FBI and Pychics

[voidx]

If someone makes a sweeping generalization as geni did, "Not one single case has ever been solved by the use of a psychic", well, yes, I think they need to back it up with a source.

Just to clarify only the last sentence of Geni's post was his, the rest was a quote of Larsen's previous post, although its not quoted as coming from Larsen.

 

[geni]

If someone makes a sweeping generalization as geni did, "Not one single case has ever been solved by the use of a psychic", well, yes, I think they need to back it up with a source.

Note the use of quote tags in my post. I was simple adding why they physics always claimed to have helped the amercan oforities. This seems a little strage since if police forces find something effective they tend to pass the techneque onto other forces

 

[renata]

According to Klaas Kids Foundation, Psychic Detectives are listed under "Hazards"

http://www.klaaskids.org/pg-missingchildren.htm

Psychic Detectives are the vanguard of a second wave of predators that also includes tabloid journalists, cheesy defense lawyers and photo-op politicians. They use tabloid newspapers and talk shows to boast about their accomplishments and predict success. They materialize whenever children are kidnapped and circle the cases like vultures on a fresh carcass.
....

Excerpt from a handbook by NCMEC

http://www.missingkids.com/en_US/publications/fam_surv.pdf

Psychics
Keep an open mind— and a closed pocketbook—when onsidering the use of a psychic. Most parents are desperate to try anything, but they need to understand that there are very few true psychics. Many are fraudulent or, at best, misguided individuals who want to help so much that they have self-induced visions.
Hearing their sometimes negative dreams and visions can cause undue stress, a loss of hope, or an unfounded sense of hope. If you are considering turning to a psychic, remember the
following tips:
n Ask someone close to the family to record any psychic leads, because the information is usually distressing. Give all such leads to law enforcement.
n If any lead is highly specific, such as a particular address, insist that law enforcement check it out. Follow up with law enforcement to find out the value of the lead.
n Never allow a psychic to go into your child’s room unattended or to take items without making arrangements for their return.

Regardless of whether some psychics have true visions, any purportedly psychic dream may be an actual observation
by someone who is afraid to get involved. That is why even psychic leads need to be checked

....
I was in tears as my husband kept sending our child’s belongings to psychics. We still haven’t gotten back his stuffed animals.
—Patty Wetterling

...
14. Be extremely cautious before you allow a psychic to become involved in your child’s case. Give all psychic leads to law enforcement for thorough investigation.

Curiously, they seem to acknowledge that there may be some "true" psychics. However, most of their advice is not to trust them.

According to NCMEC, they don't endorse psychics

http://www.randi.org/jr/06-29-01.html

This, apparently was the original source of the correspondence
http://www.ufowatchdog.com/rvdames4.html

....We do not work with or endorse the work of psychics in missing child cases. [Here] is a general statement on this issue: The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children has assisted law enforcement in the recovery of over 55,000 missing children since its establishment in 1984. Our toll-free, 24-hour hotline accepts information from all callers, but over the course of our 16-year history, we have no evidence of any cases of missing children having been successfully resolved in direct response to information provided by a psychic.

And I never get tired of this one

http://kutv.com/related/local_story_318170333.html

Police and family alike continue to be inundated by calls from psychics. Ed Smart's exasperation showed when he said hundreds of thousands of psychics have reported in; Lyman said close to 600 psychics have contacted police, all with different dreams.

It would be tempting to ignore them. But even the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children warns against disregard, because psychics' purported dreams or visions may be a truth told by someone unwilling or afraid to get involved directly.

And though the same experts claim no missing child has ever been recovered with psychic information, Elizabeth Smart's family and investigators are bound to check out each one.

That's why, a week ago, Elizabeth's uncles Tom and Dave Smart walked along desolate railroad tracks near the town of Lark, long abandoned to the poisonous remains of Bingham Canyon copper mining west of Salt Lake City.

A psychic had told them Elizabeth's body lay near those tracks.

It seems if psychics are listened to, it is because authorities feel they may be providing information under a psychic guise and would be afraid to step into the investigation otherwise.



As to the Larry King Transcript Tai Chi found, here is what the FBI man, Clint Van Zandt actually said about psychics being used in solving crimes.

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0103/06/lkl.00.html

KING: Clint, to your knowledge, have they been used in the solution of crimes?

VAN ZANDT: I have seen law enforcement try a lot of times, Larry. When I have seen them participate in the solution of a crime, my experience and experience of my colleagues is that it is usually been some type of vague information, like a kidnapped victim was kidnapped somewhere up along Great Lakes, and we have been told you'll find the victim buried near a body of water. Well, you know, we understand the Great Lakes are a body of water.

My experience has been more that information has been developed, and the profilers that I have talked to -- and my 25 years is that we have been open to it, we have listened to them, and I know there are people who will say, well, we have been a consultant to the FBI. But as far as seeing a case solved, a kidnapped victim recovered, either dead or alive, based solely on the information of a psychic, no.

But again, a psychic -- if they are real, and if they contributed, it should be like a profiler providing investigative assistance, and law enforcement solves it.

In this case, once again it sounds like the NCMEC line- psychics don't solve cases, but FBI will listen to them, and agents even personally believe in their powers. He also related a story of psychic's failure

KING....All right, Clint, you have heard the first half, now what are your thoughts on psychics and crime?

CLINT VAN ZANDT, FORMER FBI CHIEF HOSTAGE NEGOTIATOR AND PROFILER: Well, OK, Larry, one of the first things a psychic asks a law enforcement officer to do is take your reason and logic and set it aside. That is awfully hard for someone in law enforcement to do, because that's what you spend your whole life doing. As a rookie FBI agent, I went to interview a fellow in jail. I asked -- I asked the guard, I said, "Would you search him?" He said: "I don't have to search him. He has been in jail two days." I said, "Search him anyway." He searched him and he found a knife. I said, "What were you going to do with that knife?" and he kind of smiled at me.

Well, that wasn't psychic, there was just something about this guy that bothered me. But as an FBI agent, you know, you have to keep your mind open, and I'm not going say I'm a skeptic. I would listen if somebody could help solve a crime, Larry.

When I was in Waco, dealing with David Koresh, and a psychic sent a letter in and said: If you say the word -- I think it was Beelzebub -- to David Koresh, he will come out. I read the letter, I got a three-by-five card and I wrote that word on 3-by-5 card, and I shoved it in front of the face of the negotiator talking to David Koresh on the phone.

The negotiator says: "What am I supposed to do with this?" I said, "Use the word in the sentence." He said, "I don't know how to." I said: "Make up a sentence." So we did, and we used it.

I would have loved David Koresh to come marching out with those little kids behind him, Larry, but it didn't happen. And there were situations where we have tried, and it didn't happen.

But if you exhaust law enforcement investigation, if you exhaust psychological profiling, if the victim's family or the police say, "I would like to try a psychic," I would say, anything that can help, and anything that would help a victim's family, I would not stand in the way.

Hardly a ringing endorsement.


But really, it does not matter. Anyone who ever talked to an FBI agent, sent a letter to FBI about a case can say, with some stretching that they worked with FBI on a case. I bet the 600 psychics who came out of the woodwork for Elizabeth Smart are taking credit for her safe recovery. Once again, they can't lose- FBI. NCMEC and grieving parents have better things to do than chase someone who claims they worked here or there. And if by chance they get something right, there will be no end to crowing and self promotion. Heads I win, tails you lose- isn't it always the case in these matters?

 

[Virgil]

if a psychics happens to get the details of a crime right. then it was a guess you or I could make, or this psychic somehow has detailed knowledge of the crime.


Virgil

 

[Ladewig]

The CIA also uses them (as in the now-defunct Star Gate program)

It is my understanding that the CIA's Star Gate program is defunct because it produced no useful results. Unless my understanding is incorrect, it would be more accurate to say the CIA spent a lot of money testing the ability of psychics to remote view national secrets and determined that further funding and testing was not necessary.

 

[Bleever]

Greta Alexander was supposed to have had success solving some crimes but completely striking out on others.

http://www.angelicinspirations.com/page137.htm

According to a 1991 Times interview, Alexander said she gained psychic abilities in 1961 when lightning pierced the window near a bed she lay in. The venetian blind wound around her, and the bed was set afire.

Some time after, she began to see things, she said. From an old medical volume, she read about the Star of Bethlehem which marked her left hand, and these words came to her: "You will sense, and you will know, and you will feel."

Alexander used photographs, fingerprints, or palm prints of the victims to gain impressions, said Tazewell County Coroner Bob Dubois.

Dubois, who knew and worked with Alexander since the late 1960s or early 1970s, has served for 36 years as a crime scene investigator, first with the Illinois Department of Law Enforcement and later with Tazewell County.

"We never used her or any psychics to replace good police investigation," Dubois said. "But whenever I ran into a dead end and had no place else to go, I would sit down and talk with her.
"Sometimes she was able to help. In other instances, she was not. She was either 100 percent right or 100 percent wrong, and that was true with any psychic I have worked with.

"She understood she was not able to do it every time. She did it in a very giving and humble way to help other people."
In law enforcement cases and locating missing people, she expected no compensation, he said.

Dubois said her most notable case involved locating a body dumped on old Illinois Route 121.

"She called that 100 percent as far as where we would find the body, who would find the body, what position it was in, what the person was wearing, and on and on and on," Dubois said.

I remember her name from a case publicized on some TV show where a young boy had drowned in a river in I think Iowa and searchers were unable to locate the body. Greta was supposed to have told the search team where the body was located but they still missed it so they hooked up with her by remote phone to her home in Illinois and she directed them to the body washed in under a piece of plywood in a bend of the river.

 

[Ladewig]

Greta Alexander is the subject of this article which has a much less glowing report of her abilities. It also provides some broad information on psychic investigations into missing person cases.

Of course some might say that an article written by skeptics is of no more
use than ... oh.... an article written by the folks at Angelic Inspirations.™ ® © [sic]

 

[T'ai Chi]

So who did Stossel or whoever talk with at the FBI??

 

[T'ai Chi]

Does this reasoning really work for you, tbk? rofl.

It is the same lack of logic that makes him believe that when he declares 'god doesn't exist, and that is a fact', that he is speaking the 100%, "default position", the Truth, and therefore he is immune from providing evidence and says others have to provide the evidence.

Pretty transparent tactic though.

 

[CFLarsen]

Very interesting to see how testimonials from "former" employees are considered more trustworthy than official statements. It does emphasize just how far these believers are willing to go to sustain their beliefs.

It's not that we are dealing with non-rational people, but that we are dealing with people who willingly discard rational thought.

Never underestimate the force of belief.

renata,

Nice work. One for the files.

 

[Oleron]

This reminds me of the recent case in the UK when 2 little girls went missing( the Holly Wells, Jessica Chapman case).
For those not familiar with the case, here are the rough facts:
The 2 girls went for a walk, passed by their school and were abducted and killed by their school caretaker/janitor. He then put on an elaborate show of helping the families look for their lost children, so much so that police got suspicious. He was found guilty of the murders and his girlfriend was convicted of lying for him.

During the height of this very high profile case, 180 psychics came forward and gave 180 different predictions. The police shielded the families from these vultures as best they could but 2 of them got to speak directly with the Wells family. Mr Wells admits he was so desperate he would have clutched at any straw.
The first psychic told them the girls were dead but couldn't tell them where they were. As this was several weeks after the girls went missing, this was hardly news but still enormously distressing to the family (who still harboured hope).
The second psychic came up with a specific location for the bodies. The police, to help Mr Wells, went through several days of searching at the location mentioned by the psychic but found nothing. The girls bodies were found in a wood some days later by a passer-by. The wood was 10's of miles from the psychic's prediction. Not one of the 180 predictions received by the police was anywhere near correct.

This is just one incident and doesn't prove a thing. I'm not saying psychics have never helped the police but I know of no hard evidence that they have. All I know is when I saw a recent interview with Mr Wells on TV, the agony on his face was like nothing I've ever seen when he spoke of his search for his daughter.
I read a recent article in a newspaper where the reporter interwiewed psychic 1. He claimed the Wells case as a triumph for his skills and mentioned that he often helps the police when they ask him.
Do these people have no decency?

 

[CFLarsen]

Oleron,

No, they don't, and neither have those who believe in them.

You are right that the Wells/Chapman case doesn't prove anything, as such. But it is very interesting, that whenever we look into a claim from a psychic about solving a crime, it always turns out false. Always.

One by one, these claims fizzle out. One by one, these psychics turn out to be self-glorifying vultures.

I am so f*cking sick and tired of this self-serving crap from believers, this "oh, but the police and the FBI use psychics" bullsh*t. That doesn't prove anything else than the police are also desperate enough to waste their time and resources.

Let's see one single case solved by a psychic.

Just one.

 

[Cynical]

Take it easy, CF. Just when I thought you were beginning to settle down and enjoy life, you now appear to be going off the deep end....indeed, you sound as if you are once again in the advance stages of paranoia.

Claus, if people want to think that psychics help solve cases, what is it to YOU? Why do you take this so seriously? If you keep up this compulsive behavior of yours, you will end up having a stroke before your time.

What are you trying to PROVE, Cantata? You'll never be able to prove that psychics CAN'T solve cases, so why don't you give it up, and live a little. You know, wine, women and song.

 

[Ed]

Do these people have no decency?

No, they do not. They are vampiric bastards that feed on misery and those people that enable them are no better. Far better than an onanistic word counting exercise would be finding cases where a "psychic" led cops to a victim. That of course would lead to nothing so woo's arm wave.

 

[Oleron]

Claus, if people want to think that psychics help solve cases, what is it to YOU? Why do you take this so seriously? If you keep up this compulsive behavior of yours, you will end up having a stroke before your time.

Some of these psychics are among the lowest forms of life I have ever come across.
They feed off the misery of the weakened and vulnerable.
I'm with Claus on this one.
I think complacency has brought us to a stage where even the authorities can't defend the victims against the sheer numbers of psychic parasites.

 

[Ed]

Take it easy, CF. Just when I thought you were beginning to settle down and enjoy life, you now appear to be going off the deep end....indeed, you sound as if you are once again in the advance stages of paranoia.

It is not that at all, simply the effects of the long Danish winters. Soon the ice sledges will break thru with ample supplies of Aquavit and all will be well

Claus, if people want to think that psychics help solve cases, what is it to YOU? Why do you take this so seriously? If you keep up this compulsive behavior of yours, you will end up having a stroke before your time.

Because they enable these soulless vampiric bastards in their neverending quest to sow misery, that's why.

and...Claus has had 16 strokes and he is fit as a fiddle.

What are you trying to PROVE, Cantata? You'll never be able to prove that psychics CAN'T solve cases, so why don't you give it up, and live a little. You know, wine, women and song.

They have never solved one and they should burn in the deepest regions of hell. And those that enable them should be one level up.

 

[Suezoled]

(snipped)

What are you trying to PROVE, Cantata? You'll never be able to prove that psychics CAN'T solve cases, so why don't you give it up, and live a little. You know, wine, women and song.

Wrong Cynical. They are shown time and time again they have not helped solve a case.

 

[sweetkb713]

Yes, I don't think any psychic ever has definitately found a single missing person or their body.

During the time that Elizabeth Smart was missing, there was the group of psychics that was saying that her body was in this Indian burial chamber, that they were getting strong vibrations of a deceased person or something. They were trying to get the government's permission to open it up.

Okay. Even if they really COULD tell where dead people were, don't you think this one is a little pathetic? Of COURSE there are dead bodies in a burial chamber!

Thank god they never got permission to open it up. That would have been so disrespectful towards whichever tribe it was.

I wish I had a link to that.

 

[sweetkb713]

Using psychics does not equate that psychics solve crimes.

All we need to see is just one case. Just one case.

Please?

Where would the government find said psychics, anyway? Do they watch JE and say, "hey, he seems legit!" Or Slyvia Browne? Or do they look in the yellow pages?

This brings us back to Paul's continuously-asked question (at least, asked of believers) ------ how do we know who is a "real" psychic and who is a fake? Do we have some kind of test that is absolutely fool-proof?

 

[CFLarsen]

sweetkb713,

Read the full story here:

PSI-TECH: Not So Smart