“Respected” Psychic Mistakes Fake Photo For Actual Ghost
One of Australia’s most, er, respected psychics, got a strong dose of reality last month when he “publicly analysed a ghost photo which was in fact a fake image captured by an iPhone application.” Psychic Anthony Grzelka was displaying his supernatural talents on the radio when a listener by the name of Rhanee sent in a photo which, she claimed, showed the image of a ghost.
According to the article in The Sydney Morning Herald,
Mr Grzelka told Rhanee the photo was frightening but the spirit was only an innocent little girl called Bethany who had died in a fire in the early 1900s.
“Around 1905, 1910 this little girl unfortunately lost her life in a (hospital) fire, I’m not sure if it’s your building or in that area,” Mr Grzelka said.
“You’ll probably only have a run in with her when you have younger kids around the place.
“There’s nothing to be scared of here (but) there is another spirit in this house.
“The other spirit is an older gentleman.”
Apparently, Grzelka came up with quite a back story behind this photograph–which seems more than a little suspicious, given the fact that the picture turned out to be “the same image used in an iPhone application called Ghost Capture.” In other words, a hoax.
Of course, a good psychic can never back down. While Grzelka acknowledges the picture was a hoax, he still staunchly defends his analysis:
“Yes I stand by the information I gave, keeping in mind the information I gave relating to the hospital/orphanage fire was all correct and verified by the lady who owns the house where the events are happening.” he said.
“I am reading the environment surrounding the photo image as well.
“The name Bethany came to me along with details of how she passed, I naturally related this to what I was looking at.”
This story really needs no further comment from us, but since we can’t resist: how could anyone believe that while Grzelka is psychic enough to pick up on the existence (along with names and ages) of ghosts via a photograph, he somehow is not psychic enough to figure out that the picture itself contained a fake image? How odd that psychic powers never seem to work that way.
The saddest part of this whole incident is that The Sydney Morning Herald followed-up this article with the announcement that Grzelka was touring Perth is February, providing tour locations and dates for all those interested in paying money to see this guy.
Did Grzelka lose any ticket sales after making such a blatant and public mistake? One can only hope…
But really, how many self-proclaimed psychics must fall flat on their faces before people stop giving them money?
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It looks like the skeptics have made a critical error, unfortunately.
A psychic can, supposedly, pick up ghosts, etc, from any object. The fact that the article was claimed to be a different article to that stated doesn’t make it a different object!
Accordingly, the fact that the article was not what it pretended to be isn’t relevant to the accuracy of any supposed prediction concerning it.
I think the mistake the skeptics make here is a mistake they make all the time. They assume that there is a mooted, and mistken causal relationship between what a psychic supposedly picks up and the article or object that is being investigated.
Sorry lads, better luck next time!
John, I’m not clear on what your point is.
Are you saying that what the picture is should have no bearing on what the psychic is able to pick up? In other words, if I give a psychic a picture that I claim is from my childhood, and the picture turns out to be professional model shot that came with the frame, it would make no difference because the psychic should be able to “read” the picture, right?
If that is what you’re saying, you are completely missing the point in this particular case. The psychic in this article was handed the picture above and told it was a ghost. The psychic then went on to give detailed information on the ghost. The problem? The ghost WAS A PHONY IMAGE, CREATED BY AN iPHONE APPLICATION. This was not just two different pictures, this was a fake ghost mistaken for a real ghost. You can claim–along with the psychic–that he still read something real from the picture, but that would be insulting our intelligence. Shouldn’t a psychic, who claims to be able to pick up on ghostly images, be able to tell the difference between a FAKE GHOST and a REAL GHOST? Shouldn’t that be the absolute least he could do?
The psychic might be deliberatley pulling a fast one, but the example doesn’t show it. All you can show by this example is that the psychic didn’t understand the way he claims to pick up ghosts.
The psychic can succesfully argue that he reads the object, not the artifact associated with it. He can argue that the object handed to him may well have had a ghost embedded in it EVEN IF he erronously associates the ghost with the image on the object.
Researchers need to be more alert about what they claim to have shown.
John, you and I will have to agree to disagree on this one.
You’re absolutely correct that the psychic can argue that he still read the picture, and that he sill picked up on some kind of ghostly activity surrounding it. The psychic HAS argued this, and we quote him in our article–so our intention was never to ignore or pretend that that line of reasoning doesn’t exist. However, I disagree that the psychic could “successfully” argue this. To me, this is a weak argument. It’s along the same lines of a psychic doing a reading for an individual person, and, when that person can’t validate any of the claims, the psychic can simply argue that he was actually reading someone else who happened to be in the room.
Psychics seem to be very good at setting things up so that there’s very little chance they could be wrong, and this strikes me more like the behavior of con artists. It would have been very impressive for the psychic in the above article to pick up on the fake ghost. The fact that he read the fake ghost as a real ghost shows me he was taken in. Sure, I could never prove beyond a doubt that the psychic wasn’t reading some ghostly element embedded in the picture, but I find the argument weak, to say the least.
@John
Are you saying that, despite being a fake, the photo described above had some ghostly presence in it and that’s what the psychic was reading?
Sounds like you’re grasping at straws…
to Sara and the Monkey..I’m playing Devils advocate, in support of the psychic. We are all looking to make logical points, so we shouldn’t have any disagreement.:
“Clutching at straws”, or “weak argument” might work, but not in this instance.. Why is this?
Traditionally , psychics pick up from 1) the object’s physical substance, and not from 2) what the object is supposed to represent.
Therefore, the psychic could easily argue that his reading was correct but that that we are all prone to misleading suggestion, directly or indirectly, psychic or not. He could argue that he was misled into 2), above, by a fervent debunker and his contrived artifact.
I can recall some unexplained things happening to me as a kid, but now I question if they were supernatural or created by youthful ignorance.
Anyhow, here’s a rather provocative and hilarious article my friend wrote about Ghost Hunting:
http://thingsthatshouldntstillexist.wordpress.com/2010/09/22/01-ghost-hunters/