by Joe Nickell
Indeed, so varied are the implants, their sites, and other characteristics that they recall a similar craze of yore. During the witch mania of the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries, inquisitors identified certain “witch’s marks” that could be almost anything. As one writer explains, “Papillomas, hemangiomas, blemishes, warts, welts, and common moles were seized upon as authentic witch’s marks, and these marks invariably determined the destiny of the suspect” (Rachleff 1971).
Several disparate implants are described in the best-selling Abduction: Human Encounters With Aliens by Harvard psychiatrist John E. Mack. For example, two small nodules that appeared on an abductees wrist were surgically removed and analyzed in a pathology laboratory. The lab found the tissue unremarkable (Mack 1994, 27-28). Another implant was supposedly placed at the base of an abductee’s skull. Under hypnosis, the man—who believes he has an alternate identity as a humanoid named Orion—described a small, pill-shaped object with protruding wires that, he said, would make it easier for the aliens “to follow me.” Astonishingly, Mack makes no mention of any subsequent attempt to locate and remove the reported implant (Mack 1994,172).
Many of the removals have been performed by “California surgeon” Roger Leir. Actually Dr. Leir is not a physician but a podiatrist (licensed to do minor surgery on feet). His office includes UFO magazines for patients to read and displays “bug-eyed alien dolls” (Chan 2001). Leir was accompanied by an unidentified general surgeon (who did not want to be associated with UFO abduction claims). The latter performed all of the above-the-ankle surgeries. A critic of implant claims, Dr. Virgil Priscu, a department head in an Israeli teaching hospital, observes that a foreign object can enter the body unnoticed, as during a fall, or while running barefoot in sand or grass—even as a splinter from a larger impacting object (Priscu 1998). Such foreign objects may become surrounded by a membrane, like several of the “implants” removed by Dr. Leir and others (Lindemann 1998); depending on the material, they may also degrade over time, leaving only a small bit of “reaction” tissue in place of the foreign object—“No mystery, no ’implants,’” says Dr. Priscu. He challenged Dr. Leir’s associate, a hypnotherapist named Derrel Sims, to provide specimens, or at least color slides of them, for analysis at a forensic medical institute but reported he received no cooperation. Dr. Priscu also noted the lack of the scientific peer-review process in the case of implant claims. Although he is himself an admitted UFO believer, he states, “I also firmly believe that meticulous research by competent persons is the way to the truth” (Priscu 1998).
In Confirmation, Whitley Strieber describes several of the implants, including one removed from his own external ear by a physician. It turned out to be collagen, the substance from which cartilage is formed (Strieber 1998,228). Strieber admits that the promised “hard evidence” provided by implants is not so hard after all: “I hope this book will not cause a rush to judgement,” he writes, “with skeptics trying to prove that evi’dence so far retrieved is worthless while UFO believers conclude that it is proof. Both approaches are a waste of time, because the conclusive evidence has not yet been gathered” (Strieber 1998, 255). A similar admission comes from ufologist David E. Pritchard, an M.I.T. physicist who, with Mack, hosted the 1992 Abduction Study Conference at M.I.T. (Pritchard emphasized that the conference was merely held there; it was not an M.I.T. conference.) Pritchard gave a presentation on a suspected implant, a tiny object with a collagen sheen that he acknowledged might have grown in the alleged abductee. (It had supposedly been implanted in the man’s penis but worked itself out over time.) Pritchard conceded: “I don’t have anything conclusive. What I have is just what you usually get in this business: it will provide more beliefs for the believers and will be instantly skeptified by the skeptics, and it’s not very good evidence if it won't move the lines at all. The point is to convince the jury.”(Bryan 1995, 50-51).
Of course, it is not skeptics but implant advocates who have the burden of proof—a burden they have emphatically failed to meet. Indeed, the implant concept—like the larger alien abduction phenomenon itself—lacks proof that it has an objective reality. Instead, the evidence indicates it is simply part of an evolving UFO mythology. Its theme of entities exerting influence over humans is one seen in many variants, ranging from ancient mythical lore to modern science fiction and persisting in some form in popular culture. There have always been individuals—fantasizers as well as paranoid schizophrenics—who have heard voices that directed or controlled them, voices that are expressions of hopes and fears. Therefore it seems safe to predict that there will be further claims of “hard evidence” of extraterrestrial visitation. We may also expect that misperceptions and exaggerations of natural phenomena, as well as hoaxes, will abound.
References
Baker, Robert A., and Joe Nickell. 1992. Missing Pieces: How to Investigate Ghosts, 209 UFOs, Psychics, and Other Mysteries. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus, 227.
Bryan, C.D.B. 1995. Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind. New York: Knopf, 50- 51.
Chan, Cecilia. 2001. Out of this world: Doctor’s sideline is extraterrestrial investigations. Daily News (Woodland Hills, Calif.), March 18.
Clark, Jerome. 1992. Abduction artifact. Fate, April, 19-22.
Fowler, Raymond E. 1979. The Andreasson Affair. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice- Hall.
Jacobs, David. 1992. Secret Life: Firsthand Documented Accounts of UFO Abductions. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Klass, Philip J. 1974. UFOs Explained. New York: Vintage, 299.
———. 1989. UFO Abductions: A Dangerous Game. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus.
Linderman, Debra L. 1998. Surgeon tells first results of implant analysis. Excerpted from CNI News, vol. 15.8 (Feb. 26,1996).
Mack, John E. 1994. Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens. New York: Ballantine.
Nickell, Joe. 1995. Entities: Angels, Spirits, Demons, and Other Alien Beings. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus, 211.
Okuda, Michael, and Denise Okuda. 1997. The Star Trek Encyclopedia. New York: Pocket, 141,303.
Priscu, Virgil. 1998. Rebuttal to Derrell Sims the implant guy! Internet posting to the UFO Folklore Center. http://www.shoah.free-online.co.uk/801/Ab- duct/sims.html
Rachleff, Owen S. 1971. The Occult Conceit. Chicago: Cowles, 108.
Sachs, Margaret. 1980. The UFO Encyclopedia. New York: Perigee.
Strieber, Whitley. 1985. Communion: A True Story. New York: William Morrow.
———. 1998. Confirmation: The Hard Evidence of Aliens Among Us. New York: St. Martin’s.
Wray, Shannon. 1993. Notes of interview with Dorothy Wallis for The Shirley Show, n.d. (faxed to Joe Nickell March 31; show taped April 1).
Chapter 35
Sleuthing a Psychic Sleuth
On February 7,1996,1 appeared on the Mark Walberg Show, a television program produced in New York City. Among other guests—who included an alien abductee and her hypnotherapist, a UFO conspiracy theorist, and a pair of ghost hunters—there were two “psychics,” one of whom claimed to assist police departments. He was Ron Bard from southern New York State.
Walberg asked, “Ron, how did you discover this ability?”
Bard replied, Well, it’s been in my family for quite a few generations. I’ve solved over 110 murder cases and returned 150 missing children in my career so far,” he boasted.
“And how did you help them … ?”
“The one that stands in my mind most,” Bard replied, “was two girls found in plastic bags in Harrison, New York. Anybody can call the Chief of Harrison Police Department and find this out for fact,” he challenged.
I resolved to do just that.
Bard continued: “They found two girls in plastic bags. We went to the scene. The girls weren’t identifiable. We identified the girls, found an unmarked key in the pocket, went to the south Bronx, unlocked the door—there is a lot of putting the evidence together inevitably—the key worked in the lock and that’s how we found the murderer”(Bard 1996)
.
This certainly sounded like an amazing case of psychic power. Un-fortunately, an examination of news stories relating to the case (Gannett 1984) and the testimony of the Harrison police chief (Dorio 1996a, 1996b) paint quite a different picture. The first newspaper account was March 9, 1984. It reported that “the bound, frozen bodies of two unidentified women, possibly teenagers”—each in a green trash bag tied at the top with rope—had been discovered near Harrison High School. “One of the women was white, the other black,” the newspaper reported. “Both had their hands tied behind their backs with twine, and were curled up, almost in a fetal position.” A detective was quoted as saying that the young women appeared to have been dumped at the site after being killed—the cause of death not yet having been determined. Subsequent reports told of the difficulty police were having in learning the identities of the two victims, neither of whom was carrying identification. The victims had been fully clothed, and there was no evidence of sexual abuse. They had died from suffocation. An item found in one of the plastic bags—which police would not identify at the time—led them to a particular area of the Bronx. The item was a key that had been made in a store on Southern Boulevard, so the police search was focused on that vicinity.
In just over a month, police circulars bearing descriptions and morgue photos of the victims, together with articles in a Spanish-language news-paper, had brought forth the parents of one young woman and the mother of another—each looking for a missing child. They identified their respective daughters as Daisy Rivera, 20, and Iris Comacho, 15, both from the Bronx and both Hispanic. The key in Miss Rivera s possession fit the door to her apartment. Before that, according to an April 15 newspaper account, police thought the key might have belonged to the murderer.
Eventually, after a five-month investigation of the case, in the after-math of a drug raid in Yonkers, police were able to arrest three men for the murders. Eyewitnesses named those responsible and told how one man had ordered the older of the two females killed because he thought she was an undercover agent, and the teenage girl because she had said something that offended him. Each of the three killers was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive sentences of twenty-five years to life—the maximum under New York law (Gannett 1984).
Only a couple of news reports relating to the case referred to a psychic. And although no name was given, it was not Ron Bard but his mother (Dorio 1996a). “She” was described in the news reports as a “volunteer psychic.” Her involvement had been permitted by the lieutenant in charge of the case, who spoke of what he considered her accuracy in the case. One account attributes to him the statement that she helped both to identify the bodies and hone in on the murderer, while another account quotes him as saying, “She helped primarily for identification.” In fact, she helped in neither way.
If the psychic had indeed helped in the identification, the lieutenant would have to have withheld that information from his own detectives. We know this because a major detective on the case was the current Harrison police chief, Louis Dorio, who insists that “the identification was done by sheer police work, not a psychic”(Dorio 1996b). Indeed, the lieutenant himself admitted that “what she told us didn’t really lead to things, but after we discovered answers, we could confirm what she told us.” This, in fact, is the major technique used by so-called “police psychics” and it is called retrofitting (discussed in chapter 17). The alleged clairvoyant tosses out several “clues,” like “water” and “ the number 7.” Typically, these are merely puzzling to the police, but after they solve the crime by ordinary if often dogged detective work, the psychic retroactively fits the “clues” to the now-known facts. Credulous police officers may even assist in this. The psychic does not even need many of the “clues” to be counted as hits; the rest will be conveniently forgotten, or dismissed as the natural consequence of an imperfect “power,” or heroically interpreted.
Chief Dorio gave the following account of the Harrison murder investigation:
I was one of the primary investigators on what we refer to as the “Bag Murder Case” in 1984. As such, I never worked with Mr. Bard. I did meet his mother a couple of times and she provided some visions or whatever on things that at the time were of no use to our investigation. Some of the things she said, a true believer may give credence to; for example, she held a key and said, “I see a red door.” That information did not help in the investigation as our area of search was the south Bronx and there are thousands of red doors. After we found the residence (through investigation), it did turn out to have a red apartment door. That is an example of the information supplied. (Dorio 1996a)
In other words, the psychic was using the technique of retrofitting. Chief Dorio continued: “This case was solved by information cultivated and investigated by those of us who were involved. Our arrest and convictions were due to diligent police work, not visions” (Dorio 1996a). He added somewhat sarcastically, “I do not remember seeing Mr. Bard on the witness stand during the trial,” and he concluded, “I would strongly deny that any involvement by Mr. Bard solved this case” (Dorio 1996a).
This is in sharp contrast to the statements and claims made on the Mark Walberg Show by Ron Bard. The case that he cited as apparently his best, “the one that stands in my mind most,” was one that as far as the police and reporters knew was solely his mother’s. It is true that on the TV show he said “we,” instead of just “I,” which we may now see as a possible reference to his mother s involvement. If he did in fact collaborate with her on the case, it is curious that he has so completely distorted the basic facts—stating for example, that a key led to the discovery of the murderer when in fact it did not. The bottom line is that neither Bard nor his mother helped solve the double homicide. If this is one of the best cases he can cite, his other cases must be poor indeed.
References
Bard, Ron. 1996. Interviewed on the Mark Walberg Show, New York City, Feb. 7.
Dorio, Louis A. 1996a. Letter to Joe Nickell, Feb. 20.
———. 1996b. Follow-up letter to Joe Nickell, n.d., together with annotated newspaper clippings. (See Gannett 1984.)
Gannett Westchester Newspapers. 1984. Various clippings from March to September (inclusive) supplied and annotated by Harrison, N.Y., police chief Louis A. Dorio.
Chapter 36
Adventure of the keeping Icon
On Tuesday, September 3,1996, at the request of The Toronto Sun, I headed to Canada to investigate the world’s latest “weeping icon.” I was to meet with reporters at the newspaper’s King Street offices and from there to be escorted to a Greek Orthodox Church in Toronto’s East York district. Church officials had promised the Sun they could examine the icon at 11:00 P.M., and I was enlisted for that purpose. In addition to my over-night bag, I also packed a “weeping icon kit” consisting of a camera and close-up lenses, a stereomicroscope removed from its base, and various vials, pipettes, bibulous paper, and other collection materials.
As we arrived in the neighborhood, however, I saw not the nearly deserted church I had expected to be awaiting our special appointment but rather traffic congestion and a line of pilgrims stretching far off into the night. I waited outside with my conspicuous case while reporters went to learn that the promise of an examination had been retracted. I determined to proceed anyway and do the best I could. A Sun reporter of Greek extraction feared I might start a riot, but his colleague, Scot Magnish, who had brought me there, was only concerned for my safety. (It was not wise for him to go inside, given rumored responses to his critical article on the phenomenon published in the latest edition of the newspaper.) After stuffing some essentials from my kit into my pockets, I handed Scot my case, turned, and bounded up the steps of the little church two at a time. Behind me, Sun photographer Craig Robertson rushed to keep up. We passed a lady who shouted the admission price (“two dollars fifty cents”) at us; I shouted back, “Toronto Sun!” and kept going.
Figure 36.1. Author peers over shoulder of priest—once
defrocked for working in an Athens brothel—as he illuminates a “weeping” icon at a Greek Orthodox church in Toronto. (Photo courtesy Toronto Sun)
Inside, the church was swelteringly hot. Nevertheless, people milled about for a time after viewing the controversial icon of the Madonna and Child, while new pilgrims passed before it. A table filled with candles and a crude sign, “PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH THE ICON OF VIRGIN MARY,” kept the curious at bay. An attendant refused my request for a sample of the tears and pretended to ignore me when I asked again in a louder voice.
A hanging oil lamp partially obscured the face of the Madonna, but by moving my head from side to side and thus catching the light on the surface of the picture, I made several important discoveries. First, the icon was a fake—not an original wood-panel painting at all but merely a color photographic print. In addition, the “tears” did not emanate from the eyes but from somewhere near the top of the Virgins head, and so by definition the image was not “weeping.” Moreover, one of the four rivulets was smeared and from its appearance looked “suspiciously oily” (as I told the Sun).
The latter point was quite significant since real tears, or even mere water, would quickly dry in the hot atmosphere of the church. But a non- drying oil (such as olive oil) would remain fresh and glistening indefinitely—just the trick for “weeping” icons and one apparently more commonly used than the hidden tubes and special chemicals so often proposed by theorists. During the quarter of an hour or so that I observed the image, there was no fresh flow of “tears”—just the same unchanging rivulets I saw at the beginning. (There were also fine droplets between the streaks as if spattered on, possibly from the oil lamp that almost touched the print.)