ANNUAL MEETING REPORTS

The Ethical Science Without Integrity: Lessons from Investigating Claims of the Para-

Speaker: flash. There are no haunted houses, Nickell The Flying-Saucer Mystery Joe Nickell concluded, only haunted people. The media reported that a flying saucer Skeptical Inquirer had crashed on a ranch near Roswell, New Committee for the Scientific Investigation The Case of the Two Will Wests Mexico. Nickell investigated and found that of Claims of the Paranormal The widespread use of fingerprinting today the rancher on whose property the crash Amherst, New York is the result of this mysterious case of a took place never referred to the debris as a person who was thought to be in 2 places at flying saucer; only the media described it that Reporter: the same time. Will West was taken to Leav- way. The rancher described the material he Ann Morcos enworth Penitentiary to serve a term for found as light and consisting of foil, sticks, MorcosMedia manslaughter. Someone at the jail recognized rubber, string, and tape. The debris matched Metairie, Louisiana him, and indeed a look-alike criminal named a balloon with a radar target attached to it. Indeed, a spy balloon sent up by the US gov- Illusion—can a rope cut in half really be There are no haunted ernment, in what was termed Project Mogul, made whole again? is a ghost actually present was lost near Roswell. in a photograph?—was the focus of plenary houses, only haunted peo- speaker Joe Nickell, a former private inves- ple. The Nasca Lines tigator, stage magician, technical writer, and Another hoax that Nickell debunked was author of books investigating claims of the that of the Nasca drawings. These earth paranormal. The paranormal, Nickell said, is William West was already there. How could drawings in Peru can be seen only from a question of good science versus bad sci- he have been in 2 places at once? Nickell an altitude of about 1000 feet. It was ence. Some who investigate the paranormal investigated. He used experts to review the speculated that they were made by aliens begin with the answer and look only at evi- descriptive evidence: height, weight, shoe in flying saucers or that the Nasca natives dence that proves that answer. Good science, size, ear shape, and fingerprints. All were had invented balloons and could view the however, requires looking at all evidence to identical except for differences in the shape artwork from above. Nickell demonstrated delve behind the illusion. Nickell explained of the ears and the fingerprints, which had how the drawings could have been made by several cases of what were originally thought a rare type of swirl. The hypothesis is that recreating such drawings himself. to be instances of the paranormal by showing there were 2 Will Wests—identical twins the evidence that proved them otherwise. whose only differences were minor varia- The Shroud of Turin tions in fingerprints and ears. Nickell also Nickell also demonstrated how the shroud The Ghost at Mackenzie House discovered documentary evidence support- of Turin could have been made by creating Nineteenth-century Canadian statesman ing the hypothesis. a similar image himself. He reminded the William Lyon Mackenzie, who had a print- audience that St John’s gospel describes the ing press and published literature advocating A Case of Spontaneous Combustion wrapping of Christ differently from the way independence, was thought to haunt his In 1951, the burned body of a woman was the shroud looks, that a forger during the former house in Toronto. Caretakers of his discovered in Florida. No evidence of foul Middle Ages admitted to making the shroud house claimed to hear a printing press. A play or suicide was found, so it was thought to attract religious pilgrims, and that blood woman said that she saw Mackenzie’s ghost that she must have died from spontaneous on the shroud was red, not black as old wandering about one night. A ghostlike combustion. On investigation, it was discov- blood would be. Carbon-dating tests show image appeared in a photograph after his ered that she smoked, was overweight, slept that the cloth dates from the time of the death. On investigation, the printing-press in a flammable nightgown, and took sleeping forger’s confession. sounds turned out to be made by the night pills. The theory is that the woman fell asleep The moral of the story is that what appears cleaning crew’s jangling equipment and foot- while smoking and caught fire and that her real might prove to be an illusion and that only steps in the adjoining building, the woman body fat melted, contributing to the severe science with integrity serves the Truth. had had a waking dream, and the ghost in destruction of her body. the photograph was the reflection of the

186 ♦ CBE VIEWS ♦ VOL 22, NR 6, 1999