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Clairvoyants solve murders on Danish TV

chran

Muse
chran
Joined
Jun 27, 2005
Messages
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Location
Denmark, yo
This e-mail has been sent to challenge@randi.org

Hello JREF,

This fall, the Danish TV channel "Kanal 5" will air a program series where they attempt to solve unsolved crimes/murders using clairvoyants.

http://www.kanal5.dk/page/thomas-mygind-på-clairvoyant-morderjagt…

The host of the series, Thomas Mygind states in an interview (my translation):

"Time and again during the tapings, it turned out the clairvoyants were spot on with regards to facts about the murders, that they didn't know beforehand."

http://ekstrabladet.dk/flash/filmogtv/tv/article4945033.ece

That sounds like a testable claim to me.

The clairvoyants in the series are these:

https://www.facebook.com/medierikkerasmussen
https://www.facebook.com/steen.kofoed
https://www.facebook.com/tove.kofoed
https://www.facebook.com/maya.fridan
https://www.facebook.com/jesper.n.larsen.77
https://www.facebook.com/sebbastianlukaz.munklorantius

This is the press release (in Danish):

http://www.sbsdiscovery.dk/nyheder/thomas-mygind-på-clairvoyant-morderjagt

The press release states that the concept was invented by "Nordisk Film" in 2002 and sold to a number of countries, including the US.

This article from 2002 (in Danish) states that it was bought by Fox Television. I don't know whether the program was ever produced.

http://www.fyens.dk/Kunst/Mord-serie-til-USA/artikel/450746

This e-mail has also been posted on the facebook page of "Kanal 5", sent directly to "Kanal 5" via a contact form, posted on the JREF forums, and cc'ed to the journalist from the interview with Thomas Mygind.

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge/challenge-faq.html

Regards,

Christian Andersen
 
chran said:
This e-mail has been sent to challenge@randi.org

Hello JREF,

This fall, the Danish TV channel "Kanal 5" will air a program series where they attempt to solve unsolved crimes/murders using clairvoyants.

http://www.kanal5.dk/page/thomas-mygind-på-clairvoyant-morderjagt…

The host of the series, Thomas Mygind states in an interview (my translation):

"Time and again during the tapings, it turned out the clairvoyants were spot on with regards to facts about the murders, that they didn't know beforehand."

http://ekstrabladet.dk/flash/filmogtv/tv/article4945033.ece

That sounds like a testable claim to me
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Do the psychics, themselves, claim that they can provide facts under controlled conditions?
And does "provide facts" mean produce information that is already in the police file or does it mean produce evidence that can be used in court? Or something else?
 
chran said:
That sounds like a testable claim to me.
Click to expand...

It doesn't to me.

If the information is known to someone, how do you ensure that it was not obtained from that someone rather than via clairvoyance?

How do you establish the expected chance rate of accuracy, in order to determine whether the actual accuracy rate is significantly greater?

If you think it's testable by all means describe the test protocol, there are plenty of helpful people here who can critique it for you.
 
Cuddles said:
Any particular reason why? The challenge is there for people who actually apply. There's is little point in contacting the JREF just to say that people exist who would probably be eligible to apply.
Click to expand...

I don't think it was out of line to send this info to JREF. If I were the JREF and suddenly started getting a bunch of applications from Denmark, I'd want to know why. This e-mail just gave them a heads-up.

Ward
 
Maybe a good opportunity for Danish skeptics to use the launch of this garbage on TV as a chance to get some publicity. Perhaps by issuing a challenge via Danish media to the participants, and trying to get airtime with responsible press/tv to debunk the nonsense?
 
Pixel42 said:
It doesn't to me.

If the information is known to someone, how do you ensure that it was not obtained from that someone rather than via clairvoyance?

How do you establish the expected chance rate of accuracy, in order to determine whether the actual accuracy rate is significantly greater?

If you think it's testable by all means describe the test protocol, there are plenty of helpful people here who can critique it for you.
Click to expand...

Thank you. You raise very good points. Is the criteria for success a conviction in court? I don't think that's enough; plenty of people have been falsely convicted. A confession? There are also plenty of false confessions.

This is of course important to establish.

Cuddles said:
Any particular reason why? The challenge is there for people who actually apply. There's is little point in contacting the JREF just to say that people exist who would probably be eligible to apply.
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To be perfectly honest, I sent the e-mail to provoke/pressure the clairvoyants / the production company to put up or shut up.

I think I need to contact the clairvoyants directly. I'm not optimistic, though.

Dubious Dick said:
Maybe a good opportunity for Danish skeptics to use the launch of this garbage on TV as a chance to get some publicity. Perhaps by issuing a challenge via Danish media to the participants, and trying to get airtime with responsible press/tv to debunk the nonsense?
Click to expand...

That ... would be difficult to find :boxedin: - but that angle is definitely something to explore.
 
chran said:
Is the criteria for success a conviction in court? I don't think that's enough; plenty of people have been falsely convicted. A confession? There are also plenty of false confessions.
Click to expand...

More importantly, there are ways to correctly identify guilty parties without using clairvoyance. The police use them all the time. Just because someone who claims to be clairvoyant gets something right, that doesn't mean they used clairvoyance to discover it. Even random guessing will sometimes produce right answers.
 
We had a TV Programme like that a few years ago. It was called "Sensing Murder", and it supposedly investigated 33 unsolved/cold cases over four seasons (2007 - 2010), historically ranging as far back as 1970 in both Australia and New Zealand.

Of those 33 cases, none were ever solved by the clairvoyants. In one case, the body of the victim (Jayne Furlong) was found in 2012, but it was not anywhere near where the clairvoyants predicted it would be, and in another case, the disappearance of Amber-Lee Cruickshank 1992, the programme (aired in 2007) did result in some unsubstantiated new leads, and the police reopened the case, but there have been no new developments since.

One of the clairvoyants received a threatening phone call after the airing of a story about the disappearance of Luana Williams (1986). It was from an unknown male claiming to know where her remains are located. A detective on the case also received a call from someone claiming to have information in regards to the case.

All in all, these alleged clairvoyants did not have a very good success rate.

For reference...

Jayne Furlong]

Amber-Lee Cruickshank

Luana Williams
 
smartcooky said:
We had a TV Programme like that a few years ago. It was called "Sensing Murder", and it supposedly investigated 33 unsolved/cold cases over four seasons (2007 - 2010), historically ranging as far back as 1970 in both Australia and New Zealand.

Of those 33 cases, none were ever solved by the clairvoyants. In one case, the body of the victim (Jayne Furlong) was found in 2012, but it was not anywhere near where the clairvoyants predicted it would be, and in another case, the disappearance of Amber-Lee Cruickshank 1992, the programme (aired in 2007) did result in some unsubstantiated new leads, and the police reopened the case, but there have been no new developments since.

One of the clairvoyants received a threatening phone call after the airing of a story about the disappearance of Luana Williams (1986). It was from an unknown male claiming to know where her remains are located. A detective on the case also received a call from someone claiming to have information in regards to the case.

All in all, these alleged clairvoyants did not have a very good success rate.

For reference...

Jayne Furlong]

Amber-Lee Cruickshank

Luana Williams
Click to expand...

Yup. We called it Sensing BS....
 
Sometimes these programmes can have limited success in bringing up new leads for Police to follow, but IMO, that has little if anything to do with anything the clairvoyants do, and more to do the the public airing of the details of the case. Any Policeman or investigator will agree that re-publicising details of a cold case can bring new lines of inquiry.

► A person might have information that they didn't realise was pertinent to the case until they saw the programme because some detail that they may not have known triggers a memory.

► People who might have been unwilling to speak at the time and who have not thought about the case for a long time, may have had changes in their personal circumstances and now feel more willing to come forward.

All of those results could be achieved simply by re-airing of the case details in a CA programme like "60 minutes" or "Sunday", without the use of woo woo merchants!
 
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Some criminals are so dumb that even a psychic can catch them.
Now that's entertainment!
 
There was a case in the USA where this guy had a dream about his neighbor being murdered. About the time he had this dream, this neighbor was actually murdered.
He talked to the police about this dream, thinking the information would help them solve the case. Was that ever a big mistake! The cops did not have any other suspects, so the dreamer became their most likely suspect.
Hey how did he know all that stuff if he wasn't there?
 
I've often thought that in the unlikely event a psychic actually provided information of any accuracy that the only thing it could prove was to create a very good suspect.
 
I claim clairvoyant abilities

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9727417&postcount=8

"2. An airliner with the colour red in its logo will crash, killing everyone on board"

Malaysia Airlines MH370
Malaysia Airlines MH17
Air Algérie AH5017

None of the other predictions I made have come to pass thus far, but I'll just do what all clairvoyants do when this happens; dismiss all the incorrect predictions and count only the ones turned out correct.

I'm batting 1000 so far for 2014 :D
 
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Clairvoyants solve murders on Danish TV?

Call me back when someone is convicted in court.

:s2:
 
xinonix said:
There was a case in the USA where this guy had a dream about his neighbor being murdered. About the time he had this dream, this neighbor was actually murdered.
He talked to the police about this dream, thinking the information would help them solve the case. Was that ever a big mistake! The cops did not have any other suspects, so the dreamer became their most likely suspect.
Hey how did he know all that stuff if he wasn't there?
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:D
That was how the comedy/detective TV series "Psych" started. The protagonist was hyper-observant, had a photographic memory, and was highly skilled at evidence analysis and deduction. He would regularly call a police tip line, provide observations and deductions from news stories he had watched, and collect reward money.
One day, he was watching a news story about a store robbery and realized that the owner had done it. When he called, the police concluded that his information could only have come from an accomplice, so they tried to arrest him. He got out of it by claiming to be a psychic, and the premise of the show was established.
 
smartcooky said:
I claim clairvoyant abilities

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9727417&postcount=8

"2. An airliner with the colour red in its logo will crash, killing everyone on board"

Malaysia Airlines MH370
Malaysia Airlines MH17
Air Algérie AH5017

None of the other predictions I made have come to pass thus far, but I'll just do what all clairvoyants do when this happens; dismiss all the incorrect predictions and count only the ones turned out correct.

I'm batting 1000 so far for 2014 :D
Click to expand...

With three hits on one prediction, you should be claiming a higher success rate than 100%.
Maybe you could say you are three times as psychic as previously thought.
 
That particular channel is known for it's extremely low quality reality tv. Not that any of our other channels would refrain from doing something similar, if they felt it would bring in the viewership. Luckily I don't subscribe to that channel.

They will do like Sylvia and ignore sceptics and anyone demanding testable proof of their abilities, and sceptics will not get the time of day from other media.

Only a few weeks ago a former co chairman of one of our political parties (a minor one, but still) announced that she had finished training as a clairvoyant. http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Politik/2014/07/28/135743.htm

She is a teacher, a jurist and a politician who has been in our parliament several times. And now she sells woo.

What is the world coming to? ;)
 
Dubious Dick said:
Maybe a good opportunity for Danish skeptics to use the launch of this garbage on TV as a chance to get some publicity. Perhaps by issuing a challenge via Danish media to the participants, and trying to get airtime with responsible press/tv to debunk the nonsense?
Click to expand...

Shows like this seem to have lost much of their appeal since they first started back in 2002. We already wrote about it:
Fornemmelse for mord – eller blot Fornemmelse for snyd?
Clairvoyant brevkasse forudsiger død
En psykisk detektiv

It is actually a Danish 'invention' - not one that we are particularly proud of! - and the format was subsequently sold to New Zealand, Australia and the USA: Sensing Murder
 
The Boulder, Colorado police department allegedly has the DNA of the person who murdered JonBenet Ramsey 17 years ago.

That's the easiest way to debunk these people. Ask them to ask JonBenet who killed her. Whoever they name, their DNA should match the sample the police have. Which it won't.
 
Chran, my understanding is that there wouldn't be just a single, testable "psychic" claim, but multiple "psychic" claims would need to be tested by any "psychic" appearing in the upcoming TV show you mentioned. Just two examples of individual "psychic" claims (if shown on TV): 1) talking with spirits, and 2) psychometry. I believe the purported "psychic" must personally apply for the JREF Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge.

The TV show In Search of... had a segment, In Search of... Psychic Detectives that aired during Season 1 back in May 1977. One purported "psychic" was Peter Hurkos, born in Dordrecht, the Netherlands (Dutch). The Netherlands is located pretty much adjacent to the southwest of Denmark (Danish).

"Nordisk Film has been a part of Denmark's film history for more than a 100 years." Per wikipedia, TV series Sensing MurderWP used purported "psychics" as psychic detectives in an effort to help solve unsolved murder cases. Sensing Murder was based on the program format by Danish Nordisk Film TV. Sensing Murder ran four seasons. None of the "psychic" detectives ever solved a case.

According to wikipedia, Peter HurkosWP stated he would not participate in any scientific experiment under any circumstances. The wikipedia entry goes on to say:
However, author and stage magician James Randi contends that Hurkos refused to allow his skill to be tested by scientists except for one session with the parapsychologist Charles Tart of the University of California, Davis. Dr. Tart's tests were negative. Randi commented "If Tart can't find such powers, they certainly aren't there!"
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Decades ago, Peter Hurkos apparently had the opportunity to prove his purported "psychic" abilities to the scientific community. No powers proven. I doubt any "psychic" detective appearing in the upcoming TV show (concept by Nordisk Film?) will apply for the JREF Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge. Doing so could expose them as a charlatan.
 
Good review by Media7 investigates TV show Sensing Murder

Media7 posted their review of Sensing Murder in 3 short segments on YouTube:

Sensing Murder format was developed by Danish Nordisk Film TV licensed to Ninox Films.

Media7 investigates TV show Sensing Murder


Sensing Murder - phenomenon or fraud?


The panel discusses the ethics of Sensing Murder


Russell Brown, Media 7
I believe Russell Brown stated among other notable issues:

[Sensing Murder]...exploits tragedy for entertainment
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no crime has been solved by Sensing Murder psychics
Click to expand...


Jeremy Wells, Eating Media Lunch, states about Sensing Murder:
it's clearly hocus-pocus
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All the psychics can do is come up with exactly the same information that everybody already knows.
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The fact is not one single person- not one single one of these cases has been solved
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So how many shows, how many people do you have to exploit, before and rake these coals over again for these poor families that have to go through it again, before you make enough money...
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Correction between Nordisk Film and Nordisk Film TV

Correction:
I incorrectly attributed the quote "Nordisk Film has been a part of Denmark's film history for more than a 100 years." and linked to Nordisk Film's website in my post 23 in this thread. Nordisk Film did not develop the Sensing MurderWP format- it was Nordisk Film TV per wikipedia.
 
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