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Joe McMoneagle, 'Psychic Spy'

Dubium

Thinker
Dubium
Joined
Jul 27, 2005
Messages
131
Just turned off some dreadful 'paranormal investigation' programme on cable. It featured this bloke. http://www.mceagle.com/. His name's Joe McMoneagle, and he claims he is able to 'remotely view' locations... the FBI used him in "spying" so the documentary stated, and his 'handler' said he had an 80% accuracy rate.

The show featured an experiment in which Joe had to describe and draw the location of a subject at a given time... a subject whose photo he had seen but whose location was a random place somewhere in Europe.

The subject went to an ultramodern airport near London, and I have to say Joe's drawing and verbal description of where the subject was would have impressed me, if I was inclined to believe he had 'powers'. But I don't. So how does he do it? Is he making educated guesses? Any ideas?

NB, he is in the Skeptic's Dictionary being roundly dismissed, but not as roundly as I would like. http://skepdic.com/remotevw.html
 
Ever notice, that the authorities never seem to want to admit that they call on these people for their help? Whenever an interview is done, it always seems to be with people who are retired from the force, or some consultant.

Besides, if these clowns are really that reliable, why aren't they on the FBI or police payrolls full time?
 
The simplest explanation is that the show's producer, who would have had to finance the subject's trip to the airport, told him everything he needed to know in advance. After all, without this stunt he wouldn't have had a program.

Did anything in the show rule that out?
 
The simplest explanation is that the show's producer, who would have had to finance the subject's trip to the airport, told him everything he needed to know in advance. After all, without this stunt he wouldn't have had a program.

Did anything in the show rule that out?
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No... but a very earnest English narrator assured the viewer that there was no way he could have known about the location before hand. Means nothing I know.

Besides, if these clowns are really that reliable, why aren't they on the FBI or police payrolls full time?
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According to the documentary and his website, he was on the CIA payroll as were a number of others with 'powers'.
 
He used to work at SRI/SAIC who in turn were payed by various governmental agencies for remote viewing experiments. The CIA's interest petered out in the late 1970's, but other govt departments were willing to give it a go.

I even have the pdf were they talk about having an 80% success rate, but it should be said that "success rate" is never properly defined. I also have another pdf whihc taks about a success rate of around 12%. Again, no real definition is given.

Of the Stargate pdfs available online I'm not impressed by the method of collecting results. None of the statistics seem to have any real meaning. It's a little disappointing.

http://www.remoteviewed.com/remote_viewing_history_military.htm

http://www.michiganufos.com/stargate.htm
 
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Ok, assuming a completely honest narrator, maybe the events unfolded like this:

TV Guy: okay Joe we've sent our subject to a completely unknown European city. His plane landed ten minutes ago, so lets begin the experiment. Where is he?

Joe: I'm seeing baggage, customs people, airliners... an airport...see, here's a drawing of an airport...

TV Guy: You can SEE all this? Wow! So which airport?

Joe: Um, Rome?

TV Guy: Er, Heathrow...

In the edit they cut out few words here and there, and turned tragedy into triumph.
 
Shrinker said:
Ok, assuming a completely honest narrator, maybe the events unfolded like this:

TV Guy: okay Joe we've sent our subject to a completely unknown European city. His plane landed ten minutes ago, so lets begin the experiment. Where is he?

Joe: I'm seeing baggage, customs people, airliners... an airport...see, here's a drawing of an airport...

TV Guy: You can SEE all this? Wow! So which airport?

Joe: Um, Rome?

TV Guy: Er, Heathrow...

In the edit they cut out few words here and there, and turned tragedy into triumph.
Click to expand...

Add a line to the last two....

Joe: Um, Rome?

TV Guy: Er, Heathrow...

Joe: Yes, he's roaming around Heathrow, I was getting to that.
 
'Joe: Yes, he's roaming around Heathrow, I was getting to that.'

Did he actually say that????
 
A bit of a hijack. Does anyone remember an episode of Columbo where a psychic claimed he was capable of remote viewing? He was trying to sell his services to the military.

Anyway, this guy's in the lab with the generals and there's some guy from the military driving around town and staying in touch with the lab through a radio. When the psychic is ready to start, the guy in the car is told to pull over to the side of the road and open a briefcase that's on the seat next to him. Inside the case is a blindfold, a rubberband, a red marker pen, a polaroid camera, and a street guide (the kind that's in spiral-bound book format, not fold-out.)

So he's told to put on the blindfold, then flip through the street guide and stop at any random page. He's then told to take the red pen and make a mark anywhere on the page. Then he stretches the rubber band around the entire streetguide to keep it on that page. When he's done he takes off the blindfold and drives to the location where the red mark is at. He then takes the polaroid camera and takes a picture of whatever he sees.

Meanwhile back at the lab, the psychic guy draws a picture of what he thinks is on the polaroid picture. When his sketch is compared to the photo they are found to be amazingly similar. The generals are impressed. But Lt. Columbo knows better and figures out how the guy did it. Can you? It should make it easier to know that all the items in the briefcase were provided by the psychic.

Steve S.
 
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steve s said:
A bit of a hijack. Does anyone remember an episode of Columbo where a psychic claimed he was capable of remote viewing? He was trying to sell his services to the military.

Anyway, this guy's in the lab with the generals and there's some guy from the military driving around town and staying in touch with the lab through a radio. When the psychic is ready to start, the guy in the car is told to pull over to the side of the road and open a briefcase that's on the seat next to him. Inside the case is a blindfold, a rubberband, a red marker pen, a polaroid camera, and a street guide (the kind that's in spiral-bound book format, not fold-out.)

So he's told to put on the blindfold, then flip through the street guide and stop at any random page. He's then told to take the red pen and make a mark anywhere on the page. Then he stretches the rubber band around the entire streetguide to keep it on that page. When he's done he takes off the blindfold and drives to the location where the red mark is at. He then takes the polaroid camera and takes a picture of whatever he sees.

Meanwhile back at the lab, the psychic guy draws a picture of what he thinks is on the polaroid picture. When his sketch is compared to the photo they are found to be amazingly similar. The generals are impressed. But Lt. Columbo knows better and figures out how the guy did it. Can you? It should make it easier to know that all the items in the briefcase were provided by the psychic.

Steve S.
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Every page in the guide was identical.
 
Lisa Simpson said:
I think I read about this guy in Jon Ronson's The Men Who Stare At Goats. Fascinating book, for those who haven't read it.

http://www.amazon.com/Men-Who-Stare...=pd_bbs_2/102-2497270-4717728?ie=UTF8&s=books
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According to the blurb:
Ronson meets one ex-Army employee who claims to have killed a goat and his pet hamster by staring at them for prolonged periods of time.
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I guess the prolonged periods of time were sufficient for the poor animals to die of starvation.
 
It was called "Colombo Goes to the Guillotine"

A fake psychic conspires with an old friend (who debunks psychics) to convince a secret government agency that he really is a psychic. Afterwards he meets with the old friend, a magician, at the magician's workshop and kills him to settle a long-standing grudge.

The psychic makes the death look as if the magician was killed accidentally by a guillotine he used as a trick.
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I'm not sure, but I think this guy also had a write-up in Reader's Digest somewhat recently; have to see if my mother-in-law still has it laying about.
 
Sanamas said:
Every page in the guide was identical.
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Very good. And in addition to that the red pen had no ink. The red mark was already placed on each of the pages. I always thought that was the weakest part of the trick. If the guy in the car knows he made a mark near the top of the page and the actual mark was near the bottom, you'd think he'd get suspicious.

Steve S.
 
There is a card trick that works(or not)on a similiar no ink principle,whilst cards ar ebehind the back of spectator.
 
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