Project Alpha was an effort by magician James Randi to test the quality of scientific rigor of a well-known test of paranormal phenomena. In the late 1970s, Randi contacted the newly established McDonnell Laboratory for Psychical Research ("MacLab") with suggestions on how to conduct tests for paranormal phenomena. At the same time, two teenage boys (Steve Shaw, later known as Banachek, and Mike Edwards) independently contacted the McDonnell Laboratory and volunteered as subjects for such tests from 1979 to 1982. They quickly proved to exhibit a range of paranormal abilities far and away better than the other subjects of the experiment. The lab began leaking reports of the pair's capabilities, which were in fact simple magic tricks. When rumors of the test subjects' connection to Randi reached Peter Phillips, head of the MacLab, he instituted tighter protocols for the experiments; the two subjects' results declined sharply. In 1983, Randi held a press conference to expose the deception in the wake of Project Alpha, as there were a number of controversies about the ethics of interference in scientific research and the validity of paranormal research as it then existed. It remains a watershed event in the field of parapsychology.
McDonnell Laboratory for Psychical Research In the 1970s, James Smith McDonnell, board chairman of McDonnell Douglas and believer in the paranormal, approached Washington University in St. Louis with plans to set up a permanent PSI research facility. Eventually, physicist Peter Phillips, who was also interested in the field, agreed to lead a parapsychology lab at the school. Phillips had degrees in physics from both Cambridge University and Stanford University. In 1979, McDonnell arranged a US$500,000 grant for the establishment and five years operation of the McDonnell Laboratory for Psychical Research, or MacLab for short. Phillips was most interested in spoon bending, also known as "psychokinetic metal bending", or PKMB.
Experiment In response to the announcement of this venture, James Randi wrote to the lab with a list of 11 pitfalls and his suggestions on how to avoid them. These suggestions included a rigid adherence to the protocol of the test, so that the subjects would not be allowed to change it during the run. In writing about Project Alpha, he cited Uri Geller, who had changed protocols during tests at Stanford Research Institute. Whenever something did not work, Geller simply did something else instead, which the researchers then reported as evidence of a successful experimental result. Other suggestions from Randi included using only one test object at a time, and permanently marking the object or objects used so they could not be switched with similar objects. He also suggested having as few people in the room as possible to avoid distractions. In addition, Randi offered his services to watch the experiments, noting that a conjurer would be an excellent person to look for fakery. According to Michael Thalbourne, Phillips did not take Randi up on the offer because of the magician's reputation of being "a showman rather than an unprejudiced critic" and his perceived hostility towards psychic claimants. However, on April 1, 1982, Randi awarded Phillips a Straight Spoon award for reconsidering his position on loose controls after what Randi called a "less-than-enthusiastic reception" for his presentation at the 1981 Parapsychological Association conference. While testing applicants, the lab started to focus its energies on two young men, Steve Shaw and Mike Edwards, who were much more successful than other applicants. In fact, the two young men were magicians who had each independently contacted Randi when the opening of the laboratory was announced. They offered to participate as test subjects with Randi's support. Part of Randi's instructions to these men was to tell the truth if ever asked whether they were faking the results. According to Randi, they were never asked this question directly; according to a Washington University spokesman, Fred Volkmann, "Such a confrontation did occur and [Edwards and Shaw] did not own up." Shaw and Edwards recall that they were not asked whether they worked with Randi, but simply told there were rumors to that effect.
Steven Shaw and Michael Edwards When the establishment of the laboratory was announced, Mike Edwards, 18, and Steven Shaw, 17, now known as Banachek, both magicians, each contacted Randi independently with a plan. They proposed to use their skills to deceive the researchers with tricks during the first stages of the investigations. They were chosen as test subjects and the hoax began. The project had originally started with spoon bending, so the two quickly developed a way to accomplish this. Contrary to one of the caveats Randi noted in his letter, the test setup included not one, but many and various spoons, labeled with paper on a loop of string instead of any sort of permanent marking. When starting to bend a spoon, the two magicians would complain the labels were in the way and remove them. They would then simply switch the labels when putting them back and wait. The spoons were measured before and after the experiment, and since all sorts of spoons were used, simply switching the labels would produce different measurements, causing the scientist to believe that something paranormal had occurred. In other cases, they would drop one of the spoons in their lap and bend it below the table with one hand, while pretending to bend a spoon in their other hand, distracting the scientists. Because the studio was set up to allow people in front of the camera to see themselves on monitors, and the videotapes were available to be watched by anyone, the two used the video to critique their own performance. They would deliberately fail on their first attempt at a demonstration and then use the video to find out what was visible to the researchers and what was not. They would then modify their technique so it would not appear on video. Edwards found that one particular camera operator was on guard to capture any attempts at sleight of hand, so he picked the man to assist him in one experiment, and he was replaced by a less competent cameraman. This was also a breach of Randi's caveat of not letting subjects modify anything about the testing protocol; the test run should have been stopped at this point and recorded as a failure.
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