PSI IN THE MEDIA
By Loyd Auerbach (INVISIBLE SIGNALS)
October, 1996

Because of the rush of activity I've had so far this month, I'm going to hold off on news clippings for a month or so. I can say that most articles out there in the Press seem to be ghost-related, as is always the case in October coming up on Halloween. On to the TV shows. I thought I'd give some brief thoughts about a few of the shows that have started up, now that I've had a chance to watch. STRANGE UNIVERSE is a syndicated 5-day a week "news" show of the paranormal and the extraordinary. In general, I find it interesting and entertaining to watch. Quality of the actual segments varies, but this is the case of evening news shows in general. I wondered how they were going to find enough actual stories to fill up 2.5 hours every week, but they've really looked at their show title as the defining quality. From ghosts to UFOs, the Chupacabra to psychics, alternative medicines to new scientific discoveries and theories, they look at happenings in our "strange" world. This is both good and bad, but that's in the eye of the beholder. What I mean is, some of the stories are downright silly and sensational, while others really do cover the subject matter well. Biggest problem I have with the show is the hosts. I just wish they'd loosen up and also stop repeating "It's a strange universe out there" throughout the show. SIGHTINGS has moved over to the Sci Fi Channel. Unfortunately, I have no access to that channel, as my cable company doesn't carry it. I have heard some positive things from Martin Caidin that the folks now working the show seem to know what they're doing and do care about presenting a good story. That would be a nice change. If you have comments on SIGHTINGS, send them to me so I can pass them along. PSI FACTOR is a whole story unto itself, so let me start now with some brief comments on the show, and continue in the next issue of INVISIBLE SIGNALS with comments on the organization behind the show. PSI FACTOR, hosted by Dan Aykroyd, presents itself as dramatizations of "true" cases investigated by an organization called The Office of Scientific Investigation and Research (OSIR). You might have seen OSIR as represented by former OPI member Christopher Chacon on SIGHTINGS (Chacon left OPI in 1991 and began working with Peter Aykroyd, Dan's brother, in Southern California). More on OSIR next month. The cases I've seen so far on PSI FACTOR have included an apparent poltergeist case with a time-shift factor (and a bomb-robot), an apparent UFO case which turns out not to be (with many people getting ill from chemical exposure), an apparent demonic possession case, the case of a man translated through time from the 17th Century, a pack of snakes terrorizing a town…. According to press appearances by Chacon and Dan Aykroyd, as well as stories in the media mentioning OSIR, they are a 300 plus member organization, around for anywhere from 17 to 20 years, privately funded, and they have investigated "thousands" of cases. Well, all I can say so far is that if these cases were real (and OSIR exists like they appear on the show), I (and my colleagues) have to reassess both the phenomena and the field of Parapsychology. Fortunately for me, neither the cases appear to be within the phenomena as people in the real world experience it, and OSIR as it appears on TV is hard to accept as any sort of real organization or authority. After all, one would think that the Media would get wind of an organization with mobile labs that move around with multi-person teams to investigate such occurrences as appear on the show.