Psychic departures and a discovery institute - death of Jeane Dixon, Thelma Ross; founding of National Institute for Discovery Science

The well-known "psychic" Jeane Dixon, who supposedly had a "Gift of Prophecy," died suddenly of a heart attack in her home in Washington, D.C., on January 25 at age seventy-nine. Only three weeks earlier, the tabloid the Star carried what was to become her last set of annual "psychic predictions" for the New Year. It is interesting that in them she gave absolutely no indication that this year's predictions would be her last.

As I write this, the year 1997 is only a few months old, yet already Dixon's predictions are, as usual, looking rather bad. Right at the top, Dixon predicted "Cos blows his top - Somebody will get under Bill Cosby's skin and a very high-level person is going to be fired or a relative could be turned out of the home." What she failed to foresee was that Bill Cosby's son would be murdered, and that far from "blowing his top," the self-control that Cosby displayed in handling the tragedy could serve as a splendid example for everyone. The comedienne Ellen DeGeneres was supposed to have a run-in with the Secret Service or "a burly fan" while sneaking about the Clinton inaugural festivities, and depart Washington posthaste. If this happened, the news media did not report it. Dixon included a section of predictions about world leaders but failed to foresee that the leader of China, Deng Xiaoping, would die. We will just have to wait until the end of 1997 to evaluate the remainder of Jeane Dixon's final annual predictions. If she was correct, by the year's end "a grape-based diet will show remarkable results against several common illnesses" and "chess clubs in inner cities will boost academic performance."

Another megastar of the psychic realm who recently passed to a higher plane was Thelma S. Ross, who died in February, also at age seventy-nine. An actress and screenwriter, Ross also taught medical psychology at UCLA from 1966 to 1979. She was best known for her work in Kirlian photography of the human aura and boasted of earning the Douglass Dean Award from the United Nations for her accomplishments in bringing that advanced form of Soviet technology to the United States. She also served as a consultant to several major motion pictures including The Exorcist, Poltergeist, and Ghost. She contributed a chapter to the book The Geller Papers (edited by Charles Panati), describing the wondrous properties of Uri Geller's Kirlian aura. The magician David Alexander relates how Moss demonstrated the way a box allegedly filled with orgone energy (a "discovery" of Wilhelm Reich's) would deflect a compass needle, unfortunately neglecting to repeat the experiment using a different box having the same amount of metal, only without the orgone energy.

If anyone is in a good position to finally provide answers to long-standing "paranormal mysteries," it is Las Vegas-based millionaire Robert Bigelow. Real-estate magnate and heir to a fortune from the well-known tea company, he has provided substantial funding to found a National Institute for Discovery Science in Las Vegas (http://www.accessnv.com/nids), just down the road from MGM's Emerald City of Oz. Bigelow also played a major role in funding the 1992 Abduction Study Conference at MIT and the Roper Poll, which asked about supposedly abduction-related phenomena and is now notorious for its unreliability.

Recently, Bigelow has attempted to hire first-rate scientific talent to apply the disciplines and techniques of mainstream science to unravel the mysteries of the Beyond. His organization's ad in Science magazine (March 1, 1996) attempts to recruit scientists who are "capable of employing accepted scientific methods to novel or unconventional observations or theories, while maintaining the highest ethical and quality standards." However, his group has not, as yet, made any discoveries concerning the "paranormal" that were considered worthy of publication in mainstream scientific journals. The Las Vegas Sun reported last October 23 (archives on-line at http://www.lasvegassun.com) that when Bigelow heard about a supposedly "haunted ranch" near Fort Duchesne, Utah, he negotiated to purchase the ranch for approximately $200,000 so it could be properly investigated by his Institute. Not only have many UFOs reportedly been seen on this ranch, but cows are mysteriously mutilated, crop circles appear, and lights emerge from circular dimensional "doorways" that hover in midair. The seller of the ranch, Terry Sherman, claims to have received higher offers from other buyers but turned them down to avoid placing others at risk. Meanwhile, heedless of dangers to his own safety, Sherman has remained as caretaker of the ranch, an employee of Bigelow. We eagerly await the publication in scientific journals of the National Institute for Discovery Science's papers documenting and explaining the remarkable happenings on its new property.

Another individual who seems to have inherited more money than talent for critical thinking is multimillionaire Laurence Rockefeller, who has been donating substantial sums to various UFO research groups. Recently Rockefeller financed the publication of a book titled UFO's - The Best Available Evidence, which was given to approximately one thousand political leaders and other decision makers in the U.S. and around the world. The Bigelow people sneered at that book, noting that much of it was a re-hash by editor Richard H. Hall of his book The UFO Evidence, published by the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) in 1964, at that time the largest UFO group. The New York Daily News noted (August 24, 1995) that Rockefeller has been lobbying the Clinton administration to open up supposed UFO secrets that he believes are buried in government vaults. The newspaper reports rumors that the eighty-five-year-old Rockefeller hopes that advanced alien technology will contain secrets of longevity. Asked about such rumors, Rockefeller spokesman Frasier Sietel replied, "I don't know about any anti-aging cure. But Laurence's interests are broad. He's a real eclectic fellow."