What Scientists say about Uri Geller

Wernher von Braun (NASA scientist) ‘Geller has bent my ring in the palm of my hand without ever touching it. Personally, I have no scientific explanation for the phenomena.’
Dr Wilbur Franklin (Physics Department, Kent State University) ‘The evidence based on metallurgical analysis of fractured surfaces [produced by Geller] indicates that a paranormal influence must have been operative in the formation of the fractures.’
Dr Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ (Stanford Research Institute) ‘As a result of Geller’s success in this experimental period, we consider that he has demonstrated his paranormal, perceptual ability in a convincing and unambiguous manner.’ (The results of these experiments were published in the respected British journal Nature, Vol. 251, No. 5)
Dr Friedbert Karger (Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, Munich) ‘Based on preliminary investigations of Uri Geller, I cannot establish fraud. The powers of this man are a phenomenon which theoretical physics cannot yet explain.’
Dr Albert Ducrocq (Telemetry Laboratory, Foch Hospital, Suren, France) ‘The bends in metal objects [made by Geller] could not have been made by ordinary manual means.’
Professor John B. Hasted (Birkbeck College, University of London) ‘The Geller method of breaking steel is unlike anything described in the [metallurgical] literature, from fatigue fractures at -195 degrees to brittle fractures at +600 degrees C. Why is metal bending important? Simply because we do not understand it.’
Eldon Byrd (US Naval Surface Weapons Center, Maryland) ‘Geller altered the lattice structure of a metal alloy in a way that cannot be duplicated. There is no present scientific explanation as to how he did this.’ (This is the first research related to parapsychology conducted at a US Government facility to have been released for publication by the US Department of Defense.)
William E. Cox (Institute of Parapsychology, Durham, North Carolina) ‘I have failed to conceive of any means of deception in the static PK tests with Geller, nor have magicians I have consulted.’
Dr A. R. G. Owen (New Horizons Research Foundation, Toronto, Ontario) ‘Metal objects were bent or divided [by Geller] in circumstances such as to prove conclusively … that the phenomena were genuine and paranormal.’
Dr Thomas Coohill (Western Kentucky University, Physics Dept., Bowling Green, Kentucky) ‘There is no logical explanation for what Geller did here. But I don’t think logic is what necessarily makes new inroads in science.’
Dr Walter A. Frank (Bonn University) ‘The Geller Effect is one of those “para”-phenomena which changed the world of physics. What the most outstanding physicists of the last decades of this century could grasp only as theoretical implication, Uri brought as fact into everyday life.’
Professor Helmut Hofmann (Department of Electrical Engineering, Technical University of Vienna, Austria) ‘I tested Uri Geller myself under laboratory-controlled conditions and saw with my own eyes the bending of a key which was not touched by Geller at any time. There was a group of people present during the experiment who all witnessed the key bending in eleven seconds to an angle of thirty degrees. Afterwards we tested the key in a scientific laboratory using devices such as electron microscopes and X-rays and found that there was no chemical, manual or mechanical forces involved in the bending of the key.’
Professor Erich Mittenecker (Professor of Psychology, University of Graz, Austria) ‘Uri Geller is extraordinarily gifted in telepathy.’
Professor Charles Crussard (Professor of Metallurgy, School of Mines, Paris and Scientific Director of Pecheney, France) ‘Uri bent a strong heat-treated alloy bar held by myself and my assistant at each end. There was absolutely no pressure exerted by Uri while the bar was bending. All the controlled experiments I conducted with Uri Geller have been described in Sciences et Avenir. no. 345. pp. 1108-1113.