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From: rlh@cvl.UUCP (Ralph L. Hartley)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.physics
Subject: Re: Comment about Uri Geller
Message-ID: <513@cvl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 5-Jun-85 10:24:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: cvl.513
Posted: Wed Jun  5 10:24:45 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 10-Jun-85 00:45:33 EDT
References: <436@oakhill.UUCP> <3759@alice.UUCP> <440@oakhill.UUCP>
Reply-To: rlh@cvl.UUCP (Ralph L. Hartley)
Organization: Computer Vision Lab, U. of Maryland, College Park
Lines: 49
Xref: linus net.philosophy:1650 net.physics:2322

In article <440@oakhill.UUCP> davet@oakhill.UUCP (Dave Trissel) writes:
>In article <3759@alice.UUCP> ark@alice.UUCP (Andrew Koenig) writes:
>>James Randi has a standing offer of $10,000 to anyone who demonstrates
>>a "psychic" phenomenon that Randi cannot duplicate by using good
>>old-fashioned chicanery.
>>
>>If Uri Geller could actually do the things he claimed, don't you
>>think he would have snarfed the ten grand by now?
>
>I think the situation is a lot more complex than this.
>
>S.R.I tried
>keeping a video camera on him for a long length of time but "things" only
>happened when the camera was not pointing directly at them (such as objects
>moving by themselves or seemingly teleported from one side of the room to
>another.)

But when a HIDDEN camera is used things DO happen; he cheats.

>(Randi has many times shown metal
>bent covertly but NEVER has shown metal objects given to him by someone else
>[a non-plant in the audience of course] curling up and twisting the way Uri's
>effects do.)

A non-plant in the audience OF COURSE!!?!!

What makes you so sure Geller dosn't use accomplices?

Don't you realize that stage magic works by creating a distraction?  What
could be a better distraction than Uri Geller himself?  Everyone watches HIM
very carefully.  You can't watch more than one thing at a time.  Therefore,
anyone else in the room can get away with murder.

All the events described on the net resently could have easily been done
that way. The waitress coming in and appologizing for the bent forks, exactly
on cue, is particularly suspicious.

Things like this can't be too hard to set up. People will do quite
outlandish things for essentially no reason at all if approached correctly.
It could probably be arranged over the phone. If you don't believe this
watch "Candid Camera" or its look alikes sometime.

				Ralph Hartley

rlh@cvl.{ARPA,CSNet}

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