ANNOUNCING THE OFFICIAL 1996 "PIGASUS" AWARDS FROM THE JAMES RANDI EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION. On April 1st, we award the coveted Pigasus prizes in four categories, for accomplishments in the period January 1/96 to December 31/96. The awards are announced via telepathy, the winners are allowed to predict their winning, and the Flying Pig trophies are sent via psychokinesis. We send; if they don't receive, that's probably due to their lack of Category #1, to the scientist who said or did the silliest thing related to the supernatural, paranormal or occult, goes to scientist/physicist Ed May, who headed up the CIA "remote viewing" project which consumed $20 million of our tax money on "remote viewing," a technique said to bypass time and space to obtain secret information via "gifted psychics" on the CIA payroll. The 10-year project provided no useful or accurate data, and former CIA director Robert Gates implied that pressure from members of Congress drove the CIA's involvement. This failed project was enthusiastically supported by Sen. Claiborne Pell (D-RI) and Rep. Charlie Rose (D-NC). Category #2, to the funding organization that supported the most useless study of a supernatural, paranormal or occult, goes to Robert Bigelow, of the Bigelow Tea family. Mr. Bigelow not only gave large sums of money to Harvard University's Professor John Mack and to million-seller author Bud Hopkins on the strength of their "alien abduction" beliefs, but also purchased (for a purported $230,000) a "haunted ranch" in Utah where UFO attacks and "interdimensional portals" had shown up, in the wake of mysterious "cattle mutilations." Mr. Bigelow lives in a walled-in home in Las Vegas. Category #3, to the media outlet that reported as fact the most outrageous supernatural, paranormal or occult claim, is divided among the multitude of newspapers, magazines, TV programs, and radio shows who have continued -- despite the wealth of contrary evidence -- to perpetuate the myth known as The Roswell Incident, which claims that an alien spacecraft crashed near Roswell, New Mexico, in July, 1947, and that bodies of the aliens were spirited away by US government agencies. The very lucrative UFO/tourist trade (90,000 tourists a year) that resulted has supported Roswellians handsomely ever since. The media have ignored the fact that the "UFO museums" are only collections of newspaper clippings, and that the owner of the property where the aliens are said to have crashed charges $15 a head to see the spot, while the town officials have moved the "authentic" site onto land owned by the US Forest Service, due to the uncooperative land owner. And, not one scrap of wreckage has ever been produced! The US Air Force explanation, that once-top-secret Project Mogul was the source of the crashed UFO debris balsa wood, mylar foil and tape continues to be ignored. Category #4, to the "psychic" performer who fooled the greatest number of people with the least effort, goes to "psychic" Sheldon Nidle of Walnut Creek, California, who predicted that the end of the world would come on December 17th, 1996, when "millions of space ships" accompanied by angels would arrive along with "the Photon Belt." He assured us that we would have "16 years of light 24 hours a day" after the Photon Belt "hits [our] pineal glands." This would "activate all 12 strands of [our] DNA." When December 17th apparently came and went without the promised events being evident, Sheldon explained that we naturally were unaware of the fulfillment of his prophecy, since are now living in a special holographic projection created by the angels, and we've been given another chance to make good. What a relief! ********************************************************************* SUBSCRIBING/UNSUBSCRIBING/CHANGE OF ADDRESS ********************************************************************** Requests to be added to or deleted from the randi-hotline mailing list, must be sent to the service address: Internet: randi-hotline-request@ssr.com PLEASE BE PATIENT. All requests are processed before each new mailing to the list and these can be widely spaced. 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