[THEME MUSIC]
NARRATOR: What vision drew this woman to a canyon of death
and led her to face a murder charge?
I didn't want to be right but the drive
was so hard that I had to come.
I had to have the answer.
I had to know.
NARRATOR: Trapped under the ice of a frozen river,
did a lost child enter the mind of a psychic 100 miles away
and lead searchers to his body?
When you're working with each other--
NARRATOR: In this California classroom,
police learn forensics-- psychic style.
TEACHER: Everything you've ever--
NARRATOR: Will it make them better detectives?
Mysteries from the files of Arthur C. Clarke,
author of "2001" and inventor of the communications satellite.
Now in retreat in Sri Lanka, he ponders the riddles
of this and other worlds.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
In 1979, the Fresno police scoured
hundreds of square miles in their search
for an abducted child.
They failed to find her and the desperate parents
of eight-year-old Victoria De Santiago
asked a psychic detective for help.
On the psychic's instructions, the Fresno police
were guided deep into the backwoods
to a lonely chicken farm.
At first, detectives Tim McFadden and Joel Popejoy
were skeptical.
I never dealt with a psychic before and I
thought I'd go up there and some lady in a gypsy
garb with a flashing neon sign in her window that said,
fortune teller, would answer the door,
and would rattle a few bones, and throw some incense,
and burn some stuff.
She wouldn't tell me a whole lot of anything
but the mother wanted to do it, and it seemed like we
should go along with her. [BIRDS CHIRPING]
When I got up there I met Kay, and she was a very
normal lady-- just typical.
And within about 10 minutes of talking to her
I realized that this lady did know something about this case
because she was telling me things that she shouldn't know.
NARRATOR: Kathlyn Rhea counts hundreds of police
forces as satisfied customers.
She told Sergeant McFadden that the girl was dead.
She had seen the tragedy enacted in a vision.
Now, the first thing I saw was her being taken
into a car with her little sister and the dog by two men,
at the time.
I feel one man left before it was all over.
And then I started seeing the direction.
I wanted to look to see where did they drive her,
and I felt they took her on a highway that was going north.
And then I felt that then they went off of that highway
onto what I thought was more of a country road.
And I could see the chicken farm because I kept seeing feathers.
I kept saying it's like lots of feathers,
like there's a chicken ranch or poultry ranch.
SGT. TIM MCFADDEN: She told me that the body was
out east of town-- that I should look for a road in the country,
that I should look for something to do with chickens
or feathers, that there was a windmill nearby,
that the body was lying parallel to the road
near a plowed field, that there was-- it was laying
near the base of a tall tree.
NARRATOR: Victoria had been with her dog.
Kathlyn Rhea was certain it was still alive.
She said the dog would lead the police to the child's body.
[CROW CAWING]
The dog was still missing, and as I left the house after
a couple hours of interviewing her
she stopped me and-- I'll never forget this-- she said--
Tim, you find the dog, and you'll
find the girl's body-- because I knew the dog was near it.
They didn't drop the dog off somewhere else.
I received a radio call that there had been a dog found that
resembled the victim's dog.
I, at that point, responded to this address.
I made contact with the owner of the property
and called the dog by name.
Once entering the residence, the dog came to me.
At that point, I felt that this possibly
could be the victim's dog.
So when I arrived here, and I called Detective McFadden,
I asked him, what else do you have
in order to isolate this area?
Now, the time that I arrived here it
was dark-- really no visual at all other than finding
the address and gaining entry.
And I asked Detective McFadden, what else was there?
And he said, a windmill.
And I thought, well, I've got you now.
There's no windmill.
I couldn't see any windmill when I pulled up.
And I asked the gentleman and he said, yes, there's
one in front of the house.
You'd have seen it if it wasn't dark.
SGT. TIM MCFADDEN: So I told the people
there we need to go out there.
We all need to go out there and look.
And we brought about 10 or 15 detectives out here
and started walking.
And with a matter of 10 minutes, a pair of them
had found the body of Victoria De Santiago right down the road
here probably a half a mile from where we're standing
at the base of a big tree.
And the things that she told me about the body
were all there too.
She said, there'd be a windmill.
It was outside where Detective Popejoy was.
She told me, find the dog and you'd find Victoria.
Detective Popejoy had found the dog.
She said there would be a freshly plowed field.
She said there'd be an orchard.
All these things were here.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE: Sadly, this tragic case
has never been solved.
Psychics often volunteer to help the police.
From Jack the Ripper in Victorian England
to the serial killers of the late 20th century,
countless people claiming paranormal powers
have offered to crack unsolved murders or missing person cases
that have hit the headlines.
Sometimes the psychics can do better
than ordinary investigators.
For example, when the famous crime novelist,
Agatha Christie, disappeared in 1926
everyone thought she was dead.
Then, Sir Arthur Conan Dolye, creator of Sherlock Holmes,
called in a psychic who announced
that Ms. Christie was alive and would turn
up soon which she duly did.
Each psychic crimebuster has a different technique.
In a recent case, one used an object to focus on.
NARRATOR: When five-year-old Tommy Kennedy went missing,
his favorite sneakers were the key to his rescue.
Teams of searches combed the forests
around Empire Lake all day.
By nightfall, they feared the worst.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
Nice to have you with us.
How you doing?
Good.
Good to have you back.
Are you enjoying your summer?
-Yes. -Good.
NARRATOR: Then a local priest made an extraordinary offer
to help the searchers.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
He asked for something of Tommy's.
They gave him a sneaker.
[ENGINE NOISE]
I find that when I work, especially with missing persons
cases, that if I have an article that has been
in their possession, for some reason,
I can tune in more positively to them.
Well, after I had the sneaker in my possession,
I was able to tune in even more.
I really felt that I had to, sort of,
project ahead and know what was going to be the path
that I would have to take.
Well, I think there were a lot of skeptics.
There were some people that were sure that he was
a witch or a demon from hell.
But there were also others of us that
knew Phil, and knew what he could do,
and certainly had some faith in him.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
NARRATOR: From the picture he saw in his mind's eye,
Phil Jordan drew a map.
He's kept it to this day.
REV. PHIL JORDAN: And I said there
will be three overturned boats.
And directly across from those boats
there would be a building.
And we would have to go into a thicket and a wooded area
behind that building, and continue
on up until we found a clearing that had a pile of rocks.
There would be a brook or a stream.
And a little ways past that we would find Tommy
Kennedy asleep under a tree.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
DICK CLARKE: So we got here and, of course, still had the map.
And as we approached the area it was
just like it was a Kodak photo.
And we set off in the direction that Phil had
indicated with full confidence.
When I went into the woods I would hold the sneaker
and it seemed as though each time I would touch it,
it would tell me what direction to go, so to speak.
The vibrations would draw me to the right, to the left,
go forward, continue on.
And so I think it just acted as an instrument
to help to tune me into his location.
NARRATOR: 17 hours of searching had failed to locate Tommy.
Phil found him alive and well in minutes.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
REV. PHIL JORDAN: When we did find Tommy
it was an extremely emotional time for me.
It was very draining to work psychically that long,
and I was fatigued mentally.
But I think the spiritual experience of the whole thing--
of being able to save a little boy's life
and knowing that he was OK-- I just knelt and wept.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
ARTHUR C. CLARKE: Very often, however,
psychic detectives provide completely
misleading information.
When an American general was kidnapped in Italy
in the 1980s, the Pentagon was deluged with offers
of paranormal assistance.
But they stopped listening after 500 policemen raided
a house described by one psychic and found
an innocent and very surprised family having breakfast.
Ironically, psychics who provide too accurate information
can get into trouble.
NARRATOR: A compelling vision drove
Etta Louise Smith to a remote canyon high in the hills
above Los Angeles.
She'd heard on the news that police were
searching for a missing nurse.
Detectives were carrying out house to house inquiries
but Etta Louise says she knew exactly where
18-year-old Melanie Uribe was.
ETTA LOUISE SMITH: It was as if I heard a voice or someone tell
me, she's not in the house.
And as soon as I registered that thought--
she's not in a house-- it was like I saw a picture.
It was as clear as a photograph in front of me.
I could see where she was.
The picture was of a curvy road in the canyon--
a curve on the right, dirt path going out
to something white, and a hill behind, and a lot of shrubbery,
a lot of bush.
[CROW CAWING]
And I knew.
I went into the police station.
I met a gentleman-- a detective, Mr. Lee Ryan.
He was genuinely interested.
And I said, I know it's strange but I can't explain this.
He asked me if I knew the name of the street.
And I said, no, I don't.
I know how to get there.
I know where it is.
I don't know the name.
Well, I went home.
We all get in the van.
We drove through this canyon and got all the way to the top,
and we had not spotted anything white and shrubbery.
And all of a sudden, my daughter says, Mama.
Mama. Stop.
I said, what is it, honey?
She said, Mama, stop.
I saw something.
And I stopped and I said, look, honey,
what do you think you saw?
She says, Ma, I see something white out there.
She said, Ma, it's a body.
And I'm going, oh, no. No.
I said, Tina.
She said, Ma, it's a body.
This person had on no clothing, and that's another thing that
made it very difficult to see and understand
what I was looking at.
But the only thing this person, or this object,
had was white nurses shoes.
NARRATOR: Etta Smith told the police
of her gruesome discovery.
Amazed by her story, they promptly arrested her.
Etta was charged with murder and jailed for five days.
She was only freed when three youths
were overheard discussing the crime and arrested.
[CAR HORN]
Determined to clear her name, Etta Smith
hired lawyer James Blatt.
JAMES BLATT: I can't make a judgment
call on all the other psychic phenomena that occur.
All I can say is the one that I experienced
here appeared to be valid.
She found the body.
There's been no evidence whatsoever that she knew
anyone connected to the crime.
And she acted as a responsible, concerned citizen.
Based upon that, she was subsequently
arrested for the murder.
She spent five days in a jail cell.
And I indicated to the jury that I
felt that that type-- that the arrest was unlawful, that she
should be remunerated for that arrest,
and that having a vision and acting upon that vision
is not a crime.
The judge ruled in our favor and then
the jury ruled in our favor.
NARRATOR: Thanks to James Blatt, Etta Smith was awarded
$24,000 for wrongful arrest.
ETTA LOUISE SMITH: It took me six years to clear my name.
I'm glad I did it.
I felt that it could be done but if it had taken 20,
I think I would still be fighting.
I wouldn't have quit until I cleared my name.
NARRATOR: In the old gold rush town of Jackson,
the police are polishing new skills.
Sheriff Ken Blakes called in Judy Belle
to lecture his men on psychometry.
[THUD]
JUDY BELLE: What we're going to do
is you're going to come over, you're
going to pick up an object, take it back to your table,
do psychometry on it, write about it--
[LAUGHTER]
NARRATOR: Psychometrists believe that objects
pick up vibrations, especially when crime's involved.
Judy says detectives can learn to tune in to vital clues
embedded in the evidence.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
If you took a room full of people, and took them out,
and taught them how to play basketball
some of them would be really good and some of them wouldn't.
You take a group of people, whether they're police officers
or not, and you start teaching them
psychic things-- some of them are going to be good.
Some of them aren't.
Some of them are gonna be good in one area,
some are gonna be good in another.
Everybody's going to be able to do it
but whether or not they can do it well
depends upon how much natural ability
they've got to start with.
It's interesting.
I get a feeling of very softness about it.
It's not a-- even though it's a gun,
I don't feel any harshness out of it.
It's a real soft feeling-- almost a feminine feeling.
There's no doubt in my mind that I'm
getting some type of feeling and that I'm learning from this.
The first weapon I picked up was this one and it
just-- I got shakes and I'd have sworn when I pick it
up that it'd killed somebody.
I'm not saying that we will be able to solve
every crime because we have now gone
through Judy Belle's course.
But I think that some of the techniques that we've learned
will allow them to be better investigators, to be better
interviewers, and I think that we'll be better police
officers in the long run.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
NARRATOR: At the University of Hertfordshire,
British researchers are mounting an experiment
to put extra sensory detection to the test.
They've gathered grisly relics from the police black museum
and have invited psychics to describe the crimes
in which they were used.
Two observers have been called in
to help psychologist Doctor Richard
Wiseman assess the results.
[CHATTER]
They're Donald West, retired professor of criminology
at Cambridge University, and journalist
Roy Stemman of "Psychic News."
They'll watch from behind a two-way mirror.
SPEAKER 1: --be easier but it's just a question when they talk.
The test today is looking at people who claim to be psychic.
They claim to be able to handle objects that
are connected with a crime and tell us,
psychically, about that crime.
And today what we're doing is comparing how well they
do on the test versus a group of people
that don't claim the ability.
And today, that's the students.
NARRATOR: Exhibit A is a shoe worn
by a woman murdered in 1899.
Her body lay in a secret grave for four years.
Her killer was in the army and was hanged in 1901.
Exhibit B is a bullet which killed
a policeman in the 1920s.
It was one of three fired into his head by two attackers.
They too were hanged.
A 70-year-old woman wore exhibit C.
The scarf was used to strangle her during a burglary.
The killer was a milkman.
First on are the psychics.
Chris Robinson's technique is to dream
about the objects in advance.
CHRIS ROBINSON: The dreams that I had to do with item A
were to do with a woman-- to do with a woman who was murdered,
and I had an area around Topham Court Road in London.
I thought she had been shot.
I was expecting to see a gun.
Going to the object B-- very strange because when I've been
thinking about tuning into the objects with the item B,
I found a brick wall.
I found something there which was undisclosed-- of something
that's been not revealed.
All I got was a brick wall.
Whether this is for not me to see
or whether it is something still undisclosed but something
that has not been unrevealed, and I've
just heard a loud bang.
Yeah, a feeling of helplessness and abuse and extreme rage.
So if you very much like person that had that sort of object,
actually, sort of, suffered a very violent death.
Something to do with the neck area.
But it was this sort of feeling if you
like the feeling of helplessness and blind panic,
rage, anger, fear.
NARRATOR: Then it's the turn of the students.
A robbery of some sort.
Seems worn from earth where it had been left
for quite a time in undergrowth of something
in some sort of forest area.
I think this is going to be worn by an old woman who's
no doubt dead.
So what we have--
I expected a magazine. [LAUGHTER]
Is it a bullet?
Um.
Don't know.
NARRATOR: After the oral test, the written paper.
In detailed questionnaires, psychics and students
must now match the facts of each crime to the objects.
So we've got-- the shoe there.
There's the 18 statements and what
we want to do is just read them and take the six
that you think go with--
The scarf-- we-- all three of us had a sense of suffocation
or being tied up.
There was death there.
The second one-- I felt we all had difficulties with that.
The last thing I heard was the bang.
I just couldn't really link with the bullet.
The first one was being underground.
I don't think I did very well.
I didn't have much time to think about it,
and I felt a bit under pressure, and just said the first thing
that come to my head.
In terms of success, I did think
that the shoe and the scarf did belong to a woman,
and an elderly woman at that.
But in terms of overall success, I wouldn't say I did very well.
I don't think I was very successful at all
besides the things-- it's physical attributes
and that's obviously an old slug bullet or whatever.
I mean, a woman's going to be wearing that shoe
and perhaps that sort of scarf.
I mean, that's just something physically obvious
but I can't really look into it and say,
well, that's an incident surrounding that.
It's just--
SPEAKER 2: --been in the first World War so I can't--
NARRATOR: As it turned out, the students
did better than they thought.
Well, both the psychics and the students
could have scored a maximum of 54.
In fact, the psychics scored 19, and the students scored 22.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE: These cases are impressive
but far from typical.
The police will tell you that not only do
the psychics failures far outnumber their successes
but they often hamper detection.
Yet, here's one case which impresses
even this hardened skeptic.
NARRATOR: In Watseka, Illinois, Vic Cahoe has never
forgotten Greta Alexander.
When 11-year-old Larry Dean Carter was washed away
in the icy Iroquois River in 1980,
Greta led Cahoe to his body by long distance phone.
The minute he said to me, I have
a missing child, 11-year-old, that we think is drowned.
Immediately, you become that person.
You rise to the occasion.
And so from that moment on, I was with Larry Dean.
You feel what he felt. You feel like you're having
such a good time and laughing.
And the next thing you know you step back,
and you're going under the water.
And the next thing you know is you're turning and rolling
and turning and rolling.
And the current is so strong and you can't get out because it's
like the roof over your head-- you can't get out,
you can't get out-- which was the ice.
Greta was about 130 miles from where
we were at-- at the Watseka.
And so she begin to describe the landscape
and things that was up there.
And I said, well, now wait just a minute.
I need to get on the scene so I can pass this message on,
and we'll figure out some way to communicate
with you when I get there.
They had a mobile phone and they were at the scene of where
he had gone under the water.
I then described to them the muddy bank,
and the fact that there was a rail tie,
and the area which they were in.
And they saw everything as they were at the phone.
So I knew then that I was right.
And once I get that feeling I'm right,
then I can really go with it.
And then you hear-- and you hear the boats, and the motors,
and you hear them cutting the ice.
And you hear those things just as Larry Dean would have heard,
and so you see pictures.
And it's like watching television.
And you hear it just as though you would
hear it in your mind's eye.
Soon after I had established communication with her,
she told me to face the water and so I did face the water.
Now she said, turn to your right,
and I turned to my right.
She says, now walk straight ahead.
Well, I said, I can't walk.
I've not got a long strength.
She says, have someone walk for you.
So I got this fire chief from Decatur
and he was to walk in straight ahead,
and she told me when he steps across
or falls over a little pile of brush,
stop him and have him face the water.
And so when he stepped over-- and sure enough
he came to this thing and stepped over it.
And I hollered, stop, now face the water.
And she said, you're looking right at me-- see my hand.
And they actually saw the boys hand, and they saw shadows,
and this is how we located him.
They called us to get the boy's body.
After they found Larry Dean.
I felt at peace.
I felt that a job was well done and that the relief
of the parents of having their son being able
to be brought home.
The not knowing-- the horrendous pain
that they're going through-- not that they
wouldn't suffer again from the loss
but that it had been completed.
[MUSIC PLAYING]