I watched some program about the Tokyo earthquake that's predicted for some time soon, and one section had Ed Dames doing Remote Future Viewing (after the show I checked Google and found out how accurate he's been recently...), which was spectacularly bad, yet lapped up by the credulous studio panel.
His first go, he drew something about a black sphere in the sky, which they interpreted as an eclipse. They switched to a scientist, who said since two happen each year, and if you allow plus or minus a month, it's a pretty vague bit of data. Next, after drawing pictures of buildings falling down, he mentioned "Godzilla footprints" on the street, another earthquake specialist pointed out was normal after quakes, due to tunnels etc, collapsing.
Finally, after drawing other pictures noting startling revelations like people trapped in subway tunnels, but OK on surface train lines out in the countryside, and gas explosions, he came up with a date - 2005 or 2006, but only pictures for the month - tulips in bloom, the Indy 500 (eh? in Japan?) and an international kite festival, which, surprise, surprise, are all in May.
Everyone in the studio panel were suitably impressed and worried - I felt some genuinely believed this nonsense - with one Tokyo resident saying he didn't even know about the kite festival, as an apparent validation of Ed Dames' talent. No-one mentioned that 10 minutes ago they'd had a Polish dowser (he was even worse!) predicting the year as 2013 instead, even though they'd lapped up that "fact" with equal relish.
I just checked the eclipse dates, and 2005 has one on April 8, and 2006 on March 29, neither visible from Japan, and neither in the month he had just pointed out. Note the predictions from Ed Dames were prerecorded, and an accumulation of three sessions at his Hawaii home, so he had plenty of time to ensure the consistency of whatever nonsense he presented.
His first go, he drew something about a black sphere in the sky, which they interpreted as an eclipse. They switched to a scientist, who said since two happen each year, and if you allow plus or minus a month, it's a pretty vague bit of data. Next, after drawing pictures of buildings falling down, he mentioned "Godzilla footprints" on the street, another earthquake specialist pointed out was normal after quakes, due to tunnels etc, collapsing.
Finally, after drawing other pictures noting startling revelations like people trapped in subway tunnels, but OK on surface train lines out in the countryside, and gas explosions, he came up with a date - 2005 or 2006, but only pictures for the month - tulips in bloom, the Indy 500 (eh? in Japan?) and an international kite festival, which, surprise, surprise, are all in May.
Everyone in the studio panel were suitably impressed and worried - I felt some genuinely believed this nonsense - with one Tokyo resident saying he didn't even know about the kite festival, as an apparent validation of Ed Dames' talent. No-one mentioned that 10 minutes ago they'd had a Polish dowser (he was even worse!) predicting the year as 2013 instead, even though they'd lapped up that "fact" with equal relish.
I just checked the eclipse dates, and 2005 has one on April 8, and 2006 on March 29, neither visible from Japan, and neither in the month he had just pointed out. Note the predictions from Ed Dames were prerecorded, and an accumulation of three sessions at his Hawaii home, so he had plenty of time to ensure the consistency of whatever nonsense he presented.
