Samuel Soal - Legacy

Legacy

In 1978, it was reported that Soal evidently appeared to reuse some target sequences from an earlier test in a later one, often reversing, omitting or inserting one or more digits into the sequence before reusing them. While not itself evidential of fraud, it was considered suspicious that a disproportionate number of "hits" occurred on the digits that appeared to interrupt some of the reused sequences. For two of the 40 sessions with Shackleton, it was claimed that it was "virtually conclusive" that this practice amounted to fraud; and fraud in another six sessions was considered to be "suggestive only". As to why Soal should cheat in this needlessly complex and tell-tale way, it was argued that he must have performed these interruptions of the reused target sequences while in a dissociated state, under the influence of an alternate personality. Soal's fraud has remained, to this day, at this status of allegation.