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Behind black eyes: Reports of spooky black-eyed kids

9/29/2014

 
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By Sharon Hill

They are described as pale-skinned, robotic, and exude a sense of menace and dread. But it's just a child - a child with jet black, soulless eyes. As with other paranormal themed entities, believing is seeing.

The Birmingham Mail (U.K.) posted a story related by a local paranormal investigator, Lee Brickley from Stafforshire back in 2013. He received an email report of a sighting of the Cannock Chase black eyed child. 

A leading paranormal investigator has scoured a Staffordshire beauty spot following chilling sightings of a spectre known locally as The Black Eyed Child.

Lee Brickley launched an in-depth investigation of Cannock Chase after reports that the ghoulish apparition has returned to the sprawling heathland.

The child was last spotted 30 years ago, sparking worldwide interest – and is today a cult internet sensation.

Latest descriptions of the girl, who has coal-black pits for eye sockets, are identical to those chronicled in the early 1980s.
This piece, accompanied by a grotesque and horrible picture of a scary child (however, not with black eyes), is getting thousands of shares and being covered by media outlets all over the world. (I’m not clear WHY they dredged up a 2013 blog post and wrote this story as if this is a recent sighting). 

Whenever such reports appear in tabloids or on mystery-mongering forums and websites, Internet search engines spike as people are fascinating by the tale and search to know more. 

The 2013 report is said to parallel other reports from the past in this area: the witness is alarmed by the sound of a screaming child. When they search for the source, they are suddenly faced with a child (in this recent reported case, a little girl approximately 10 years old), who reveals jet black eyes without irises or sclera. Stories of black-eyed children have been reported widely but writer Brickley says that daytime sightings are rather unique to Cannock Chase.

Reports of black-eyed kids (BEK) are frightening at face value but have characteristics that peg them as textbook urban legends. There does not seem to be documentation of such events but they are passed on as "friend of a friend" stories with irrational, supernatural elements. The wikipedia page for black-eyed kids is being considered for deletion because it is not sourced. Yet, it's easy to find dozens of tales online. 
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Operation Bumblebee stings psychic medium Chip Coffey

9/29/2014

 
By Sheldon Helms
I just have to say this and get it off my chest. There were times last night when I felt a little sorry for Chip Coffey, self-described “Psychic, Medium and Spiritual Counselor,” during his pathetically-titled “Coffey Talk” show in San Jose, California.

I'm sure it looked really cool in his mind when he was planning it, imagining a full house of screaming fans, and his cheap-looking scarf (copies of which were on sale in the lobby for $20) wafting in the wind during his jog toward a secure place to chill out as we all anxiously awaited his return. But, in a harshly lit meeting room of mostly empty chairs, watching a fey, middle-aged man – in jeans and a black zip-up jacket from North Face, no less – jogging and wheezing his way down the center aisle to the back of the room, where fewer than a hundred people half-heartedly applauded until he finally just walked out (presumably to the men's room) was just sad and depressing.

That feeling of empathy was short lived, however. Undercover and playing the role of “Wade,” I, along with my fellow Operation Bumblebee investigators, felt anger and scorn for what, in our opinion, was obvious charlatanism.

“Operation Bumblebee” was the brainchild of Susan Gerbic, co-founder of the Monterey County Skeptics, and creator of the Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia project. She and several others had been working for months on the project, gathering the funds necessary to purchase tickets, arranging various strategies to control for “hot reading” (online and other research tactics that some psychics use to increase their hit rate), as well as attempting to find people willing to participate. Once I learned about the project, I jumped at the chance to take part. Although I came late to the mission, I also came particularly well suited for the task. I serve on the board of directors for the Bay Area Skeptics, I have a flexible work schedule, I trained as a stage actor in college, and for a number of years in the 1980s and 1990s I was a true believer in all manner of New Age nonsense. My instructions were to devise a character for myself that: a) had lost a loved one; b) wanted to regain contact with that loved one through Chip; and c) totally believed in psychics and otherworldly claptrap. This would be my first foray back into the world of psychics and New Agers since my conversion to rationality and sanity. It was, to put it mildly, a surreal experience. And, much to our delight, the plan went off without a hitch.


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    SWIFT is named after Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver's Travels. In the book, Gulliver encounters among other things a floating island inhabited by spaced-out scientists and philosophers who hardly deal with reality. Swift was among the first to launch well-designed critiques against the flummery - political, philosophical, and scientific - of his time, a tradition that we hope to maintain at The James Randi Foundation.

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