Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions - James Randi [158]
I must tell you of a strange comment concerning the Anderson case that continued to ring in my ears for some time. As I left the press meeting in Auburn, I encountered a subdued Linda, her parents, and a young man who said he was a close friend of hers. The boyfriend came up to me and seized me by the lapels. Tears streaming down his face, he looked me in the eye and asked, "Why did you do this, Mr. Randi? Don't you believe in God?"
I have seldom been stuck for an answer. This time, I was.
Early in June 1977, I visited the Paris laboratories of France's fifth largest private company, Pechiney Ugine Kuhlmann, a metals and chemicals firm specializing in aluminum production. I had accepted an invitation to view recordings of tests that had been performed under the direction of Dr. Charles Crussard, a scientist who heads the entire Pechiney lab complex and supervises its three thousand research personnel. Crussard had become enthralled with the tricks of one Jean-Pierre Girard, a pharmaceutical salesman from Paris. Girard had begun some years previously, as an amateur magician, to "set up" scientists in France to show that they could be easily fooled a la Geller. And Crussard had fallen for it all. The only problem was that Girard, obviously enjoying the notoriety that resulted from his efforts, decided to abandon his original plan to expose the trickery and instead become a "psychic" himself. (An embarrassing relic of his former status appears in one of the official listings of the French magic associations, which tells us that Girard specializes in the Geller type of trickery.)
Dr. Crussard agreed to supply me with copies of all the films and tapes of tests that I and my colleague, Alexis Vallejo, viewed. What we watched was appalling. Although most of the footage did not show the preparation, identification, or selection of the metal bars used in the experiments, those segments that did show the complete procedure revealed that Girard employed the simplest of sleight-of-hand tricks to accomplish his "miracles" for the cameras. A heated argument ensued between Crussard and me, with Crussard denying that any cheating had taken place, and I insisting that careful observation would prove the contrary. We ran one section of film several times, and Crussard, after making measurements on the screen, finally agreed that perhaps I had a valid point. Vallejo and I did not attempt to point out much of the subsequent conjuring; it was too obvious.
At one place in a taped sequence, Crussard asserted that Girard had achieved an "impossible effect." Two "strain gauges" had been attached, 90 degrees apart, to the sides of a cylindrical, aluminum-alloy bar about 2 centimeters in diameter and 25 centimeters long. Viewing the chart record, we saw that Girard had caused strain effects to show up first on one gauge, then on the other. This meant that the direction of his "paranormal" force changed 90 degrees while he held the bar in one hand. Crussard was absolutely convinced that this effect could not be accomplished by trickery.
We had already exposed one of Girard's methods to Crussard. It consisted of holding the bar in one hand—after it had been secretly bent while out of sight—and then rotating it 90 degrees between fingers and thumb to bring the bend into view. Girard's secret bending had not been very cleverly performed; it had been done while his back was turned to the camera. By measuring thumb-to-fingertip distances on the screen, Vallejo and I easily proved that the rotation had taken place. Girard's method was not only visible, it was measurable.
Now we applied the same reasoning to this problem. Crussard showed me the original bar, with the sensors attached. I conclusively demonstrated to him exactly how the same maneuver would enable Girard to rotate the bar and produce the signals on the two sensors just as shown by the record. Crussard