edgar-mitchell

Down and In 107
Another version of the same experiment was a telepathy test conducted
with an EEG connected, which proved statistically significant. The brain
waves of the percipients showed a marked change a few hundred milliseconds
before the percipients reported an answer. Conscious awareness hadn’t
received information until nearly a half-second after subconscious processes
had received the signal. The result is quite similar to tests of the five
normal senses, in which conscious awareness lags behind subconscious signal
processing.
In the initial plan we wanted to test all of Uri’s special abilities, particularly
those that demonstrated a strong component of psychokinesis,
because that was the most bizarre and difficult to explain within the existing
framework of science. One of his trademark capacities was the ability
to bend common metal objects, such as forks and spoons. Of course one of
the objectives was to test this while filming with videotape and 16-millimeter
film. But when we placed a spoon on a table under a glass jar, we found he
couldn’t bend the utensil. However, when we allowed him to touch the
spoon, he explained to us how it seemed to “turn to plastic” in his hand.
But this was generally unconvincing to scientists who specialized in other
realms of study. They claimed Uri merely had extraordinarily strong fingers
and possessed the ability to twist the metal under his peculiar grip, or
that he had some unknown solvent on his finger that softened the metal.
Yet no one was aware of any such solvent that could be used in this way;
the physicians in the group couldn’t explain how he could be capable of
twisting the metal so adroitly into such a neat little coil by merely touching
it with a single finger. But the objections persisted. At times their explanations
were more far-fetched than the event itself, and seemed little more
than tortured rationalizations.
Most convincing to me, however, were the dozens of children I investigated
who had watched Uri bend spoons in this manner on television.
Shortly following the tests at SRI, Uri made a series of television appearances,
during which he did his thing before the cameras. Soon after the
broadcasts my phone would ring with frantic parents reporting that their
children were bending spoons as well. I could usually sense what part of
the world Uri was in by the parents calling to report that their children
were bending the family silverware.
I went to a number of homes around the country, sometimes with my
own spoons in pocket, or I would select one at random from the family
kitchen. Typically it was a boy less than 10 years of age who would lightly
stroke the metal object at the narrow point of the handle while I held it
between thumb and forefinger at the end of the handle. The spoon would
soon slowly bend, creating two 360-degree twists in the handle, perfectly
emulating what Uri demonstrated on television. No tricks, no magic potions,
just innocent children (with normal children’s fingers) who had not