Project Alpha - Revelation and Aftermath

Revelation and Aftermath

In mid-1981, the two were fairly famous in the psi world, and even outside it, and Phillips decided to release a research brief at a workshop of the Parapsychological Association Convention (August 1981). According to the researchers' official version, Phillips also wrote to Randi to ask for a tape of fake metal-bending, which was to be shown alongside the recording of Shaw and Edwards. The researchers were looking for opinions and critical input from the parapsychology community and finally released a revised abstract that reflected the received criticism in its conservative and skeptical language. After the announcements in the press, Randi wrote to the lab again and stated that it was entirely possible the two were magicians, using common sleight of hand to fool the researchers.

Randi started to leak stories that the two were a plant of his, which reached the lab a week later and were considered to be a joke, due to the length (21 months) and the lack of precedence of plot. The story had been widely circulated by the time the meeting was held the next month. Reactions were varied; some thought it was simply a lie, others that Randi was pulling off a hoax, and still others concluded the entire experiment was dreamed up as a conspiracy by Randi and Phillips to discredit the field.

Upon returning from the meeting, Phillips immediately changed the test protocols. The two found that they were no longer able to fool the experimenters so easily, and in most cases, not at all. During this time the lab started releasing additional reports that seriously toned down the success rate. In their own words, "We did not conclude that they must be frauds, but only that after extensive testing, they were not behaving nearly as psychically as they had led us to expect." This improvement of protocols later led James Randi to list a "straight spoon" award to Phillips in a press release of his "bent spoon" awards, but that award was omitted from the list of awards published by Omni magazine and the Skeptical Inquirer; it was reported in the latter in a subsequent letter to the editor.

At this point Shaw and Edwards were so famous that they were asked to travel widely and present their powers. Many other psi investigators interviewed the two and gave glowing reviews, thus tainting themselves in the eventual aftermath.

Randi decided to end the project and announced the entire affair in Discover magazine. The resulting crash of the parapsychology field was immediate and deep; many of the researchers who endorsed Shaw and Edwards after the August meeting were now burned in the process. One went so far as to claim that the young men really did have psychic powers, and that they were now lying about being magicians. The bad press was so widespread that the McDonnell Lab was shut down.

The Skeptical Inquirer revealed that Shaw was a fake psychic in their fall 1980 issue. At the time neither the authors (McBurney and Greenberg) nor the editor (Kendrick Frazier) knew that Shaw was part of Project Alpha. Shaw had, in fact, posed as a fake psychic prior to Project Alpha, and his high school paper ran a story about his powers. In addition, rumors that the psychics were fake reached the researchers, but they didn't believe them. According to the researchers,

The rumor seemed unlikely to be true for several reasons: the two young men came from different states and had never met before being brought to the MacLab; if they were both conspiring with Randi, then the plot had gone on for 21 months. What critic would be so persistent in engaging in fraud and conspiracy on such a time-scale? There seemed to be no precedent. Nor was it possible to track down how reliable the rumor might be.

The complaint of psi investigators for years had been that they did not have enough funding for their experiments. However, in Randi's opinion it was not funding but the experimenters that were the problem. With $500,000 from McDonnell, Randi felt that lack of funding could no longer be blamed for any failure. Randi's purpose was to show that no matter how much money was spent, there would still be no reliable results. The researchers, however, point out that Randi avoids making the distinction between exploratory and formal investigations and should recognize that the formal experiments dismissed the magicians' psychic claims.

Some within the parapsychology community were outraged, with Dr. Berthold Schwarz declaring "Randi has set parapsychology back 100 years!" Randi's approach also raised outcries concerning ethical considerations and doubts about positive effects on methodology awareness, both within the parapsychology and the skeptic communities. But Randi reports that other parapsychology researchers have contacted him with praise, describing the project as "splendid and deserved," "an important sanitary service," "commendable," and "long-needed."