Transcript
Back In The Lab - Project Alpha Part V
In a rare, candid, conversation Brian Brushwood sits down with Mike Edwards and Banachek to get even more stories from the Mac Lab and answer lingering questions.
This transcript was automatically generated and may contain errors. Edited transcripts replace generated versions when they are available.
00:00This is World's Greatest Con. I'm Brian Brushwood.
00:08If I teach him two, three of those methods, they're going to think they know exactly how something's done and a little bit of information is a bad thing.
00:15It can be dangerous.
00:16It's it's the con, you know, it's the sting.
00:20You think that you are following one story only to realize you're not following that and people are a couple steps ahead of you.
00:28Home every day, you know, you've got a secure income.
00:31I do a gig.
00:32It's like, where's my next gig coming from?
00:35There was a little bit and I've never admitted this before.
00:38There was a little bit of jealousy on my part.
00:41When we were in Project Alpha, we were a team.
00:44Well, that one that one hurt a little bit.
00:47There was a little sting.
00:49Not that I'm bitter or anything.
00:52How satisfied are you guys with the legacy of Project Alpha?
00:55Does it feel like it accomplished as much as you had hoped?
00:59So I got something.
01:01But I'm almost afraid to say it because I could possibly be sued.
01:05Have you guys ever considered performing together again or do?
01:08Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. I will not.
01:12I will not ever perform with this monkey again.
01:16Uri Geller, the king, came on stage and he literally looked down at us and he said, These kids can do things that I can't.
01:30The world's greatest con.
03:13We are live right now at Show Creator Studios in Las Vegas, Nevada with Banaszczuk and Mike Edwards.
03:23Banaszczuk, do you remember the first time we talked about even covering this story on World's Greatest Con?
03:31World's Greatest Con, yes.
03:33I know we have talked about it in the past before we talked about World's Greatest Con. Right.
03:37But I do remember you calling me and see if I would even have an interest.
03:41And I remember telling you, I definitely have an interest, but the person you're going to have to convince is the man across the table from me, Mike.
03:48And so you and I have known each other for decades, but Mike was an unknown factor.
03:54How did you react when Banaszczuk first forwarded our contact information and the pitch?
04:00Frankly, I was highly skeptical. Yeah?
04:03We've gone through this multiple times with multiple people in terms of TV shows, movies, other things along that.
04:11And I kind of thought, all right, here we go again.
04:15Then I started doing a little research and really like what you guys do.
04:19And I have to say that I'm very, very impressed with what you guys have done so far in the first initial episodes.
04:28Was there a hesitation to revisit all that, knowing how many times you guys have tried to get the Project Alpha story out there in some kind of narrative format, that here we go again?
04:38No, no, no, no, no.
04:41I absolutely love talking about myself.
04:43And I know I, you know, very often I will stop and tell people, you know, enough about me.
04:49Let's talk about you.
04:51What do you think of me?
04:52But it's good to tell it again.
04:55I think what you guys have done is has taken a fresh look at it, but you've also gotten behind the scenes.
05:01You've gotten behind the initial story that was out there that everybody saw in the press or have seen, you know, even in an honest liar, et cetera, et cetera.
05:13You guys really got, I think, to the heart of the matter.
05:17There was a moment in the interview we did with you where we asked, like, what celebrity Banaszczuk reminded you of the first time you saw him?
05:25And you said Horschak.
05:26We didn't get the chance to ask Banaszczuk what celebrity, what image came to mind when you first met Mike? Be careful.
05:35I didn't really have one.
05:37It's just keep in mind at that time I was very insecure.
05:41So anybody looked better than me, you know, anybody seemed better than me.
05:45And here comes this law student, you know, dressed nice and everything.
05:48And it was just I knew he came from a different world than I did, but I never have ever judged people based upon their looks, what they wear, how they are.
05:57I don't I get to know the person and the human being.
06:00And right away, Mike and I hit it off right away.
06:03And there's a question you asked Mike a second ago I'd like to address from my point of view as well.
06:07About the amount of times we have told this story.
06:11What I find really interesting, because when Mike and I get together, it's not for a long period of time, it's snippets.
06:17It's almost like with Project Alpha, right?
06:19We flew in, we're there for a weekend and we're gone.
06:22And when you and I meet, it's a day or two, you come to Houston, you're there for a business deal and you're gone.
06:29So I find it really interesting that even to this day and even on this project, there are things I still find out from Mike's point of view that I didn't know.
06:40Because what I was doing was getting information from Randy through the years about Mike, especially in the early days of Project Alpha.
06:47Like for the longest time, I thought that the only thing Mike knew how to do when it came to psychic phenomena type stuff was bend a key.
06:56Because that's all that Randy had told me.
06:58I didn't know that Mike had this whole background and he was able to go in and fool students.
07:03Because I had done the same thing.
07:05I'd go in and I'd use the name Sean Everts, which is an anagram of my name.
07:09And I'd come in as if I was a genuine psychic.
07:12I would then say, how many people here believe that what I did was real?
07:16And this was for students.
07:18And they would raise their hands and they'd say, we believe it's real.
07:22Most of the kids would.
07:23And then I would say, well, how many of you think it's not?
07:26And I would ask those kids, why do you think it's not real?
07:28And they'd say, because my dad told me, because this person told me, because I read it in a book.
07:32And I'd say, you're right.
07:33And they'd give me a big smile on their face.
07:34But I'd say, for the wrong reasons.
07:35And I would go into why those were the wrong reasons.
07:40Because it was all secondhand information.
07:41Just like for the same reason that I believed back in the day. Secondhand information.
07:45So we had both done the same kind of things.
07:48I'd been in my classroom.
07:49I have an article from the Hiller where I was performing for them in high school during that time.
07:55So it was really, it's always been interesting to see those similarities that Mike and I both have.
08:01And I keep finding out more and more and more.
08:04And the brain is a very strange thing.
08:07This happened so long ago for us.
08:09So sometimes you tell a story, and it changes slightly, and it changes slightly.
08:14And that new thing that you actually tell becomes your reality.
08:18So Mike tends to keep me in check on those things.
08:22Now, there was one that you said the other day. What was it?
08:26It was, oh, with the rice. Right. Yeah.
08:28So when we talked about the bell jar, right?
08:31And putting the piece in.
08:33The idea of actually putting it in crooked was mine, because I was doing it.
08:36And then I told Mike about it.
08:37And then when they put the foil over it, in my head, it was like I came to actually putting foil in it.
08:45I knew I wanted to put something in it, and it was foil, because that's what we used.
08:49So all I remembered was the final result, right?
08:51Turns out, I suggested to Mike that I put rice in there.
08:55Which I have no clue why I would have said rice.
08:57But it was probably the only thing available at that time.
09:00We were actually at Peter Phillips's home, staying there.
09:02And there was a box of things that they were using.
09:06And inside of that was the bell jar, of which the base had been wrapped in aluminum foil.
09:15And Banachek says, we need to put something in there so that we don't have to keep looking like we're screwing around with the bell jar to get it to seat right.
09:27A little grain of rice or something underneath this, just so that you get the crack, but under the foil.
09:33And immediately, I always think, how can you get caught?
09:36And so to me, I said, all we need to do is just take a little piece of the foil off the bottom and put that in there.
09:44At least if they notice it, it looks like it's just something that fell off of the base that they created.
09:50You don't have a foreign object inside of there.
09:53So when we do these interviews, these little things come to light.
09:56Because there's so much with Project Alpha.
09:58And it's great to find those little moments for me, because it makes the story new and fresh in many ways.
10:04So one moment that I think both of you kind of glossed over.
10:09We get to the moment that you guys are driving the rental car, and Banachek is tearing stuff up, bending everything.
10:17Mike is trying to draw boundaries and be responsible.
10:20But we didn't really hear much about the moment before that, because both of you knew that Randy had arranged for somebody else to be there.
10:28And there had to be some moment that you met each other for the first time, I assume, in the airport before you walked out.
10:35Was there like significant glances or kind of a nod?
10:38Or how did that look?
10:40I thought he was a very pretty man.
10:43You're saying Horseshack is pretty? Seriously?
10:46Okay, let me go back and clarify the Horseshack thing.
10:50And I told you when we were recording this, I was going to regret that.
10:57You were going to make me pay for the next several years.
11:01And by the way, just to set the record straight, Project Alpha started 42 years ago. Holy moly.
11:06That's how long we've known each other. We're old.
11:09Yeah, or you are. You're older.
11:12You're older than I am. Remember that.
11:15So with the Horseshack thing, it was because of the coats that he would wear.
11:20He was always wearing something different that looked more like uniforms or costumes than really clothing.
11:26And I think at the time, it might have been an oversized army jacket or something along those lines.
11:33I was hiding my skinny body because I was embarrassed by my skinny body.
11:37But yeah, when you say costumes, I remember I worked for a security company and I came in that one.
11:42I didn't have clothes.
11:43So I came in my security outfit with everything. There I am. That's amazing.
11:47So that was the whole reason with that. And the hair.
11:52Dark hair and a lot of it.
11:55So that was it.
11:56It was just purely visual.
11:57Do either of you remember the first thing you said when you were in the car together alone?
12:01Do you guys remember any kind of ground rules or did you bring up Randy immediately?
12:06I think there was a couple of little things that we discussed.
12:11And really, let's go back to the airport because when we met there, Mike has a sarcastic sense of humor.
12:17I have a sarcastic sense of humor.
12:19And I think when two people with a sarcastic sense of humor say something to the other person and the other person laughs and comes back and that person says something, it's like, okay, we can be pals.
12:29If you have a sarcastic sense of humor and you say something to somebody and they get a little offended, you go, oh, well, you back off, right?
12:36So that bonded us almost immediately.
12:38And I think our first conversations were probably more along the lines, hey, do you think they have one-way mirrors?
12:43Do you think they have cameras they're going to leave on?
12:45Do you think we're being bugged right now?
12:47Yeah, do you think?
12:48Yeah, that was part of it.
12:50And my thought was there could be something in the car, a recording device, a tape recorder, something along those lines.
12:57But I went back and I thought, no, wait a minute.
13:02There was such a fiasco trying to get the rental car set up and who is going to drive that and who is going to drive Phillips's car that I thought, no, he couldn't have staged that.
13:11We also knew Phillips was a believer right from the moment.
13:16Like, well, I don't know.
13:18Let's also remember, I'd already met him.
13:20I'd already had dinner with him and a bunch of his friends.
13:24The assistant to the mayor of St. Louis was there.
13:27And so that was kind of my dry run with them was bending keys, specifically after dinner at the table, which really kind of cemented Phillips's belief that, you know, I truly had psychic powers.
13:43That was one of the moments that Phillips kept coming back to was when Michael originally bent a key for him.
13:49And I think in his mind, and I can't speak for what's in his mind, but I think in his mind, he knew at that moment he had found a genuine psychic.
13:58Everything he believed, he had found it himself in Michael.
14:02So it was already decided.
14:03Everything else just was dotting the i's, crossing the t's.
14:06It's just getting it on film.
14:08It's proving it to the rest of the world.
14:10That was his job in his head.
14:12I think I'm going to prove this to everybody else.
14:15I'm going to show them my experience.
14:17Now, in episode four, there is a part where you speak about Phillips saying, we already realized two years ago that, you know, that we couldn't prove that they were psychic or that they weren't.
14:32And we kind of realized we weren't going to work with them anymore.
14:35And we kind of knew they weren't genuine.
14:37I have a letter that he wrote to somebody else in it, and this was in November of 82.
14:46So before we'd actually revealed it, but after they'd stopped working with us in that letter, he says, I truly believe Mike Edwards bent a key in my.
14:58a hand without ever touching it.
15:00So if he says that we didn't believe him, and now several months later and right before the reveal, he's already admitted to another colleague that he truly believes that I bent a key in his hand.
15:14On top of that, when I got that phone call, for them to say, when I say, well, what do you think?
15:23And they go, it can't be true.
15:26It basically can't be a hoax. Right.
15:28You wouldn't say that if you thought that we were not real. Right.
15:33You would say, well, we suspected you were hoaxing us.
15:35You would start essentially putting your prediction in an envelope right then and there. Yeah.
15:40Well, you'd actually come out and say, yeah, we were kind of getting suspicious because the more the controls were tightened, the less you guys could do, et cetera, et cetera.
15:50So part of what makes this project possible is the fastidious amount of collection of notes and research that you've done.
15:59Mike Edwards kept receipts on everything.
16:02When was the moment you started doing that?
16:06And what was the initial reason when you were a young person and did it evolve over time?
16:14I think I was so enamored with the idea of working with Randy and starting a project along these lines that everything was a memento that I wanted to keep.
16:28I mean, I have the original airline ticket that when I flew down to St. Louis on the very first time, I have a handwritten note when Randy told me about you, Banachek, and where you were from.
16:44I have a copy of the note that I made.
16:48See, Michael had a home where he could keep all this. I didn't.
16:50And it actually said, because I didn't remember that you were in Pittsburgh, it actually says something along the lines of Steve Shaw in Boston, which... Yes.
17:01I was like, I don't know. East Coast.
17:04You know, I'm a kid growing up in Iowa.
17:06When you're in Iowa, it's all the same. Yeah.
17:08I mean, it's all the same thing.
17:09But it was a handwritten note from Randy. Me.
17:11I was making a note because remember, the week before you applied to the Mac Lab, I was at the Mac Lab and told them and mentioned your name that I'd seen you in an article or something.
17:25And they should probably reach out to you if they could find it.
17:28I think this was something that I didn't know until we did Honest Liar.
17:31You know, when I talk about finding out little bits and little gems of information, I had no idea that Mike had mentioned me to them.
17:39I was never told that.
17:40For the listening audience, Honest Liar was the documentary on James Randi that both of you are featured in, right? Yes.
17:48There's a whole segment on Project Alpha in that movie itself.
17:51Well, we like to think that it was a documentary about us, of which James Randi co-starred.
17:57Barry Sonnenfeld actually saw that movie.
17:59At the Telluride Film Festival. Yeah.
18:02As we were getting an award at the Key West Film Festival for the movie as well at the same time.
18:09And he bought our life rights for a small period of time because he wanted to make a movie about Project Alpha, but he wanted to use Aaron Sorkin.
18:16The problem was Aaron Sorkin, who's the creme de la creme of writers in Hollywood, he was busy on another movie and a couple of other movies.
18:24And then by the time he got done, Barry was busy on a couple of other projects and it never came to fruition.
18:29So when Mike says we've been approached numerous times about our story and it's never come to fruition, really, we really have been approached probably, I don't know, maybe 40 times or somewhere in there. Right. Yeah.
18:41And we've let people take our life rights in the past and they sat in it for a year or so and all they do, some of them, like one came back with a one pager that Mike and I could have done.
18:52In about an hour's work.
18:54In about an hour's work. Yeah. Yeah.
18:56Well, one thing that happened when we listened to the interview and it happened once with Banachek, Justin and I heard something in the story that you told that instantly rang as human and true.
19:08And, you know, we met Mike for the first time a day or two later and heard his version and everything was exactly in parallel.
19:16Had anybody focused on, and maybe we overstated it, we did our best to tell the story as we heard it from you guys, but it really did sound as soon as we heard it, like a story of essentially two brothers coming together.
19:30Had anybody focused on that before?
19:32What was the previous versions of the story that people wanted to make?
19:37I don't think anybody's ever really focused on the personal side of it.
19:41It's more been about the experiment itself, but not the behind the scenes, not the personal enough, not the brother, you know, the brothership that we have, if that's even a word. It is now.
19:53And not the way we actually really felt about the scientists over time.
19:59And you know, the conflict that we had going on, that's never been focused on, I think, like you have done.
20:06And you've really done justice to that in this podcast.
20:09Well, let's talk about some of the tricky spots that we didn't know, because as we're recording this, I think you guys have only heard the whole rough cuts of the first four episodes, maybe 48 hours ago or so.
20:21We were a little bit on pins and needles to send it over.
20:25Some of the bold takes were focusing and projecting on the human aspect of things.
20:29And we really hoped that we could kind of skirt responsibility of making any kind of call about the James Randi of it all in episode four.
20:39But ultimately, where we ended up is here are two true facts or three true facts.
20:46James Randi is a phenomenal promoter.
20:48Simple stories are better than complicated ones.
20:50And it sucks to get pushed into the margins.
20:53And beyond that, that's that's really all we can know on the outside.
20:57How did that land with you guys?
20:59I have, again, copious note taker and letter writer, and, you know, I guess spends a lot of time in the bathroom hoarder.
21:09I wrote I wrote a note to myself for my file in 1983, just after Project Alpha was revealed, that corrected a lot of the story that Randi was telling because he was telling it incorrectly, like you said, and because, you know, memories can drift over time. Absolutely right.
21:35One of the things that I've been accused of, even in business, is belaboring a point, because if you tell me something that's incorrect, but you tell it multiple times in your mind, you believe it. Yeah, right.
21:49And ultimately, that becomes the truth.
21:52Versus what actually happened.
21:53And all of this really started with me reaching out to Randi before we anybody knew about the Mac lab.
22:03And that's one of the things we can talk about is when Randi gave his timeline and he talks about March of 79 and he read about the Mac lab and he dispatched us.
22:15I'm using air quotes. Yeah. Do you remember?
22:18There was no press.
22:19The Mac lab didn't start, actually was not created until July or August of that year.
22:26So the timeline definitely couldn't have been correct. Absolutely right.
22:30It was it was because I was doing the lecture at the University of Northern Iowa and I'm looking around through the National Enquirer and the Star and all those things.
22:40And I came across the article and I changed what I was planning to do at the Mac lab and I and instead called Randi and said, hey, have you heard about this?
22:50No, I don't know what you're talking about.
22:53Well, let me tell you, I'm going to use this lecture to actually work to get into the Mac lab because one will validate the other.
23:02Can we go ahead?
23:04I just want to say one thing on that.
23:06There was also Randi was writing.
23:08Was it conjures a magician's in the laboratory?
23:10It's a book, right?
23:11That he was in the process of writing before he passed.
23:14And I think it's going to get finished at some point.
23:17A magician in the lab, just in the lab.
23:19And he did reach out to us and said, hey, and I think it was because we had corrected Randi on a few things through the years.
23:24You know, we started getting to the point where it's like, hey, let's it's time to correct some of these things.
23:28And he listened and he reached out to both of us.
23:31He says, hey, can you take a look at this and correct any he he literally did ask us to correct any mistakes.
23:38And Mike was the first one to come back with a lot of corrections.
23:42And then I came back with some corrections and corroborated some of the stuff that Mike had said as well.
23:47And I'm sure Randi, I'm not sure if he made those changes or not, because I've never seen the final.
23:53I did see a second draft of it where he incorporated a lot of them. Yeah. Yeah.
24:01Randi had no idea how he met me.
24:04I mean, if you were to ever ask Randi, well, how did you how did you come to know Mike? Right.
24:12And he would literally say, I'm not sure, because he forgets that I call him and I called him on the phone where you'd already visited with him and corresponded with him several years before.
24:23Both Mike and I have always said, and I said it when I was interviewed with you before and so far up to this point, it's not been mentioned in there, but it has in an indirect way.
24:33You said it yourself on there.
24:34But I want to I really would like to say both Mike and I have always said Project Alpha would have never probably been in the media's eye as it was if it hadn't been for Randi. Yeah, guaranteed. Because absolutely. Yeah.
24:49I mean, he made Psycop.
24:50He put Psycop on the map.
24:52You know, it was Randi that was out there doing these things.
24:56So I do want to make that very, very clear.
24:58We fully understand that. Yeah. Absolutely.
25:00Integral to the whole operation. Absolutely.
25:03It took all three of us to get it to be what it was. Can we talk?
25:08We had to speculate a little bit about what it was like after the big reveal when you guys are kind of set free.
25:13We sort of muse about what what creeping questions come into your mind, like, hey, what did we get out of all this?
25:22What was that moment like for both of you?
25:25One, it was relief for me to it was also what's next, what's going to happen?
25:32I think you allude in the podcast earlier that Randi was always saying, hey, I've got this TV show or I've got this book opportunity or I've got this movie that people want to make, et cetera, et cetera.
25:46There was even talk of us developing a show for George Slaughter Productions who did Magic or Miracle about a kind of a weekly, you know, expose the con sort of thing.
26:00Hell, I wanted to be the younger version of Geraldo Rivera at that time.
26:05Yeah, I think we were supposed to be cartoons in that.
26:09Is that the one we were supposed to be cartoons? No, no. There was one.
26:12We were supposed to be cartoons, kid cartoons. That's all.
26:15To me, that was cool. Yeah.
26:17So I don't think I've ever heard that.
26:19We're supposed to be kid cartoons.
26:21It is exactly the same premise is, you know, that would have been easier because, you know, they can make up whatever story they want to exposing cons.
26:29So was I shaggy and you were Scooby or so you guys were close when you were working together.
26:36But as we point out in the program, you guys aren't there all year.
26:40You're there for a few weekends per year over multiple years.
26:43One hundred and eighty hours total.
26:45The whole approximately over the years. That's amazing. Over the years. Yeah.
26:49And so once that hub, once that excuse to see each other happens, how long do you guys go without communication and what what is your relationship look like? During that time.
27:00Keep in mind, phone calls cost a lot of money back. Yeah, that's true. That's true.
27:06It's it's funny because there was a lull in how we talk to each other or how often we talk to each other.
27:15You had gotten married.
27:17I know at one point you were doing sales with some company.
27:22You were performing more.
27:24I don't want to do sales.
27:26Um, and this was this was like back in eighty four, I might have been doing some performing a for sale for companies and selling their product, trade shows, trade shows.
27:36Yeah, that that's what I was doing.
27:38And so there was there was a little bit of.
27:43There was a little bit and I've never admitted this before, there was a little bit of jealousy on my part, especially around things that you got invited to from Randy William Shatner thing, you know, when you did buried alive and that I didn't get invited into and included into.
28:06And it was it was a little bit from my perspective of Randy, you SOB, we put you on the map and.
28:16I just it was kind of crickets, but I was also early on in my professional career working and, you know, was married shortly after that, a couple of years later, had a kid and second one followed.
28:33So I didn't really get overly upset about it.
28:37Yeah, it's interesting you say that because I sort of had it was weird.
28:42I had same kind of not exactly the same thoughts in that.
28:46But like when we did the search for Houdini, especially where I did the first bird alive, chain handcuff, locked in a glass coffin, knife in the ground, cover it with dirt.
28:55They had Dean Gunnison on there. Right.
28:57And Dean Gunnison was doing all these things.
28:59And he did the milk.
29:01He did the milk.
29:02And when he heard himself, he heard himself. Exactly. Right. Exactly.
29:05So and I'm going, why didn't Randy have me do the milk can escape?
29:09Because I was doing escapes, too.
29:11Back then, you and it's funny because you started with escapes.
29:14I was doing escapes and I was like, wait.
29:17And the only reason they had me there was because they wanted to do a bird alive and they knew that I had been doing one already at different clubs.
29:25But I think had I have not been doing a bird alive and that's was something Houdini attempted, I would never have been on that show either.
29:32I would have been there.
29:33Well, that one that one hurt a little bit.
29:35Yeah, there was a little sting. Yeah. Yeah.
29:37Not that I'm bitter or anything.
29:39I don't think we included it, but there was one moment that was just kind of a brief aside in your interview, Mike, where you were talking about seeing Banachek show and you used a version of the phrase for the first time.
29:53You didn't even feel a twinge of jealousy.
29:55You were just happy for for Banachek, which which implies.
29:58that that that maybe that there was some low grade jealousy or maybe I'm reading too much into it.
30:04I think you're reading too much into it because we it's interesting because when we were down in Key West, one of the longest times that he and I spent with each other since Project Alpha was at the Key West Film Festival.
30:19And he and I are walking around the marina and we're probably grabbing beers or something there.
30:26Barring off golf carts?
30:28That did happen, yes.
30:29Middle of the night, yeah.
30:32People thought I was dead.
30:34But then I got up, took a bow, and yeah.
30:39No, I rubbed dirt on it and I was better.
30:42We were talking and it's funny because at the time I said, you know, I watch some of the things, follow his social media, and I miss rubbing elbows with people that we've known or that were that were famous, etc, etc.
31:00And Banachek, at the same time, this kind of made me realize the grass is always greener.
31:06He said, you know, at the Key West Film Festival you have a ton of people from your from your company here and I've been sitting with you at these parties and people are constantly coming up and asking you about business ideas and this and that.
31:19And he said, I'm kind of envious of that.
31:21And so it was a little, it was truly that grass is always greener on the other side.
31:29So from my perspective, I'm also not in competition with Banachek.
31:33So to me, to watch him and the show at the Strat and how he's he's become far more polished and confident than the 19 year old kid wearing the oversized coats that I first knew and, you know, playing harmonica in his room and deciding that I'm gonna eat a sardine sandwich.
31:58Which, which to a kid from Iowa was like, what in the hell are you putting in your mouth?
32:13Well, so at the Magic or Miracle press conference, you guys both performed was that the last time you both performed together? Wow.
32:23I'm sure we had interviews after, well we had a lot of interviews.
32:33We had a lot of interviews.
32:34We were doing things.
32:35No, we were actually on the Today Show together. Okay.
32:38Were you in Buffalo with me?
32:40I was, yes, I was up in Buffalo.
32:42That's when I met John Aston.
32:43We did stuff on stage. That's right.
32:45John Aston who never gave us our letters back.
32:48Yes, yes, that's exactly right.
32:49Have you guys ever considered performing together again or do?
32:52Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. I will not.
32:56I will not ever perform with this monkey again, especially after June. What was June? Really?
33:04I bring I bring a bunch of my work people to your show. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
33:14One of the readings that you're giving on a guy, you're nailing everything.
33:20And then he stops and he points me out in the audience and he says, you, sir, can you tell him what his horoscope sign is? Oh, no.
33:33And I told him and it was wrong.
33:38But let's just say without any without giving anything away, it was supposed to be without giving without giving anything away.
33:48He thinks I set him up. I did not.
33:53I was as embarrassed as him because to me, it's an incredible moment.
33:58You can put somebody else.
33:59You tell them what the zodiac sign is.
34:01I believe you know it.
34:02And they say and I look at the guy and I go, I go, me.
34:05OK, well, oh, I know.
34:08Sagittarius, the guy goes, nope.
34:11And he's still to this day thinks I said it.
34:14And I don't I don't remember at the time, but I think I said something about I'm not the mind reader.
34:21And later he calls me out.
34:23You know, that guy I picked on earlier, that's Mike Edwards from Project Alpha. And yeah, thanks.
34:28Yeah, I completely forgot about.
34:30Yes, I'm sure you did.
34:32That's actually happened a couple of times out of probably a thousand shows. Yes. OK. Yeah.
34:38So no, I will not work with him.
34:40So well, it's kind of like that's not what Mike does.
34:46Mike is an extreme professional in what he does now.
34:49There's no way I could do what Mike does.
34:52And we talked about the grass being green.
34:54And for me, it's like, wow, man, would have been kind of nice to have a job where you're home almost every day, although he does travel a lot, but home every day.
35:02You know, you've got a secure income.
35:04I do a gig.
35:05It's like, where's my next gig coming from?
35:07You know, I may be one paycheck for being under a bridge.
35:10And then a month later, I got a ton of money.
35:12Yeah, it's but I'm paying off all those other bills.
35:14I could you know how it is as a performer. Sure. Yeah, exactly.
35:17You measure your wealth in terms of months that you have gigs booked. Exactly right.
35:21Whereas Mike had security.
35:22You know, he had health benefits.
35:25He has all these things that come with a secure job, paid vacation, paid vacation. Exactly right.
35:30You know, the last time I've had a real vacation, I've never had a real vacation that I can think of that I haven't actually had to work while I was there.
35:40And so for me, your life, it is that grass green thing for a long, long time, you know, and even a little bit even today, I'm a little jealous of your life, and the things that you've accomplished in your life and how successful you are.
35:53I have to keep proving my success is what I and maybe that's a problem with me, but I feel like I have to keep proving my success with every venture I go on.
36:04I think one of the things and why we get along so well is we don't compete.
36:09Yeah, we never did.
36:10You know, we're not we're both not trying to get the headlines.
36:13We're not trying to who got this show, who got that show, etc.
36:18So I can sit back and absolutely cheer him on.
36:21And he also knows that I'm not above saying, hey, this is wrong on your website or this doesn't work or this.
36:30And it's not done to be nitpicky.
36:33It's actually done because he's got a million things going on at any given time.
36:38It's just that little boost.
36:39Just tweak this, fine tune that.
36:41And I'm his biggest fan.
36:43When we were in Project Alpha, we were a team.
36:47And it's nothing for me to bend something on the side and let it sit and point to it or give a little nod for Mike that he goes, OK, there's a bend in that and he bends.
36:59It doesn't matter who get credit or might do the exact same thing for me, set something up for me and say, hey, you know, I've been there too long, but that's you know, that's bent over.
37:07There was always this trying to help each other succeed.
37:11It was about it was about the project.
37:14It wasn't about he it wasn't about I.
37:17It was about the entire project.
37:19And that project was myself, was him and was Randy.
37:22It's why we made those phone calls to Randy.
37:24It's why when Randy said, you know, saw the videotape and this isn't mentioned in the documentary, when the Mac lab made their original tape, they sent it to Randy because they wanted him to nitpick.
37:34It's the only time they really, truly communicated with Randy and wanted some feel like they thought he won't see that.
37:40Randy had to call.
37:41I don't know if it was a call or an email or whatever.
37:45They had to communicate.
37:46It was an email during those days.
37:48He had to communicate with both you and I in some form and say it could have even just been regular mail.
37:52Listen, OK, how did this how did you do this?
37:55How did you do this?
37:56How do you do this?
37:57How do you do this?
37:58And we wrote back and told him exactly how we did every single one of those things on that video.
38:02So it wasn't a matter of he actually looked at the video ahead of time and knew how we were doing those things.
38:08And that's not to take anything away from Randy, but keep in mind we would bend something and then maybe two, three hours later, do the reveal of the band.
38:16So it's impossible to see when you put the band in or how you move something.
38:21I'll give you a perfect example that night.
38:23But before I get on to that, I want to go back and say with us and Project Alpha, it was mission over man. Yes.
38:30And that always came first.
38:32Let's make sure that we get this accomplished and then we'll worry about kind of who gets credit. Yeah.
38:38Everything in service of the project. Absolutely right.
38:40But we would set things up. Perfect example.
38:42We were over at Peter Phillips's house one night.
38:45He had several people over in the early days and he had a before the actual Mac lab was.
38:51No, no, no, no.
38:52The location was right. Right.
38:54They had a Polaroid camera.
38:56And one of the things that we would do is we would walk by this thing and grab it when nobody was looking and buy some lights, take a picture as we're moving the camera.
39:09So you got this swirl effect and set it down.
39:12And this was one of the Polaroids where it didn't automatically eject it.
39:16You could you could pre expose it. Exactly right.
39:19You could get a double exposure on it.
39:22And this was this wasn't the type, like you said, that ejected.
39:25You had to pull it out, pull the film, separate it from the cover.
39:29And so we would set that up even for each other.
39:33I'd go in at one point and I took a picture looking up at my face and set it down.
39:40Banachek held the camera several minutes later, took a picture of a woman and you could see my face kind of ghosted onto the shirt that she had.
39:50It's almost like you're an old married couple doing the chores.
39:54It's like I took out the garbage.
39:56I set up the camera.
39:58I get to be the guy.
40:00We can both be guys now. Oh, that's true.
40:05OK, there we go. We're enlightened.
40:07Well, so tell me this.
40:09At this point, obviously, for this program, we condensed it to kind of four themes.
40:15We played a little bit fast and loose with what happened in what order so that everything could could fit in for discrete episodes.
40:21But I would love to know anything that isn't in the program now that you guys want to clarify or wish that you wish there was time to put in there or that maybe we had the wrong takeaway from.
40:35Inside of this with Berthold Schwartz, you mentioned.
40:38He was taking pictures and.
40:41Banachek spat on the lens, let's go back, he was not taking pictures, he had a movie camera, it was like a super eight video camera or film that he handed to Banachek, which had his vacation footage on it up until that point.
41:04So then Banachek takes it over and moves around and that's when Banachek spat on the lens from the side and you can see it dripping down over the lens.
41:18And that's where Berthold Schwartz says in his book or in his pamphlet that he wrote, he could see the the thigh and breast and nipple of a woman, the crowning of a baby's head and all these things.
41:37And it was nothing more than spit running down the lens and being filmed.
41:42It was just a Rorschach test. Exactly right.
41:45Keep in mind, he's a Freudian psychologist. Oh, yeah.
41:47And to give the Mac Lab credit, when Peter Phillips saw this, he said, it looks like a blob of water on the camera.
41:55But Berthold said, yes, but it's what's in that blob that's important. Yes. Yes.
41:59It probably was part of his lunch, maybe in that blob. You know what?
42:07Was there a process when you were, for lack of a better term, eating, eating all the poop after Project Alpha?
42:15A lot of people were upset.
42:17What do you do psychologically to get through that?
42:20And at some at what point does it sting? For how long?
42:24I think it hurt when Marcello Truzzi said, he came out and he said, hey, it's unethical.
42:35He brought up the hardest part at one point was when he brought up, is it ethical to fool scientists in the name of science?
42:43And his take on it was, it's really unethical to do that.
42:47And my take on that, and we both had answers, I think, I don't remember what yours was, but by my take on that, is it ethical for scientists to take money in the name of science and not conduct proper science?
42:58And not only that, Trevor Finch, I think it was Trevor Finch, one of the parapsychologists before Project Alpha had said, hey, if you think you can introduce a magician in the laboratory, go ahead and do it.
43:09You won't be able to.
43:10So we were really right in line with what parapsychologists were already saying themselves.
43:15I can't tell you right up front, I'm going to fool you and then show you things and say, this is how I would fool you, because your rational mind will say, I wouldn't fall for that.
43:29When Project Alpha was over and I was doing a series of lectures at University of Northern Colorado for a friend of mine who was going through her doctoral program and I would be brought up on stage.
43:46And the first time I did it kind of as a psychic debunker, I walked through these things and I showed them effects and they were like, that wouldn't have fooled us.
43:57And I realized that during my lectures, I had to recreate Alpha.
44:00I needed to be introduced as a psychic.
44:03I need to ask them at the beginning who believes in psychic phenomena.
44:07You might get 25 percent that raise their hand, go through the whole thing, do a QA, then ask them.
44:13And 90 percent are now raising their hands, then pull the rug out from underneath them.
44:18I am Mike Edwards, but I am not a psychic.
44:21I'm a professional magician.
44:22Now, do you have any questions?
44:24And of course, hands shoot up all over and I would show some of the simpler effects.
44:30And that's really why we had to do it the way we did, because Geller didn't walk in and say, watch this trick, I'm going to fool you.
44:40He walked in as a true psychic.
44:42And the only way for us to get that same validation is to fool them, except knowing from our standpoint that we were doing it for the right reasons, that we were not doing it to really belittle them, but actually to prove a point.
44:59point that it was possible to be fooled even with a Ph. D.
45:04I think what she also said, you know, it's better off to teach them.
45:08And I'm like, no, I have like 10 ways of bending a key, depending on the keys that I'm using in the situation, if I teach him to three of those methods, they're going to think they know exactly how something's done.
45:18And a little bit of information is a bad thing.
45:21It can be dangerous because somebody else comes does it a completely different way.
45:24They're going to say, well, I know the trick method that has to be real.
45:27And going along with what Mike just said, I had a show called Telepathy.
45:32And the whole premise of the show is what is telepathy through the years?
45:36What has it been?
45:38You know, from spirits talking and giving you information into your head to electro waves, you know, to what Einstein believed it was.
45:45Freud believed it was related to dreams.
45:47And and Marie Curie believed in telepathy.
45:49And that whole first section of my show, the first half before we took intermission, I came on as if I was a genuine psychic.
45:56And why did I do that?
45:58Because I wanted the audience to have the same emotional feel that they would have if they went to a genuine psychic, because if they don't have that, they go, yeah, and they're going off their emotional experience.
46:10So I give them the same emotional experience.
46:13Second half of the show, I come out and I say, this is, you know, OBS, you know, mediums of scum.
46:19Why can I say that?
46:21And now I can talk about my past.
46:23I can talk about Project Alpha.
46:24I can go in these ways.
46:25And we are the way of getting information back from people.
46:28And we, for instance, one letter that I got from a lady and it was fairly typical.
46:34But she said, my mom and I cannot talk about psychic phenomena.
46:37She believes I'm not a believer.
46:39And we get in these big fights every single time we talk about us.
46:44We just stay away from it.
46:45But we decided to come see your show together.
46:47During intermission, my mom was saying, see, I told you it was real.
46:52And I started to doubt myself.
46:53I started to go, wait, maybe mom's right.
46:55And then you came out in the second half and you told us that it was all BS.
47:00And my mom and I, we rode home and it was the first time we had a civil conversation about this.
47:06We could actually talk about this from a critical thinking point of view.
47:11And to me, that was wonderful. That's great. That's wonderful.
47:15And it illustrates the point that we have to create a holy shit moment for people to to let it sink in. Right.
47:26You know, it's it's the con, you know, it's the sting.
47:31You think that you are following one story only to realize you're not following that and people are a couple of steps ahead of you is very important and very, very powerful to experience it, not just to hear about it. Right.
47:46And by the way, we could not have taught the tricks that we were doing because, damn it, we were making the shit up as it was happening. Right.
47:56So there was no way that, OK, here's a bell jar.
48:00I don't know, you know, or or the the wires or the fuse box or all of those things, it literally was us being opportunistic at the time and being able to exploit it.
48:13So it would have been hard to teach somebody.
48:17I have a thing in one of my books, psychological subtleties, and it's called the universal drawing.
48:21You might know it. Yes.
48:22It's a circle with this weird sort of a triangle, not even really a triangle.
48:27Yeah, it's one end missing of the triangle, but it comes to the point.
48:31So it's and it's on there.
48:32And that came about because of Project Alpha.
48:35They said, all right, we're going to choose a word in the dictionary.
48:38And, you know, you draw what you think it might be.
48:41So I drew a circle and I drew that because I was like, you know, we're going to be in my mind in that moment, in that moment, this could be many things.
48:47It could be a wheel.
48:49It could be part of a flower.
48:51You know, I went back to the things, ice cream, the type of things Gala drew back then in my head.
48:57It could be a bunch of ice cream.
48:58It could be a woman's breast, a nipple, a crowning of a baby's head.
49:02No, really, the way it's drawn, it could be those things.
49:06So it turned out to be a thumbtack and it looks exactly like a thumbtack. That's great.
49:11But how do you explain that? Really? Right.
49:14You say, well, I drew something I thought could be lots of things.
49:17They go, no, but it looks exactly like a thumbtack. Right.
49:19Here's here's the other thing that's very, very important.
49:22Randy always said that a magician should be there at those tests.
49:27And I disagree with that.
49:29It has to be a special, well-trained magician that that can see this because that can see through the methods that we were using, because the stuff we were doing and making up on the spot was not along the normal laws of magic that we would perform.
49:50We never walked in and said, OK, today I'm going to do X, Y and Z because we had no idea what they were going to present to us.
50:00I think the only thing that we ever prepped is we had magnets and we had invisible thread, invisible thread, and that those were the only things that we had on us. I do.
50:10I do have to tell you, this is a great story.
50:13Speaking of magnets, this is back again in the 80s, you know, Mr. Cutting Edge over there with his knit tie and the whole lanyards.
50:21We're down at the museum at the arch in St. Louis.
50:25He and I had good memories with that arch.
50:28We're not talking about that.
50:31I'd be arrested now. Cameras everywhere. Yeah.
50:36And and we're down there and they have these big compasses that were what the riverboats used.
50:43And Banecik looks over and he goes, watch this.
50:47And he's swinging his tie over, which had a magnet in the bottom of it.
50:54And he's getting these huge compasses from the old steamboat or the riverboat.
50:59I forgot about that. Yes.
51:00The riverboats to move across this and people like, oh, oh, look at that.
51:05He just smugly walks off. And that's amazing.
51:08Yeah, we would do stuff like that.
51:10Move, move soda glasses while we're out eating at McDonald's or something.
51:15Move them across the table using the invisible thread.
51:19So when one serendipitous thing happened after we finished principal recording on the podcast, I read for the first time John Ronson's book, The Men Who Stare at Goats.
51:31And I was taken by the fact that the beginning of the story starts in the summer of 1983.
51:37That's when the government begins several top secret psychic possession, mind control projects or whatever.
51:43And I was struck by the fact that the government began this journey three months, four months after you guys dunked on it.
51:53And it makes me wonder how satisfied are you guys with the legacy of Project Alpha?
52:00Does it feel like it accomplished as much as you had hoped?
52:04I'm not sure what we expected from it.
52:06I'm not sure that we expected all parapsychological studies to just disappear.
52:11We never expected that.
52:14It was more about really, I think for us, at least for me, it was more my anger at what Gary Geller had got away with and that what people were actually falling for that.
52:27And if you want to study parapsychology, great, but do it properly.
52:31It was more about the shoddy work that was being done out there and put out to promote parapsychological beliefs and gullibility.
52:38So for me, it was more about that.
52:41I can't speak for Mike on that, but for me, that's really what it was about.
52:46And I think on some level we ended up in almost every psychology textbook in every university in the nation.
52:53There was a section on Project Alpha, but again, sometimes it was just that James Randy and two kids, you know, sometimes our names were mentioned, but quite often not.
53:04But the story about Project Alpha was there.
53:06And I think that was a lesson for people to go, oh, there could be somebody here.
53:12I need to use proper protocol.
53:14I need to really be careful because I don't want to end up in the same situation as Washington University, as the back lab.
53:23The biggest frustration to me.
53:25Is you can do this, you can do an event like Project Alpha and you can show people how they've been fooled, but that doesn't create a healthy skepticism in a lot of people. The belief in.
53:42The paranormal or things along those lines has this rubber duck unsink ability that goes on.
53:51You know, we think we did we did great work, but you've got, you know, quacks like John Edward out there talking to the dead or homeopathy beliefs and homeopathy or people that still read their horoscopes, things along those lines where the skepticism isn't there.
54:12But I think that's also human nature.
54:15We want to think there's something more.
54:19We don't want to think that this life is just it.
54:22There has to be something. Is it crystals? Is it UFOs?
54:26Is it whatever else is out there?
54:29Energy continue and become something else.
54:31That's what is that has meaning. Right.
54:33I want to know that there's something more than just I'm an ant in a very large colony.
54:39I'm going to grow up, get married, have a couple of kids and, you know, pass away in my 70s and haven't really left a mark on the world.
54:48There is that search, and it's frustrating from our standpoint to hear some of those things ago. Really?
54:53You truly believe that? Yeah.
54:55I never thought Project Alpha would end all of that.
54:58I was never I never had that illusion of this is going to fix everything.
55:03I never thought that.
55:04But I did think that it would make some changes in the academia world. And it did. And it has.
55:10And so it succeeded with my expectations on that.
55:14Did I always hope it would do more? Absolutely.
55:17But my expectations were met.
55:19I'll tell you that right now there is no real parapsychological laboratories that are open right now.
55:27There is still the Ryan Center in North Carolina.
55:32That's about the only one.
55:35And it's I think it's Ryan is the one that built the created the Zener deck. Right. Symbols. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. J. B.
55:43Ryan, a number of years ago.
55:46Well, I want to say back in the 30s or 40s. Yeah.
55:50That that long ago.
55:51Back when, you know, Banaszczak was probably 14. It made you.
55:55You know, don't ever don't ever get me to try to pick somebody's heart or astrological.
56:05I still have my hair. I do, too.
56:08It's in a jar back home.
56:14It's all on his back.
56:16Let's talk about that time between the Syracuse conference and the Madison conference when you guys are everybody knows who you are, what you're up to.
56:26Your psychic stars are on the rise.
56:28And I have I would have to imagine if it were me, some fleeting thoughts of maybe going to the dark side and getting a paycheck would occur to me.
56:39It's it's it's funny that you say that, because in the Madison group, Walter Upoff and his wife, Mary Jo, and several of those people from, you know, Fellowship Farm and the New Frontier Center.
56:54It didn't matter, that was kind of one of the parapsychologists that I worked with much more intensely than Banaszczak did.
57:03He was kind of focused on Berthold Schwartz at the time.
57:07I've always joked a little bit that I could have started my own church.
57:12Everything that I would tell people, there was like, oh, that's really insightful. Oh, my God.
57:18For a 19 or 20 year old, you have deep thoughts.
57:22And yes, that's great.
57:23And all of these things.
57:25And it could have been it could have been the same sort of almost cult like following from these guys over the years.
57:35Thank goodness that neither one of us were raised that way and we had very high ethical standards.
57:43Can can con men actually say we have high ethical standards?
57:47I mean, that that's our favorite kind of con.
57:50I guess I guess so.
57:52But that was there was there was a little fleeting moment, I think.
57:57Didn't last very long for me.
58:00For me, I came in trying to do the ethical thing.
58:04So there was never that moment.
58:07It was not about getting fame.
58:08I never thought about it that way.
58:10I thought about this as an academia type experiment. Right.
58:13I never thought, oh, I'm going to make millions off of this.
58:16I'm going to get famous.
58:18Never really thought about it that way.
58:20Not even once did I think about it that way.
58:24Yeah, it was there were some interesting things that happened at that conference.
58:28I was even trying to muscle walk in Kyoto, spoke perfect English until I had to share a room with him.
58:35And I said to him, hey, and I gave him an out.
58:38I said, do you ever cheat like when you can't get something to bend?
58:42All of a sudden he couldn't speak English, like couldn't communicate with me in English at all.
58:48At that same conference, Mike and I were bending things on stage, and then afterwards we had to sit down at the front while Yuri Geller, the king, came on stage and he literally looked down at us and he said, these kids can do things that I can't. He said that.
59:05And then did he say it to cover his tracks in some way or because you actually fooled him?
59:10We were doing some things that he didn't know how to do.
59:13There were some things that Geller's bends were very plain, simple, and we were doing some things at this point that Geller didn't know how we were doing them.
59:22And he actually had an interesting thing with Mike where he says, I believe you if you want to touch on that in a minute, Mike, but he said that.
59:30But this was being taped for Magic or Miracle, remember?
59:33And then when we came out during that special and during the interviews and said it was all fake, they told Geller and Geller said, I have never seen those kids before in my life.
59:43Now, they had footage of both. Wow.
59:45But what did they do? Magic or Miracle.
59:47They wanted to have a whole nother season, not season, but do another special.
59:52And so they wanted to keep it maybe here.
59:55But they could have blown Geller out of the water with that and said, look.
59:59Geller a couple of weeks ago with these kids saying they can do things that he cannot do.
60:02I have a picture of you and I and Geller backstage, the three of us, and you've got your hand wrapped around his neck.
60:11Of course, he's flipping them off in the picture, but I've got that I would have to see this picture. I've got that.
60:20In fact, it's in my office at the at the hotel that we're at.
60:26I happened to run into Geller.
60:29He had just come back from a run and we're in the hallway.
60:32And I said, Mr. Geller, I'm Mike Edwards.
60:34I'm going to be on stage with you tomorrow night or later tonight.
60:39I'm a metal bender as well.
60:42And he literally looks up and down the hallway to make sure that we're alone.
60:48He grabs my hand quickly and says, I believe you. I believe you.
60:52And takes off for his room.
60:54Did not want to get caught with me at all and didn't want to get into any sort of conversation.
61:01That's a weird phrase to just blurt out.
61:03Which I'm a metal bender.
61:05Oh, I'm the manager. I believe you. I believe you. That's exactly right.
61:08And that was it.
61:09So I got something, but I'm almost afraid to say it because I could possibly be sued.
61:16Say it and then we'll delete it if you change your mind.
61:20Well, I want to hear it now just because I need the money.
61:22Because we know Geller is sue happy. Yeah.
61:24Just start with the words. In my opinion. Yeah.
61:27Well, it's not in my opinion.
61:28He actually did it.
61:30So well, it's something. Let's hear it.
61:31It's something he did.
61:33But I'm the only person that can say he did it.
61:35So he can say that I'm lying, but I'm not.
61:38So I worked on a TV show called Phenomenon.
61:41And it was Yuri Geller and Chris Angel, who were the hosts, and they were looking for the next Yuri Geller.
61:48Geller calls me up out of the blue and says to me, hi, Banachek.
61:54We have a conversation.
61:56He knows my past, but he's acting like kind of doesn't, but he does.
62:00And we have a conversation and he says, you know, Banachek, I've only got about four things.
62:05I think it was four.
62:07I don't remember, maybe five things that I do that I've known for and I've been doing it forever.
62:11He said, but I understand that if anybody could come up with a new power for me, it would be you.
62:18So he was one you he was wanting you to consult for him to come up with this new power that he got a trick, not a trick.
62:27And I thought, how ballsy is this?
62:30Because he called me out of the blue, so no time to record it.
62:34And he can just deny this phone call.
62:37He can deny that the phone.
62:39But then if I was that kind of person to jump on the bandwagon, he would now have a new talent that he could actually do.
62:48And I thought, how ballsy that.
62:49But I said, I said, I could never do that.
62:52I said, also, you know, if you make any claims on the show, I'm going to be forced to call you out on those. Yeah.
63:01And he says, oh, I don't make any claims anymore.
63:04You know, I'm just looking for the next Uri Geller.
63:06And he talked and went on a little bit.
63:09And then he finally said to me, he said, but, you know, I did find oil.
63:12And I say, Uri.
63:13He said, yeah, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know.
63:16And I have seen him a few times since I went to his house.
63:20We've got one other quick Uri story, if you want to hear it. Yeah.
63:23So I went to his house on the Thames.
63:25Very cordial, very nice to me.
63:26And I was there with a guy by the name of Ian Rowland.
63:30So Ian and I are there at his house and we're outside.
63:34And Uri takes me to his garage where he's got this, I think it's a Cadillac.
63:39I don't remember what kind of car it is, but it's this big car.
63:42And it's got spoons bent by the pope and by it's got hundreds of spoons all over this car. Right.
63:47You can you can you can find it online.
63:48And he says to me, you must bend a fork for me to put on the car.
63:53And we're standing by a tree and around the tree.
63:56There's just like a stack of silverware outside.
63:59Around the tree, like in a ring, just just laying all around it, you know how most people put chips of wood around their tree, the decorative rocks, it's just decorative cutlery around it.
64:11Now, keep in mind, he's facing me, he's facing Ian.
64:14Ian is on my right.
64:16On my left, there is a small and it's a little off to the side.
64:19There's a stone table.
64:20Uri has to turn away from me to reach down to get a spoon behind him and gives it to me.
64:26I bend it and I can tell he's a little bit impressed, but he's seen a lot of metal bending.
64:31So but I can tell he's a little bit impressed.
64:33Then he says, Ian, you should bend one for me, too.
64:36And I in front of him put this and I have to lean way over to put it on the stone table next to me.
64:42He says, Ian, you should bend one for me, too, you know, sort of as a bit of an afterthought because Ian's been to his house a few times in the past.
64:49He turns around and I'm like a gazelle.
64:51I don't think I could ever do it the same way that I did it.
64:55Then I reach over to the stone table, put a much bigger bend in the spoon.
65:00Even Ian, who was next to me, didn't see me do it.
65:03It was just done so quickly and so smoothly.
65:05And it was done in that emotion of Gela turning around, picking it up and coming right back up.
65:09And as he goes to end it to Ian, he sees out of the corner of his eye this stone table that's far enough away from me that it would be difficult for me to get to, in his opinion. Right.
65:20And he sees that that spoon is bent more.
65:22And he goes, oh, my God, look, it's bent more.
65:24And I know in his head he wants to say.
65:27How did you do that, but he can't and he can't do that because he has to pretend that it's real. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry.
65:34You were not impressed because psychic powers are real right now.
65:38You are impressed because they're slightly more real.
65:40And that is the question many people have for me.
65:43They say, do you ever think Gela will come out and say he he was a fake or fraud?
65:47And I don't think he ever could, because there's been a lot of lawsuits.
65:51There's been a lot of back and forth and he's based his entire reputation on that.
65:55The closest he will ever come and he has come to it is saying, if I was a magician, I'm the greatest one ever.
66:01That sounds that sounds about as humble as I can imagine Yuri Geller being, but in twenty, twenty three, I think it's now a question of Uri, who? Yes.
66:12You know, it's not the 70s and 80s anymore, although we do still have that enduring image of a spoon bending.
66:21I mean, you do see that in the Matrix, right?
66:24I was going to use that same example in the UK.
66:27People know who he is because he predicts the outcomes of soccer games once in a while.
66:32You know, he stopped Big Ben back in the day and, you know, he still makes it when it's a slow news day.
66:38He'll make something that's in the mirror all the time, you know, or the Telegraph or something like that over there.
66:43You know, so he does once in a while get in there.
66:45He's moved to Israel now, is my understanding, and just kind of like sort of retiring.
66:49But he did have those next year.
66:51He gallows all over Europe for quite a while.
66:54And he's very well known on QVC as well. QVC.
66:58He sells, he sells watches, sells minerals, watches that he's put his energy into. Wow.
67:05I believe I believe that's what the watch is.
67:10It's something like that. Holy moly.
67:13It could be a little wrong on that, but it is something like that.
67:18Welcome to this week on Dancing with a Lawsuit.
67:20As we wrap it up, do you guys have any final thoughts or where would you like to see the legacy of Project Alpha go?
67:30I think it I think.
67:32It stands by itself, but what I really want to say is I want to thank you guys for taking the time and really getting beyond the story and getting into the human side of it.
67:49The the toll that it took on both of us, as well as the people that were victims of our fraud.
67:56That gets that gets passed over.
68:00And as I've said before, I know that from my standpoint.
68:04Knowing what I know now, the reveal that we had that we did with Discover magazine would have been handled radically different.
68:11And the question there probably would be for people, how would that be handled different?
68:17And I have my answer.
68:20What would your answer be on that, Mike?
68:22That's a great question.
68:23I would I would notify Schwartz, Upoff, Phillips, everybody at the Mac lab shortly before all of this was going to come out to say this is what happened.
68:36This is why we did it.
68:37You are going to hear in the next 48 hours the full story coming out.
68:42But I want you to be aware.
68:45That's exactly my answer on that as well.
68:48I don't think anybody could have foreseen the effects that this would have had from the beginning because it was just black and white to everybody.
68:58It was black and white to me.
68:59It was black and white to Mike.
69:00It was black and white to Randy.
69:01And I think there was a bit of a toll for everybody on that.
69:05Myself, Mike, especially the scientists, even more so the parapsychologists, more so than even us, and probably a little bit of toll on Randy on some level, I would think there was a lot of back and forth and things.
69:19But I don't think anybody could.
69:24Like I said, I don't think anybody could have seen the toll that it would take behind the scenes.
69:28And you guys have really brought that to light and you've done it in an absolutely brilliant way as well.
69:33Well, thank you very much for trusting us.
69:36And I'm very, very pleased you guys enjoy it.
69:40Thank you so much for this journey.
69:42Hopefully people at home are going to send in more questions.
69:45So I may hit you guys up for some specific answers. But thank you. What a journey. Project Alpha.
69:58This episode of World's Greatest Con is written by Justin Robert Young and me, Brian Brushwood, your humble host.
70:22Production and research by Dog and Pony Show Audio in Austin, Texas, with additional production by Will Sattelberg.
70:30Original music by Carson Pace.
70:46Very special thanks go to Banachek and Mike Edwards for allowing us to tell their story.
70:51We greatly encourage you to see Banachek's new show Mind Games at the Strat Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.
70:58Additional thanks go to George Slatter Productions, which along with contemporary news articles, retrospectives and archive videos made for the bulk of our research.
71:07Of course, you have questions and we want to answer as many as we can.
71:11So hit us up and we'll respond at the end of the season.
71:14Write us to World's Greatest Con at Gmail dot com.
71:18On the next episode, it's all about you.
71:21We answer all your questions.
71:23Write us now at World's Greatest Con at Gmail dot com and we'll get to as many as we can. Thanks for listening.
71:31We'll see you next time.
71:33Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program.
71:37Dog and pony show audio.