Why not accept videos or photos?
A video or still photo can be faked or edited to show just about anything. There's a whole marketplace out there of people faking ghost and UFO photos and videos, for example.
TV Guide put Oprah's head on Ann-Margaret's body and passed it off as real. People believed it until Ann-Margaret recognized herself in her yellow dress and raised a ruckus. They had turned an obese black woman into a slender white woman, keeping only Oprah's head and hairdo and people said, my, my, I need to get on Oprah's diet.
Then there's the famous Bigfoot footage. Believers don't see the zipper tab and skeptics do.
Fourteen year olds can now do special effects that Hollywood would have envied a mere 30 years ago.
The JREF would be insane to accept video or still photos taken and prepared by applicants under non-observed conditions. If an application was accepted, based on a video, the next thing you know these videos would end up on TV as
The video footage that made James Randi a believer.
That's the way the infotainment world works, and anyone who doesn't know it is metaphorically wearing pajamas in their parents' basement, hidden away from reality.
If a person can teletransport objects, or shock people across the room, or read minds, or make their hand grow on command, they will have no difficulty getting people to witness the event and sign affidavits. If they want to win a million dollars, then they had better be willing to jump through a few hoops. If they can't display their ability to three objective people, then their application is not challenge-worthy. It's not worth wasting the time of investigators who donate their services.
Google the names of some of the investigators -- James Underdown, James Alcock, or Ted Clay. Then ask yourself how much their time is worth. If an applicant is too flaky to show off their talent and get three affidavits from responsible parties, then they're too flaky to take up the time of the investigators.
Why is that hard to understand?
Then there's the issue of the applicants themselves. Let's look at a recent case... Achau was so sure of his ability that he quit his job, for Ed's sake, and flew with two friends from Hawaii to L.A. to be tested. He admitted later that he never did a run through at home because he
believed in his powers.
He was crushed by his defeat. Achau is a human being, a nice guy, with real feelings. If he had been required to obtain three affidavits perhaps he would not have quit his job and spent a lot of money on air fare and lodging.
Then there's the lady with the expanding hand. She said this when KRAMER asked her for three affidavits:
I cannot fulfil your requirements. If I asked my family doctor to give me an affidavit relating to my paranormal ailities, he would at once call the ambulance to ring mit to a hospital for mad people. The same thing would happen with my postman oder a teacher or anyone else.
This is the situation in Germany if one tells about his paranormal abilities. That's why I showed the finger-growing-phenomenon only to people that I know very well and who know me very well.
I don't want to make a fool of myself.
Do you really believe a doctor would commit her to the psychiatric ward if she could
really expand her hand the way she said? No! He'd be looking for an explanation and planning a journal article. The lady said she did not want to make a fool of herself by showing her doctor. If a test was done, it would be publicized internationally and make her world-known, either for her success or failure. If she didn't want anyone to know about her hand, or if she was worried about being committed to a mental institution, then the affidavit requirement saved her from herself.
If she could really expand her hand, her doctor would call in colleagues, they'd sign affidavits, they'd try to figure out what in the world was going on, and they'd probably accompany her to the preliminary test so they could get their pictures taken and a little fame for themselves.
That's the way the real world operates.
