Rogo writes, "There obviously exist several discrepancies between Dr Puthoff's views on what happened during this experiment, and what Randi claims Dr Hebard told him. So to clarify the matter, I decided to get in touch with Dr Hebard myself. I finally tracked him down at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. He was very willing to discuss the Swann magnetometer demonstration with me, and professed to be very interested in parapsychology." Hebard's interest in the paranormal contradicts Randi's statement that Hebard, "not being a reader of far-out literature," was unaware of Targ and Puthoff's claims.
Rogo acknowledges that Hebard's account differs in some respects from Puthoff's. "Dr Hebard denied in no uncertain terms, however, Randi's claim that Swann was never asked to 'stop the field charge' being recorded from the magnetometer. He easily recalled that he had suggested that it would be a fascinating effect if Swann could produce it . . . which, of course, he actually did soon after the suggestion was made. Randi also directly quotes Dr Hebard as calling some of Targ and Puthoff's claims 'lies'. Dr Hebard was very annoyed by this claim since, as he explained to me, Randi had tried to get him to make this charge and he had refused. Dr Hebard later signed a statement to this effect for me." (ellipsis in original.)
The question naturally arises: How does Randi know all this, since, as he admits, "I've never even set foot on the sacred grounds of SRI [Stanford Research Institute, where the experiments were conducted"? He explains that he was given inside information by "an individual" who claimed to represent dozens of SRI scientists. This group, which worked in secret and even adopted a code name (Broomhilda), passed the information to Randi.
Unfortunately, Randi never names this individual or any other members of the Broomhilda group. He says that "Broomhilda verified for me much of the information that I had been holding on to for years," but where did he get this earlier information in the first place? "That data," he says, "now moved from the status of hearsay to documented fact." But documented is hardly a term applicable to either the initial information, which is never specified, or the Broomhilda information, which came from an anonymous source. He adds, "Additional facts were elicited during conversations and correspondence with individuals. Many of these persons were not aware of Broomhilda and were acting on their own. Their completely independent input supported Broomhilda's charges. Taken together," he concludes, "the information from all sources amounted to quite an indictment."
Maybe so, but it's an indictment that would never hold up in court.
Rogo writes, "I spoke directly with Mr Pressman on 5 January 1981 and he was quite interested when I told him about Randi's book. He denied that he had spoken to the magician. When I read him the section of Randi's book dealing with his alleged 'expose' of the Targ-Puthoff film, he became very vexed. He firmly backed up the authenticity of the film, told me how he had taken it on the spot, and labeled Randi's allegation as a total fabrication. [His own descriptive language was a little more colourful!]" Rogo also reports that Puthoff showed him Pressman's signed affidavit.
How could Randi's conversation with Pressman be so different from Rogo's? The truth is, Randi does not appear to have had a conversation with Pressman at all. Take another look at the quote from Flim-Flam. The key words are: "Most damning of all, Pressman said to others at SRI ..."
Evidently, then, Randi's source is not Pressman himself, but unnamed "others at SRI" who passed on this information to Randi. Another round of Chinese Whispers, it seems.
NOTE: James Randi responded to this article, and Michael Prescott then responded to James Randi. To read this ongoing controversy, see http://michaelprescott.freeservers.com/FlimFlam.htm
