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May 2010_june_july_2009.qxd 31/05/2010 6:15 PM Page 12 12 The 5 Most Fraudulent Psychics accent. Furthermore, the psychics hired to give sending streams of data back to Earth for study readings via phone were found to largely be by scientists, but on April 22, 2010, that stream reading from a script. of information suddenly changed. Surprisingly (or perhaps not), Miss Cleo Nasa claimed that a software problem is currently working as a spiritual advisor in Ft. with the flight data system was the cause but Mr Lauderdale. Prices for a one-on-one tarot Hausdorf believes it could be the work of aliens. reading purportedly start around $200. This is because all other parts of the spacecraft appear to be functioning fine. MINA CRANDON He told the German newspaper Bild: "It seems almost as if someone has reprogrammed guyism.com Decades before skeptic and or hijacked the probe – thus perhaps we do not magician James Randi, there yet know the whole truth.” Over the years, plenty of frauds have was Harry Houdini. The most Voyager 2 carries a disk with greetings sought to prey on those desperate to connect famous magician of all time in 55 languages on it in case the craft encounters with lost love ones. Regardless of your beliefs was also one of the biggest other life forms. on psychic abilities, the case against mysticism critics and activists against Dr Edward Stone, a scientist on the is pretty easily made against these five famous psychics and mediums. After project, said the desk, called the Golden Record, psychics and mediums. his mother died, Houdini devoted considerable is "a kind of time capsule, intended to efforts to expose frauds. He also set up a communicate a story of our world to JOHN EDWARD committee that would award a cash prize to extraterrestrials. anyone who could prove psychic abilities (no "The Voyager message is carried by a John Edward rose to one could). Thanks to his knowledge of stage phonograph record-a 12-inch gold-plated prominence as a psychic in the tricks, Houdini debunked numerous psychics copper disk containing sounds and images late 1990s. In 1999, he got his and mediums. The most famous was Mina selected to portray the diversity of life and own show – Crossing Over Crandon. culture on Earth." [] with John Edward – in which In the 1920s Mina Crandon rose to he claimed to talk with the prominence for her accurate predictions and Police flooded with UFO dead relatives of members in involved séances. She was so good, that she the audience. However, James Randi and other received endorsements from such notable sighting reports after skeptics write Edward off as nothing more than people as Arthur Conan Doyle. However, a cold reader. Cold reading is a psychic Houdini showed how many of her “séance” residents see large, tube- technique used to gain knowledge about a tricks could be easily replicated. Scientific like object over Somerset person based on age, clothing, body language investigations from other skeptics also severely and other physical or verbal cues. damage her credibility. Even so, Mina County continued to profit from her trickery all the way SYLVIA BROWNE up until her death in 1941. While Sylvia Browne hasn’t URI GELLER been officially outed as a fraud, the evidence is pretty Uri Geller claims to have substantial to debunk her psychic powers (which were “psychic powers.” According given to him by to Robert S. Lancaster, creator extraterrestrials), specifically of the website psychokinesis and telepathy. StopSylvia.com, her track record for correctly For decades, he’s used these predicting events is no better than could be “abilities” to bend spoons and SOMERVILLE -- Somerville police achieved through educated guesses. speed up or slow down watches. If it sounds like were flooded with phone calls this morning Additionally, she vehemently declines the use traditional magic tricks, that’s because it is. after residents reported seeing a large tube-like of scientific testing on her powers. Professional stage magician and skeptic James object fluttering through the sky. As an example of her fraudulence, Randi has shown how Geller’s feats can be Police said they were swamped with there’s the well-known case of Shawn easily replicated through stage magic. Randi has phone calls after a flurry of callers reported to Hornbeck. This poor boy had been kidnapped in also shown that Geller’s predictions related to radio station NJ 101.5 that a UFO was flying 2002. Searching for answers, his parents visited sporting events are more often wrong than above the area. Residents then began calling the the Montel Williams Show, where Sylvia told correct Somerville Police Department to report the them Shawn was dead and went into details object. about where his body could be found. In 2007, Aliens 'hijack' Nasa's “I first noticed when all our mechanics Shawn was found alive. started looking up at the sky,” said Terry Weil, a Voyager 2 spacecraft, sales associate at Honda Autosport in MISS CLEO Bridgewater. “It looked like a big black strip claims expert fluttering in the air. Maybe a cylinder.” “Call me now for your free Somerville Police Lt. Donna Young said reading.” In the 1990s, it telegraph.co.uk authorities were not sure what the object was, seemed you couldn’t turn on but said it caused no problems other than tying the TV without seeing a Aliens have hijacked a Nasa spacecraft and up police phone lines shortly before noon. commercial for the Psychic are using it to try to contact earth, a UFO “We have no idea what it was but it did Readers Network. The expert has claimed. not cause any problems here in Somerville,” she spokesperson for this Network said. “We are under the impression that it might was a Jamaican “shaman” and “psychic” named Hartwig Hausdorf, a German academic, be a weather balloon or something like that, but Miss Cleo. Following numerous lawsuits, the believes that the reason Voyager 2, an regardless, it did not cause any problems FTC began investigating the PRN on charges of unmanned probe that has been in space since whatsoever.” deceptive advertising, billing and collection 1977, is sending strange messages that are The Air Traffic Control Tower in practices. During these investigations, it was confusing scientists, is because it has been taken Morristown did not have any pilot reports of the revealed that Miss Cleo was actually a paid over by extraterrestrial life. object, nor did officials at Solberg Airport in actress who didn’t even have a real Jamaican Since its launch, Voyager 2 has been Hunterdon, Somerset Airport in Bedminster and Blairstown Airport in Warren County. []