0:00

Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman, and you're

0:02

listening to Science Versus. This

0:05

is the show that pits facts

0:07

against feeling like you can read

0:09

someone's thoughts. Today,

0:15

we are talking about telepathy.

0:17

And here with me is Science

0:19

Versus senior producer, Rose

0:22

Rimler. Hi, Rose. Hi, Wendy. So

0:24

by telepathy, we mean the

0:26

concept of beaming thoughts directly into

0:28

someone else's brain or being able

0:30

to read other people's thoughts.

0:32

Yes. That's an idea that's been

0:34

around for centuries, but it's

0:36

having a bit of a moment

0:38

right now, probably because of this

0:40

very popular podcast called... telepathy

0:42

tapes. Yes, I am hearing a

0:44

lot about this podcast. Yes, yes,

0:46

yes. Add telepathy with it. Yes, it

0:48

was the top podcast on Spotify earlier

0:50

this year. It actually knocked Joe Rogan

0:52

off the number one spot briefly. And

0:56

it's all about how telepathy is real.

0:58

You know, a very clever friend

1:00

of mine. texted me about this show

1:02

and she thinks telepathy is real

1:04

now. Exactly. It's very convincing. Yeah. If

1:06

you look at the comments, you'll

1:08

see people saying, this is revolutionary. This

1:11

has moved me to tears. I'm

1:13

a believer. My life has changed

1:15

because of this podcast. And so,

1:17

you know, I was very curious. And so I

1:19

listened to it. I listened to the whole thing. Wendy,

1:21

I know that you haven't listened to

1:24

it. No, that's right. We decided I wouldn't

1:26

listen. So hopefully I can stand

1:28

in for those. Of you

1:30

who also haven't listened. Okay,

1:32

so let me tell you the premise.

1:34

This show is about a very

1:36

specific group of people. This is people

1:38

with autism who are very limited

1:40

in how they communicate and who require

1:42

a lot of support. And the

1:44

show says that people in this group

1:47

are able to communicate telepathically with

1:49

their family and with teachers and other

1:51

people. And in fact, here

1:53

is the show's tagline. They play this

1:55

at the beginning of every episode. For

1:57

decades, a very specific group

1:59

of people have been claiming telepathy is

2:02

happening in their homes and in

2:04

their classrooms. And nobody has believed

2:06

them. Nobody has listened to them.

2:08

But on this podcast, we do.

2:10

Okay, that's a podcast hook. It

2:12

really is. So Kai Dickens, that's

2:14

the host. That's who we just

2:16

heard from. She is typically a

2:18

documentary filmmaker, but she heard about

2:20

this phenomenon and she wanted to

2:22

study it, document it. And so

2:24

she ends up visiting a lot

2:26

of people who have had this

2:28

experience with autistic people in their lives.

2:30

Here she is again on the podcast.

2:33

And what touched me the most is

2:35

these parents were grappling with something that

2:37

they believe to be absolutely impossible. But

2:39

here they were. They were

2:41

watching something unfold that had

2:44

no rational explanation. And so

2:46

Rose, as you were listening

2:48

to this podcast, what were

2:50

you thinking? Well, the stories

2:52

were interesting and honestly really

2:54

intriguing. Obviously, there's

2:56

been skeptics here saying

2:58

that something else is going

3:00

on to explain this. So I

3:02

wanted to find out what exactly

3:04

was happening. I

3:06

got especially curious when I heard

3:09

a scientist interviewed on the show say

3:11

this. Over the last 50 years,

3:13

there's been a huge amount of

3:15

research on telepathy published in peer -reviewed

3:17

journals, which has proved to be

3:19

repeatable and seems to me irrefutable

3:21

in that it's showing that telepathy

3:24

really happens. The problem is that

3:26

the critics simply aren't interested in

3:28

the evidence because their belief system

3:30

is that this is impossible. And

3:34

I was like, wait. What? 50

3:38

years of

3:40

research in peer reviewed

3:42

journals, repeatable, irrefutable. I was

3:44

like, I got to look into that.

3:46

Like, that's what I want to pull

3:48

up, that 50 years of research in

3:50

peer reviewed journals. A hundred percent. Yeah.

3:52

A hundred percent. And that's what I've

3:54

been doing. So the last, you know,

3:57

month or so. And it's,

3:59

you know, it turns out scientists have

4:01

been studying this for some time. And I

4:03

learned a lot of really. Interesting

4:05

stuff, Wendy. This has just

4:07

been so fascinating to work

4:09

on. It's been surprising. It's

4:12

been infuriating. Sometimes it's

4:14

fun. So there's a lot to unpack here,

4:16

and I'm just excited to tell you about

4:18

it. Great. It's all coming up after the

4:20

break. This

4:28

episode of Science Versus is presented

4:30

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today. Then

5:47

we're going to zoom out and

5:50

talk about the body of research that

5:52

scientists have done on telepathy. Great.

5:54

Let's do it. So the show is

5:56

about people with autism who are

5:58

nonverbal or who speak very little. And

6:00

what you hear over and over

6:02

again on this podcast is that their

6:05

family can never speak to them

6:07

or really communicate with them until they

6:09

learn this method of communicating where

6:11

the nonverbal person points at letters

6:13

on a board or picks at

6:15

keys on a keyboard. And essentially

6:17

they learn to painstakingly spell out

6:19

words and communicate that way. Okay.

6:22

And then... All of a sudden,

6:24

this is where the telepathy comes

6:26

in. They start spelling

6:28

out things that they shouldn't

6:30

know. So they'll, like, tell

6:32

their parent, oh, I know that you went

6:34

to Target today. But the parent's like,

6:36

I never told them that I was at

6:38

Target today. Or they might say, I

6:40

know that you brought me cookies for a

6:43

snack, but you left them in the

6:45

car. And that person's like, I never told

6:47

you I was going to bring you cookies. I

6:49

didn't tell you I left them in the car. How

6:51

do they know these things? And

6:54

they start thinking, this person can

6:56

read my mind. So if

6:58

that was all the podcast offered,

7:00

these like little anecdotes, or there could

7:02

be a million little explanations or coincidence

7:04

or luck, you know, that wouldn't be

7:06

that interesting. Okay. But where it gets

7:08

really interesting is that the host of

7:11

the show doesn't just take people at

7:13

their word for this. She goes and

7:15

she specifically does tests to test that they

7:17

are in fact telepathic. What kind of

7:19

test? Well, so for example, in the

7:21

first episode, she goes to visit a

7:23

young woman from Mexico who is supposedly

7:26

telepathic with her mom. And so like

7:28

I described, this is a nonverbal autistic

7:30

person who communicates by pointing at a

7:32

board with letters and numbers on it.

7:34

Right, right, right. And so this is

7:36

the kind of test that Kai sets

7:38

up. So she'll show something only to

7:40

the mom, make sure the daughter can't

7:42

see it. Okay, something like a cat, a

7:44

picture of a cat. Yeah, or like

7:46

in this example, a picture of a pirate.

7:48

Okay. And, you know, the daughter can't

7:50

see it. Sometimes she's blindfolded or they'll put

7:53

a partition between the mom and the

7:55

daughter. So the daughter can't see the picture.

7:57

But then the mom says, OK, what

7:59

am I at? Read my mind. What am

8:01

I looking at? And we

8:03

hear and I'll play a little bit for you. The

8:06

daughter, even though she can't see

8:08

the picture, she starts pointing at

8:10

letters and she slowly spells out.

8:12

Remember, this is a picture of

8:14

a pirate or pirata in Spanish. Who?

8:30

She clearly types P -I -R -A -T -A,

8:33

which spells pirate in Spanish. I love

8:35

this moment because the crowd just goes

8:37

wild. At this point, everyone in the

8:39

room had had their mind blown. Christina,

8:41

what are your thoughts? I mean, I

8:43

wouldn't do it as a skeptic. I'm generally

8:45

a skeptic in my life. Who's this

8:47

talking? This is the cameraman. To

8:49

see this, I can't... It's

8:52

hard for me to not believe

8:54

this is authentic. I'm looking

8:56

at everything. I'm watching her. I'm

8:58

watching the mom. I'm watching...

9:00

I'm watching everything. And for me,

9:02

in my perspective, it's real. Uh

9:09

-huh. That is... Impressive. Yeah, hearing the

9:12

cameraman's reaction is pretty compelling because

9:14

you're like, wow, he was actually in

9:16

the room and looking carefully, right?

9:18

And he said it seemed real. But

9:21

the thing is, when

9:23

autism experts hear about this, they

9:26

immediately see a problem. Okay. And

9:28

it goes back to how people

9:30

are communicating and the history of

9:32

people trying to communicate with those

9:34

who can't speak. I talked about

9:37

this with Catherine Beals. She's an

9:39

adjunct professor at the University of

9:41

Pennsylvania and elsewhere. And I talked

9:43

to her specifically about this case. So

9:46

does this impress you? No. It's

9:48

just, I find it extraordinary that anybody thinks

9:50

it's a compelling instance of telepathy. She's kind

9:52

of the perfect person to talk to about

9:55

this. I started out as a linguist. That

9:57

was my PhD. And then I had a

9:59

child with autism. The particular situation

10:01

I'm in is actually kind of the

10:03

perfect storm. The perfect storm

10:05

to see what's actually going on here.

10:07

And Catherine says, we got to

10:09

go back a few decades. Actually,

10:12

the story starts in Australia,

10:14

Wendy. You'll be happy to

10:16

know. I feel right at home. Someone

10:19

there had invented a special way for

10:21

people who can't speak to communicate. And

10:24

in the 90s, this technique spread

10:26

from Australia to the U .S. And

10:28

it really took off here. It's a

10:30

bit different from the way people

10:32

are communicating in the telepathy tapes. With

10:34

the letter board. The letter board.

10:36

This is called facilitated communication. Here's

10:39

how it worked. The non -speaking person

10:41

sits in front of, you know, some

10:43

kind of keyboard. Right. Next to them

10:45

is a facilitator who gently holds their

10:48

arm or their wrist and helps them

10:50

select the letters on the keyboard that

10:52

they want to select. So it's a

10:54

bit faster than them having to do

10:56

it all by themselves. Is that the

10:58

idea? Not exactly. For some of these

11:00

folks, they actually need someone to help

11:02

guide their hands to the letters to

11:04

use the keyboard, or they don't do it

11:06

at all. Oh, okay. And so once this

11:08

method started being used more and more, these

11:11

incredible things started happening. The

11:13

claims were pretty extraordinary

11:15

because these individuals who

11:17

appeared to be completely

11:19

nonverbal and maybe not

11:22

attending to people speaking

11:24

and language in general

11:26

were suddenly able to produce

11:28

grammatically well -formed

11:30

sentences, perfectly spelled in many

11:32

cases, and quite sophisticated. in

11:34

many cases, in some cases

11:36

poetry, sophisticated vocabulary.

11:38

So it appeared

11:41

to unlock what

11:43

people were thinking

11:45

was an intact

11:47

or fully developed intellect

11:50

in terms of

11:52

having learned somehow to read, having

11:54

mastered language, and so on. This

11:56

idea that they

11:59

can't speak beautifully,

12:01

but... inside

12:04

their brain is

12:06

this huge

12:09

mastery over the English

12:11

language that until now

12:13

they were not able to express.

12:15

Exactly. Sort of this idea. Yeah.

12:17

And this, as you can imagine,

12:19

that's a huge breakthrough, right? It

12:22

got a lot of attention. It was all

12:24

over the news. It was on TV.

12:26

There was a primetime live episode. It eventually

12:28

won an Emmy. Diane

12:30

Sawyer reported on this as like

12:32

this breakthrough. And you can hear

12:34

how powerful this seemed. And now

12:36

a story about hope. For decades,

12:39

autism has been a dark mystery,

12:41

a disorder that seems to turn

12:43

children in on themselves against the

12:45

world. Tonight, however, you are

12:47

going to see something that has changed that.

12:50

Call it a miracle. Call it

12:52

an awakening. I mean,

12:54

so hopeful if you're a parent to be

12:56

looking at your child and thinking, wow, there's

12:58

so much in there. If only I could

13:00

find a way to communicate. Yeah, your child

13:02

has never spoken to you. He's never said

13:04

I love you. And now there's this thing

13:06

that says there's a lot going on in

13:08

their head and they can tell you about

13:10

it. I do have

13:13

to say,

13:15

as hopeful as this

13:17

is, I am getting a Ouija

13:19

board vibe here. Yeah. That

13:22

is a concern that people were actually

13:24

people from the beginning. Some people did

13:26

have that concern because you're holding someone's

13:28

arm and potentially moving it for them,

13:30

even if you don't think you are.

13:32

So it could be that the facilitator

13:34

is controlling what this person is typing. Yeah,

13:37

not meaning to necessarily, just

13:39

wanting to move through it faster.

13:41

And they're like, yeah, yeah,

13:43

yeah, yeah. D, O, you probably

13:45

mean dog. Exactly, that kind of thing. And

13:48

there's always some skeptics

13:50

out there. But for a

13:52

while, because this is just so cool to people,

13:54

they just kept chugging along. But

13:56

then the cracks started to show in

13:58

these very dramatic ways. Because in some

14:01

cases, people were spelling

14:03

out very disturbing messages.

14:06

Some of their stories were told in

14:08

a frontline documentary. It was called Prisoners

14:10

of Silence. It came out in 1993. And

14:13

here they are talking about a teenage

14:16

girl with autism named Betsy. One

14:18

day, using a letter board, Betsy

14:20

and her facilitator wrote that

14:22

everybody in her family, her father,

14:24

mother, grandparents, and brother, were

14:26

sexually abusing her. Social

14:28

services were called. Betsy was taken out

14:30

of her home, put in foster

14:32

care. An investigation was

14:35

started. But the people working

14:37

this case were like, can we

14:39

really trust these allegations that came

14:41

from this unusual technique? Someone

14:43

else is holding Betsy's hand and helping

14:45

her point out letters, type. So what they

14:47

wanted to know was, who is

14:49

writing the messages? Is it the autistic

14:52

person or is it the facilitator? So

14:54

they set up tests for Betsy.

14:56

And Catherine described the kind of tests

14:58

that they did. You might have

15:01

a divider between the facilitator and the

15:03

person they're facilitating. And the person

15:05

they're facilitating sees a picture of a

15:07

hat. And the facilitator sees

15:09

a picture of a shoe. This is

15:11

the telepathy type test. Kind of, with

15:13

a key difference. They're showing two different

15:15

pictures. They're showing one picture to the

15:18

facilitator. So in this example, a picture

15:20

of a shoe. And one picture to

15:22

the person with autism. In this example,

15:24

a hat. And then you ask the person

15:26

with autism, what do you see here?

15:28

What you would want them to write

15:30

would be hat. Yes. And if they

15:32

type shoe, then where did that come

15:35

from? Very fishy. Because that's what

15:37

the facilitator saw, not what they saw.

15:39

Yes. Yes. In

15:42

the telepathy tapes, the person with

15:44

autism is being asked to spell out

15:46

what someone else sees. And here

15:48

they're being asked to spell out what

15:50

they themselves see. Right,

15:53

right, right, right. The Frontline documentary is

15:55

really useful because it actually shows what

15:57

these tests were like. And they

15:59

talk about what happened when they ran tests

16:01

like this with Betsy. When Betsy

16:03

was shown a picture of a

16:05

dog, she didn't type dog, but

16:07

sneakers. What the facilitator

16:09

saw. When Betsy was

16:11

shown a boat, she didn't

16:13

type boat, but sandwich. What

16:16

the facilitator saw. And

16:21

that happened in every

16:23

test they tried. Every

16:25

single test. Of Betsy

16:27

or in studies as well?

16:29

In studies as well. Every

16:33

single test? Yes, there was an

16:35

autistic program in New York that

16:37

had been using facilitated communication with

16:39

12 of their autistic students. Getting

16:41

good results, they thought, but they said, oh, maybe we

16:44

should test this, make sure. They

16:46

tested each student in the same

16:48

way. I asked Catherine what happened.

16:50

And they didn't get a single

16:52

correct response. Not one. Yeah. And

16:54

this has been repeated many times. There were a whole

16:56

bunch of studies that came out in the 90s. that

16:59

just one after another after another were

17:01

showing failure. How often did they

17:03

find it was, in fact, the person

17:05

with autism who was doing the

17:07

communicating? In well -designed studies, not

17:09

at all. Never. Never? Right. Wow.

17:14

Yeah, so in the case

17:16

with Betsy, the investigators concluded

17:18

that the sex abuse allegations

17:20

were totally unfounded. And so, do

17:23

we know? why

17:25

the facilitator was doing that. Yeah.

17:27

In the Betsy case, we do

17:29

know what's going on here because

17:31

the facilitator came out and talked

17:33

about it, wrote a paper about

17:35

it. And she explained that,

17:38

you know, she'd had some doubts in

17:40

the beginning, like, oh, am I really, am

17:42

I moving Betsy's hand or is it

17:44

really Betsy? It's kind of hard to tell.

17:46

But there was so much momentum and

17:48

it was so exciting to think that she

17:50

was making breakthroughs with her student that

17:52

she kind of let herself believe in it.

17:54

Oh, okay. So it's almost like this

17:56

subconscious response, the facilitators. I

17:58

mean, if they're not actually doing

18:00

it on purpose, I would have thought

18:02

it was just really just trying to

18:04

help, trying to communicate. Yeah, I think

18:06

that's usually what people think is going

18:08

on. It's actually called the ideomotor effect, the

18:10

Ouija board. You don't, everyone

18:12

thinks they're not, well, I don't know. I

18:14

would sometimes move the planchette on purpose,

18:16

but many of us just think. we're not

18:18

moving it, but then it does move.

18:20

And especially it might move to a letter

18:22

that makes a lot of sense after

18:25

the previous letter. And how does that happen?

18:27

There's also something called the Chevrolet pendulum

18:29

illusion, where you think you're holding the pendulum

18:31

steady in the air, but when you

18:33

think about moving it to the right or

18:35

to the left or up or down,

18:37

suddenly it starts moving that way. And you're

18:39

like, I'm not even doing that. But

18:41

it's just like your brain is sending these

18:43

very tiny signals to your hand. And

18:45

that is enough to make very small movements

18:47

that can have very big consequences, you

18:49

know? Uh -huh. So can we go back

18:51

to the telepathy tapes now? Yeah, because just

18:53

to be clear, these abuse allegations we're

18:55

talking about, that's part of the frontline documentary,

18:57

not the telepathy tapes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

18:59

So then to go back to that pirata

19:02

example, the pirate. Exactly. Yeah. So

19:04

that's the question, right? Is that what they're doing? Did

19:07

the kid have a facilitator

19:09

on hand? Yes. In all of

19:11

these cases, the person with

19:13

autism is speaking via a facilitator.

19:16

It varies in exactly what

19:18

the facilitator is doing and how

19:20

they're communicating, but there's always

19:22

somebody else there that has to

19:24

be there. It's not fully

19:26

independent. And it's typically the parent

19:28

who's the facilitator. Oh! Yeah.

19:31

So the... The one whose mind

19:33

is being read. The mom

19:35

is looking at the pirate. And

19:37

also holding her kid's hand.

19:39

Well, yes and no.

19:41

So what they're doing in

19:43

the telepathy tapes is not

19:46

technically facilitated communication in the

19:48

classic sense because they're not

19:50

literally holding the person's hand

19:52

and hovering it over a

19:54

board. What they're typically doing

19:56

in the telepathy tapes, they

19:58

hold up a letter board

20:00

and then the person with

20:02

autism points and then they

20:04

call out. P -I -R.

20:06

And in fact, the host of the podcast,

20:08

she says, just say at one point,

20:11

like, oh, there was this controversy with facilitated

20:13

communication, but this is different. This is

20:15

different. And the big thing that they point

20:17

out is we're not really touching the

20:19

kid in the same way that they were

20:21

touching them before. This method is often

20:23

called spelling to communicate or just spelling. So

20:27

what does Catherine say about that?

20:29

Well, she points out. that, you

20:31

know, it's problematic that the facilitator

20:33

is also the transcriber of the

20:35

message. Like if you're holding a

20:38

letter board, A, you can move

20:40

it around slightly, and B, you

20:42

can say, oh, you've selected

20:44

the letter P. Oh, now you've

20:46

selected the letter I. That gives you

20:48

a lot of latitude in deciding

20:50

where exactly the person's finger went. So

20:52

they will decide when a letter

20:54

was selected, and they'll decide in an

20:56

ambiguous case which letter was selected.

20:58

Because someone could be pointing in between

21:01

the letters. In between. F and

21:03

G. And in some cases,

21:05

believe it or not, nowhere near. And

21:07

so there are videos where you can

21:09

actually, the person is using a transparent

21:11

letter board. So from watching from the

21:13

other side, you can see letters sometimes

21:15

being called out that we're not pointing

21:17

to at all. And also

21:19

they are often touching. So like there's

21:21

a hand on the back or in the

21:24

case of the mom and the daughter

21:26

from Mexico, the mom is often touching the

21:28

daughter's forehead or holding her chin. In

21:30

the telepathy tapes, did you watch the videos?

21:32

I did. So there are videos available

21:34

for some of the tests. You have to

21:36

pay a small fee and become a

21:38

member, but it's on their website. And

21:41

I did watch them. In fact, I watched

21:43

some of them with Catherine. I

21:45

didn't see any obvious examples where you

21:47

see someone pointing at a T

21:49

and the facilitator calls out P or

21:51

something like that. But it's clear

21:53

from these videos that typically the facilitator

21:56

is really involved in one way

21:58

or another. So we watched one where

22:00

the daughter is sitting next to

22:02

the mom, but they have a partition

22:04

between them. The mom is shown

22:06

a random number generator on someone's iPad

22:09

and this random number 978 is

22:11

generated. Here I am watching it with

22:13

Catherine. The mom sees that the

22:15

number is 978. They take away the

22:17

partition. She's

22:19

kind of gently touching her on

22:21

her forehead. Yeah, and here she's

22:23

got the letter board up. Yeah,

22:25

so what you could clearly see

22:28

was that the mother was touching

22:30

the girl, just didn't happen to

22:32

be her finger, and that there

22:34

were changes in how hard she

22:36

was in her pressure, the pressure

22:38

that she was exerting on the

22:40

daughter's temple and cheek. And so

22:42

that might have been all... that

22:44

was needed to cue the girl

22:46

about when to actually make a

22:49

selection. And this, I mean, it

22:51

doesn't need to be intentional, right?

22:53

I mean, you could be doing

22:55

this without even realizing it. Easily.

22:57

We know that's true. And

22:59

actually, the fact that this could

23:01

be subconscious really explains a lot,

23:03

I think. If the person facilitating

23:05

is spelling out their own thoughts,

23:07

but doesn't realize they're spelling out

23:10

their own thoughts. That explains

23:12

why they might genuinely think, oh my

23:14

God, this person is reading my mind. Of

23:17

course. But

23:21

there was one case that

23:23

didn't really make sense, and I

23:25

couldn't figure out how it

23:28

was possible. This is a

23:30

young autistic man and his mom. He

23:32

seems to be able to read his

23:34

mother's thoughts by typing them out. independently

23:36

on a keyboard. So in this case,

23:38

no one's holding up a letter board

23:40

for him. Kai describes him as not

23:42

touching. And I watch

23:44

the videos online. And that's

23:46

true. There's nobody. They aren't touching.

23:49

So their telepathy really does look

23:51

pretty convincing. So for this, I

23:53

called up Jim Todd. He's a

23:55

professor of psychology at Eastern Michigan

23:57

University. And I teach conditioning and

24:00

learning in general. The

24:03

basics of behavior, the kind of basics of

24:05

behavior that you kind of need to know

24:07

to parse some of this stuff out. Like

24:09

with Catherine, I watched one of these videos

24:11

with him. Can you see my screen? I

24:13

can see your screen, yes. So in

24:15

this video, the son is sitting next to

24:17

the mom. And he has like

24:19

an iPad sort of device that when

24:21

he touches the letter, the device says

24:24

the letter out loud in like this

24:26

robot voice. So

24:28

in this test, the mom is shown an

24:30

image. The son can't see it. It's a picture

24:32

of a crocodile. Okay. And the son is

24:34

asked to spell out what his mom can see.

24:37

And we can see him pick out letters

24:39

on this device. And the computer starts spelling out

24:41

crocodile. Well,

24:51

mom is moving her hand and

24:53

her body in sequence with the

24:55

letters. It's just signaling. Do

25:00

you want to see the tape, Wendy? Yeah,

25:02

I want to watch it. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

25:05

So Kai shows the mom a

25:07

picture of a crocodile. Did

25:10

you see it? Did

25:12

you see what Jim saw?

25:15

From the mom. Uh -huh. Just

25:17

play it again. Okay. And look

25:20

at the mom, not the son. Yeah,

25:22

yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. She's

25:24

moving her hand. Every time he moves,

25:26

he selects a letter just before

25:28

that she has moved. She's moving her

25:30

hand and in a very deliberate

25:32

way, whether she is conscious of that

25:35

deliberateness. But it's not, yeah. Oh,

25:37

yeah, for sure. Did you ask Kai

25:39

why didn't she move them away

25:41

from each other, knowing what she clearly

25:43

knew about facilitated communication? I did

25:45

reach out to Kai to ask specific

25:47

questions like that. Her

25:49

team said that she was too busy working

25:52

on season two of the telepathy tapes and

25:54

making a documentary about it as well. So

25:56

she couldn't get back to us. Well,

25:58

that's very frustrating. Yeah. I also reached

26:00

out to the mom in the crocodile

26:02

video, and I didn't hear back from

26:04

her either. Okay. So, I

26:06

don't know. I don't know. I mean, I

26:08

will say, in the episode, they say a

26:11

lot of stuff about how, oh, we can

26:13

do this across the room. And

26:15

then they start to do that, but

26:17

then the son becomes uncomfortable. And

26:19

doesn't cooperate. And so they say, well,

26:21

he needs to sit next to his mom

26:23

for the emotional support. So

26:26

stuff like that happens. I

26:29

mean, what's sort

26:31

of, I guess,

26:33

interesting is there

26:35

is some lovely

26:37

communication happening between

26:39

the parent and

26:41

the child. It's

26:43

not telepathy, but

26:45

clearly. They have

26:47

learned a language with

26:50

each other that when the

26:52

parent touches the kid

26:54

or makes this signal with

26:56

their hand, they point

26:58

to a letter. I mean,

27:00

they have a language

27:02

together. And there is sort

27:04

of something lovely about that, I guess.

27:06

You can make that argument. I

27:08

mean, in that video we just saw,

27:10

it does seem like the young

27:12

man is having a good time, like

27:14

enjoying being with his mother. But

27:17

I've seen plenty of other videos from

27:19

other sources that show this technique where

27:21

it doesn't really go that way. And

27:23

Catherine has too. A lot of the

27:25

time the child doesn't look like they

27:27

really want to be doing this. You

27:29

know, I have noticed that. But I

27:31

don't really understand necessarily what I'm seeing.

27:34

I don't know much about people with

27:36

severe autism. So when you see someone

27:38

like kind of trying to get away

27:40

or calling out or saying, I'm sad.

27:42

There was a video of a girl

27:44

who was doing this. I'm sad. I've

27:46

seen it. Is that what they're like?

27:48

That seems like she's saying she's sad.

27:50

She doesn't want to be doing that.

27:53

Yeah, it certainly does. And in fact,

27:55

a professional organization called the American Speech

27:57

Language Hearing Association has explicitly said, don't

27:59

use... these methods of communicating, this facilitated

28:01

communication, the newer ones that are sometimes

28:03

called like spelling to communicate or rapid

28:05

prompting method, don't use them. The stuff

28:07

happening on the telepathy tapes. Yes. And

28:09

one reason why is that they say

28:12

these methods strip people of their human

28:14

right to independent communication. So

28:16

does this put a cap

28:18

on the telepathy tapes then? Well,

28:20

yeah. As far as the

28:22

whole people with autism are telepathic

28:24

thing. Because, you know,

28:26

the show goes on to say

28:28

a lot of other stuff, extraordinary stuff.

28:31

But all these extraordinary claims, they're

28:33

all hinging on this supposition

28:35

that the folks with autism can

28:37

send messages to their parents

28:40

or their teachers. But we know

28:42

now that the way they

28:44

are doing this is with these

28:46

like letter board methods or

28:48

similar methods that are totally bunk.

28:51

And we can't trust that.

28:54

It's the kid's message coming

28:56

through. In fact, we shouldn't

28:58

expect that to be the

29:00

case based on all we

29:02

know about how unlikely this

29:04

is to work. Yeah. It's

29:06

like the fruit. The podcast

29:08

keeps creating more fruit, but

29:10

the tree is rotten. Yeah,

29:13

exactly. Well, I can't wait for

29:15

season two then. I

29:18

don't know if I'll be listening. But,

29:21

you know, this doesn't put a cap

29:23

on our episode. Because there is a lot

29:25

more to talk about when it comes

29:27

to the science of telepathy. There's

29:30

a lot to tell you.

29:32

I did promise you that, right?

29:34

That's right. All of these

29:36

repeatable studies over decades of research.

29:39

Yeah, and I looked into that.

29:41

So after the break, I'm going to

29:43

tell you about the pretty bonkers

29:45

way that scientists have tried to

29:47

test for telepathy and the results

29:49

that are actually quite surprising. Coming up.

30:00

Today's Ask Wendy Anything, Ask

30:02

Me Anything, is brought to

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you by Amazon. Whether it's

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just got less painful. So

30:17

for our... Little Ask Me Anything.

30:19

Senior producer Rose Rimler has come

30:21

to me with some listener questions

30:23

that have been gathered through social

30:25

media. Hey, Rose. Hey, Wendy. Our

30:28

first question comes from Kelsey on

30:30

Instagram, and she asks, how do

30:32

you wade through all the misinformation

30:34

and inaccurate information to get to

30:36

the truth? Ooh, love this question.

30:38

Because I feel like we do

30:40

so much homework on this show

30:42

that no one gets to see.

30:44

So when someone asks this kind

30:46

of question, I'm like, yes! For

30:49

me, when I'm making an episode,

30:51

my first step is to go

30:53

online and try and understand what

30:55

is the misinformation, or at least

30:57

what people are saying about a

30:59

particular topic. A diet, for example,

31:01

you'll start to see people are

31:03

saying that it makes them smarter

31:05

and gives them all this energy

31:07

and makes them... look a certain

31:09

way? And so I'll start to

31:11

turn that into scientific questions. Does

31:13

this diet affect your brain? How

31:15

does it affect your body? And

31:18

then I'll just dive into the

31:20

scientific research and start chatting to

31:22

scientists. And I won't stop until

31:24

I feel like the answers have

31:26

really started to coalesce where I

31:28

feel like I've got the scientific

31:30

consensus or as close to it

31:32

as possible. And now I can

31:34

start to build an episode. Sounds

31:37

good. Someone named Nishala, also

31:39

on Instagram, she asked, have you

31:41

ever considered doing stand -up? There

31:43

is talent here. Oh,

31:46

thank you. So I

31:48

actually did stand -up

31:50

a couple of

31:52

times. Whoa. Yeah, when

31:54

I was doing a job I

31:56

didn't really like, and I wanted

31:58

to put some fire up my

32:00

a**. Yeah, just a**.

32:03

Here is why I do not

32:05

do stand -up comedy anymore, because Rose...

32:07

Would you like to hear the

32:09

one joke that I remember? From

32:12

your routine? Yeah. Yes,

32:14

I do. was something like

32:16

this. It was something

32:18

like this. Okay, so... Tuna

32:20

is so amazing. Aren't

32:22

they these amazing creatures? They're

32:24

just so majestic in

32:26

the ocean. Just so beautiful.

32:28

And it's amazing that

32:30

evolution created this creature that...

32:33

swims in a little

32:35

capsule with lemon and pepper

32:37

all in there. So

32:39

it's so convenient that we

32:41

could just eat it

32:43

all up. That's

32:48

five out of ten, I'd

32:50

say, maybe. We'll

32:54

let Nishala be the judge of that one.

32:56

All right, let me know. Did I make

32:58

the right call sticking with science journalism? Thanks,

33:01

Rose. Thanks, Wendy. Today's

33:04

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34:44

Spot. spotify.com. Welcome

34:49

back. Rose just

34:51

told us why we really

34:53

can't believe the telepathy you

34:55

might hear about on the

34:57

telepathy tapes. But now we're

34:59

going to broaden out to

35:02

the land of how science

35:04

has tested telepathy. Rose? Yeah.

35:06

I talked about this with

35:08

Emeritus Professor of Psychology, Chris

35:10

French. Until recently, he was

35:12

the head of the Anomalistic

35:15

Psychology Research Unit. At Goldsmiths

35:17

University of London. Okay.

35:19

Anomalistic psychology means stuff

35:21

outside the norm, maybe

35:23

even the paranormal. Right,

35:26

right, right. I accept that

35:28

there are some really interesting

35:30

and challenging ideas out there

35:32

for skeptics. I mean, some

35:34

of the evidence isn't. Easy

35:36

to dismiss. And certainly when

35:38

you get skeptics who say

35:40

there is no evidence for

35:42

the existence of telepathy or

35:44

precognition and so on, that's

35:46

just nonsense. Chris has

35:48

spent much of his career looking

35:50

at paranormal stuff in a rigorous

35:52

way. So he tries to figure

35:54

out if it's real or if

35:57

there's a more mundane explanation. So

35:59

you're a professional party pooper?

36:01

I am indeed, yeah. I

36:04

don't get invited to parties

36:06

at all because of my

36:08

overwhelmingly negative personality. Okay,

36:11

so one common way to test

36:13

for telepathy involves something called the

36:15

Gansfeld Protocol. It's based on the

36:17

idea that if there is such

36:19

a thing as telepathy, it may

36:21

well be that it's a very

36:23

faint signal in comparison to all

36:25

the background noise. So the Gansfeld

36:27

Protocol, and by the way, Gansfeld

36:29

is German for whole field. Okay.

36:31

So the experimenters set someone up

36:33

in a very controlled, very subdued

36:35

environment so that the telepathic signal

36:37

has as much of a chance

36:39

as possible to come through. Uh

36:41

-huh. So the people in the

36:43

experiment will wear headphones with white

36:46

or pink noise playing. They

36:48

make sure there's nothing for them to

36:50

see by putting on these... on

36:52

their eyes they look like half ping

36:54

pong balls one over each eye

36:56

and you you obviously light could still

36:58

get in there through the gaps

37:00

so you use cotton wool just to

37:03

to plug that up and then

37:05

you tape over the eyes and then

37:07

you have a red light bulb

37:09

so if they open their eyes all

37:11

they'll see is red so it's

37:13

not that you've got no sensory input

37:15

but you've just got a uniform

37:17

sensory input and it basically it's a

37:20

very very nice comfortable relaxing situation

37:22

to be And people typically report that

37:24

after a while, they relax and

37:26

their head begins to fill with imagery,

37:28

you know? And

37:31

at this point, someone sends

37:33

an image of a pirate

37:35

crocodile. Yeah, exactly. So someone's

37:37

in another room. In

37:40

another room. In another room, and

37:42

they're looking at an image or maybe

37:44

a video clip. And they're really

37:46

focusing on it, and they're really trying

37:48

to send it to... the

37:50

other person. And the

37:52

sender would try to concentrate on that

37:54

target image and send the information to

37:56

the receiver. Just by thinking about it

37:58

really hard. Just by thinking about it

38:00

real hard, exactly. So then after some

38:02

time, the person takes off their silly

38:05

ping pong goggles, comes out of the

38:07

room, they're shown four images or four

38:09

video clips, and they say, which is

38:11

the one that was being beamed to

38:13

you? So they pick one. And

38:15

so if you were just picking by chance, you

38:17

would get this right 25 % of the time.

38:19

Right. But lots of these studies find that

38:21

people pick the right image or the right video

38:23

clip more than 25 % of the time. How

38:26

much more? 32 %

38:28

of the time. Okay.

38:32

That number comes from a meta -analysis

38:34

that came out just last

38:36

year. They looked at over 100

38:39

experiments done in the Ganzfeld condition

38:41

over the last 50 years. Uh -huh.

38:44

It includes some studies on clairvoyance

38:46

and other psychic phenomena tested

38:48

using the Gansfeld protocol, but it's

38:50

mostly tests of telepathy. And

38:52

the authors concluded that there was

38:54

a small but statistically significant

38:56

effect here. That is intriguing. That's

38:58

not all. You can find

39:00

something similar with other tests that

39:02

have been done, like these

39:04

telephone telepathy tests. tell people

39:06

that they're going to get a phone

39:08

call from one of four specific people, and

39:11

they have to guess as the phone

39:13

is ringing, which of these four people is

39:15

the one calling them. By chance, they

39:17

should get the right person 25 % of

39:19

the time. A lot of studies find they

39:21

get it right more often than that,

39:23

30 % or 40 % of the time. So

39:26

what does Chris make of this? Well,

39:28

so this meta -analysis, this Gansfeld one.

39:30

It made a big splash among

39:32

the telepathy crowd. No doubt. It was

39:34

definitely referenced on the Telepathy Tapes

39:36

podcast. And so I asked Chris about

39:38

it. Did it rock your world?

39:40

No, because I've had my fingers burnt

39:42

with meta -analysis before. I mean, meta

39:44

-analysis, I think, is, you know, is

39:46

a very useful tool. And I

39:48

think we should take this latest meta

39:50

-analysis seriously. But whether I'm

39:52

going to say, yes, OK, I'm convinced

39:54

now, I'm going to hold back

39:57

a little bit because there have been

39:59

so many twists and turns in

40:01

this tale. Yeah, this isn't Chris's first

40:03

radio, and it's not his first

40:05

Gansfeld meta -analysis claiming a 30 % hit

40:07

rate. He

40:10

said that there was actually something very

40:12

similar back in the 90s. He was younger,

40:14

more naive then, right? And

40:16

I read that and thought, oh my

40:18

God, wow, this really looks like very

40:20

powerful evidence. So what are these

40:22

analyses doing wrong? Well, there's a few

40:24

funny things that are going on here. So

40:26

we know that in studies about paranormal

40:28

stuff, if the test is done by a

40:30

believer, they tend to find an effect.

40:32

While if it's done by a skeptic, they

40:34

tend not to find an effect. Like,

40:36

imagine that you're more of a skeptic, like

40:38

Chris, and you run one of these

40:41

telepathy experiments, and you find that people guess

40:43

right 25 % of the time. As a

40:45

skeptic, when you get a result like

40:47

that, you might say, Oh,

40:49

okay. All right. No fact here. done,

40:52

right? If you're a believer, you might

40:54

look at that and say, I'm going

40:56

to go look through the data again.

40:58

I would have expected something else to

41:00

happen. So I'm going to go

41:02

and I'm going to look through the raw

41:04

data. Maybe I'll get rid of some outliers. Maybe

41:06

I'll find a piece of the data and

41:08

I'll just look at this subgroup. Bob wasn't really

41:10

concentrating during the experiment. Yeah, going to throw

41:12

out his data. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

41:14

And vice versa. You know, if you're a

41:16

skeptic and you get a result that

41:19

says telepathy is real, you might start. combing

41:21

through that data very carefully, you know? Right.

41:23

Yeah. So

41:27

to avoid this, there has been

41:29

a movement, and this is especially

41:31

true in psychology research, to pre

41:33

-register your study. So you basically

41:35

publish a protocol ahead of time

41:37

saying, this is how I'm going

41:39

to do the study. This is

41:41

how I'm going to analyze my

41:43

data. And then that can't happen,

41:45

right? This like tweaking and nudging

41:47

after the fact. Well, less so.

41:50

Less so. Yeah. And when you

41:52

look at that meta -analysis, they're not

41:54

looking specifically at studies that were

41:56

pre -registered. So it's really hard

41:58

to know if we can trust

42:00

them. Oh, no. This makes me

42:02

so sad. I'm like, scientists, do

42:04

your job properly. I know. Well,

42:06

funny you should mention that because

42:08

not long ago, there was a

42:10

very concerted effort to do a

42:12

proper study on psychic phenomena. Okay.

42:15

So specifically. They were trying

42:17

to replicate a study from 2011

42:19

on precognition. So like predicting the

42:21

future, basically. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

42:23

The way this study worked, they

42:25

had a computer program they were

42:27

showing to people with a picture

42:29

of two curtains. And they asked

42:31

people, of these two curtains, which

42:33

one has an erotic image hiding

42:35

behind it? So

42:39

the people would guess and then,

42:41

only then, would the computer program assign

42:43

the erotic image randomly. to

42:45

one or the other slot. Oh,

42:47

so this was, you would try

42:49

to, oh, predict what the

42:52

computer would do. Yeah. And unknown,

42:54

and unknown, basically. Yes.

42:56

Okay. Wow. In

42:58

the original study, people got

43:00

this right more than 50 %

43:03

of the time. Mm -hmm. Which

43:05

the author suggested could mean they

43:07

were actually predicting the future.

43:09

Sure. Okay. There was a lot

43:11

of attention on this study at the time. No doubt. Yeah,

43:14

and skeptics said, you

43:16

know. Can I just ask, if you

43:18

got it right, did the curtains open

43:20

and then you got to see the

43:22

willy? I believe so, yes. They

43:25

actually controlled for people's sexual

43:27

preferences. So

43:29

if you wanted to see a willy, you might get to see

43:31

a willy. If you wanted to see a booby, you might get

43:33

to see a booby. Okay,

43:37

so they replicate this study. Yeah, so because

43:39

a lot of skeptics said, like, we don't like

43:41

this part of your methodology or this thing

43:43

you did about your stats. What

43:45

basically happened is that the skeptics and

43:47

the believers got together, designed a

43:49

new research protocol, designed a new study

43:51

they both agreed on. They pre -registered

43:53

it. They said, this is the

43:56

protocol we're going to use. Great. And

43:59

this is how we're going to do it

44:01

and how we're going to analyze it. Yes.

44:03

It took five years. It took 10 labs

44:05

participating. Wow. 30 -ish

44:07

authors. Skeptics and believers

44:09

working together to look to see,

44:11

is there an effect here? Wow,

44:13

a new future is possible. And

44:15

what did they find? When all

44:17

this was said and done? It

44:20

produced absolutely no effects whatsoever

44:22

to support the existence of

44:25

precognition. Okay, that's

44:27

the suggestion being if we were

44:29

to rigorously test telepathy, putting the

44:31

skeptics and believers all together, perhaps

44:33

we would see the same effect.

44:35

but I guess we don't. We

44:37

don't have the same exact thing

44:39

for telepathy, but a lot of

44:42

the issues that this precognition study

44:44

we're confronting are very similar to

44:46

issues that people have with telepathy

44:48

research. So I don't know. I

44:50

think it's pretty damning to telepathy

44:52

as well, but would love to

44:54

see a similar group effort doing

44:56

some of these studies. Can I

44:58

ask, what is the mechanism? the

45:01

purported mechanism of telepathy. Like how?

45:03

was hoping you wouldn't ask me

45:05

that. Yeah.

45:08

Are they reaching for quantum

45:10

physics here? Yes, they are. Quantum

45:12

entanglement specifically, which is about

45:14

like this weird connection between subatomic

45:16

particles where they seem to

45:18

influence each other. And it doesn't

45:20

matter how far apart they

45:22

are. And I did actually,

45:24

I did talk to a physicist

45:26

who I was referred to by someone

45:28

who's sort of, telepathy friendly as

45:30

a physicist who's also telepathy friendly. He's

45:32

open minded about it. And I

45:34

asked him, does quantum entanglement, could that

45:36

explain how telepathy works? And he

45:38

said, no. And I said, do we

45:41

have any known physical explanation for

45:43

how telepathy could work? And he said,

45:45

no. And he's like, look, maybe

45:47

it happens. But if it's happening, it's

45:49

happening outside of physics as we

45:51

understand it. And I'm open to that.

45:53

That's what I'm open to. Like

45:55

there's stuff about the spirituality we don't

45:58

understand. Where

46:00

does this leave you, Rose?

46:02

All right. So especially considering that

46:04

there's no known mechanism that

46:07

this could work, looking at the

46:09

research, the Gansfeld, the telephone

46:11

telepathy stuff, you've got to believe

46:13

one of two things. One

46:15

is that the telepathy vibes are

46:17

there. They're just very weak

46:20

and very fickle. Or you can

46:22

believe that there are no

46:24

vibes. What do you

46:26

think, Wendy? Weak, fickle vibes or no

46:28

vibes? I

46:32

mean, I think that

46:34

the vibes when people

46:37

say they're experiencing something

46:39

like telepathy are like

46:41

intuition and other human

46:43

vibes that are not

46:45

paranormal is what. Whether

46:47

it is a parent

46:50

who loves their child,

46:52

their nonverbal child so

46:54

much, and there is

46:56

some communication there, and

46:58

there's something nice being

47:00

shared, it's just not

47:02

paranormal. And when... friends,

47:05

you know, one calls the other

47:08

and one says, oh, my

47:10

God, I knew you were going

47:12

to call. They probably haven't

47:14

spoken in a long time and

47:16

they love each other and

47:18

there's some intuition there, which is

47:20

beautiful. And we don't need

47:22

to reach for quantum physics or

47:24

telepathy. We could just reach

47:26

for our... humanity to explain this.

47:28

Yeah, which I think we

47:31

underestimate when we come up with

47:33

a paranormal explanation. The human

47:35

mind, the human body, common shared

47:37

humanity, you know, whatever that

47:39

is. Like, that is impressive enough

47:41

to produce a lot of

47:43

these incredible things that happen between

47:45

people. And

47:47

that's good enough for me, personally. Do you

47:49

want to try it, right? We've been

47:51

working together for a long time. Do

47:54

you want to try, send me, think of

47:56

an image. Think of an image. Okay, I'm looking.

47:58

How about this? I'll look at a painting

48:00

on my wall. Okay. I'm

48:02

looking at it really hard. Wendy, I

48:04

want to send this image to Wendy. Okay,

48:07

okay. So the first thing going through

48:09

my head is what image would Rose

48:11

have on her wall? But that's not.

48:14

That's cheating. then I'm immediately thinking. Okay,

48:16

okay. Jellyfish, bird. Okay,

48:18

but. All right, what images? All right,

48:21

I'm going to close my eyes. I

48:23

don't have ping pong balls, but I'll

48:25

close my eyes. Okay, what? Are

48:27

you thinking about it really hard? I don't

48:29

think you're thinking about it hard enough, Rose.

48:32

You're thinking about other things. I'm furring my

48:34

brow. Okay, is it an ocean view? No,

48:37

no, no, no, a cat, a cat. No,

48:39

but you know what's so funny? It's an ocean?

48:43

No, you mentioned a jellyfish, you mentioned a

48:45

cat. I do have pictures of both

48:47

those things. in my apartment. I just am

48:49

not having, that's not the one I'm

48:51

looking at. I'm looking at a painting of

48:53

flowers, poppies. Oh.

48:57

The cat picture's right here. So if I'd happen to

48:59

look this way, he would have gotten it right. And

49:01

we would have been like, holy sh**. All

49:04

right. How many citations in this

49:06

week's episode? This week we have 51

49:08

citations. 51. And if people want

49:10

to see them in all of their

49:12

glory, read more about. Telepathy, where

49:14

should they go? They can click on

49:16

the link to our transcript. That's

49:18

where all the citations are. And that

49:20

link is in the show notes.

49:22

Excellent. And if anyone wants to send

49:24

us any curtains and let us

49:26

try and guess what kind of erotic

49:28

images behind them. Did

49:30

you just ask people to send us

49:32

dirty pictures? Curtains. Rose,

49:34

I've asked them to send

49:37

us pictures of curtains.

49:39

Pictures of curtains. You can

49:41

find us on Instagram

49:43

at science underscore VS. You

49:46

can say hello to me on

49:48

TikTok. I'm at Wendy Zuckerman. Thanks, Rose.

49:50

Thanks, Wendy. This

49:59

episode was produced by Rose

50:01

Rimler with help from me, Wendy

50:03

Zuckerman, along with Aketi Foster -Keys,

50:05

Meryl Horne and Michelle Dang. We're

50:07

edited by Blythe Terrell. Mix and

50:09

sound by Lord. Fact -checking by Erica

50:11

Akiko Howard. Music written by Peter

50:14

Leonard, Emma Munger, So Wiley, Bumi

50:16

Hidaka Bobby Lord. Thanks to all

50:18

of the researchers that we spoke

50:20

to for this episode, including Dr.

50:22

Zoltan Kekech, Professor Stefan Schmidt and

50:24

Janice Special thanks

50:27

to Enrique Perez, Lura,

50:30

Lindsay Cherner, Lily Kim, Lauren Silverman. Science

50:32

Versus is a Spotify Studios original.

50:34

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50:54

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