 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the twenty thirteen million dollar challenge. Thank you very much. I think most of you know my esteemed colleagues over here, Richard Saunders, Jamie in Swiss, and Chip Denner. Now, I do want to apologize, I haven't been around this convention as much as I probably should have been, but I've been very hard at working on the Chris Angel new television show for the last, I know, for the last four months, which takes my all my time, but I am here this evening, and thank you all for showing up. Thank you all very much. Last year, how many of you were here last year when we tested Andrew Needles? Okay, good. So there's some current news about Andrew, and I'm going to leave it up to a very good friend of the JRF, a gentleman who helped us out last year, also the president of the Australian Skeptics, Mr. Richard Saunders, please. Okay, thank you very much, Jamie and Bannecek. It's a great pleasure to be back here again at the amazing meeting, and to be here again to do my small part in helping out the million dollar challenge. It's very exciting indeed. So I'd like to talk briefly, if I may, about last year's challenge, especially for the benefit of those people who weren't here, and we might get that keynote slide up, if we may. There we go. Last year, for those who were here, and for the benefit of those who were not, we tested a man by the name of Andrew Needles. Now, some months before, Mr. Needles, who lives in California, had written to me directly in Australia, because he had seen some of the work I'd been involved with in exposing the power band, which I always carry some with me anyway. And what is a sign to me of his genuine outlook is that he was very keen to convince me that his power device, his band, worked. People who sincerely believe in what they're doing are very keen to convince the skeptic, and as far as he could see, I was the chief skeptic involved in this area, and I should be the one who was convinced. Very long negotiations ensued between myself, Banachek and Mr. Needles, going over protocol after protocol after protocol. In fact, I suggested to Mr. Needles that this would be the opportunity and the event that he could show the world that his device actually worked. And basically the claim was that if you were wearing his device, his band, it would show an increase in your core strength amongst other things. And we have a video clip to show you in just a moment, which illustrates how he went about doing the tests, which were very similar to the same sort of tests we've seen with the likes of Power Balance and so on. In fact, if we have that clip ready, I think we can run it now. This is the million-dollar challenge from last year. In the bag, here's what it makes. If I get number seven to step on into the box, please. Good. And if you'll take your right hand, reach in the bag, take out the box, and again make sure it's against the palm of the line. It's been around for a second at least. Thank you. Place that in there, please. Change hands. Yeah, not yet. That's in an A. Thank you. Step back over there. Face us, reach in. Make sure the line goes against the palm. Turn around, please. Place it in a B, please. Are we switching hands or are we switching hands? Do me a favor. Yep, switch hands. Make sure the line goes against the palm, please. Yep, and if you'll turn around. Thank you. Put it back in that place. Got it. If you'll turn around, please. If you'll have a seat, please. It's a dynastic bracelet in A or B. It's in A. The target is A. Into the mic place here. A. A. All right, if you open up A, please. And also open up B. The seat bow is in A. And the dynastic bracelet is in B. And would you mark that as a pass or a failure? And at this point, you do understand that the test has failed, but we agreed that we would go through every trial until we do all 20. Correct? Good. Yes, we're not going to put you through the rest of the test. It's quite all right. Just imagine about 18 more hours of that. But, of course, the point is, on the occasion, Mr. Needles failed to demonstrate that his device worked any better than a placebo band, which we had in the other box. And I think, at the time, he took it in his stride, and he was here even answering questions from the audience. And it's all well and good. But not so long ago, we discovered that he's put something on his website under the banner of Thank You, JREV. He now considers that those tests, in fact, prove his device works. We get back to what Banachek and Jamie and Swiss were saying earlier. And indeed, the subject of my talk yesterday is, to us, it's a big indication, a red flag, the sincerity of these people that they'll come up with ways to explain failure and to protect their own belief systems. It's worth looking at. If you Google Thank You, JREV and Denaktiv or Andrew Needles, you'll see that page. It makes for very, very interesting reading indeed. Well, now to this year's million-dollar challenge. We have Mr. Brahim Adun in Algeria. And that's where he's right now standing by. We're going to be hooking up with him very soon. His claim is one of remote viewing. In other words, by methods or ways we don't quite understand, Mr. Brahim Adun in Algeria can sense or view objects in another location. In this case, the other location is this very hotel. We have been fortunate to be working with Mr. Adun's representative, Mustafa, who you'll be meeting shortly. What we were asked to do in order to make this test a reality was to find 25 everyday objects. They couldn't be too small and they must be objects that one could easily see from the other side of the room. In other words, no fine details or anything like that. So we did manage to find 25 objects. We passed those on to Mr. Adun and his representative, Mustafa, who eliminated five of those objects to leave us with 20. A few things I must point out. Mr. Adun wants us to remember that normally he would prefer to do this sort of thing outside the Holy Period of Ramadan. We acknowledge that that's what he's told us, but we acknowledge that he's given us his complete confidence even though it is Ramadan, he can still achieve the result that he claims. So we do acknowledge that. And in choosing our 25 objects, we were asked to keep in mind various Islamic sensibilities. So we didn't choose a wine bottle, for example. And that was completely all right. In fact, it was up to us, the representatives of the JREF, to collect these objects. It wasn't up to the claimant. Here are the final 20. And as you can see, I think, given we were under somewhat limited time, we came up with the final 20 objects which are quite different, quite distinct. I don't think you could confuse one with another. And that certainly is our goal. And you'll notice each of them is on a large piece of paper with its corresponding number. Some numbers are missing. They were the objects that were eventually disregarded. Mr. Adun must give us three of those objects that we chose at random. Those three objects have been secured in that room across the hall you've no doubt seen, which say million dollar challenge and the door sealed. The odds we'll get into later with chill. That'll come up soon. For your interest, the five objects that were considered unsuitable were a towel, a book, a notepad, a little brush, and a deck of playing cards. That's fine. We're quite happy to accept that those items were not acceptable. Here is a photograph of the door, again, which you've no doubt seen. When it came time to secure the objects, one person and one person only knew what the objects were, smuggled them into the room, put them on the table in a very specific order as requested by Mr. Adun in Algeria with a personal item of our friend Mustafa in the middle. That person left the room, locked the door, and applied the first lot of seal, of tape you can see on the door. Then he beckoned to Jamie in Swiss, myself and Chip, and Mustafa, who were all down the other end of the hall, we walked up, examined the door, and then Mustafa continued to seal the door, all the cracks, and he wrote on a large piece of card some writing, as you can see in the close-up, put some more tape on, I countersigned it, as you can see down the bottom, even more tape, and that's where those objects have remained for the past three days as requested by Mr. Adun. Now, ladies and gentlemen, given the limitations of such a test in such a hotel at this amazing meeting when we're all quite busy doing other things and having a great time, given those limitations, I think we've come up with a bloody good protocol and I hope we'll have a very interesting result for this year's million dollar challenge. Thank you. So, as you just heard Richard say, three objects were chosen at random and kept secret. The test requires that all three be identified correctly, but we don't care what order as long as the three are identified. Now, let's take a look at some of the probabilities here. If he were merely guessing, we should be not terribly surprised if he gets at least one. There's about a 40% chance of getting at least one of those three objects. In fact, there's about one chance in 20 or 21 that he would get at least two, but to actually succeed and pass the preliminary trial, he must get all three, and the chances of that are one in 1,140. In fact, if we had asked every single person here at TAM this weekend to participate and take a guess, we might reasonably expect that just one of you would have gotten lucky and succeeded. But in this particular case, it's up to our one individual in Algeria and he has the burden of one chance in 1,140. So, of course, Mr. Ibrahim Adun could not be here. He's in Algeria, but he has a representative here. I'm going to ask that representative to come up here. Mr. Mostafa, please, would you come up, please? Give him a round of applause. Thank you. Hello, sir. How are you? Good. If you'll step right over here, please. And as the legal representative of Mr. Adun, you've read the protocol. You've agreed to the protocol. You also took a look at the room ahead of time and it was satisfactory. Is that correct? Yes. And you've agreed to the protocol and Mr. Adun has created this protocol. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. What I need you to do is to make it really official and if you just sign that and put today's date on there as well, please. Thank you. Thank you very much. Passes over here so we don't lose that. Take that, please. Thank you. Just hold on there for me. At this point, we need to get Mr. Adun up on Skype. So if we can get Mr. Adun up on the Skype, that would be fantastic, please. Still having issues right now? Yeah. So we have a backup plan if the Skype doesn't come up. They've been trying to get him on Skype this entire time. I'll ask him to speak on the phone. Speak on what? Yes? Yes. Okay. And if we can just, you know, as he speaks, if you can put it on, it's a way to put that on speakerphone because you do want to Skype call, right? No, I can't. Okay. Good. And it will be interpreting for him. Is that correct? Yeah. Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, technical difficulties. We were afraid a little bit of this and we had a backup plan, but the backup plan is, well, not working either. Sorry, I have to consult with my colleagues for one minute. Can you play it in, please? Okay. Real quickly though, is there a way he can Skype us because I would much rather see him than just hear him on the phone. Can we do this in French? The entire thing in French? Yeah. No, he's going to try and do it in French. All right. You can speak to him in his language and if he could just reveal it to us in French, that would help. But not yet. First of all, I want to make sure that he is certainly, was happy with the protocol, yes? Would you get him to say that, please? I don't know. Yes, okay. Can I get him to identify himself by name, please? I don't know. And how well does he think he's going to do on this test? I don't know. Yeah, I'll have to repeat himself. How confident is he that he's going to do this test? He has very good confidence, but just given the circumstances at the time, it's a bit harder for him to do it, but he is still confident. Very confident that he has passed this test. All right, good. Exactly. We've been in contact with him. And he just said, he asked him that. Okay, good. So can he give us the number and the name of the first item, please? Number five, which means number five, paper towel. Five paper towel, can I get him to repeat that one more time, please? Thank you. Number two, please. We're going to call him back. Now I do want you, I would like you all to keep in mind that even though I'm saying one, two, I'm getting me in that order, the order does not matter at all. He just has to get the items himself, not in any particular order. First and second, yes, exactly. I caught myself on that. The next object. He said, the number has the center, which means the number 13, the code hanging. 13 in the code hanging. Can you say it again, please? One more time. Number 13, the center. The center. Then the final object, please. Number 13, the number of items number 12, the sashay. He said number of items, the sashay, the chips, which means number 22, the chips. 22 of the chips. Can we get him to repeat that, please? Can I get him to repeat that, please? Because the call was interrupted in the middle, just to say any confusion, because the call was interrupted in the middle, can he just call off all three numbers again, please, for us? Okay, Brian. Can you get them to repeat all three numbers again, because the call was interrupted in the middle? Yes. Number 13, the number of items. Number 13, the number of items. Number 14, the number of items. Number 15, the number of items. All right, perfect. Good. Just put the phone down for right now, if you would. And what we're going to do at this point I am going to ask the only person who has the key to that particular, I'm going to come out, and that would be DJ, DJ, would you come out, please? Thank you very much. I'd like you to give the keys to Richard, please, if you will, because Richard also signed the door, as well. And we're going to take a little journey. We're going to head over there. You guys will get to watch it on the screen, and you get to see the door open. If you would just let him know what we're doing, please. What time do you need to get in? What's good? What time do you need to get in? About 10 minutes. Probably less than that, but yes, 10 minutes, I'd say. But don't tell Tom not to go anywhere, please. So keep him on the online? Yeah, DJ can afford the car, yes. Yes. Okay, that's okay. We're going to go online, but don't cut it, because we're going to get to see the door open for the maximum of 10 minutes. Okay, so. All right. You'll take over. Okay, Jamie's going to take over, and you'll see it on the screen as he comes. Right, so three of them are now going to head to the room, and Richard and Richard... Randy is going to come along with us, too. The way we originally sealed it, very good. The way we originally sealed it was the objects were put in place, only the person who... There was only one person who knew what the objects were, only one person who was present to put them in place, and then the room was initially sealed, at which point all of us came to the door, along with his representative, Mustafa. Mustafa and Richard both signed that card, you've probably seen, and then the doors were more thoroughly taped to everyone's satisfaction. So now, you can see them on video, going to the room, and... So now, what's going to happen is, they're going to unseal the tape, remove that signed paper, et cetera. I do want to point out, Jamie, I know you can hear me in there, I'm sorry to interrupt you. I want to point out we are now outside the door. The door was signed by Mustafa, it was also signed by Richard Saunders. Richard, please check and make sure your signature's on there, please. Mr. Mustafa, would you take a look and make sure that your signature's on there and it hasn't been tampered with, yes? I'm going to ask you, Mr. Mustafa, to please start to remove the tape, if you will. So once all the tape is removed... No, we'll wait until after. Then the last thing will be to unlock the door. Now, we were given instructions exactly what the configuration was of the objects on the table in there. We removed everything else from the room, other than the table and the target objects and the one personal object. And so, the first thing that's going to happen when these doors are open is we will ask that Mustafa confirm that everything is according to the originally requested and designed protocol. We didn't want to take a picture of that ahead of time or have any other confirmation of that because we didn't want any chance of leaking that information. I'd like you to unlock the door, if you will. Mr. Mustafa, I'd like you to come stand right over here, if you will, please. Thank you very much. And as I say, so I'd like you to open the door and just kind of step back to the side. I would like the camera to see what the objects are before we even really get to see what those objects are. If you would pull this door, please. So it looks like we have number 11, which is the necktie. Number 23, which is a stuffed elephant. And number 10, which is just a little tea saucer. Yes. So it looks as if none of them were correct. So we can now step in, if you would, just bring the camera in just a little bit closer. See the other object there in the middle is a t-shirt. That would be number 11. That was the personal object. Number 10. And number 23, which come on in, Mr. Mustafa. And everything is kind of as it was except for the objects before, correct, yes? And you would agree that this was indeed just a failure this time, yes? Yes, yes. So they're going to come back. The lights go on the whole time? Yep. Okay. No, you wouldn't know. All right, so let's take the objects back in there. We're going to come back here. We'll keep them occupied when we come back. We'll contact our test subject and let him know the results. So, Mr. Mustafa, you're going to reach, go back to the phone and give the information. I ask, I'm not sure, just to make sure this was completely asked, you can confirm that what you now saw in the room for the first time was completely consistent with all of the, met the requirements of the protocols. Absolutely. They were on the table according to the manner in which it was designed. Everything was consistent with that, yes? Absolutely, yes. Okay. Thank you very much. And you will have to know, Mr. Oden, to show me an open connection, yep. Whoops. They've been out now. Oh, yeah, it's DJ's phone. Yes, I'd like to take questions if that's at all possible. My first question is, is he surprised by the result? Sure. And what does he think about the result? We're 11, 10 and 23. Do you think he tried the sauce? He already knows that it's during Ramadan and it's not optimal conditions, but he did more than what he can, like his efforts. And it looks like the timing was really, the factor of timing was more than what he has anticipated that it would affect him. So he's effectively working like seventh of his normal power outside Ramadan, but he's not giving any excuses. I mean, this is what it is. Can I get you just to ask him one question? Because even before we started this, we did ask, you know, how well he thought he would do. And he did say that he thought he would succeed and that he'd be successful. I mean, it wasn't at that point where he did say that, you know, it's only one seventh of my ability at that point. But so now, you know, we're saying that. And we understand, you know, respectfully so, it is during Ramadan, he did say, you know, it's not the optimal time for him. But when that aspect was discussed, even though he mentioned that, we then asked, nevertheless, are you confident that you can use during this time or do we have to do the test at another time? And he absolutely agreed that he would be able to do it during this period. Yeah, he could have made that choice, but at the time we asked him, he really wanted to do it during this event. So that's what he was hoping for. So we have time for maybe just a couple of questions. Yeah, I wanted to ask what was the significance of the arrangement of the items or why was that chosen or why would that help him, I suppose? He said... Right, so he said none of that affected it. He repeated again, it's just... I think the question was what was the significance of the distance that you could actually see the objects and the fact you have the lights on and those things. Is that the question? Right, the T-shirts in the center, why are the objects around it? What is the significance of that? Yeah, as he said, there is no significance as the orientation of the objects. But very specifically, he wanted... the T-shirt had to be in the center, yes? No, it's just so that it's within equal distance from all the objects because he uses that as a beacon kind of thing to find the place. So, yeah. Okay, next question. What made you think that it was the paper towels, the coat hanger, and the chips? What kind of senses did he get to make him conclude that those are the items? And the... and the chips, do you hear the things that made you think that they were these? Yeah, I think, for example, when I was in college, I used to go to school, I used to go to school, but I didn't want to go to school. So, I went to school, but I didn't want to go to school. So, I went to school, but I didn't want to go to school. So, I went to school, but I didn't want to go to school but I didn't have the kind of senses to conclude the counteractivity. So, that's the kind of senses I have. Well, he essentially said that he tried his best to, he doesn't see them very clearly, so it's up to him to kind of rule out. So if he sees something that looks like a hanger, he has to somehow rule out that is it for example a tie that is oriented as the hanger or it's the hanger. So there's a kind of, what do you call it, ruling out process that he has to go through and maybe he made a mistake along the way. Next question. Can I clarify something? It sounds like it's a visual thing that he's getting, is that correct? That's actually why, one of the things that we really wanted is that he would choose the objects. Like say for example I want a small chair, a ball, a car etc etc. But just given the time of this test we weren't able to accommodate that so that's one other factor that it would be ideal for him if he chooses the objects. Of course JRF will get the actual objects so that there's no trickery there or there's no GPS chip or something. But it would be better if he chose the objects. Jamie, another question. Does this result make him doubt his ability and if not what kind of evidence would it take, what would it take for him to doubt that he does in fact have his ability? I'm going to ask you a question. Hello? Yes. I'm going to ask you if you want to be able to make a check on your ability. And what if you want to be able to make a check on your ability? What kind of test do you need and why do you want to make a check on your ability? He said he would not be able to make a check on his ability. He said he would never doubt his abilities just because for the simple fact that they have been confirmed by him and by other people and it's not like something that he's imagining or it's just the timing again he said the timing could have affected the results but at this point he has no doubt in his abilities. We'll take one more question. One more question right here. I'm just trying to understand the process a little better. The room was sealed for three days. Did he find one object each day? Did he go to the room more than once? I'm just trying to figure out how he did the process of getting these three items. Yes, so he would need three days regardless of the number of the objects. It's just he said again it's under the normal circumstances it would be much clearer because he kind of sends the question and then he gets the answer after three days and usually he gets it extremely clear but because he had never worked during the month of Ramadan this is kind of a contract that he follows and this time it was kind of fog so he had to really work and try to rule out or try to guess which object it is so that's... Mustafa could you please convey to Mr. Adun because we realize this is the time of Ramadan the James Randi Educational Foundation is willing to forgo the normal 12 month waiting period and if he wishes to reapply again he can do that when he feels comfortable. We're going to reschedule the test as soon as he wishes outside of Ramadan. Are you ready? I'm ready. Yes, I'm ready. Well, they told you about the risk of getting this test done during Ramadan and they said it's an exception that you have to apply for a new one after Ramadan and you have to wait 12 months to get it done. Thank you very much. Is it good? Yes, he appreciates that and he said then it will be fair because he will be working at his full capacity and he appreciates it. Would you convey our greatest thanks for him for being part of this time this year please and tell him we will be in touch? Thank you. We do want to say and we want to make sure that we said that applicant and also his representative Mustafa have been absolutely forthright, easy to work with throughout and made every effort to make sure that everything was communicated clearly from both sides and we're very grateful for all of you. Thank you very much. From my side I would like to thank Giraffe and really designing the protocol was really a very unique experience for me and I get to know that I'm working with professionals in this specific area. Again, I'm wearing the t-shirt. I'm actually as passionate as any one of you here in fighting the fakers as any one of you and again we're still looking for that paranormal, supernatural if it exists or if not. That's the right mindset, open but very skeptical. Thank you very very much. Mustafa ladies and gentlemen, so we come to the end of not just another MDC but we come to the end of another tan. Sadly so but also excitingly so because that means we have to start getting ready for the next year and that starts now. So once again ladies and gentlemen I'd like to thank each and every single one of you for coming here. I know some of these MDCs take a little bit long and even like here with the communication back and forth is a little bit awkward but I'm sure you understand what we have to go through and you get a much better look at what it is that we all go through and this is a collective effort. We are definitely a team and none of us could do any of this without each one of us and especially without the amazing Randy. I mean his guidance is invaluable. Something you want to say? And we also really appreciate your enthusiastic attention to this last year. I have to say we were really worried up here about the amount of time it took and it was really kind of a difficult process and later on tonight at the Del Mar where I will be in mere seconds from now. I will be there for a little bit. I'm going to pick up a dead body at 7 a.m. Grace you there Mofo. But you know people more than one and the first one I thought it was a joke I thought I was being punked but you know by the third time in the night people came up and said you know the MDC event was our favorite event of the conference and I think what that speaks to is people who really understand what we're trying to do here at the JREF what the MDC represents about our mission in the larger sense of it and your focus and your attention to that means a tremendous amount to us all. So thank you very much. Well said. Thank you very good night. Thanks a lot.