Harry Price was dubbed as “the Psychic Detective” because he exposed countless hoaxes. By the time of his death in 1948, Price was considered Britain’s foremost paranormal expert, publishing several books on mediums, spirits and England’s most haunted house.

Up until now, no one suspected that he himself might have been a conman.

According to Edinburgh writer, Richard Morris, Price lied about his scientific training and staged high-profile public “experiments” to expose other con-artists. Morris’s alleged discovery of Harry Price came by chance when he was researching the history of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who was greatly annoyed with Price for exposing spirit photographer, William Hope in 1922. Hope just happened to be Doyle’s friend.

“I got started investigating Price as I was looking into Conan Doyle, who was very interested in spiritualism,” said Morris. “That was something I found fascinating, that a man who was so associated with scientific truth and fact actually had a great belief in ghosts and spirits.

“But Price is an equally fascinating character, and it is really quite extraordinary that he managed to convince so many people he was a man of science.”

Over the past year, Morris has read through thousands of papers of Price’s own documents, which cover bizarre cases, such as the 1932 Brocken experiment, which used a ritual to transform a goat into a man. Price wrote about writing a letter to Adolf Hitler, who had invited him to Germany and who was very interested in the paranormal. The contrast between Price’s public life and his private life were so stark that Morris decided to write a book about him. Morris knew his findings would not be welcomed by Price’s fans, but he wasn’t prepared for the threats he received.

“It’s bizarre that in this day and age you can be threatened for trying to uncover the facts about someone who has been dead for more than half a century.”

I read an interesting article called So much space, so little time: why aliens haven’t found us yet. Dutch researcher, Rasmus Bjork, says that the universe is so vast that aliens don’t have time to seek us out.

. . . even if the alien ships could hurtle through space at a tenth of the speed of light, or 30,000km a second, - Nasa’s current Cassini mission to Saturn is plodding along at 32km a second - it would take 10bn years, roughly half the age of the universe, to explore just 4% of the galaxy.

That makes perfect sense, where our technology is concerned. However, I find it a big coincidence how far we’ve evolved technologically since the Roswell incident back in the 40’s. Then there are the stories of people from all over the world and all walks of life, giving almost identical descriptions of aliens who kidnapped them during the era where science fiction wasn’t so influential. As far as I know, no one has been able to explain away what happened to those people.

Paranormal skeptic, James Randi launched what is known as his Million Dollar Challenge in 1964, offering $1,000 to anyone who could read another’s mind or bend a spoon under controlled conditions. Few took him up on his challenge, even when he increased the prize to $10,000. That changed in 1996, when an anonymous donor contributed a million dollars to his cause.

Since then, people from across the globe started applying in droves. Swedish medium Carina Landin was one of the scant few who came close to passing Randi’s rigorous exam. She succeeded in identifying the genders of 16 out of 20 authors of diaries by touching their covers. The vast majority of the applicants failed for one reason or another, most of them showing signs of a serious mental illness.

This dilemma has forced Randi to revamp his application process, effective April 1st, which requires applicants to submit press clippings and/or television footage along with an academic endorsement of their supernatural abilities. While this will weed out most of the would-be applicants, Randi’s real targets are high-profile psychics such as John Edward and Sylvia Browne, who have yet to accept his much-publicized challenge. He believes these psychics, among others, have defrauded millions of people into believing that they connected with the spirits of their departed loved ones.

Randi plans to relaunch his challenge, using high-profile media resources such as The New York Times. Will he succeed in exposing these Edward and his colleagues as frauds, or will his meticulous investigations into their backgrounds and methods prove to be as much of a time-waster as his Million Dollar Challenge?

Some say that Roy Whiting, convicted child killer, is getting his just desserts at Britain’s notorious Wakefield Prison, which houses the countries most depraved criminals. Whiting was placed in cell D336 two weeks ago, after a jury found him guilty of murdering eight year-old Sarah Payne in 2000. This cell was once occupied by serial killer, Dr. Harold Shipman, who eventually hung himself.

Whiting claims that the cell is haunted by the ghost of the late serial killer and is trying desperately to get himself relocated to escape the strange noises and “weird goings on.” Many inmates believe that this cell is cursed because another inmate hung himself in 1987, sometime after Shipman’s death.

Was this inmate tortured into committing suicide by this alleged ghost? Is Whiting next on the serial killer’s hit list? Wakefield Prison officials don’t think that’s the case. They believe that the other inmates are torturing him by making the strange noises. One of them even went so far as to place a noose in Whiting’s cell.

Source: The Argus