King of flim-flam Uri Geller photographed in 2009.
The disappeareance of Flight MH370 has led to an unprecedented coordinated international search. The big question is not what happened to it but how can a commercial flight disappear apparently without trace in 2014, the age of near total surveillance?
King of flim-flam Uri Geller photographed in 2009.
While we must all hope for the best while fearing the worst, there are some people who hope to make capital – financial or other – out of what is almost certainly a tragedy not only for those on board but for hundreds of families, and thousands of friends. Among the psychic charlatans offering their “help” is – predicatably – Uri Geller. The so-called psychic was reported by a UK tabloid to have been asked to assist in the search by an anonymous (read non-existent) Malaysian official.
Mr Geller’s psychic powers are legendary. A legend is of course something that is not true. You can find an article about him here, and on YouTube you can see how he performs when strict controls are in place. This video is from the Johnny Carson programme The Tonight Show; although it is over forty years old, Geller has been unable to improve on this performance since. Check out James Randi if you need further convincing.
Columnist Sharon Hill has cast a skeptical eye over other psychics who have attempted to batten on this tragedy. This is nothing new, but the true believers remain convinced even when the “psychic” is a convicted fraudster, like the recently deceased Sylvia Browne.
Of course, it is not impossible that some “psychic” somewhere will guess correctly the location of the plane, but if you were write a number between 1 and a million on a piece of paper and then ask ten thousand people to guess it, you wouldn’t be too surprised if one of them was spot on.
As the world watches, we should put our faith in the professionals rather than sensation seekers and at times total idiots. We can also pray for a miracle.
[The above article was published originally on the AllVoices news website March 16. 2014. On August 18/9, 2004 it was deleted along with all my other articles and countless others in the site revamp. It is the only one of my 100+ contributions to AllVoices that appears not to have been archived.]
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