Project Alpha

Update, January 31, 2008: Banacek, one of the magicians mentioned below, has his own recollection of events, which is somewhat different from Thalbourne's. For his side of the story, please see this post.

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Today a reader, Travis, asked me about Project Alpha, the famous episode from the early 1980s in which superskeptic James Randi arranged for two young magicians to infiltrate a parapsychology lab in order to confound the researchers. Over the years, this strange incident has assumed almost legendary proportions in the minds of some skeptics and reporters, who claim that the researchers were totally fooled. Here, for instance, is the way the story is told in Las Vegas Style magazine, with my comments and corrections in brackets and in bold font:

By 1979 BANACHEK [one of the magicians in question, whose real name is Steve Shaw] was starting to draw national attention as a gifted performer in extra sensory perception crafts. That was also the year that McDonnell-Douglas Aircraft awarded a $500,000 grant to Washington University in St. Louis for the establishment of the McDonnell Laboratory for Psychical Research. [Incorrect - the grant was not bestowed by the corporation, but by James S. McDonnell as a private gift.] The lab was supposed to come up with evidence that things like bending a fork with your thoughts was a real thing. If the idea of spending half a million clams on fork bending seems just a little soft in the head, you're not alone. James Randi was an internationally known magician and an active investigator of paranormal claims when McDonnell-Douglas [sic] made the grant. He decided to send two young illusionists into the MacLab to debunk it. BANACHEK was one of the illusionists.

For three years [he] was subjected to every test the pros could come up with to prove he had authentic psychic powers. He bent things, burned things, moved things and knew things. He passed every test with flying colors [false - see Thalbourne's article, linked below] and at the end of the three year period the McDonnell Laboratory for Psychical Research proudly announced to the scientific community that they had the real thing in the form of BANACHEK [false - no such announcement was made]. OMNI Magazine did a spread on BANACHEK. Discover Magazine said "...his demonstrations were just phenomenal." Even the National Enquirer called him a "Prodigy. Nobody like him in his field."

Mid bow for the McDonnell folks James Randi drops his bomb that BANACHEK had been working for him for the past three years and what's more everything he did was an illusion. Remember? Illusions are ideas creating misleading appearances. And mislead BANACHEK did. You know you have a major coup in your pocket when you sting the National Enquirer. [Really?] The guys at the Laboratory for Psychical [Research] were crushed. [False - they had already suspected Shaw and his partner of fraud, and had dismissed them both more than a year earlier.]

I guess Las Vegas Style subscribes to the motto "print the legend." The actual facts behind this case are thoroughly presented in a paper I found online in PDF (Adobe) form: "Science Versus Showmanship: A History of the Randi Hoax," by Michael A. Thalbourne.

Originally I had thought of summarizing this article, but there's no need to do so because it speaks for itself. Thalbourne, who was a participant in some of the events, writes in a straightforward, engaging style and lays out the key facts and timeline in the clearest possible way.

The case is also covered, in less detail, by John Beloff in Parapsychology: A Concise History.

As both Beloff's and Thalbourne's accounts make clear, there is much less to Project Alpha than its cheerleaders would have us believe. Regardless of what the National Enquirer may have said, the researchers never publicly committed themselves to the view that the phenomena they observed were genuine. They remained properly cautious in their published remarks. Indeed, they privately came to the conclusion that the two test subjects were not worth studying any further, and politely terminated the experiments. Even so, Randi had the chutzpah to hold a press conference claiming that the lab had been successfully duped - a story that is repeated to this day.

To nail down this point, I direct your attention to the appendix that follows the bibliography in Thalbourne's paper, where the published conclusions of the researchers are reproduced. This document is dated September 1, 1981, more than one year before Randi's January, 1983, press conference exposing the hoax. Regarding the test subject Mike Edwards (Shaw's partner in trickery), the researchers write:

The outcome of this research is suggestive of psychokinesis but inconclusive, due to its exploratory nature ... ordinary explanations exist for these effects, given the conditions under which they have been observed. Thus, although several events of interest have transpired, we do not claim that evidence conclusive of "psychic ability" has yet been demonstrated in our research. [Emphasis added]

Comments

[william]

I just read a book called best evidence where the author claims that there is a guy making a living traveling around the country putting on seminars teaching people how to bend forks and spoons with their minds and has about an 80% success rate. This seems odd that psi researchers cannot find anyone to bend stuff and this guy makes a living showing people how to bend stuff. The mystery continues.

[Markus Hesse]

Oh yes, I used to cite PA often in my Randi fanboy days, usually to attack the credibility of psi researchers and make them seem ever more foolish.

It reminds me a bit of Randi's "critique" of Targ and Puthoff's Geller experiments at Stanford, which most don't know is based on questionable second-hand "insider" information that doesn't quite add up, yet it's widely proclaimed as "the facts."

[Dr Brownlove]

Once I was in a park when I was accosted by a massive fire brathing pigeon which was wearing pin-striped drainpipes, winkle pickers a veltvet frock coat and a rather knackered looking top hat!

I'd like Randi to prove that that didn't happen.

[Dr Brownlove]

Once I was in a park when I was accosted by a massive fire breathing pigeon which was wearing pin-striped drainpipes, winkle pickers a veltvet frock coat and a rather knackered looking top hat!

I'd like Randi to prove that that didn't happen.

[Ulysses]

Speaking of Randi, have you seen the news (see paranormalreview.com) about the two cryptographers who solved the JREF Challenge, although they are not actually requesting the money:
http://www.paranormalreview.com/News/tabid/59/newsid368/96/Challenge-solved-Randi-owes-me-1-million/Default.aspx

[Allen]

Hi, I'm a professional liar telling you how I fooled THOSE people, but of course, I'm telling YOU the truth! :-)

[Joseph Capp]

Dear Mr. Prescott,
Thank you for a great post.
The UFO field is also filled with debunkers' falsehoods. This would be funny if not for the fact that peoples careers and reputations are damaged. I wrote a post on my blog "UFO media Matters" and called it:
"Debunkers Dumb Statment List". I only presented three but I could have written a book. Would you like to include Randi - there is a lot of material there for my list.

Joseph Capp
UFO Media Matters

[Eteponge]

Thanks for posting more indepth information regarding this subject Michael. I've had many skeptics pull up Project Alpha almost every single time I've mentioned anything whatsoever to do with Paranormal Researcher in an attempt to make any Research I pull up look potentially fraud-ridden.

Travis = Me (Eteponge) by the way.

[ellis]

I've always wondered what motivates a "super-skeptic" like Randi. As a child was he forced to watch his parents death at the hands of an itinerant astrologer or something??? I can understand wanting to debunk a myth that one feels is harming others, but the vitriol, vehemence and dishonesty with which Randi pursues his goals is well, pretty amazing. Like, in a bad way.

[Cyrus]

Science and skepticism is about discovery and knowledge, not suppression of research. The popularity of these debunker/entertainers is eventually going to die.

[James]

Hahaha, I just read this. Michael Shermer was persuaded by Al Gore's film that global warming is catastrophic. The reason why this is funny is because most scientists (including those who believe that global warming is a problem) think the film is bunk. "Skeptic" my ass.

www.treehugger.com/files/2006/06/michael_shermer.php+michael+shermer+inconvenient+truth&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us

[Ulysses]

Michael Schermer position on global warming does not come as a surprise since he already represents the editorial position of Scientific American on psychic phenomena, why not represent the magazine position on global warming, too.

[Jacob]

I've recently put on my site a video and instructions for bending spoons made by a reader of my site: http://www.mind-energy.net/archives/170-Spoon-bending-video.html

Somehow, Randi's official site put a link and a short notice about it on its weekly newsletter. They even took the time to edit the pictures to make fun of it all. Then several thousands of his followers took a look and left an impressive amount of totally childish comments.

Some of the commenters where actually going along the lines of "Have you heard of project Alpha".

Thanks to Michael I've now heard of it and can refer them all to this article.

[Morris]

Once again the "Amazing Randi" is shown for the fake he is and always has been. I often wonder who or what he knows because most of his stuff virges on, if not is, out and out fraud. I wonder what would happen if the two cryptographers who solved the JREF Challenge would decide to claim the prize?

[drew hempel]

glad to see mention of John Beloff's awesome parapsychology book. Maybe the best one out there. thanks, drew

[F. Ybarra]

Why question Randi's motives? That's ad hominem nonsense. Maybe he just wants to prevent bad magicians from abusing their knowledge of trickery by claiming true powers, and thus, swindeling the population at large of millions.
As far as Project Alpha goes, you can see and hear in YouTube one of the researches, Mark Shafer, telling the world that these kids apparently can perform miracles, and then he says "I don't think they're trying to trick us". Face it, magicians fooled so called "experts in the paranormal". How can you claim expertise on something that doesn't exist? The only real experts are those who know the tricks.