News and Comment

Court Awards CS1COP In a declaration filed with the court in Geller's lawsuit, CSICOP Executive Sanctions in Geller Suit Director Barry Karr stated, "I believe that CSICOP was made a defendant in this lawsuit solely for the purpose federal court has imposed of harassment and intimidation and in $106,433.97 in sanctions the hope that the lawsuit would A. against self-proclaimed psychic dissuade CSICOP from encouraging Uri Geller for his prosecution of a libel and providing a forum for . . . the suit against the Committee for the critical discussion and analysis of para- Scientific Investigation of Claims of normal claims, particularly those the Paranormal (CSICOP). asserted by Geller." In an order issued by Judge Stanley As was observed at the time of the S. Harris on March 16, the United earlier ruling, Judge Harris's imposi- States District Court for the District tion of sanctions against Geller was of Columbia granted CSICOP's made pursuant to a federal court rule request that the court impose the that mandates the award of sanctions sanctions, which represent the fees if litigation is "interposed for any and costs incurred by CSICOP in improper purpose, such as to harass defending the lawsuit through June or cause unnecessary delay or needless 30, 1992. The court also authorized increase in the cost of litigation," or CSICOP to request reimbursement of if papers filed with the court are not additional fees and costs incurred in "to the best of the signer's knowledge, defense of the litigation. information and belief formed after Geller initiated the $15-million reasonable inquiry . . . well grounded lawsuit in May 1991 against CSICOP in fact . . . and warranted by existing and James Randi, alleging that Geller law or a good-faith argument for the was defamed by Randi in statements extension, modification, or reversal of made to the International Herald existing law." Tribune. Last June, Judge Harris dis- Following notification of Judge missed the suit against CSICOP and Harris's order, CSICOP Chairman granted CSICOP's request for sanc- Paul Kurtz commented that this type tions (51, Fall 1992), but postponed a of libel suit, even if ultimately unsuc- ruling on the amount of the sanctions cessful, threatens to chill debate on until a later time. Geller then filed a scientific issues. "If such obstacles are motion with the court, asking for a placed, unchecked, in the way of reconsideration of its opinion. scientific research, and if one cannot In its recent order, the district court question extraordinary claims, then a rejected Geller's motion for recon- serious blow will be dealt to freedom sideration and imposed the sanctions. of expression and scientific inquiry. The amount was to be paid within 30 . . . We view this case as a serious days, Judge Harris said. challenge to our First Amendment

Summer 1993 355 rights, and we are thankful that Judge the Scientific Investigation of Claims Harris chose to vindicate those of the Paranormal (CSICOP) chal- rights." In addition, Kurtz observed, lenged Paramount's claim that the film the judge's decision to impose sanc- is based on a "true story." In a tions against Geller "sends a stern statement, CSICOP Chairman Paul warning to those who would utilize Kurtz commented that "the film is libel suits as a weapon to harass: such largely fiction and ought to be labeled conduct can carry a heavy price." as such. The public is being deceived As of this writing, Geller has not by Paramount's promoting the film as a true story." paid the court-imposed sanctions, prompting CSICOP to file motions fire in the Sky is based on the claim asking the court to take actions it of Travis Walton, of Snowflake, deems necessary to enforce the order. Arizona, that in late 1975 he was Geller has also filed a new motion "zapped" and abducted by a UFO and asking the court to reconsider its held hostage for five days. earlier reconsideration. CSICOP will Philip J. Klass, the chairman of oppose this motion. • CSlCOP's UFO Subcommittee, who spent many months investigating the alleged incident shortly after it was reported, uncovered extensive evi- CSICOP Challenges dence to indicate the incident was 'Fire in the Sky' Film most likely a hoax. This evidence and a details of Klass's rigorous investiga- tion were reported in his book UFOs: en days before the Paramount The Public Deceived (Prometheus Pictures film Fire in the Sky opened Books, 1983). T on March 12, the Committee for Klass learned that shortly before Walton's alleged abduction he had told his mother that if he was ever abducted by a UFO she should not worry because he would be all right. Later, when Travis's mother was informed that her young son had allegedly been abducted by a UFO, she took the news calmly and re- sponded, "Well, that's the way these things happen," accord- ing to a law-enforcement officer who was present. During the several days that Travis was "missing" his older brother, Duane, was asked if he was concerned for Travis's well-being. Duane replied that Travis was "having the experi- ence of a lifetime. . . . All I can say is that I wish I was with him."

356 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, Vol. 17 Shortly after Travis reappeared, he was given a "lie detector" test, admin- Princeton Experiments in istered by Jack McCarthy, then one Remote Viewing Found of the most experienced and respected polygraph examiners in Arizona. Plagued with Defects After a lengthy test involving Wal- ton's claim of UFO-abduction, McCarthy reported: "Gross decep- or the past decade, the experi- tion." Further, McCarthy reported ments of Robert Jahn and his that Travis was holding his breath to F colleagues at the Princeton Engi- try to "beat the machine." neering Anomalies Research (PEAR) Kurtz said: "The public is being program have intrigued all those inundated by Hollywood films and interested in parapsychology. Jahn, a television programs claiming that former dean of engineering at Prince- thousands of Americans are being ton, had decided to devote consider- abducted by aliens. These programs able time and resources to a lengthy offer no credible scientific evidence or series of experiments, hoping to critical dissent. They seem to be overcome critical objections that have motivated solely by profits, and no plagued previous such efforts. Many matter how outrageous a claim there of these experiments involve attempts is always somebody willing to turn it to "psychically" influence random- into a 'true' movie." number generators; others involve "None of the cases," stated Klass, attempts to "remote-view" a distant "stand up under scrutiny. They can scene. be given natural, prosaic explanations In the remote-viewing work, a without postulating extraterrestrial percipient (receiver) attempts to visitation and kidnapping. But, of describe an unknown geographical course, Hollywood wouldn't be able to location where an agent (sender) is, turn that into a movie." has been, or will be at a specific time. "Many in the media release irre- PEAR didn't actively seek the lime- sponsible and sensationalistic reports light, but finally in 1986 and 1987 Jahn of abductions. There is a critical need and colleague Brenda Dunne pub- for balanced reporting and labeling," lished positive results about the said Kurtz. remote-viewing experiments in three The SKEPTICAL INQUIRER invited peer-refereed journals. The group's Paramount to comment on CSICOP's most recent report, "Precognitive criticisms, but received no response. Remote Perception III," b y B. J. Dunne, AP science reporter Lee Siegel, how- Y. H. Dobyns, and S. J. Intner, pub- ever, quoted Tracy Torme, the film's lished as Technical Note 83003 in screenwriter and co-producer: "There 1989, includes results of 336 formal is no substantial hard evidence beyond remote-viewing trials and is appar- polygraphs to show what happened. ently the single largest database of So while I believe he [Walton] is being remote viewing that has been truthful in relating what he remem- reported in some detail. In one mode bers, I will not say and cannot say what (211 trials) the agent was free to happened to him." choose the target; in the other mode Siegel's article, which focused on (125 trials) the target site was ran- CSICOP's criticisms and quoted Klass domly selected from a pool of potential in some detail, was published in targets. newspapers nationwide. • While some embraced the PEAR

Summer 1993 357 remote-viewing work, most parapsy- Dunne et al. technical report contains chologists maintained their distance a number of invalid statistical argu- from it. Skeptical scholars cited many ments. For example, their analysis deficiencies, but little formal critical didn't take into consideration that examination of the remote-viewing targets were selected without replace- experimental program was published. ment, which has important conse- That situation has now changed. quences for statistical analysis. They Three investigators, George P. also say Dunne et al. failed to include Hansen, Jessica Utts, and Betty Mark- certain elements in their baseline wick, have published a devastating distribution, thus artifactually en- critique of the PEAR remote-viewing hancing significance levels. experiments in the Journal of Para- Hansen, Utts, and Markwick con- psychology (vol. 56, June 1992, issued clude their paper with this remarkably in February 1993). blunt assessment: They identify a variety of meth- The PEAR remote-viewing exper- odological and statistical problems iments depart from commonly with the work. They discovered accepted criteria for formal research specific problems in randomization, in science. In fact, they are undoubt- statistical baselines, application of edly some of the poorest quality ESP statistical models, agent coding of experiments published in many descriptor lists, feedback to percip- years. The defects provide plausible ients, sensory cues, and precautions alternative explanations. There do against cheating. "The research not appear to be any methods avail- departs from criteria usually expected able for proper statistical evaluation of these experiments because of the in formal scientific experimentation," way in which they were conducted. say Hansen, Utts, and Markwick. What were some of the objections? A 32-page response from the PEAR Randomization for one. Hansen et al. group to the Hansen et al. critique found, for example, that in the 211 follows in the same issue of the trials in the "volitional" mode, "there journal. It contends that most of the was no random selection of the target isssues raised by Hansen et al. had whatsoever." Neither was there ade- long been acknowledged and ade- quate shielding of the agent from the quately addressed in their experimen- percipient. Without such shielding, tal designs and analyses. "The re- they say, "it is virtually impossible to mainder of their concerns, including detect even simple trickery." They randomization of target and reference point out that they have no reason score distributions, trial-by-trial feed- to believe that cheating took place. But back, stacking, and cheating, are either they also note, as Dunne herself had, misapplied, fundamentally incorrect, that just one particular subject, Oper- or have trivial impact. . . . None of ator 10, accounted for 244, or more the stated complaints compromises than 70 percent, of all the formal trials. the PEAR experimental protocols or "Because the procedures allow decep- analytical methods, which remain tion by either percipient or agent rigorous and effective methodologies acting alone, the contribution of that from remote perception research." subject should be considered." If that Hansen told the SKEPTICAL subject's trials are removed from the INQUIRER a formal reply to the PEAR set, the results are no longer response is being prepared for significant. publication. The authors also say the 1989 —Kendrick Frazier

358 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, Vol. 17 which 3,200 years ago was buried Legend Deciphered? under meters of rubble on the out- Atlantis Was Troy, skirts of the Mycenaean fortress in Tiryns. Subsequent research by Ger- Says Geoarchaeologist man scientists has since proved that this catastrophe was triggered by an earthquake. The downfall of the ince its description by the ancient Mycenaean culture ran parallel to the Greek philosopher Plato (427- collapse of numerous states of the S 347 B.C.) some two thousand eastern Mediterranean in the late years ago, people have been fascinated Bronze Age—or to quote Zangger: by the legend of Atlantis and specu- "What happened here was a collapse lation as to the location of this of a system." Within only 100 years submerged island has been diverse. many cultural and technical achieve- The geoarchaeologist Eberhard ments of the Bronze Age were lost: Zangger, of the German Archaeolog- the centralized political power, the ical Institute in Athens, Greece, has administrative structure, and the art now proposed a scientifically based of writing—a phenomenon mentioned theory that Plato merely availed specifically by Plato. The collapse in himself of a historical Egyptian both Argolis and the states of the account of the famous ancient city of Mediterranean became established in Troy, situated on the west coast of oral tradition and later in Solon's Asia Minor, which he used as a basis account of Atlantis. Zangger inter- for his description of Atlantis and the prets Plato's Atlantis as referring to legend. a huge disaster that took place around As Zangger states in his book Atlantis—Deciphering a Legend (Droe- mer Knaur, Munich, 1992), the Atlan- tis report emerged in the sixth century B.C. during a conversation between the Greek statesman Solon (640-560 B.C.) and a priest from Sais, then the capital city of Egypt. Plato recapitulated the legend of his ancestor Solon in 360 B.C. in the writings Timaeus and Critias—preserving it for later gener- ations, who generally regarded the account as fiction. In his report, the Egyptian priest mistook the Greek region of Attica for the Argolis plains on the Peloponnese. The reader learns that a Greek civilization—the culture of the late Bronze Age—was des- troyed by the simultaneous occur- rence of earthquakes and tidal waves. In his research into early Greek culture and its natural environment, Zangger discovered traces of a huge landslide and a flood catastrophe after drilling in the area around Tiryns,

Summer 1993 359 1200 B.C., when most of the Myce- maintains that there is much evidence naean palaces were destroyed by to corroborate this, and the Trojan landslides, earthquakes, and fires. plains abound in old canals and inex- Solon's source and interlocutor, the plicable banks of sand. In Zangger's Egyptian priest from Sais, interwove view, these sand deposits, which had this catastrophe scenario with the already been noticed by the discoverer legend of Atlantis. According to of Troy, Heinrich Schliemann, are Zangger, the description of the land- none other than the excavation rubble scape around Atlantis resembles the from artificial dikes or trenches. area around Troy, which lies at the Furthermore, almost every topo- mouth of the Dardanelles in the graphical map of the Trojan Plains has Mediterranean. recorded a 9-km-long watercourse The priest further reported that running in the direction of the Acrop- Atlantis was an island lying in the olis of Troy. Atlantic Ocean at the Pillars of Hercules—two characteristics that —Gottlieb Ochsle seemingly refute the identity of Troy as Atlantis. Zangger explains this From the German Research Service contradiction by pointing out that in Special Science Reports, vol. 8, no. 8, ancient Eygpt the state of Greece to 1992. the north was a conglomerate of islands and that the countries in and around the Aegean Sea were called "The Islands." Similarly, the Pillars of Hercules were none other than the James Randi Prize Dardanelles in Solon's time. Even in Awarded in Hungary late Roman antiquity the Straits of I Gibraltar and the Dardanelles were both referred to as the Pillars of uring his visit in January 1992 Hercules. Furthermore, in contrast to to Budapest, Hungary, James the Dardanelles, Gibraltar lay beyond Randi was asked to address the reach of the ships of the eastern D the winners of a science essay com- Mediterranean countries during Sol- petition for high-school students on's time. Even the designation sponsored by the popular science "Atlantic Ocean" was misleading, as journal Termeszet Vilaga ("The World this name emerged only 100 years of Nature"). Touched by the eagerness after Solon's Egyptian sojourn and and fresh enthusiasm of the young- was only subsequently included by sters, Randi founded a prize of U.S.- Plato in his account of Atlantis. The $300 for the best investigation of name Atlantis alone shows where it paranormal phenomena by students once had lain—for the Greek word using scientific methods, irrespective Atlantis means "daughter of Atlas." of its conclusion. And by a strange coincidence Atlantis Applications were invited and the is the progenitor of the Trojan royal best contribution was selected by a lineage. committee consisting of scientists as Plato remarked that Atlantis was well as members of the journal's surrounded by water rings and that editorial board. the people of Atlantis had dug a canal The winners of the 1993 James around the city, stretching from the Randi Prize are Gabor Takacs and sea to the outer water-ring. Zangger Robert Dallos of Szekesfehervar,

360 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, Vol. 17 Hungary. The boys, both 17-year-old from exactly the same position before juniors at St. Stephen Agricultural and after the circle was made. The TV Technicum—a high school specializ- show was a tremendous success, since ing in agriculture—decided to repeat in front of millions of viewers the the performance of English farmers invited "UFO experts" were shown to preparing a crop circle, which they have been completely wrong. read about in the Hungarian daily After the disclosure, the owner of Reform. the field, Aranykalasz Co., sued the During the night of June 8, 1992, youngsters for Fts. 630,000 (approx- they prepared a crop circle near imately U.S. $8,000) in damages. The Szekesfehervar, in the vicinity of a Hungarian Skeptics immediately drive-in movie, using a rope and a offered moral as well as financial help stick. Since the length of the rope just to the young "skeptics." A few months happened to be 18 meters, the diame- later the court ruled that the kids are ter of the circle was necessarily 36 responsible only for the damage meters, a number that "experts" caused in a circle of 36 meters diame- attributed special significance to. ter, amounting to about Fts. 6,000 (U.S. Contrary to expectations, it took the $76.00). The rest of the damage was boys about three hours of hard work caused by the media. to prepare the circle, since they didn't The "crop circle kids"—as they are want to make any noise or distur- now called in Hungary—were bance. Since the crop was still green, awarded the first James Randi Prize it could be bent without breaking and on February 7, 1993. loss of seeds. While they made special efforts to cover the tracks they had —Gyula Bencze made, heavy rains following the event further obliterated any sign of fabri- Gyula Bencze is a physicist with the cation. The youngsters then sat back Central Research Institute for Physics, in to wait until the "discovery" was Hungary. made. The crop circle was discovered on June 26, 1992, by Laszlo Otvos, a helicopter pilot of the Aerocartias air rescue service, who reported his AAAS: discovery to his superiors as well as the press. After the press release of Wild Archaeology, the finding the usual pandemonium broke out. "Experts" from all over the Antievolutionism, and country investigated the site and the the Objectivity Crisis circle, and by drawing numerous conclusions they declared it to have been created by UFOs. Thousands of n addition to all the science, this people visited the site waiting to see year's meeting of the American UFOs landing and at the same time Association for the Advancement caused considerable damage to the I of Science (AAAS), in Boston, had crop. much of specific interest to our The hoax was disclosed in a popular readers. TV show hosted by Sandor Frideri- • CSICOP Fellow Eugenie C. Scott kusz on September 3. The kids proved (National Center for Science Educa- their case by showing photos taken tion) hosted a half-day symposium on

Summer 1993 361 "The New Antievolutionism." She This 29-minute radio documentary warned that there is still "surprising featured on-scene reporting from strength" to the creationist move- Robert Jahn's Princeton Anomalies ment. One of the creationists' latest Research Laboratory, with a good tactics is not to use the word "crea- evaluative perspective provided by tionism." They call it instead "Intel- Chip Denman, a University of Mary- ligent Design Theory" or "Abrupt land statistician, about both Jahn's Appearance Theory." The content, experiments and dowsing claims. she said, is the same. • Historian Gerald L. Geison • CSICOP Fellow Stephen Jay (Princeton) reported in a lecture, Gould (Harvard) lectured about writ- "Louis Pasteur: Lab Notebooks and ing about science for the intelligent Scientific Fraud," three cases in which public in an afternoon session devoted Pasteur violated ethical principles to "Biological Writing in the Public widely acknowledged and shared at Domain." The session gave particular the time, including by Pasteur himself. attention to Gould's own writings, In one case, Geison discovered that with comparisons to the great Pasteur deliberately deceived the nineteenth-century scientist/writer scientific community about the nature T. H. Huxley. Gould lamented the rise of a vaccine he administered, in order in this century's age of specialization to mislead a rival who was using a of a dichotomy between writing for similar vaccine. In another case, the scientific domain and writing for however, Geison pointed to mitigat- the public and said he is trying to keep ing circumstances; Pasteur adminis- alive the "honorable, humanistic sense tered an untested vaccine, but did of writing for a general, educated so to save a boy's life from rabies. public." Here, "he acted boldly and with • Stephen Williams (Harvard), humane courage. Do we really wish author of Fantastic Archaeology, gave that he had acted otherwise?" asked a talk about the wild side of archaeol- Geison. ogy, including the Kensington Rune- • In a session on "The Objectivity stone (which he noted was "quickly Crisis," anthropologist Marvin Harris debunked"), Mound Builders, Vikings (University of Florida) refuted the on the Charles River in Massachu- contentions of the postmodernism setts, and other dubious claims about movement in the social sciences, pre-Columbian European settlements which claims that ways of know- in North America, including those by ing are equally arbitrary, power modern transatlanteans like Cyrus dependent, and subjective. Said Gordon and Barry Fell. These undoc- Harris: "We need more science, not umented transatlantean interpreta- less." tions "rob Native Americans of their • Finally, in a session devoted to heritage," Williams said. He faulted meta-analysis, psychologist Daryl archaeologists for not doing a good job Bern (Cornell) reviewed in detail 28 of telling "the real story of North sets of ganzfeld ESP experiments of American archaeology." the late parapsychologist Charles • Radio reporter Larry Massett Honorton. He concluded that, in his received a AAAS-Westinghouse view, they provide the best evidence Science Journalism Award for his yet for the existence of extrasensory "Pseudoscience: On the Edge of perception. Reason," a Soundprint program from Baltimore, broadcast May 27, 1992. —K.F.

362 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, Vol. 17 Pseudoscience . . . and Real Science on Stamps

|aldives, a tiny Indian Ocean republic (population 226,000), Mi s the latest country to issue postage stamps celebrating fringe- science topics. In the late 1970s, Grenada issued a set of stamps depict- ing UFOs, and recently Sierra Leone issued a stamp depicting "The 'Face' on Mars" (SI, Fall 1991). Now Mal- dives has issued a set of 16 stamps o n "Mysteries of the Universe." Included are UFOs, crop circles, Yeti, the Loch Ness Monster, crystal skulls, and Atlantis. Each comes with its own souvenir sheet, but don't get too Maldives's "Mysteries' excited—each sheet costs $5 even real science far outnumber these though it contains only one stamp! occasional lapses into pseudoscience. Fortunately, stamps celebrating There is a fine tradition of stamps

Copernicus Theodore 1471-1*71 vnnKarm&n i

Real science on stamps: Rom Copernicus a n d von Kormon to the International Geophysical Year. "The Sciences." and Newton's theories.

Summer 1993 363 honoring science and scientists. A current U.S. 29-cent commemorative, Werewolf in Mobile: for example, honors aerospace scien- tist Theodore von Karman, first Tracking a Hairy Story winner of the U.S. National Medal of Science. Going back to the late 1950s, s a longtime student of the a 3-cent stamp celebrated the Inter- tabloids, I'm used to seeing national Geophysical Year, an i reports of vampires in Vene- unprecedented worldwide research A zuela, space aliens in Borneo, and Elvis program. In 1963, on the hundredth in Kalamazoo. So it was a rich surprise anniversary of the U.S. National one day earlier this year when I picked Academy of Sciences, a 5-cent stamp up the Weekly World News (dated commemorated all "The Sciences." February 2, 1993) and discovered The U.S. has issued stamps honoring there was a werewolf downtown, Copernicus (1973), Einstein twice (in right here in Mobile, Alabama, prowl- 1966 and 1979), Joseph Priestley ing the State Docks. (1983), and Nobel laureate American physicist Robert Millikan (1982, a 37- The report was written by Tim cent stamp). In 1983 a four-panel set Skelly, identified as a "Special corres- honored four pioneers of electrical pondent in Mobile, Ala." A small photo engineering, including the genius of Skelly appeared with the article. theorist Charles Steinmetz. A 1976 The story was titled "Werewolf 13-cent stamp honored "Chemistry." Battles Cops in Alabama," and the main facts were given in the opening Stamps about space exploration are paragraphs: numerous worldwide, of course, and a few specifically honor space science, MOBILE, Ala.—A howling, snarling such as the "Understanding the Sun" werewolf escaped from a foreign and "Comprehending the Universe" freighter, savagely bit seven cops stamps in the eight-stamp U.S. 1981 and turned a police cruiser over "Space Achievement" set. And a 1991 before he was captured in a dark- booklet of ten different 29-cent ened alley near the docks. stamps features each of the nine Heavily armed police are now planets and the moon. guarding the wolfman around the clock at an undisclosed location in Notable scientific phenomena have Mobile County until he can be also been featured. Chile and Zambia placed back aboard the ship he were among the nations featuring escaped from. Halley's Comet on stamps in 1986. O n rare occasions, stamps have Much of this information came from even honored major scientific theor- "a police spokesman," who was quoted ies. In 1992, on the 350th anniversary at length. of Sir Isaac Newton's birth, Great The most impressive evidence was Britain issued stamps beautifully photographic. There were four illustrating two of Newton's major pictures: contributions to science—his explana- tion of the "Motions of Bodies in • A profile of the creature's head, Ellipses" and his "Opticks Treatise" on which took up most of one page the refraction and reflection of light. of the two-page story. (He looks We'd be pleased to hear of other like Lon Chaney, Jr., in the such examples. Wolfman movies.) At the top of —Kendrick Frazier the picture is an identification

364 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, Vol. 17 WEREWOLF BATTLES I: Issues MS ALABAMA Sit i Howling beast bites 7 officers-ondf u r n s BEHINHfliryD BARS: s over patrol tar • ,apture "fX,d after | : vicious att«i before he's finally captured!

number: Mobile P.D. #702419 Then he gave me the facts. -92." • A photo of Laura Schindler, a 58- The police department couldn't year-old housewife, who stood find any "police spokesman" who five feet from the werewolf told the story to the Weekly when he jumped off the ship. She World News. is quoted as saying, " I never saw They couldn't identify a foreign anything so frightening." freighter that had lost a deck- Schindler had come to the State hand. Docks to pick up her husband, The "undisclosed location in a merchant seaman. Mobile County" where the wolf- • A picture of an overturned car, man was being held remained with four wheels pointing in the undisclosed. Nobody in the air and with a spare tire stored department knew anything under the trunk. about it. • A photo of a man with his entire The police had had no success in head bandaged. Only his mouth locating Laura Schindler. They is showing, and there are little could find no reference to her slit spaces for his eyes. By the merchant-seaman husband. picture is a caption, "Ripped to The identification number on the Shreds." werewolf photo is not a sequence used by the Mobile Police The article fascinated me, and I was Department. in a good position to check it out. Tom The police department had had Jennings, who serves as Public Infor- no reports of an overturned mation Officer for the Mobile Police vehicle, nor does it have a police Department, is a former student of cruiser that carries a spare tire mine. So I phoned him to get the under the car. official version. Tom said, "We've had There had been no injury reports a lot of calls about that crazy story." relating to such an incident.

Summer 1993 365 BELIEVE IT. You can make a lasting impact on the future of skepticism —

when you provide for the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER in your will. CSICOP and the SKEPTICAL We would be happy to work with INQUIRER changed the terms of dis- you and your attorney in the cussion in fields ranging from pseu- development of a will or estate plan doscience and the paranormal to that meets your wishes. A variety of science and educational policy. You arrangements are possible, in- can take an enduring step to preserve cluding gifts of a fixed amount or a its vitality when you provide for the percentage of your estate; living SKEPTICAL INQUIRER in your will. trusts or gift annuities, which pro- Your bequest to CSICOP, Inc., will vide you with a lifetime income; or help to provide for the future of a contingent bequest that provides skepticism as it helps to keep the for the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER only if SKEPTICAL INQUIRER financially your primary beneficiaries do not secure. Depending on your tax situa- survive you. tion, a charitable bequest to CSICOP may have little impact on the net size For more information, contact of your estate—or may even result in Paul Kurtz, Chairman of CSICOP. a greater amount being available to All inquiries will be held in the strict- your beneficiaries. est confidence. < N SKEPTICAL CSICOP INQUIRER

P.O. Box 703, Buffalo, New York 14226-0703 716-636-1425 certainly no report of a police officer "ripped to shreds." D Where's the Rapture?

Jennings was emphatic on the last two points. He said: "Around here, if n case you missed it, Wednesday, an officer gets cut on the hand, there's October 28,1992, was the Rapture, a lot of paperwork that has to be filled I the day faithful Christians dead or out. If police property is destroyed, it's alive ascend to heaven. The Rapture just the same. These are liability kicks off the last days: the appearance areas." He repeated that there were of the Antichrist, Armageddon, and no reports relating to a werewolf the Second Coming. incident. The article, he said, was a Lee Jang Rim, leader of the Dami "total fabrication." Mission Church in , South Jennings suggested I call Nancy Korea, spread the prophecy. Followers Wilstach, a reporter for the Bir- quit their jobs and sold or destroyed mingham News. He said she had more their property in anticipation, even as information about the story. Rim was arrested for allegedly bilking Indeed she did. Wilstach had inter- hundreds of thousands of dollars from viewed Eddie Clontz, editor of the church members. The hysteria created Weekly World News. She found him a near crisis in . pleasant and cooperative. He told her Members of Korean churches in they got the werewolf report from South Korea, Hawaii, , Tim Skelly and that he considers and New York held marathon prayer Skelly a reliable source. He said, vigils. Four suicides in the Seoul "Usually his stuff is right on the church led some Los Angeles repor- money." ters to think another Jonestown was According to Clontz, tabloids call at hand, but nothing happened. There these articles "harmless." They know was no Rapture, and everyone went that a werewolf story (or a vampire home. or space-alien story) won't offend On November 3, the Los Angeles anybody and won't bring a lawsuit. So Times reported that the the Weekly World News didn't try to Church was disbanded with the verify the Mobile incident. They just approval of Rim, still in jail, and that got the report and published it. Clontz an apology had been issued. On said, "We put it out there and let our December 5, the Associated Press readers decide." carried the news that Rim had been He added, "Maybe it didn't sentenced to two years imprisonment happen." for having shorn his flock of $4.4 Wilstach asked Clontz how she million, much of it invested in bonds could get in touch with Tim Skelly. that matured after December 28. He told her it might be difficult, that Meanwhile, Jack Van Impe, of Jack Skelly is now doing research in Van Impe Ministries out of Troy, Caracas, Venezuela. Clontz said. "He's Michigan, has been prophesying that covering our vampire beat." the Rapture will occur in October, per- haps as early as this year. Stay tuned. —Daniel McDonald —Erik Vaughn Daniel McDonald is a professor in the Department of English, University of Erik Vaughn writes from Huntington South Alabama, Mobile, AL 36688. Beach, California.

Summer 1993 367