From Psychic Sleuths:
ESP and Sensational Cases Edited by Joe Nickell Prometheus Books (1994) (Pages 60-85) |
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The Blue Sense correctly states, in its single-sentence reference to this remarkable case, that "special agent Mark Babyak [of the FBI] testified that Ms. Renier had successfully helped him locate a crashed plane."41 And Renier continues to promote this case as one of her most amazing success stories, as she did in the April 1, 1992, Woman's Day article, "Can psychics solve crimes?" The following is her dramatic and emotional description of events as
recounted on the May 22, 1990, "Joan Rivers Show":
Jessica Herbert had testified that within days of her visit to Renier, the plane was found in "an area exactly the way [Renier] had described it
The following is from the testimony of FBI Special Agent Babyak:
According to newspaper accounts, the January 28, 1984, crash and
explosion were heard by local pilot Ronald Richards and a companion, moments after they noted a low-flying plane pass over the Gardner, Mass. airport.44 An exhaustive but fruitless ground and air search was commenced on Jan. 31, and called off on Feb. 7.45 But efforts were resumed on Feb. 9 at the request of Jessica Herbert, who arrived on scene that day in a chartered plane from Washington.46
Finally, on Feb. 10, the wreckage of the plane was located [see image on right]. The
following is from John Monahan's front-page story
in the Worcester, Massachusetts Telegram:
Newspaper accounts on Feb. 13 and 14 reported upon the results of the post-mortem examinations performed by the medical examiner. Arthur Herbert, 28, brother of Jessica Herbert, was positively identified as one of the four victims, all of whom, according to Dr. Paul Hart's findings, "died immediately" upon impact [Emphasis added.]48, 49
Two years later, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued its official determination of the causes of the crash. Inadequate preflight preparations, including lack of adequate winterization of the engine, had created unsafe conditions aboard the craft. The NTSB report said the crash occurred "during a forced landing after a fire ignited in the aircraft" [Emphasis added.]50
Correction: I discovered years after publication that the preceding paragraph and its newspaper citation refer to an entirely
different crash -- another one near the same tiny airport six days earlier -- and which more closely matches Renier's
clues. I regret the error.
However, the actual circumstances of the correct plane's flight and crash, on a pitch-black night, appear to have been even more
intriguing than my chapter's account. Three of the four occupants, including the pilot, used aliases when renting the plane,
the pilot had not filed a flight plan, and he approached the airport with all of the plane's internal and external lights off and even
may have intentionally turned the runway lights off (via his onboard transmitter) immediately after one of the the two witnesses
at the airport (who had landed in a small plane a bit earlier) had rushed back into his plane to relight the runway (see the asterisked
paragraph in the article cited in footnote #44, as well
as this newspaper article and
this statement to the NTSB by one of the two witnesses). One might
speculate (and some have) that the pilot had hoped to avoid detection by landing in the dark with no witnesses, and when that
became impossible, he aborted the landing. Some additional newspaper articles may be found
on this page of the globalnetresearch.com website.
Special Agent Babyak had more than just Renier's "psychic" impressions to guide him in his search for the missing plane. The following exchange had occurred during the deposing of Babyak by Merrell's attorney: "Q: Your ex-wife indicated in her deposition that there had been a report of a crash right off that airport, and that crash was supposed to have happened on the night that her brother's plane was missing. Were you aware of that report? A: I was aware of that through her, yes."51
Jessica Herbert had further testified during her deposition that her visit to Renier had taken place one day after their initial telephone conversation about the case.52 At the time, Herbert had obviously been keeping herself well-informed as to the progress of the investigation into the plane's disappearance, though she, like everyone else, was unaware of two facts that would only later be discovered: the condition of her brother
(dead on impact), and the cause of the crash (fire). [See "Correction" notice above] Even if Renier had used the one day available to her to research the published accounts of the then-week-long search for the missing plane, witnessed to have crashed in a hilly, wooded region near the Gardner, Mass. airport, those two facts would have remained unknown to her -- unless, of course, she was "psychic."
In her Practical Homicide Investigation commentary, Renier emphasizes that, "As I describe the victim and the scene
If Renier really does possess "psychic" abilities, such should be a simple enough matter to confirm unambiguously, by means of a carefully controlled test, under conditions which eliminate the possiblility of cheating or self-delusion. During my 1986 radio appearance with her, Renier initially expressed resistance to being tested by a group of skeptics. But under pressure from Mark Plummer, then Executive Director of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (who participated by phone from CSICOP's Buffalo headquarters), Renier
commented to the effect that, "You know where I am if you want to test me." Immediately after the show, both Bev Smith and her producer expressed to me their interest in doing a follow-up program, and in possibly assisting in the arrangements for a controlled test of Renier, who was billed as the Bev Smith Show's "resident psychic." I attempted to pursue this matter in two subsequent letters to Smith's producer, but never received a reply.
During a February 1990 telephone conversation with Terry
Smiljanich, Chairman of the Tampa Bay Skeptics (TBS), Renier agreed to
receive from TBS a proposal for just such a test, though she did remain non-committal.55 (I founded TBS in 1988, and since 1989 we
have been offering $1,000 for any successful demonstration of any paranormal phenomenon.) In Smiljanich's
follow-up letter to Renier, he referred to her 1989 appearance on ABC-TV's Incredible Sunday "in which you
performed 'psychometry' on police officers' keys and rings, which were sealed in
envelopes [see image on right from the program].
Renier never replied directly to Smiljanich, but in a later telephone call to me she expressed her disinterest in being tested "by a doctor and an attorney" (referring to myself and Smiljanich), since she was "working on too many police cases and with too many scientists to have the time.
But the Tampa Bay Skeptics remains willing and able to carry out a test -- perhaps the one suggested by Smiljanich, or even an appropriate one designed by Renier herself -- should she ever reconsider. A prior version of Renier's promotional packet contained a newspaper article alleging another easily testable ability: "She intimidates some people, such as opponents in billiards, where she uses her powers to block shots."60 And given Renier's claim on the May 22, 1990, "Joan Rivers Show" that she has the ability to see right through one's clothing, any number of far more entertaining test possibilities come to mind.
During the original Oregon libel trial, Merrell had disputed the
accuracy of many of Renier's claimed psychic successes. The case I find the most fascinating, and for which the most documentary evidence is available, deals with her role in locating an airplane that had crashed in Massachusetts. To this day, Merrell remains convinced that the verdict in Renier's favor resulted, in large part, from her having moved several female jurors to tears with her "psychic" rendition of the tragic death scene of a young man and his female companion. For these reasons I have selected this case to present in detail, to illustrate the importance of
employing intensely critical scrutiny when evaluating even the most impressively corroborated paranormal claims.
A lady [Jessica Herbert] called me on the phone and told me she was an FBI agent's wife [Note:
actually Babyak's ex-wife], and her brother was missing up north in the Massachusetts area
[T]hey had been unable to find any evidence of a plane and were going to call off the search, so
Jessica was quite frantic.
Four bodies were recovered from the twisted wreck.
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