founder of the Society for Scientific Exploration, and director for the Center for...
, "Project Alpha: Sabotage". Skeptical Inquirer, 8(2)187. - Project Alpha at Skeptic's Dictionary
- Project Alpha hoax article
- An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural
- Youtube video of Randi, profile of Project Alpha
- Youtube video: Looking back at Project Alpha with Michael Edwards and James Randi, Part 1 of 2
- Youtube video: Looking back at Project Alpha with Michael Edwards and James Randi, Part 2 of 2