The Scole Experiments

[Psiload]

Psiload, will that camera of yours pick up a human? Someone told me the other day that commercial cameras aren't sensitive enough to IR to record a human, so you need real night vision goggles.

~~ Paul

Not only can it pick up a human... I can tell you what gender that human is. When Sony first came out with the technology, it was too good, it could actually see right through clothing! Sony had to change the filtering to disable that effect.

Believe you me... it can pick up a human.

 

[SteveGrenard]

see: http://members.tripod.com/~helenduncan/


Unlike all the floating trumpet mediums of yore, Duncan was a much more interesting case. She was arrested by the British government during WW II for some kind of vague psychic kind of espionage, soon recharged under a relictual anti-Witchraft law, related to her materialization of a sailor (complete with his sailor cap with the name of the ship on it) off a ship that had gone down; the sinking was not acknowledged or publicized by the admiralty.

She was charged under a 260 year old witchcraft act and as a result of her case, it was replaced with the Fraudulent Mediums Act. Although by their admission that this sailor existed and his ship had gone down, as his presence indicated, she wasn't exactly a fraudulent medium. It was a real catch-22 for them. It was determined she was not a German spy, and she was
released after serving nine months or other time in jail (gaol)
related to the same offense. I am glad the British government decided not to burn her at the stake or, as prescribed by the law, hang her for er, being a witch..... at the end of WW II.

She was BTW willing to prpduce a materialization in the courtroom but the government nixed that by insisting she would have to testify to which the defense answered she could not testify if she was in a trance which would be required for her to produce the physical materialization. All and all, an interesting read (see above website).


She continued to be hounded by the police and as a result of a police raid after that she died of a heart attack.

The seance she held involving the sailor was attended by a British naval officer who reported it to his superiors, thus alerting the government to what had happened. The parents of the dead sailor (who didnt know he was dead) were at the seance as well.
The government was clearly not happy about her alleged channeling of a deceased sailor off a British naval vessel, the sinking of which they wanted to keep secret. Churchill later apologized to her according to reports I read about the case.

There is still a movement to have her pardoned officially.

 

[Ed]

ED: The lack of use of night vision devices is horseshat of the highest order. Since when are subjects informed of the controls that are put in place?

With respect to phenomena that are produced in pitch blackness I do not disagree with you and said as much above regarding the use of IR lighted rooms with video surveillance. However, it would be impossible not to tell the subjects you are using such equipment, including night vision (which also emits a green glow) as it would become apparent as soon as it is employed.

with respect, the current generation of CCD low light equipment uses light sources well below rod thresholds. Also, a professional grade IR device would filter out all of the visable spectrum. Finally, the thermal imaging gizmos literally use no light whatsoever. I saw a demo that our local firefighter put on and let me tell you body heat makes for a very decent image. The technology is available.



Therefore, it is far better in this instance to get the assent of this type of security measure in advance from the subject. If the subject declines then one can only conclude they are indeed full of manure. The primary objection to any kind of visible light has been related to it's harming of the medium producing the phenomena.

As I pointed out, observation can be done without visable light therefore the issue is not "light", per se. but rather not wanting to be observed. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

I frankly don't see how or why this is true as there have been some mediums in this area who have worked in conditions involving visible light. But even if for a moment this were true, my suggestion about using video and non-visible light which works well quells that objection and I have passed it along to researchers in the UK who are trying to find mediums who produce physical phenomena. Not surprisingly so far there have been no takers. I have watched some videos of transfiguration mediums also and found their performance no better and no worse than any decent actor portraying the role of a person with MPD. [/B]

 

[Ed]

They were/are incompetent boobs.

I assert fraud.

 

[Psiload]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Psiload
They were/are incompetent boobs.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I assert fraud.

Indeed... let me rephrase:

At best, they were/are incompetent boobs.

Thank you.

 

[Psiload]

see: http://members.tripod.com/~helenduncan/


Unlike all the floating trumpet mediums of yore, Duncan was a much more interesting case. She was arrested by the British government during WW II for some kind of vague psychic kind of espionage, soon recharged under a relictual anti-Witchraft law, related to her materialization of a sailor (complete with his sailor cap with the name of the ship on it) off a ship that had gone down; the sinking was not acknowledged or publicized by the admiralty.

She was charged under a 260 year old witchcraft act and as a result of her case, it was replaced with the Fraudulent Mediums Act. Although by their admission that this sailor existed and his ship had gone down, as his presence indicated, she wasn't exactly a fraudulent medium. It was a real catch-22 for them. It was determined she was not a German spy, and she was
released after serving nine months or other time in jail (gaol)
related to the same offense. I am glad the British government decided not to burn her at the stake or, as prescribed by the law, hang her for er, being a witch..... at the end of WW II.

She was BTW willing to prpduce a materialization in the courtroom but the government nixed that by insisting she would have to testify to which the defense answered she could not testify if she was in a trance which would be required for her to produce the physical materialization. All and all, an interesting read (see above website).


She continued to be hounded by the police and as a result of a police raid after that she died of a heart attack.

The seance she held involving the sailor was attended by a British naval officer who reported it to his superiors, thus alerting the government to what had happened. The parents of the dead sailor (who didnt know he was dead) were at the seance as well.
The government was clearly not happy about her alleged channeling of a deceased sailor off a British naval vessel, the sinking of which they wanted to keep secret. Churchill later apologized to her according to reports I read about the case.

There is still a movement to have her pardoned officially.

Big deal... there was this guy, like 2000 years ago, that could walk on water, and cure blind people, and stuff.

What the hell does this have to do with the Scole bunch's photo-sensitive allergy to infra red light?

 

[dharlow]

A lot of the criticism of the investigation put forth here is based on the lack of use of infrared viewers. I don't dispute this point, but I should add that the investigators primary interest was the possibility of obtaining images on film in a fraud-proof container. Had this been achieved, the use of or lack of use of infrared devices are irrelevant. However, it was not satisfactorily achieved to a convincing degree. In the investigators' minds, though, they felt it was worth continuing to experiment using target-based controls, as opposed to subject-based controls, to see if such a test could have been successful. In addition, they were not aware that the experiment would be terminated so abruptly. Now I believe that in such situations, one should always treat each experiment seperately (and hence with tight controls), but I did want to present some arguments in defense of the investigators' actions.

 

[Psiload]

A lot of the criticism of the investigation put forth here is based on the lack of use of infrared viewers. I don't dispute this point, but I should add that the investigators primary interest was the possibility of obtaining images on film in a fraud-proof container. Had this been achieved, the use of or lack of use of infrared devices are irrelevant. However, it was not satisfactorily achieved to a convincing degree. In the investigators' minds, though, they felt it was worth continuing to experiment using target-based controls, as opposed to subject-based controls, to see if such a test could have been successful. In addition, they were not aware that the experiment would be terminated so abruptly. Now I believe that in such situations, one should always treat each experiment seperately (and hence with tight controls), but I did want to present some arguments in defense of the investigators' actions.

I don't know about the images on sealed film being the "primary interest" of the experiment, but I do know that there were aspects of the Scole experiments that absolutely justified the employment of IR monitoring... the floating "spirit lights", sitters being touched by "spirit hands" the materialization of objects (jewelry, coins), "spirit voices" being heard, etc... all of these phenomena took place in absolute dark. Nothing I have read in the accounts of the Scole Experiments has indicated to me that the primary focus of the experiments was obtaining images on film. I have seen this particular part of the experiment discussed, but not in what I would consider a manner which would indicate that it was any more important than any other part of the experiment. I also know that certain members of the Scole group held "seances" outside of their usual homebase of England, and in the one instance I'm aware of, a seance which took place in California, the floating "spirit light" was the produced... in unmonitored by IR, pitch darkness... of course. From what I have gathered, It doesn't seem the "sealed film" trick was attempted on that occasion. The Scole group's refusal to allow IR monitoring during any and all phases of their experiments, to me, seems to cast suspicion on all other aspects of the experiment.

 

[SteveGrenard]

I need to correct the Duncan account by adding that the British government were not so concerned about her channeling the dead sailor off the sunken ship as they were about her abilities in general. It was learned they were concerned abut her channeling information that might give away new secrets including the date and location of the planned D-Day invasion and this is why they wanted her jailed and kept out of comission until after this ocurred.

 

[Nucular]

she wasn't exactly a fraudulent medium

[...]

The seance she held involving the sailor was attended by a British naval officer who reported it to his superiors, thus alerting the government to what had happened

How do you know she wasn't a fraudulent medium? I saw a documentary including interviews with the sailor who reported her which showed rather a lot of question marks over what she was doing. And it's worth adding that the sailor's main concern was initially that she may have gained information through non-legitimate but mundane means (and remember, at the point the seance took place I believe the Navy were already aware of the sinking, but the public were not), but equally that she seemed to be a fraud - in fact he seems to have helped catch her out on at least one occasion (doing the old trick of responding to cold reading with a fictional relative in mind). The police raid(s), though in at least one case rather poorly executed, concentrated on finding evidence of fraud, and were apparently unconnected to any fear of her 'channeling' confidential information.

Yeah, not too relevant to Scole, but I just wanted to say.

 

[SteveGrenard]

NUC: "at the point the seance took place I believe the Navy were already aware of the sinking, but the public were not), but equally that she seemed to be a fraud - in fact he seems ..."

The seance in question regarding the sinking of the Barnham ocurred on January 19th, 1944. The admiralty released information, first privately and then publicly in late 1941 (Dec) and in 1942. Therefore it was pretty common knowledge by the time she alleged to have materialized this sailor. What was not were the details which this sailor gave. I have written the author of the article about this discrepancy in dates. There was a RN Lt named Worth at the seance along with a policeman. Worth paid 25 shillngs each for their entry. I think the original assumption about Duncan disclosing something secret before it was publicly known is incorrect based on the date of the sinking, the date it was announced by the government and the date, several years later, of the seance. This then leads analysts to believe that the government either was genuinely concerned she might materialize someone else or develop information about new secret plans including the date and place of D-Day.

I did not say she was not fraudulent. What I said is that the government was taking her quite seriously and were so worried about her regardless of how she worked or developed information that they saw fit to charge her first under a vagrancy statute, dropped that and then under the 260+ year old witchraft act which she was convicted under and sent to jail for 9 months
(until after D-Day).

When the HMS Barham was sunk on 25 November 1941, the Admiralty knew about it almost immediately. They also knew hours later that the German High Command did not know the Barham had been sunk.

One key point in the Helen Duncan story was the cover-up. The Admiralty's cover-up began on 25 November 1941 but was first made public when the official letters of condolence asked the bereaved not to announce the news - and keep it confidential awaiting the "official announcement" which finally came at the end of January 1942.

Here is the official text of those letters. Each of the families of the 862 men lost received such letters, leaving a large paper trail to prove the cover-up did occur. Those family members who lost loved ones from the sinking of the Barham, received these letters regarding the notice of death. The crewman's name has been deleted.

First letter

6th December 1941

Madam,

I am commanded by My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to inform you that They have learned, with regret, that your husband, (deleted here), Royal Navy, is presumed to have lost his life as the result of enemy action on Tuesday, 25th November, 1941.

My Lords desires me to express to you Their deep regret at receiving this intelligence and Their profound sympathy in the great loss which you have sustained.

I am further to ask that, for the time being, you should not communicate this sad news to any but your immediate relatives, who should similarly be asked to regard it as highly confidential. My Lords feel obliged to make this request because it is most essential that information of the even which led to the loss of your husband' life should not find its way to the enemy until such time as it is announced officially, or until your husband's name is an official casualty list.

I am, Madam, Your obedient Servant, (signature not legible)

Second letter

27th January, 1942

Dear Madam,

The Admiralty have released to the press this afternoon the news of the loss of the Barham, so need no longer ask you to maintain silence on the matter.

I know Their Lordships are most grateful to you for complying with their request for secrecy which must have added greatly to your distress at this time.

Yours sincerely

(signature not legible)

Vice Admiral
------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am waiting for the movie.....

 

[Ed]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Psiload
They were/are incompetent boobs.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Indeed... let me rephrase:

At best, they were/are incompetent boobs.

Thank you.

I would rather that you not demean boobs (for which I have an affection) by associating them with these charlatens. Thank you.

 

[Ersby]

I need to correct the Duncan account by adding that the British government were not so concerned about her channeling the dead sailor off the sunken ship as they were about her abilities in general. It was learned they were concerned abut her channeling information that might give away new secrets including the date and location of the planned D-Day invasion and this is why they wanted her jailed and kept out of comission until after this ocurred.

I'd say it was neither. The UK govt. were very jumpy about security during war. Besides, Helen Duncan pales into insignificance compared to the crossword compiler Samuel Dawe. During a few consecutive crosswords he'd included clues for the words Overlord, Utah, Omaha, Neptune and Mulberry. All of which related to the forthcoming Operation Overlord plan to liberate France. He was arrested and interrogated, but the secret service decided it was a coincidence and that he knew nothing.

 

[SteveGrenard]

I am not so sure Duncan pales into insignificance compared to the Crossword guy. Afterall even though his puzzles contained code names like overlord, Utah and Omaha (beaches), they didn't tell the enemy anything since they would have to know that these locations and the invasion itself were given these names. Of course he could've been passing on information which coupled with the interception of coded transmissions would tell the enemy that it was of sgnificance. If these three names were all in the same puzzle or in three different puzzles but the result of the same numbered clue then I would say this may've been a possibility.

On the other hand Duncan was traveling all over Britain during the war conducting seances and allegedly communicating with a special kinds of dead persons -- casualties of war, members of the military. In their heightened level of security consciousness the government undoubtedly surmised that on even the slightest possibility Duncan had genuine information then secrets could be leaked. The government and its representatives (e.g. The Royal Navy and the constabularly) were the only ones to jump in and file complaints against Duncan. Not one single sitter had ever done so and there were many. In fact when she was taken into custody following the Barham sailors materialization, the government arrested the other people at the table as well except of course Lt. Worth and the copper he brought with him.

Since they couldn't make a case for espionage or spying against her the best they could trump up was to charge and convict her as a witch!

 

[Ersby]

Well, I don't want to derail the discussion about the Scole Report so I'll keep this short, but I'd just like to say...

If these three names were all in the same puzzle or in three different puzzles but the result of the same numbered clue then I would say this may've been a possibility.

Uh... FIVE names. Read my post again.

 

[Dogwood]

Coming in late on this as usual. My apologies for getting back to Scole since the thread has drifted a bit and thanks to Paul for alerting me to this topic.

Here are my hit and miss comments on the Scole report/experiment. Are you sitting comfortably? Good.

First, these were not experiments by even the broadest definition of the term. At best they were observed phenomena with serious efforts made to record details. Based on my reading of the official report, I see no reason to suspect fraud on the part of the investigators. Indeed, Montague Keen made considerable effort to investigate the possibility of reproducing much of the phenomena mundanely, consulting with photographers especially. Although I believe he made numerous illogical conclusions after these investigations, the investigation was made and the results (easily faked in the opinion of the photographer) was provided fully.

Controls? There were no controls. The issue concerning IR/night vision technology has been covered already so lets look at something a little more basic....

Lock the freakin' door!!!!!!

The cellar door that opened into the "Scole Hole" was never locked. The mediums were never searched. The table that was at the center of the room and the focal point of all activity was not examined. (The room itself however, was, on numerous occasions. No trap doors or hidden panels were ever found in the walls, floor, or ceiling.)

Now, let me try to describe the floor plan a bit. This is crucial in my opinion. The house in Scole was a two story dwelling with a stairway that led down to the two cellars (that's right, two) from the first floor. At the bottom of the stairs are two doors, each leading to a seperate cellar, one of which was used for all the seances, the other cellar was used as a storage room by the owners. None of the cellars have windows and although they share a wall, there was no door that opened between them. Got it? Okay.

Now. The group usually met upstairs and chatted for a bit before they went downstairs. As they went down the stairs, they locked the upper stair door behind them. The door to the second unused cellar was always padlocked. This room was searched once during the earliest seances but apparantly not again, or if so, this was not mentioned. The door to the "Scole Hole" itself was never locked. This was considered unecessary, because (are you ready?)...... it squeaked. Keep this in mind for a second.

At the start of every seance the lights would be turned off and the group would begin by playing tapes of happy upbeat sing a long songs in order to literally and figuratively "raise the spirits". Attendees were encouraged to sing a long with the sing-a-longs as well. Additional music would be played throughout the evening as some of the attending spirits responded better to classical music or some other personal favorite. (Keep an ear out for that squeaky door now.)

Now I want to obsess on one specific reported "phenomenon" for a sec and then we'll review. Frequently the sitters described feeling "spirit touches" hearing the rustling of "spirit clothes" and feeling "Spirit Breezes" around their feet and knees.

I wanna say that again. "Spirit Breezes". Sounds lovely doesn't it?

Cellars are usually much cooler than the above ground portion of a house. But if you put 6-10 adults in a small one for a period of time it's going to warm up pretty quickly yes? Yes. Now, if someone were to open the door to that room at some point, a door that opened to another below ground portion of the house, what would you get? Why a breeze of course. A cool breeze that rushes immediately to the lowest part of the room.

So, what I'm obviously aiming at is one of two possibilities, or a combination of both. The mediums or an accompice could have left their chairs, and calmly walked out of the room. No one in the room hears the squeak of the cellar door because of the loud music and singing. Said person then produces a key from their unsearched pocket, opens the other cellar door and removes any equipment they need providing a refreshing "Spirit Breeze" as they do so.

Alternatively, an outside accomplice drives up to the house 5 minutes after the seance starts, uses his own key to open the front door to the house bringing any and all equipment he needs. He unlocks the door to the cellar stairs, quietly tip-toes down the stairs, and waits for the crowd to reach the chorus of "Row, row, row your boat" before confidently entering the room and playing silly buggers with all assembled.

But why complicate things? Why not just duct tape everything you need to the underside of the table and pull out as needed. Just tell the investigators that they can't inspect the table because it might interfere with the "vibrations"?

Okay. That's one aspect of things. I'm not going to pretend that this explains everything or even anything. But it is an example of how loose and unscientific the investigation was. Did any of the scenarios I described happen? I dunno. Maybe, maybe not. The point is, they could have. Just like Schwartz's work, the holes are big enough to drive a herd of cattle through. For the record, I don't think the Scole mediums were frauds, I think they were some of the best practical jokers ever.

I'll be happy to comment on any other phenomena, but I rely on dharlow to correct my memory as usual.

Just don't get me started on the sock-puppet.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Good stuff, Mark, thanks. I thought I read somewhere that the table had a solid pedestal that prevented anything from hiding under it?

~~ Paul

 

[Mike D.]

Nucular,

You mentioned in a previous post that one of the mediums had gone to bed sick and during the seance that took place in the absense of the medium, remarkable phenomena took place. I found an article by one of the members of the Scole group, Robin Foy, in which he apparently refers to this incident. But I got the impression from the article that this incident happened *before* the investigations into the Scole group began. Here's the link to the article. What do you think?

http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/articles/foy/scole.htm

Mike

 

[Dogwood]

Here is a description of the table from the official report pg. 174.

"The central table, around which the sitters were placed during all our investigtions, was about 1.2 metres in diameter and a little over 60 cm in height, and had a compressed chipboard brown-painted circular top on a quadrant pedestal base consisting of ogee-sawn boards at right angles to each other, and extending almost to the edge of the table so as to divide the area under the table into four compartments, effectively obstructing under-table movement."

So, about 2 feet high and 4 feet wide. A circular top on a slot and groove base.

 

[Mike D.]

Hi Mark,

Glad you've joined thread. I've been hoping that you would!

I don't have the scientific background that you have, but when I said in my first post that I thought that *some* controls had been employed, but not the crucial one of infared cameras, I was thinking of things like having the mediums wear luminous armbands. Couldn't this be considered a kind of control?

How do you feel about the assertion that equipment was needed to produce some of the phenomena, and that such equipment was never found. What about the Scole group's holding of seances in other countries and in unfamiliar rooms. Do you think it would have been difficult for them to function under such circumstances?

Mike