Channel 5 (UK) guy who paints the future...

andycal

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Just in the middle of watching this, and the whole thing seems like a set-up...
 
andycal said:
Just in the middle of watching this, and the whole thing seems like a set-up...
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Didn't notice this was being shown so haven't recorded it – was it of any interest?

Last time I saw a programme that featured this guy one question that I had that they didn't even attempt to answer was why it was only after the future event had happened that the pictures made "sense" as a prediction.

Did this programme address this?
 
It wasn't a bad program. But it didn't really answer much.

They started with showing all his past predictions, which obviously don't count if you are looking at it critically - any magician (or even non-magician) can make a prediction look good if it's already happened.

There was some thought put into debunking it and even Randi got his oar in. However there were some dodgy bits.

For example, to test he wasn't lying, they put him on a lie detector. The only caveat was that they said "Some CIA and secret service staff can be trained to defeat them". Cut to the Mandell fella busking (very badly) in a pub and the voice over says "There's no evidence Mr Mandell has had any training".

Which was pretty poor really.

He then made a prediction that a plane would crash in London, and it hasn't yet.

But then to cap it all they showed him phoning the airport from a call box and telling them that a plane would crash and he'd feel bad if he didn't tell them. This just gave the impression he was an old crank. Heathrow have probably got a whole department dealing with people like this...
 
I watched it and it wasn't bad. The main problem is that according to him he's only painted about 200 pictures - and yet he only had a few in his (good hit file).

Clearly if he's painted possibly thousands (I don't recall them asking if he had painted more pictures than he said he had on the lie detector test - in fact many of the questions were vague and not specific enough) then its not very impressive. One small point i noticed was that his paint box set looked very well used ;-).

He had a very bad (pretty abstract) painting of the Twin Towers with one tilted into the other - the main issue is the guy is fixated with planes (lots of his paintings are of planes) and none are evident on this painting? - pretty important fact i feel.
Also on many there were lots of writing yet the twin towers one had no text - just a picture of the twin towers.. really could have meant anything - financial scandal/problems etc + it was a known terrorist target anyway.

Now painting pictures of planes isn't very impressive as its 100% that we will see multiple total disaters in a year along side many aircraft incidents.. err big wow.

The ones with text focused on small parts of it - but didn't mention all the other irrelivent? text.. why not?

Yep looking at the pictures in isolation they are pretty good but the program was laughable in places and clearly just pandering to the popular belief in this stuff.

The one about the subway in Tokyo was the best and most impressive as it had text with specifics - but as i've said lots of the text was ignored because presumably it didn't fit.

At the end what was the point of him phoning up the airport and telling them your going to have an incident with a plane sometime in the future.. odds on being a busy airport then it would be suprising if there wasn't.

AX
 
I watched this with my daughter, because we had heard about it after it was shown some time last year.

We thought the juxtapositioning of showing him doing a terrible karake job in a bar, with the voice over clarifying he has had no special intelligence training was very funny, but quite insulting to him, probably.

I would have loved to have seen the operator's face at the other end of the phonecall when he called to warn of an impending plane disaster - with nothing helpful, like dates, flight numbers....

Our problem with the picture of the plane disaster was that it reminded us of the pictures of aircraft carriers in the Gulf, and we weren't as convinced as he was about the houses he drew nearby - his looked like any set of rooftops, but he went on about the specific odd shape of those at the airport.

Anyway, the best thing for me was my 12 year old's sceptical thinking and questioning what was show, particularly - even if it's true, what good is it if you don't match the pictures BEFORE the event. She also wondered why one man found it more acceptable to believe that the artist sees into a parallel universe which is 'shifted' just ahead of our timeline, than to believe the theory put forward that he sees our future!
 
If I called up Heathrow and warned them that a plane was going to crash I would expect a visit from the police, most likely with guns drawn.
 
It was a bit frustrating. The programme makers seemed to have a good idea of what would constitute a worthwhile and convincing project, and unless they deliberately left out evidence against the chap to allow a more satisfying ending, I don't understand why they didn't push this as far as possible. I was left genuinely not understanding what had gone on - am I correct in thinking he'll have a crack at the $1 Million Challenge when and if a plane comes down on the Isle of Dogs? The end of the programme said that James Randi wanted fairly specific pictures, so have any actually been submitted? I presume the bank dating method would have to be ditched in favour of letting the Foundation keep the pics, or someone more neutral... I don't know how JREF does things and I'm new round here but I'd have liked to see any formal decision.

The fact that he sounded a little like a distant cousin of Ozzy's didn't do him many favours, either. And I'll believe practically anything if I'm in the right mood.

Given the vagueness of the show's end, I can only assume it'll all come to nothing. An agreement to take the challenge followed by an eternal silence. I believe that's happened before?
 
Yup, not enough proof either way, so the believers will still believe and the skeptics will still say it's woo-woo.

I also feel that the experiment devised where they tried to find out if people saw the pictures differently to the old fella was a little ill-conceived and I think almost 'forced'.

Chris French was very uncomfortable with the whole thing.
 
The thing that made me laugh was the Twin Towers picture in the bank.

It was indeed September 11th, but the clock said twenty past four in the afternoon. I can't remember the actual time that they collapsed but I remember being on earlies that day, which meant I would have got home at 13.30ish and it wasn't long after that when the first plane hit. (Perhaps someone could help me out with the times?) anyway, I'm pretty sure it was all happening before 16.00! Plenty of time to knock up a quick picture and run it down the bank before they close.
 
Very good point. It was around lunch and I remember having just finished a sandwich at a customer site.

A woman walked in the office and said "Have you heard about the plane hitting the two towers".

I guess it's one of those 'everyone remembers JFK' type of moments...
 
Ummm... did they ever confirm that he had painted the pictures before the event?

Anyone can paint a picture after the fact and then go and stand in front of an altered calendar clock for a photo-op.
 
Jon_in_london said:
Ummm... did they ever confirm that he had painted the pictures before the event?

Anyone can paint a picture after the fact and then go and stand in front of an altered calendar clock for a photo-op.
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The bank's head office was quoted as saying that the clock was a sealed unit and it would be very unlikely for it to be changed for a random person with a painting.

Editied to add: I can't remember exactly what they said about the possibility of doctoring the photos.
 
I remember when I first heard of the attack and it was about 1500 hrs UK time, I know it wasn't 1600 hrs or later because
it was prior to my break time at work. So if the time was 1600 hrs or later then it's too late and his picture is after the fact and minus the very important planes?. Maybe if the image had contained the pentagon also it would have been more impressive.

As for the photos according to the expert they had not been doctored.

Another point which bothers me is the lack of security images/videos from the bank. This would clarify timings better and that no foul play had occured.
I'm not certain how long a bank is required to retain security images but you would assume it would be a significant length of time. With the attack being so close to the time of the photos it's the lack of these images raises questions.

Edit: Err I forgot that the paintigs were supposed to be years prior. BUT its strange that he would pick a time verification that omitted the date ;-).

AX
 
Mendor said:
The bank's head office was quoted as saying that the clock was a sealed unit and it would be very unlikely for it to be changed for a random person with a painting.

Editied to add: I can't remember exactly what they said about the possibility of doctoring the photos.
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They took the photo to a competent-sounding expert, who studied it close-up for things like direction of the grain, the paper it was printed on, and stuff, and decided it hadn't been tampered with.

The one he was shown looking at was the one which appeared to have an inadvertent date on it - the closing date on a poster on the wall was 1998 or something. I thought that was the 9/11 photo, but I could be wrong.
 
Nucular said:
They took the photo to a competent-sounding expert, who studied it close-up for things like direction of the grain, the paper it was printed on, and stuff, and decided it hadn't been tampered with.

The one he was shown looking at was the one which appeared to have an inadvertent date on it - the closing date on a poster on the wall was 1998 or something. I thought that was the 9/11 photo, but I could be wrong.
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I Recall the date as 1997 on the poster - but just because the poster had 1997 on it doesn't mean it was 1997. Who's to say he didn't put it up himself just before the picture was taken?.

Even when i was watching the show they talked about a lack of year and i thought instantly that a good idea would be to place something in the room that accidentally gave away a false date.
I laughed out loud when lo and behold just in shot "accidentally" was a poster with the date on it ;-).
To just assume the poster as definative proof of the year is rediculous.

Staff are used to seeing him, they even help him out by taking photos. It's not a big step to make that to get help in this he has to wait for them to be free from customers. Thus giving him ample time as he waits around to put up a poster without the staff noticing (he's a familiar face and a harmless pensioner so not under any close scrutiny).

I find it incredible that people can just say - well the poster has 1997 on it - then it must have been 1997 when it was taken.

Also the film was from the "right period" ... err once again all the film date tells us is the earliest possible date the photo could have been taken on NOT the actual or latest date. In fact i've got some film in a drawer thats a few years old now, if i take photos with it today then i could claim i took them a few years ago?.. according to the program the film production date would prove i did!.

AX
 
AlienX said:
I find it incredible that people can just say - well the poster has 1997 on it - then it must have been 1997 when it was taken.
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Yeah no I agree - but I think it's fair to say it does reduce the likelihood of the date being faked (though by how much is subjective). I suppose I've just got in my head that banks, you would think, wouldn't stand for too much disruption, or anyone acting very oddly.

I don't think the Twin Towers picture is particularly impressive anyway. Like Randi pointed out in the film, that's not what happened. One didn't topple into the other. And there's no aeroplanes. Remember, if this is 1997, then yes, it's four years before the 9/11 disaster; but it's also only four years since the WTC bombing. As was established, I think, at the time, the aim of the truck bomb was to topple one of the towers, by exploding near the base. The picture seems to be more like what you'd expect to happen if that was successful - one toppling tower.

I think the main problem with the guy's photos is that they're too blurry: the writing is invisible on the ones with it on, and details may or may not be missing from any of them.

So paint a few generic 'disaster' pictures; get a blurry pic taken with date and time but no year; add writing and details to the pictures as and when a similar disaster happens; never show anyone the failed ones. Hey presto! I could do that. Is there any indication that he didn't do something like that?

I don't think it needs to be as complicated as sneaking around in banks with old posters.
 
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