Side Characters - Project Alpha Part IV

00:00This is World's Greatest Con. I'm Brian Brushwood. Wake up.

00:22It's late February in Manhattan, 1983.

00:27Today is the day.

00:30The day they've dreamed of. 34 degrees. Stretch.

00:35Put on your clothes.

00:37For Mike, that means a black suit, black tie.

00:41The choir boy from Iowa is about to deliver justice to the wicked.

00:45For Steve, it's a green shirt with white and orange stripes.

00:49The forgotten son is going to show what happens to those who underestimate him.

00:57Mike and Steve both read the same book about how Uri Geller took advantage of academia.

01:03How Randy fought against it.

01:05And in the last four years at the Mac Lab, they've lived it. Risk. Skill. Trust. Friendship. Deceit. Harm.

01:17They've lived all of it.

01:20All of it for today.

01:22Because today's the day they reveal that not only can parapsychologists be fooled, but they were.

01:31They were fooled by Mike and Steve.

01:37Journalists are shuffling all around the offices of Discover Magazine.

01:42Cameramen wearing cargo shorts are steadying tripods.

01:45Magazine writers clad in pantyhose and shoulder pads topped with teased-out hair.

01:49All of the press has been led to believe that Randy is going to finally admit defeat.

01:55He's going to admit that psychics are real.

01:58He's going to admit he's found the genuine article.

02:03But that's all stage dressing. It's a narrative.

02:08Randy walks in, welcomes them, introduces Mike and Steve.

02:15They begin to perform.

02:17It's just like the racetrack back in Pittsburgh.

02:20It's just like Pippin back in Iowa.

02:23It is way easier than at the Mac Lab.

02:27Here, Mike and Steve control everything.

02:29There are no capital-S surprises. No... no lying.

02:35I wonder how the Mac Lab is going to find out.

02:41Who tells who first? Phillips? Schaefer?

02:44What's that going to be like?

02:47Does their stomach drop? Will they ever... forgive us?

02:53Can't think of that now.

02:57Randy's running down the accomplishments. This is it. The big moment.

03:02Everything for this right now.

03:04The revelation that will help cure the world of its ridiculous social contagion.

03:09This fascination for some fantasy answer outside of ourselves.

03:13We control our fate.

03:16This is the moment.

03:18And Randy asks the question.

03:21Can you tell us, how do you do it?

03:26Mike, standing straight, shoulders back, looks over at Steve.

03:30Steve, cross-armed and hunched, gestures for Mike to go take the podium.

03:34Mike clasps his hand in front of him.

03:37Leans down with an ever so slight tilt. And... I'll do it.

03:43To be quite honest, we cheat. It's over.

03:50No matter how it goes from here, this phase is done.

03:58Reporters have questions, flashbulbs pop, and in the first moment of quiet, comes a whisper.

04:07What needs to happen now to make all of this worth it?

04:13Did they do enough to kill funding for parapsychology for good?

04:18Now that we're at the end, the reasons the boys started seem so one-dimensional. They're adults now.

04:29Adults who have just made very specific reputations for themselves. And reputations spread.

04:38The New York Times, the CIA, all of parapsychology, they all find out within hours.

04:49But most importantly, the Mac Lab finds out. They're the suckers.

04:56They're about to realize they got got and now they have a reputation too.

05:03Both professionally and personally.

05:05What needs to happen now to make all of this worth it? Credit?

05:12Randy's talking to reporters and explaining how this was all his idea?

05:19That he discovered the Mac Lab?

05:22He's the one who organized the press conference, so they can't just jump in and correct him, can they?

05:28Would all this have been worth it if Mike and Steve just end up side characters in their own story?

05:36What needs to happen now to make all of this worth it?

05:42A die is cast.

05:44The world reacts and two men begin their adult lives as heroes to those who don't hate them.

05:53The fallout and legacy of Project Alpha.

05:57What in my opinion just might be the world's greatest con.

07:26In the press conference where I said, you know, it's one of the scariest parts of this whole thing is these people are teaching your children.

07:45The next few days, of course, during this time now, the Mac lab is getting bombarded with phone calls, but they won't answer their phone until they hear from Mike and I.

07:55The bomb has dropped.

07:57Depending on where you are in the blast radius, you might not have even seen it detonate, but soon everyone is going to feel it.

08:07The press conference is being recorded for a primetime NBC special called Magic or Miracle.

08:13This is where the entire plan will be laid bare.

08:17The producers of that show begin to fan out and interview any researcher that Mike or Steve has interacted with.

08:23So not only will the Mac lab soon know that Mike and Steve are frauds, but they're going to be under the gun to answer on camera how it felt.

08:34We'll get to the Mac lab in a minute, but there's someone else interviewed during the special.

08:40Berthel Schwartz, a parapsychology researcher who took a specific interest in Steve during the waning days of the Mac lab.

08:47I heard the news myself this morning.

08:49I was shocked, to put it mildly.

08:52Schwartz's work made the Mac lab protocols look stringent.

08:54Schwartz is a believer's believer, and Steve just kept confounding him with simple but devious methods.

09:01For example, Schwartz wanted to see if Steve could affect film in a camera.

09:08And indeed, Steve did it.

09:10When Schwartz saw the developed photos, he saw fantastical visions, religious in nature, but supernaturally created.

09:20In reality, Steve spat on the lens.

09:24Mike had his own researcher take an interest in him, Walter Uphoff.

09:30Uphoff is an economics professor who, in his retirement, focused entirely on parapsychology.

09:35He founded the New Frontiers Foundation, and he ran the very convention in Madison, Wisconsin, where Mike and Steve realized this charade had to end.

09:46That's the one where the BBC producer broke with reality.

09:49Schwartz and Uphoff are two more people involved in this crusade to tear down unquestioned parapsychology research.

09:56But also two more people hurt in the process.

10:03At the outer edges of the blast, none other than the Central Intelligence Agency.

10:10That little press conference in New York City sets off alarm bells in Virginia.

10:15In a now declassified communication, Dr. Jack Verona wrote, everybody should know that the MATLAB thing had nothing to do with the CIA psychic research.

10:24The CIA research, you know, the ones at Stanford Research Institute where Geller was tested? Totally different.

10:31Back then, the CIA investigation was codenamed Grill Flame.

10:34It would eventually be consolidated under the codename Stargate, and it's those very experiments that go on to be the basis of the book and the movie, The Men Who Stare at Goats.

10:46By the way, the book is great.

10:48It takes place after this special is released.

10:51And once you know that on national TV this debunking happened, it colors the entire book.

10:58The CIA memo is specifically there to give talking points to any agent talking to anybody in Congress that gets wind of this fiasco.

11:07Because Congress is a fickle bunch.

11:09They don't like to be embarrassed.

11:12And the CIA needs to keep their funding.

11:17All around the world, millions of people believe in psychic power and the supernatural.

11:26Tonight, we explore the edge of the unknown.

11:29Vengeful ghosts haunt castles in Scotland.

11:34In Singapore, people pierce their flesh with spikes, yet feel no pain.

11:40Others become possessed by animal spirits.

11:43And in America, some people seem to dissolve metal with only a touch.

11:48Many believe we are being observed by UFOs as we explore the strange and mysterious.

11:55Are these bizarre manifestations magic tricks or miracles?

11:59Now, the psychic fight of the century.

12:05Magic or Miracle airs February 8th, 1983 on NBC.

12:11Barely two weeks after the press conference.

12:14I don't know if there's any legal way to see it, but it's a very schizophrenic tour of 1980s TV.

12:22Part travelogue, part expose of parapsychology, and part back and forth between James Randi and Uri Geller.

12:29The special begins and ends with Randi and Geller going back and forth in separate interviews.

12:35Geller says he's the genuine article, Randi says he's a fraud.

12:38Geller moves a compass with his mind, Randi does the same thing with a freaking magnet.

12:44Yep, we are back where we started.

12:46And then bafflingly, we're off with Randi on this round-the-world journey.

12:51He's in a village where they walk over hot coals.

12:53Another one where a guy is possessed by a monkey god.

12:56By far the most depressing is a stop in the Philippines.

12:59Where patients with terminal diagnoses fly in from around the world to have psychic surgery performed on them.

13:06If you ever see it, what your eyes tell you is that the psychic surgeon is shoving their hands right into the stomach of a patient without any kind of scalpel.

13:17Blood begins to pour out, and the surgeon pulls out what looks like a tumor from the patient.

13:23Think Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

13:25If the trick sounds familiar, it might be because Penn & Teller performed it live on TV in the 90s.

13:30Oh, and as a matter of fact, I performed it on TV for Penn & Teller.

13:34As a magic trick, it's a great routine.

13:37Shocking visuals, lots of room for gags and fun.

13:41But that's all it is. A magic trick.

13:45In Magic or Miracle, the special shows how truly desperate these dying people are.

13:51Flying halfway around the world to spend thousands of dollars in the hopes of what could be a real cure.

14:00It's a jarring reminder of why Mike and Steve did what they did.

14:05These ideas, if you don't show them to be faulty, can have real harm.

14:10Hell, if any of these people went to the Philippines for that procedure instead of real therapy, it could be deadly.

14:17Finally, we hit the 40-minute mark. Boom.

14:22There's Mike and Steve.

14:2322-year-old Steve Shaw is a hospital attendant at Washington Hospital in Washington, Pennsylvania.

14:2721-year-old Mike Edwards is a pre-law student at the University of Iowa in Iowa City.

14:33They have both been acclaimed as genuine psychics.

14:36Their adventure began in 1979 in St. Louis at the McDonnell Laboratory for Psychic Research, where for three years, numerous experiments were conducted in an attempt to validate their psychic powers.

14:49The research indicated that both Shaw and Edwards were able, through psychic powers, to bend spoons, Forks, keys, even metal rods encased in plastic.

14:58I know this is audio only, but I sincerely hope you can hear the wispy mustaches on these boys. They're truly legendary.

15:05The segment runs down their time at Mac Lab.

15:08The rules they abided by.

15:10Why they did what they did.

15:12And then, he appears.

15:14His first public comment on Project Alpha.

15:17Straight from the mouth of the mark. Peter Phillips.

15:21We were told that there was a real possibility that these were two conjurers who had been sent to us with the intent to deceive us.

15:31We confronted them with what we had heard.

15:33They made no response, either yes or no.

15:35Remember, that press conference happened two weeks ago.

15:39Two weeks to process the betrayal, the lies, the fact that you were the sucker left holding the bag.

15:46And suddenly you're in front of cameras.

15:48That clip from Phillips is fresh.

15:50Had to be only days from when he found out.

15:54We don't know exactly how that part happened.

15:56But we do know the first time Steve got in touch with Mark Schaefer.

16:00The man Phillips turned to after he felt he was getting in the way of the results.

16:05So, Schaefer calls me from the Mac Lab.

16:07And he tells me what he's heard.

16:09You know, that we're working with Randy.

16:10He says, is it true?

16:12What you're about to hear is not a recreation of any kind.

16:16This is the actual phone call from Banachek to the Mac Lab.

16:20OK, what do you guys think of that? Well, it is.

16:45Now, this admission, had it happened one week earlier, it would have been profound.

17:00But now the press conference has happened.

17:03And calling up somebody after the press conference just to confirm that you definitely did the press conference.

17:10It's like opening up a barn, letting out all the horses, watching all the ranchers freak out, run around crazy, running up to a rancher, stopping him.

17:19Say, hey, hey, hey, I know you're chasing down a horse.

17:22I just want to tell you, I just let all of your horses out of the barn.

17:26Everything is different now.

17:26And next thing you know, he's like, well, how did you do this?

17:30How did you do this?

17:31He's asking all these things, just looking for one thing he can hold on to. Right.

17:35Bertholdt Schwartz is getting phone calls as well.

17:37And he says, how do we know that Randy didn't pay them off to lie?

17:43Spoke to both young fellows at length.

17:46And all it did raise in my mind were more and more and more questions.

17:51If I was there at the Mac lab, I know I'd first feel stunned, shocked.

17:54And then I'd feel defensive.

17:56And over time, that defensiveness would transform into anger.

18:00If Randy gets your goat in the world of parapsychology, you only have yourself to blame. But Mike, Steve.

18:12From their perspective, how could you describe them as anything other than malicious liars?

18:21People who you let into your house, into your home, into your hearts and betrayed your trust.

18:28I got I got letters from Peter Phillips at the Mac lab.

18:33I got a scathing letter sent to my parents from Walter Uphoff's wife about what a rotten son I was and deceptive.

18:45And she hoped that they weren't aware of what I had done and how I you know, because she can't believe that that they would raise a kid like me.

18:57Walter Uphoff's attorney sent me a personal note saying, I hear you plan to go on to law school and I wouldn't want anybody like you in the legal profession.

19:09And I thought, everybody like me is in the legal profession.

19:13And she was writing a letter to the University of Iowa Law School protesting that I not be accepted.

19:21In a letter dated February 1983 from Peter Phillips to Randy.

19:25So far, I have not heard anything from either of the two young men since they're both mature individuals able to tell right from wrong.

19:34They should not expect you to speak for them, nor should they expect that friendships can survive violations of trust and hospitality without some effort on their part to make amends.

19:45Peter did say, if you're thinking about being in the St. Louis area at any time, please don't just show up at the Mac lab.

19:55There's a lot of really hurt feelings.

19:57Mike tries to call the current lead researcher, but he only gets a letter back.

20:03You know, we were in every media outlet.

20:05We were in every newspaper.

20:07We were in every magazine, Discover magazine, Psychology Today.

20:10You know, we were in the New York Times.

20:13And and so it was like, OK, this was important enough to make it in every one of these media outlets out there.

20:20The Mac lab are the marks.

20:21And they just realized they got shortchanged.

20:23And the smiling faces who orchestrated everything weren't new friends.

20:27They were predators who took advantage of them and took what they wanted.

20:33Even as during the special, the boys profess to feeling bad for them.

20:39The more I've gotten to know these people, the more I've gotten to realize that so and so is not just a parapsychologist.

20:46They're also a human being.

20:48The way that people have opened up their they're not only their labs and themselves, but their homes to me.

20:55It really makes me a little sad.

20:57I feel bad for the parapsychologist because they're very nice people. They're fantastic people.

21:03I feel like I'm taking something away from them and belief.

21:07Predators smiling at them on television. In primetime.

21:10Mike, wearing a cable knit sweater, ends his segment with a religious conviction.

21:20We need to take the precautions we need to prevent against the cheating, because when the dust clears and all the fake psychics and fake prophets have fallen, the one standing will be the ones that are the genuine thing. And.

21:37Watching this, one thing that stands out is how little the Project Alpha segment mentions Randy.

21:50Especially since every other segment is almost totally dedicated to either him or Geller.

21:55And that matters, too, because in almost every other telling a Project Alpha, Randy is always at the center of it.

22:04The truth was that Magic or Miracle did horribly, horribly that night that it premiered and the ratings were bad. It was.

22:16Fifty eight out of like.

22:1980 shows that week or something, but that's OK, right?

22:24I mean, they didn't do this to make a television special.

22:28They did it to change the world.

22:30And change the world.

22:32They absolutely did that press conference, the one where they reveal themselves as magicians and not psychics, is organized by Discover magazine in their article about Project Alpha. Mike and Steve.

22:45Aren't mentioned until the fifth paragraph.

22:48And when they are, it's only so we can give names to the henchmen of the real mastermind of Project Alpha. James Randy. Huh?

23:00And this isn't an isolated incident. It's the rule.

23:04Article after article, interview after interview.

23:11The narrative is set.

23:13James Randy discovered the Mac lab.

23:15James Randy cast two young magicians as phony psychics.

23:20James Randy charged them to take on the Mac lab with expert skill and impeccable morals.

23:28James Randy pushed the Mac lab to bust him by telling them that they were being fooled and even spread rumors that he was working with them.

23:36This is a James Randy story.

23:38Just ask James Randy.

23:40Here is Randy's official timeline of the events of Project Alpha. March 1st, 1976. Randy contacts Steve. July 5th, 1978.

23:51Mike written up in local newspaper for straitjacket escape. March 2nd, 1979.

23:58New York Times announces 500,000 McDonald grant to Peter Phillips and his search for psychic kids.

24:06Randy contacts Steve and Mike proposes they infiltrate the lab. November 1st, 1979.

24:11Mike performs at the University of Northern Iowa and his performance is declared genuine.

24:17If any of you have heard of Project Alpha before hearing this program, that's almost certainly how you know it.

24:25And now you've heard the story from the mouths of the men who used to be those boys.

24:33A lot of people think that Randy masterminded Project Alpha and that is not the case.

24:39We all played an important part in this.

24:42We exposed Project Alpha in 83 and I want to say it was 86 that Randy won the MacArthur Award.

24:50And a lot of that had to do with not only his work earlier with Geller, but the release of Project Alpha.

24:57But the story isn't always told 100% correct, you know.

25:00And we've given Randy poetic license at times on some of these things.

25:05But I think it's time now for, you know, the actual full facts to be out there that Randy didn't introduce us to the laboratory.

25:14You know, I was already going to do it no matter what.

25:17According to Mike, Randy found out about the Mac lab from him.

25:20According to Steve, he'd already applied and been accepted to it by the time Randy called him about it.

25:26And it's Mike and Steve who have to invent magic tricks on the fly under supervised conditions.

25:31Mike and Steve who have to make friends and lie to them.

25:35What needs to happen now to make all of this worth it?

25:39This is the narrative of one of the biggest moments of their entire lives.

25:46Their coming of age story.

25:48And yet, they're side characters.

25:50Randy, and I have to be careful here because I don't want to besmirch him.

25:57Because he isn't here to defend himself and I love the guy to death.

26:04But Randy was like a lot of showmen.

26:07And that is, it's got to be about me.

26:10And when we did the press conference and we were back in, I want to say it was Leon Jeroff's office.

26:19And people were talking to us and wanted to know more about Project Alpha and whatnot.

26:30Randy was trying to perform.

26:32Randy was trying to show a card trick or he's trying to show how I can predict a word or know what word you're picking out of a book or all this.

26:44And he was actually getting pouty.

26:45Fine, I guess nobody wants to watch that.

26:47You know, he didn't.

26:48Whereas a mentor, I would have expected him to sit back and let the boys talk about this.

26:55No, he really wanted that conversation to be all about Randy.

27:00How do you wrestle with that if you're Mike or Steve?

27:04I mean, this is your reputation for better or for worse.

27:08Shouldn't you at least get to own it?

27:10Here's how I see it.

27:12Randy is a force of nature, an amazing publicity machine.

27:18Let me say that clear.

27:20James, the amazing Randy, is one of the greatest publicity engines of all time.

27:26James Randy became famous once as a magician and then famous again for his crusade against the paranormal.

27:34And he did it with a very simple offer. Ten thousand dollars.

27:38Literally, I'll give you ten thousand dollars if anyone under scientific conditions could prove to me you're psychic.

27:46Eventually, that number balloons to a million dollars.

27:50It's a dead simple premise that could always be pulled out in any bar argument.

27:58Oh, you think he's real?

27:59Should win a million dollars then. Oh, they haven't?

28:02Well, they must be either fake or stupid.

28:05This simple challenge creates so much momentum.

28:07He creates the James Randy Educational Foundation.

28:09And then he starts the amazing meeting, an annual gathering of skeptics from around the world.

28:16Attracting big names like Matt Stone and Trey Parker of South Park.

28:20The Mythbusters, Adam Savage and Jamie Heinemann.

28:22Christopher Hitchens, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins, Penn and Teller and so many more.

28:27A lot of those names were part of a non-fiction literary boom exploring skepticism and atheism.

28:32Combine that with the YouTube boom of the 2010s.

28:35And you have a groundswell of fresh young voices feeding skeptic content to anyone who wants to hear it.

28:42And as Randy got older, he got less and less hands-on with the JREF.

28:46Less hands-on with the conference.

28:48The last amazing meeting was held eight years ago.

28:52Is it a coincidence that books about skepticism aren't selling like they used to?

28:59Or that the YouTube community has splintered into a thousand pieces? Maybe.

29:03But for my money, there's no denying that Randy was the beating heart of skepticism.

29:11And yes, he made sure of that.

29:14Because he crafted very simple narratives and put himself at the center of them.

29:20And maybe he did it because he was selfish.

29:23But there's no denying that narratives matter.

29:26And simple narratives are the ones that survive the longest.

29:30That's the thing, right?

29:32Simple narratives have to be simple.

29:35Two boys contact the famous skeptic James Randy about a parapsychology research lab to get his advice on how to fool them.

29:44And he helps them with their plan. Too complicated. Too many sentences. Too many characters. Let's simplify.

29:49Famous skeptic James Randy.

29:50contacts two boys to fool a parapsychology lab. No, simpler.

29:56James Randy did it again.

30:00The famous skeptic fooled the Mac lab. Now we're talking.

30:06That's something everybody can remember.

30:09But I think it is because Randy is such a fascinating figure within the skeptical community.

30:16I think people often attribute these things all to Randy because he's the one who puts the story out there, right?

30:26He tells the narrative.

30:27He makes it interesting.

30:28He's able to capture the society's, you know, imagination with these things.

30:31Sometimes he embellishes a little bit on things to make the story interesting.

30:37He has done that a few times in the past. Yeah.

30:40And it truly sucks that Mike and Steve get pushed to the margins.

30:44But hot damn, that's one simple narrative.

30:46In 1985, the Mac lab closes after James S.

30:52McDonald's grant money runs out and they're no more is coming.

31:11An article in The New York Times credits Project Alpha for the closing.

31:15Peter Phillips responds to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch report on it with a letter to the editor.

31:23Phillips says the Project Alpha had been discovered to be a fraud by the staff two years before the press conference.

31:29He says they even drafted a press release, calling it all off, but they never released it.

31:33And yet, even in this letter to the editor long after the battle had been lost, Phillips is still a believer.

31:40Quote, We realized we could not prove that they were genuine psychics, but neither could we prove them fraudulent.

31:47The case remained undecided. He continues.

31:49I thought they probably had genuine psychic ability because I found it hard to believe in an extensive conspiracy involving reporters, television producers, editors, science writers and academics like ourselves.

32:01And through it all, I can see feel regret.

32:05I fear that he believes we ruin part of his life because keep in mind, I mean, my God, right?

32:15You've been going for years, 180 hours.

32:18You're responsible for half a million dollars and it comes out that you've been conned.

32:24To this day, I have had the only contact I have had has been with Peter Phillips as a as a book I'm thinking about writing.

32:35And I reached out to him to see if I could talk to him.

32:40And he actually said, when you write it, let me read it first and then we'll decide.

32:45Could never get a hold of Phillips.

32:47He had an answer machine, his tenure at Washington University.

32:49I tried to get a hold of him many, many times.

32:52I left many messages on that answer machine.

32:53So I haven't I haven't been able to to bury that one yet.

32:56Peter's getting on in age, aren't we all?

32:59And I really and Steve and I have talked about this.

33:04We would really like to to close that chapter and kind of get some some final thoughts.

33:11I had an experience with Phillips probably about six, seven years ago, I think it was.

33:18So I belong to who I belonged to a group called the Psychic Entertainers Association, they reached out to Peter Phillips when they thought that I couldn't make one of the Psychic Entertainers Association's conventions.

33:31And they said he won't be there.

33:33But we'd love to come because a lot of believers are there and we'd love to you to tell your side of the story.

33:42I've always wanted Phillips to tell his side of the story, right?

33:45I've always wanted him to.

33:46I don't hold any grudges against him and I would hope that he wouldn't against me, but I understand why he would hold him against me. I get it. I get it.

33:55I ruined his life. Right.

33:56You know, so I sit there and I'm so happy that Peter Phillips is there.

34:00Like I'm this is what I wanted to do is to meet him again, give him a hug and say, hey, I'm sorry that things went, you know, the way they went down, you know, and just just talk. Let's just talk. Right.

34:09And so Banachek changes his schedule last minute and is there live to Phillips.

34:13This is audio from that night in a talk titled A Mark's Eye View of Project Alpha.

34:20We told the truth as we saw it.

34:24We made mistakes, to be sure, but we corrected them and final results were free of fraud.

34:32Now, Randy's hopes, of course, it seems that it was basically a political affair, a publicity stunt.

34:43His idea was to draw us into error and to use the publicity surrounding that to further his own career.

34:54But I couldn't see at the time what these two young men had to gain from it.

35:02What was in it for them?

35:05If they'd been playing tricks, it didn't seem to be very important, you know, and yet here they were coming back time and again.

35:16None of us suspected that they were actually in league with Randy and stood to gain in their own careers afterwards from the publicity that this would generate.

35:25There's even this extraordinary moment in which Phillips says the following to Banachek.

35:31Two other actors in the Project Alpha were two men who at the time were really quite young, Mike Edwards and Steve Shaw.

35:42Steve now goes by the name of Steve Banachek.

35:46He's known to many of you.

35:48He's a well-known mentalist and he's here with us today.

35:52So if you could stand, Steve. We're on.

35:55Steve did a very good job in Project Alpha and I want to acknowledge that.

36:02And the whole thing's over. It's nice.

36:07We get a hug.

36:10We get a picture together.

36:14And it was really, really nice.

36:16I haven't talked to Peter Phillips since then.

36:18I'd like to explain why we did it, the rationale behind it.

36:21I would, I would like to find out what the fallout was on that because I don't know any of that.

36:29I can't, I can't apologize for any of that if I don't know.

36:36Knowing what I know now, I think the reveal would have been done differently.

36:40In the days after the special, Mike and Steve go their separate ways.

36:44Mike heads out to Los Angeles.

36:46This has to be the moment to take advantage of that momentum, right?

36:50I was feeling good.

36:52I was getting excited.

36:53We had talked about, they were thinking that there was going to be a great reaction to the Magic or Miracle show.

37:00We started talking about potentially some, almost like a weekly series.

37:03There's a postcard in the mail from Randy to Mike.

37:07Hi, I now have three offers regarding film rights to the Alpha Project.

37:12One for a movie, one for a TV movie, and the other for a PBS Kids special.

37:17You may get to be an actor yet.

37:19Lots of interest from all directions.

37:21Just sit tight and wait.

37:22Went, went out to California for about three months.

37:25And I realized that because the show didn't do well, and there wasn't, you know, agents knocking on my door. Great.

37:34You know, I want to be another struggling actor that's waiting tables.

37:39Shit, I can do that in my hometown where everybody knows me and I'm a bigger deal.

37:45Steve continues to work with Randy, continuing to bust frauds.

37:47Their most notable collaboration after Project Alpha is when they took down televangelist Peter Popoff.

37:51He claims he's hearing the voice of God.

37:54Steve figured out that God was apparently Popoff's wife, using an FM transmitter and a receiver inside Popoff's ear.

38:02Mike Edwards is now a successful entrepreneur in Phoenix, Arizona.

38:17Steve Shaw changed his name to and became one of the most respected minds in magic.

38:37He's the current headliner at the Strat Resort and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

38:43The two don't see each other much.

38:45I mean, they live in different cities after all. Jobs, families, obligations.

38:49But whenever they do see each other, they're not just long lost friends.

38:54The moment they enter the room, it's like you're seeing them back at the Mac Lab.

39:01When we were in Project Alpha, we were a team.

39:05There was a little bit of jealousy on my part, especially around things that you got invited to from Randy.

39:13Is it ethical for scientists to take money in the name of science and not conduct profit science?

39:20And he said, if anybody could come up with a new power for me, it would be you.

39:26We have to create a holy shit moment for people to let it sink in. It's the con.

39:32In theory, we could wrap everything up right now.

39:35But I don't know about you.

39:39I still have questions that I want answers to.

39:43So if I sound weird, it's because I'm not in the studio in Austin, Texas.

39:47I'm halfway to Las Vegas, Nevada, and we're going to sit down for a very rare conversation with me, Mike Edwards, and Banachek.

39:53An epilogue to Project Alpha, what I consider to be the world's greatest con.

40:00This episode of World's Greatest Con is written by Justin Robert Young and me, Brian Brushwood, your humble host.

40:32Production and research by Dog and Pony Show Audio in Austin, Texas, with additional production by Will Sattelberg.

40:39Original music by Carson Pace.

40:54Very special thanks go to Banachek and Mike Edwards for allowing us to tell their story.

41:01We greatly encourage you to see Banachek's new show, Mind Games, at the Strat Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

41:08Additional thanks go to George Slatter Productions, which, along with contemporary news articles, retrospectives, and archive videos made for the Of course, you have questions and we want to answer as many as we can, so hit us up and we'll respond at the end of the season.

41:25Write us to world's greatest con at gmail. com.

41:27On the next episode, a rare conversation with Mike Edwards, Banachek, and yours truly covering everything we couldn't quite get into the series. Thanks for listening.

41:37We'll see you next time.

41:40Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this broker.

41:43Dog and Pony Show Audio