Uri Geller - What do you think?

That would be in conflict with the paper... that's supposed to be an electrically shielded room, which says to me... metal sheets on all the walls, special door and no window. The paper also claims the intercom was one way... from the room outwards.

Yes. It is disconcerting to find that the description in the paper did not match what was found when the facility was visited.

Linda

Linda

Did something go wrong, or did you mean to post a blank reply above?

Having looked a bit more, I'm puzzled. Is this "pinhole" the same as the cable conduit which Randi thought Geller might have used? It doesn't sound like it. If they're different, do they both relate to the first shielded room of the Nature paper, or to different rooms? As Max says, the room with a window doesn't sound like the "double-walled steel room" described in the paper.

The cable conduit was separate from the bulletin board over the window (both are described in the book). There was also a faraday cage used for some of the experiments, but that didn't have walls (someone in the cage could see someone standing outside the cage). I think that may have been the double-walled steel room (I would have to read that section again to be clear).

Linda

Linda

Did something go wrong, or did you mean to post a blank reply above?

The former. I think it's fixed.

Linda

I'm not sure how to weigh the claim that the judge said one thing to Marks and Kammann and something different to Scott Rogo.

Linda

Yes. It is disconcerting to find that the description in the paper did not match what was found when the facility was visited.

Linda

It seems that either the papers author's, or the author of the book is wrong, or perhaps both?

I don't have the book, so you might be able to answer these questions...

1. How long after the experiments were conducted on the 4-10th August 1973, did the author visit the facility to discover the one-way window covered by a notice board?

2. How did the author confirm that the room with the one-way window covered by a notice board, was indeed the same electrically 'Shielded Room 1' referred to by the authors as being used in the paper?

3. How did the author confirm that the room with the one-way window covered by a notice board, had not been remodeled or altered since 4-10th August 1973?

To answer my own question, apparently these are two different holes and both relate to the same room. This is a "snippet" from an article in "The Zetetic" on Google Books:
"Perhaps just as important as the four-inch hole is the window between the "shielded" room and the anteroom. It appeared to be a one-way-vision screen (i.e., a reversible mirror) about two feet wide and 1.5 feet high. In November 1975 it was covered by a bulletin board screwed over it in the anteroom. Dr. Puthoff stated that it was even more thoroughly covered by a shield when Geller was being tested."

[Edited to add: I assume that snippet comes from David Marks and Richard Kammann, “The Nonpsychic Powers of Uri Geller,” Zetetic 1 (1977): 9−17.]

Just repeating this, as it appears to answer some of Max's questions.

One would hope that the authors did include Puthoff's statement about the shield in their book, as well as their earlier article.

The pinhole theory doesn't really work because, unless the bulletinboard is right up against the glass (and how could it be? How would it be fastened?), the pinhole would only work one way: on the side where Geller can put his eye right next to the pinhole. From the other side, there will be a gap between the glass and the board, and he won't be able to see through at all.

Let's not forget that three of the sessions were carried out by outside scientists (all misses, by the way) and surely they'd notice if there was a bare uncovered one-way window since they used both the shielded room and the adjacent room. So there must've been something blocking it.

Just repeating this, as it appears to answer some of Max's questions.

One would hope that the authors did include Puthoff's statement about the shield in their book, as well as their earlier article.

Yuck, it's very poor... there is no way of really knowing if you can rely on these experiments in the paper or not... there is sufficient doubt about sensory leakage, due to the info I'm seeing here... and the Nature paper is so short due to limited space as to be almost useless in clarifying the problems... I'll be interested in the answers Linda gives to those three questions.

I mean, if Geller was actually in an EMI shielded room with a window that overlooked the adjacent room, then I've got a problem with the paper, as it says... "...Acoustic and visual isolation is provided by a double walled steel room, locked by means of a inner and outer door, each of which is secured with a refrigerator type locking mechanism..." Because that's just not accurate IMO.

Reading the paper I would think that this description of the room was of an inner and outer steel wall construction with block or insulating infill, tight fitting inner and outer steel doors and locks etc. From a 'visual' leakage point of view, not mentioning the presence of a window is really concerning.

Heck, I'd want to know about the window construction now as well. From an auditory point of view... glass can be a great sounding board when one puts one's ear against it. Which opens another possible correlation with experiments 5,6, & 7 that Geller passed on. As these three experiments were supposedly prepared outside of the experimental group (thus not in in the adjacent room), and so no verbal discussion should have taken place in the adjacent room about the imagery they would draw to represent these chosen keywords.

The pinhole theory doesn't really work because, unless the bulletinboard is right up against the glass (and how could it be? How would it be fastened?), the pinhole would only work one way: on the side where Geller can put his eye right next to the pinhole. From the other side, there will be a gap between the glass and the board, and he won't be able to see through at all.

If that's the case, and if Marks and Kammann were right that the bulletin board was on the outside of the shielded room, then it could affect only one of the ten trials in which Geller drew a picture - number 4 (the solar system) in which the experimenters were inside the shielded room and Geller was outside. (That's also assuming Puthoff was wrong in stating that the window was covered by an effective shield, not by the bulletin board, at the time of the experiments.)