She made several statements at the time; she didn’t want to be considered a cook or a nut; she wasn’t crazy ... To be able to pinpoint an area was absolutely incredible ... I thanked her for coming in in her own time ... I was infuriated. I wanted to know why; I was told why: the detectives now handing the case believed she was more involved than she told you ... I was very upset. I had promised her she would not be taken into custody. She was a friendly witness ... I was a disbeliever until I spoke to Etta Smith. Detective Lee Ryan, LAPD
Innocent woman endures nightmare ordeal: Psychic arrested for murder she solved .. And wins $26,000 suit in police blunder. News report
Murder and the medium: clairvoyant Nella Jones talks to Shirley Davenport about her horrifying visions which help solve major crimes throughout the world. News article
The small town of Oakhurst in northern California is the home and workplace of one of America’s most celebrated psychics ... Dixie Yeterian. Strange But True? s2e9, ITV 1995
Etta Smith claimed no special psychic powers, no history of clairvoyance, but she succeeded where the whole of the Los Angeles police department failed. ibid.
Etta’s decision to go to the Canyon marked a deepening of her involvement with the case; she was now being drawn into the investigation in a way she could no longer foresee or control. As Etta drove back down the Canyon she regretted ever having involved her children in the search. ibid.
Detective Ryan was now working on another case; he was told that Etta had been taken into custody. By offering to take a polygraph test Etta thought at last she’d found the perfect way to convince the detectives she was telling the truth. It was now three in the morning. Etta had been in custody nine hours. With Etta under arrest the hunt for the real killers had come to a standstill. The pursuit of her premonition had plunged her into a nightmare. Etta was suddenly free. At a party three men had been heard boasting of killing Melanie Yuribi. The police had no further interest in Etta Smith ... The trauma of her imprisonment had left its scars. ibid.
In 1988 David Morehouse, a Major in the United States Army, was assigned to a new post at a top-secret unit of military intelligence. Discretely housed in two wooden sheds on an Army Base at Fort Mead in Maryland the unit was so clandestine that Morehouse didn’t discover what went on there until he met his commanding officer ... But four months prior to reporting to Fort Mead Morehouse’s glittering career nearly ended. During a training exercise in the Jordanian desert a stray round struck him in the head. The bullet should have killed him but miraculously it lodged in his helmet. As he lay unconscious on the desert floor Morehouse claimed he had a vision of an angel bearing a message ... After the accident Morehouse began to be haunted by a series of terrifying hallucinations and out-of-body experiences ... To his amazement Morehouse discovered that far from being invalided out of the Army he was being recruited as a psychic spy. The psychologist suspected that the blow from the bullet had released a latent psychic ability ... For twenty years the US government had invested millions of dollars into a series of ultra-classified projects like Operation Grill-Flame. Psychics were recruited to gather military intelligence through a process called Remote Viewing ... Having entered an altered state, the remote viewer is ready to begin his assignment ... Strange But True? s4e3
Saddam Hussein actually accused the United States openly in the media of using or employing psychics against him ... When I realised we were reaching out to kill with it, I felt I had a moral and ethical responsibility to violate my security oath and tell the story of this to the American people ... It cost me a family and it cost me a career to tell the truth. David Morehouse
And I would drop through this tunnel. And the sensation was so physically overwhelming to me that often I began to get nausea ... You begin to drop into this target area and things become perceivable by you. You’re seeing the colours, you’re smelling the smells and tasting things. The Monitor begins steering you round in this particular target area and you actually move about in the target area in this ghost-like phantom form that’s projected in Time and Space. David Morehouse
And we kept watching this aircraft explode, and then we would be asked to go back again to re-live it again, to go right back to the moment just before it exploded again to try to pinpoint where this explosion took place. What we were looking at was Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which we were forced to re-live over and over again. And it was literally within hours of that aircraft exploding in mid-air that the remote viewers were providing information to the defence intelligence agency that stated that there was an explosion that took place on the front left quadrant of this aircraft, below the passenger line and in front of the wings. David Morehouse
The bullet lodged in Morehouse’s helmet knocking him down cold. It was then that he claimed he experienced visions of overwhelming power ... He began having nightmares so horrifying that they drove him to an army psychologist. The psychologist suspected conclusion had somehow released in Morehouse a latent psychic ability. His commanding officers invited Morehouse to join a secret CIA unit studying psychic powers. Unsolved Mysteries s9e15
But when Millie McGregor set out one labor-day weekend she never expected she would take a wrong turn and her hike would become a life or death ordeal ... No-one counted on a soft-spoken cowboy named Randy Spears to ride to the rescue ... He had never ever had any kind of psychic or ESP experience, but then somehow in his mind’s eye he saw a silhouette of a Sierra peak located fifty miles from his ranch. He just knew with absolute certainty that he would find Millie on the mountain’s southern slope. Unsolved Mysteries
I saw Randy coming up on the mule. And it was spectacular. It was just like he appeared there like magic. Mille McGregor, three days on the mountain
It may just be something about the trauma, whether it’s electrical trauma or accident trauma or whatever, that shakes up the brain, or changes something, we don’t understand yet, that allows the psychic information to get to the surface. Dr Richard Broughton, researcher
There are a number of cases on record. There’s also the case of a man who fell off a ladder who as a result became a well-known psychic. Hans Holzer, psychologist
I’ve come across thousands, not just hundreds, but thousands and thousands of experiences involving children ... All children seem to have a latent psychic ability, but it’s something people find frightening. Cassandra Eason, author Psychic Power of Children & The Mammoth Book of Ancient Wisdom
Driving to the spot in her vision, Etta [Smith] made a shocking discovery ... She became the number one suspect. Etta was eventually cleared of the crime. But no-one was able to fully explain her single psychic vision. Unexplained Mysteries s1e2: Extreme Psychics, CBS 2003
Just across the river from New York City the police are known for their intuition when it comes to solving crimes. But Detective George Brejack’s powers border on the paranormal. Unexplained Mysteries: Paranormal America
94% of the population believe that some people have ESP. ibid.
The most compelling argument comes from those who have been touched and healed. Even with all the evidence, all the success stories, and all the research, no-one is sure how psychic healing works. So for now it remains an unexplained mystery. Unexplained Mysteries: Psychic Healers
Desperate to track down and apprehend the killer they consulted Dorothy Allison, a psychic with a reputation for solving crimes and locating missing people. Dorothy claimed that the Son of Sam would eventually be captured because of a parking ticket. And he was. Paranormal? Police Psychics
In the American west it’s 1994, Wheeler County, Oregon ... With no resolution police step outside normal operating procedures and reach out to psychic Laurie McQuary for assistance. Psychic Powers: Paranatural, National Geographic 2013
Psychics often claim they have insights into crimes. ibid.
During the Cold War however the US government believed so strongly in the possible potential of the power of the mind it set up a program called Stargate to develop psychic intelligence gathering. ibid.
Sceptics say there is simply no proof. ibid.
Edgar Cayce seems to have had a psychic sensitivity to World War II. Mark Thurston, author Edgar Cayce’s Predictions for the 21st Century
8For years he has let drop hints about something far more cloak and dagger. Secret work as a psychic spy for military and intelligence agencies in the Americas, Britain and also for Israel’s legendary secret intelligence agency – the Mossad. The Secret Life of Uri Geller, Psychic Spy? BBC 2013
Uri came to America in 1972 … Stamford University SRI … Remote viewing. ibid.
So SRI’s remote viewing program expanded to train dozens of remote viewers. ibid.
[James Randi]: Some people cannot believe that a magician can fool them in such a way that they can’t figure it out. But magicians can and magicians do. Storyville: Exposed: Magicians, Psychics & Frauds, aka An Honest Liar, 2015
It’s OK to fool people as long as you’re doing that to teach them a lesson. ibid.
I’ve always had my battle with the psychics … People who are scheming money from the public. ibid.
A good magician needs to be a little bit of a conman, I think. He needs to be a criminal type but not have enough guts to rob banks. ibid.
‘His point is to widen your scope of vision.’ ibid. comment
People really do believe this nonsense. ibid. Randi
Uri Geller: He Denies He’s a Magician. ibid. TV caption
Carson’s people had followed the instructions I had given them. ibid. Randi
During the 80s the faith-healing racket was very prominent. ibid.
James Randi: The Truth About Uri Geller. ibid.