Alpha - Project Alpha Part II

00:00This is World's Greatest Con. I'm Brian Brushwood.

00:07The following two sentences sound absolutely incompatible.

00:11And yet, to the best of our research, there is no question that both of them are absolutely true.

00:28In the 1670s, Isaac Newton invented calculus.

00:37In the 1670s, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz invented calculus.

00:44For the next several decades, in journals, colleges, and conferences, they battled it about who copied who.

00:53Each one of them was certain that the work they put into this mathematical breakthrough was the foundation for the other.

01:01And yet today, as I speak to you, we know this as an example of multiple discovery.

01:10It's the concept in science and art that two individuals, totally independent of each other, can come up with the exact same idea and publish it at the exact same time.

01:22And it happens more often than you'd think.

01:25In the 18th century, oxygen gets discovered by Carl Wilhelm Scheele, Joseph Priestly, Antoine Lavoisier, and others.

01:33The theory of evolution gets independently advanced in the 1800s by both Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace.

01:41People are still debating that one to this day.

01:44And according to the research of Robert K.

01:47Merton, these multiple discoveries, they're not the outlier. They're the rule.

01:52OK, scientific discoveries, I mean, those are just waiting to be discovered, right?

01:57But art is something different. Not so much.

02:01There's a million examples of this in the world of music, and your mileage may vary on what your favorite is.

02:07But for my money, it can't be better than George Harrison, former Beatle, striking out on his own and his hit single, My Sweet Lord. One little problem.

02:24By 1987, George Harrison finds himself in a courtroom because somebody else thinks his song is a total ripoff.

02:39That song is 1963's He's So Fine by the Chiffons.

02:59I ain't a wizard of music, but, um, wow.

03:05Despite revealing all of his secret techniques to brilliant songwriting, including pulling out a guitar and performing right there in the courtroom, Harrison is found guilty of what they call unconscious plagiarism.

03:18I mean, the moment you hear that, you think, really, really?

03:23We're really supposed to believe that there's some magic phenomenon of multiple discovery and not the far simpler explanation of it's just one person copying another person and shoehorning themselves in to take the credit.

03:38And because of this reaction, these situations are rife with suspicion, bad blood and conflicts that long outlive them.

03:48But my friend, I am here to tell you that multiple discovery is indeed very real, and I'm going to explain exactly how it can happen.

04:00This is the story of two boys, one's in the middle of a stable upbringing, the other is bouncing around the globe, constantly being disappointed by those who are charged with taking care of them.

04:13They both discover the same interests and they're both filled with the righteous indignation that only a teenager can have as they both decide to change the world in the exact same way.

04:27Both of our protagonists are also in contact with one man who puts their tracks together.

04:35In an alternate timeline, the two of them would fight forever for credit. But we're lucky.

04:43We live in the timeline where they discover that they're brothers.

04:48But as these two pull off ever increasing wonders, they're accruing a debt.

04:54Their brilliant plan is a multi-year long con, one that is destined to humiliate and beclown well-meaning adults who genuinely care for them.

05:04This is the story of humble origins and righteous justice, of not knowing who your allies are until you're fighting side by side in the trenches.

05:14Remember that sick world we told you about in our first episode?

05:17The one that was so desperate for a cure that they turned to fraudsters?

05:22Well, the heroes of our story, they don't know how to fix everything.

05:26But they're going to blow the whistle on these snake oil salesmen and they're going to do it using the same manipulative tricks.

05:33Honesty is the best policy and to prove it, these two will lie to anyone it takes.

05:40This is the story of Project Alpha.

05:42But for me, it may just be the world's greatest con.

07:36So, I was born as Stephen Shaw in England.

07:47We came to the United States, my mom, my dad.

07:50My mom left that man within a year and we went back to England. She remarried.

07:55She had two kids.

07:57We immigrated to South Africa.

07:58They were a year old and three years old.

08:01I was nine when she abandoned us there with an alcoholic stepfather.

08:04I pretty much raised them by myself until I was 16 years old.

08:08My biological father found out my situation.

08:10He was in Australia, so I went to Woomera, Australia, which was a rocket base.

08:15He was in the Air Force.

08:16In the middle of nowhere, the Opal Mines.

08:18From there, we went to Colorado.

08:20Aurora was just starting out.

08:22It was a beautiful town then.

08:25Now, it's not so great. All right.

08:28Disclaimer for the remainder of this story.

08:31I've been personal friends with Banachek for decades, but considering how much this story means to everybody we're about to talk to and talk about, I won't lie.

08:42I'm a bit nervous for how they're going to react to this, but because we have to tell this story right, I'm going to do my best to block all of that out and just talk to you.

08:55I should go back a little bit further to my South Africa days. You heard him.

09:00Our story finds him in a suburban Western Pennsylvania home.

09:04He's shy, nervous, still waiting for somebody who says they're going to help to actually come through for them.

09:11But geez, England, South Africa, Australia, the United States.

09:15If you ever wondered what the perfect blender of all of our accents would sound like, this is it.

09:23I wasn't really socially adept, right?

09:25I was I was very, very shy.

09:28If the teacher called on me, I would turn red if she just asked me a question.

09:32I wore a heavy, heavy coat in the middle of summer in the back of the classroom.

09:37I could so relate to Banachek here.

09:40Growing up, it was California, Houston, Colorado, Central Texas, overseas in Norway.

09:45When you move around a lot, there's this constant sense of a need to reinvent yourself, to reintroduce yourself.

09:55For a lot of kids, the secret to unlocking these friendships is magic.

10:00And I didn't discover that until I was almost an adult.

10:04Banachek had the gift of figuring that out at a very young age.

10:09It was learning how to do these things that became sort of my opening to other people, really.

10:16But now I felt like I was part of in a way, I felt at times in a way other people perceived me as part of their culture, part of the group.

10:27I never really felt like I was part of a group.

10:30And even today, I have a very hard time feeling like I belong with any particular group.

10:36Banachek becomes very, very good at tricking people.

10:39The class prankster, using his psychic powers, he stops a clock at school.

10:44He makes the school bell ring early. He's a hero.

10:47And he begins to earn a reputation as he becomes more popular.

10:52He gets another job at a racetrack.

10:54One time there was a policeman, one of the local policemen in town, and I was bending keys a lot back then.

11:00And he said, hey, bend one of my keys.

11:01I said, well, give me a key that you don't need.

11:04Well, he didn't think I could do it.

11:05So he gave me his patrol key.

11:07And sure enough, I bent it and he had to call his buddies to come bring another key because he couldn't drive his patrol car.

11:15Really overconfident, I would say.

11:16So I wrote Randy a letter and I said, hey, if you ever need a kid to a full scientist, I'd be happy to do that.

11:24Never expecting I was ever going to hear back from him.

11:27Meanwhile, in Iowa, meet Mike Edwards.

11:30I led what I like to call a leave it to beaver childhood, a small town, ride our bikes everywhere.

11:38My mom and dad were always home.

11:40Dad and mom went to all of the sporting events or performances.

11:44He's a walking Norman Rockwell painting, strapping teenager who has yet to discover a single activity he can't excel in.

11:52So we would go to birthday parties, things along those lines.

11:55And then I joined when I got into high school freshman year, I was in our choir and one of the first songs that we were doing and we're going to kick off every show was from the musical Pippin.

12:07And it was a song Magic to Do.

12:09And somebody said to our choir director, you know, Mike's a magician.

12:14And I was just kind of really cutting my teeth at the time.

12:20But I started kicking off that performance.

12:22So I was going on stage and I was doing just a couple of of quick magic effects, linking rings and some other visual magic like that as the as the choir, the show choir would actually come on stage and get ready to perform.

12:38And then I'd slip away. Music would start.

12:40This literal choir boy is fulfilling every hope of his two loving parents. He's artistic. He's an athlete.

12:55He's competing in gymnastics.

12:57Like most boys his age, he loves the stories of crime fighters, people who make things right for those who can't.

13:04The only time his parents don't support him is when he begins a career as a local escape artist.

13:09Ask if she would be attending Mike's event.

13:12Barbara Edwards, Mike's mom says, absolutely not.

13:14And it was classic.

13:16It was at that point that I think they trusted what I was doing.

13:21They knew that I was taking all the safety precautions.

13:24But at the same time, they didn't want to stomach the stress of watching their oldest son put his life in danger.

13:31It's at this time, both boys, each from radically different backgrounds.

13:37They read the same book, The Magic of Uri Geller by James the Amazing Randy.

13:45Take a moment, wrap your head around what this book means to each of them.

13:51They both know how damn well easy it is to fool people.

13:55They're both fooling kids and adults alike.

13:57In fact, the more they fool people, the more those people seem to like them.

14:02This is something all magicians go through.

14:04Magic becomes a crutch to make friends.

14:07So when James Randy lays out exactly how Geller has been fooling academics, they can't help but both come to the same assumption.

14:16If the authorities have disappointed them, then they are exactly the kind of people who can make things right for those who can't.

14:24It's Mike who takes the first action.

14:27The fall of 1979, a friend of mine who knew about my, you know, my psychic abilities, but also knew that it was fake, came back from the University of Northern Iowa.

14:42And Connie says to me one weekend, my introductory class to psychology, that professor says that he's actually met Uri Geller and says he's legitimate and that he's truly a psychic.

14:58I said Connie you know better than that.

15:01Tell your professor that you know somebody that has the same abilities as Ari Geller and ask if he'd like me to come speak to the class.

15:13She said are you serious?

15:15I said yeah but don't say anything about me being a magician or anything else.

15:20She says what are you thinking about doing?

15:23I said I think I think I'm gonna go there and it's a 90 minute class about 200 students.

15:29If I get this invite I'm gonna convince him that I'm really psychic and then I'm gonna show him how I fooled him so that they're gonna be smarter going on with this.

15:38She says okay I'll do that.

15:40Next weekend she comes back home she's like Mike he's gonna be reaching out to you he wants you to come lecture at the class this would be great he's very excited for it and that was it until I was actually contacted by Professor David Whitsatt.

15:55Plan is simple go to the professor's class show him exactly what he wants a legit psychic he's so excited about the plan he calls his hero James Randy.

16:05He had no idea who I was I did a lot of research to figure out where he lived because it's in the front of his book where it says you know he signed it New Jersey he picks up the phone hello James Randy please speaking there's a little vapor lock on my side because you're talking to your hero now you're not expecting him to pick up the phone so I explained to him what I was gonna do you know is there anything that he could give me any advice or anything on this on no no I think that'd be great and we'd like you to write up an article for that and I think that would you know we'd be very interested in it okay that's great.

16:47Preparing for the big moment Mike starts building a character he doesn't want to appear ignorant about the latest news in parapsychology so he goes to the parapsychology paper of record the National Enquirer and it's there he sees it.

17:04An article talking about a laboratory that was created in Washington University in St. Louis being headed up by a guy named Professor Peter Phillips and Phillips had gotten a half a million dollars from McDonald Foundation James McDonald from McDonald Douglas Aircraft Corporation.

17:26The McDonald Douglas Delta has launched more commercial payloads than any other rocket.

17:34Our time net system speeds error-free data anywhere in the world.

17:40This is America's biggest tank our C-17 will land it where no other transport can.

17:48We're giving America its money's worth in aviation space and information systems we're McDonald Douglas.

17:54Specifically wanted this to go to Washington University to study psychics and they were looking for psychic metal-bending children.

18:03I call Randy up almost immediately Randy it's Mike Edwards again remember I was gonna do this oh yeah I said change of plans I said have you heard about this and I'm telling him about the story no I have not heard about that.

18:20So the plan with the professor changes maybe Mike can cast his line for a bigger fish instead of busting himself for the benefit of one professor and a bunch of college kids maybe he could apply to be a part of a big study like Geller did at Stanford.

18:36Finally the big day arrives the professor at one point hands me a spoon out of his pocket and it was already bent and I was able just to grab it in a way that it didn't nobody could see it and then as I turned around I just let it droop and people just like oh my god as soon as he touched it it just wilted.

19:01I brought people up from the class and I had I bent a couple of car keys in their hands people write things on index cards and we put them in envelopes and light them on fire and I could tell them what the images were.

19:18In a moment of serendipity what Mike doesn't know is that the first object he manipulated with his mind belonged to the sports editor at the school newspaper. That supernatural talents.

19:29It was a big success now I know it was a big success because the professor was more than happy to write a letter to me so I was able to send that copy of the document and that letter off to the guys at the Mac lab.

19:52Armed with a legitimate academic bona fide even though gained by deception he applies to the Mac lab he gets accepted and immediately calls Randy letting his hero know that he was following in his footsteps.

20:09On the other side of the US Steve also wrote to Randy and because he lived so much closer Steve got an invitation to visit in person.

20:18And he lived in Rumson New Jersey right so he comes he picks me up at the bus station the Greyhound station we head on over to his house and it was a true magician's house I mean the door open from the wrong way look like they were hinges there but it opened up in the opposite direction when you rang the doorbell there was a big chime and a loud voice and it was the shadow knows the Walter Gibson thing from back in the day right you walk in it's a clock that's running backwards he's got huge macaws right there he's got dogs he's got cats he's got a big huge bookcase that opens up you know from one side and there's a hidden big room in there and it was just it was exactly what you would expect a magician's house to be if you're young right.

21:04It's important here to highlight why Steve and Mike are the perfect age to pull something like this off.

21:10Last episode we talked about the idea that psychic powers couldn't be replicated under intense pressure that idea had permeated academia.

21:17The root of the idea was that if the psychic doesn't believe they can do something by way of undue skepticism bad vibes then you should eliminate as much of that painful oversight as possible and who has less of an awareness of skepticism than kids.

21:34This is of course ridiculous on its face if you've had a kid if you are a kid if you were a kid if you babysit a kid you know they're sensitive to skepticism you've seen them shuffle refuse to meet your gaze of course they understand it when they see it and the idea that kids don't lie they're born liars they have to learn what the truth is.

22:02The moment that the Mac lab said we want you to come down and be tested by us or visit us and it was a very relaxed environment but I remember flying in and that morning it was a little bit rainy and as I land in St. Louis flying from Cedar Rapids as I land in St. Louis and kind of through the rain I see this building and big bold headlines on it because it's it's Lambert Field in St. Louis and it's McDonnell Douglas. We're McDonnell Douglas.

22:38You stepped in it now.

22:41You wrote a check that I don't know if you can cash.

22:45Like a less cocky Luke suddenly coming on to the Death Star. Yeah. Yeah.

22:49Not quite the you know warm fuzzy feeling you want.

22:53Hold on to this moment because up until now both of our heroes have performed in front of all kinds of audiences.

23:01They've decided independently that they were going to fool members of academia.

23:04They both independently contact their hero to let him know and they independently applied for this massive study and it's only now that one of them is realizing maybe they've gone too far. Here's why.

23:23Starting now grown-ups are calling the shots and grown-ups are gonna set the rules.

23:32This is a game neither of them have played and they're about to find out how good they are.

23:41Once he settled in St. Louis he meets Peter Phillips the man directing the Mac lab.

23:53Now Mike is conservative with the kind of psychic phenomenon that he demonstrates but he is not in any way hesitant to spend very elaborate comic book tall tales explaining where his psychic powers came from.

24:07So I told stories of how as a young kid at my grandparents place in South Dakota I got too close to an electric fence, got shocked, passed out for a number of minutes and after that strange things would happen.

24:26A watch that my grandmother gave me, a little Timex would stop working or the time would be off.

24:33Mom and dad would take it into the shop but they didn't want to spend a lot of money because it was a relatively cheap gift at the time and it would work fine until I put it back on and things like that started happening and the metal bending just kind of came over time and so that was kind of the genesis of my story.

24:52Well my grandmother had given me a watch but my grandparents lived in a very very small town.

24:56My grandmother was the county librarian, my grandfather ran a dry cleaning store.

25:01There were no cattle, there was no cattle fence, there was nothing like that.

25:06The first trip goes well.

25:08Phillips sufficiently impressed with the psychic phenomenon that Mike's demonstrating.

25:11Mike takes a flight out, lands, breathes a deep sigh of relief.

25:16So far so good and when he gets back there's nobody wants to talk to more than James Randi.

25:23Randi equally is excited.

25:24He sends back to Mike a raft of papers detailing exactly the do's and do nots during the entire process.

25:32Everyone eventually agrees there's one rule.

25:34If anyone at the Mac lab asks you straight out, are you doing a magic trick?

25:40You must fess up immediately.

25:42But more crucially, in Randi's initial letter he suggests that the entire caper be called Project Alpha.

25:50Meanwhile in Pennsylvania Steve finds out about the Mac lab as well.

25:58I had three jobs at the time when I was in high school and one of them was at Washington Hospital.

26:05There was a girl by the name of Tammy that was there and we both worked in the housekeeping department.

26:09We would make out in the closet sometimes in the hospital.

26:12Tammy brought me an Associated Press article and this was in 1979.

26:17The article said they were looking for kids that could bend metal.

26:23So after I got that, I wrote them a letter saying that I could bend metal with my mind.

26:31I got a letter back from them.

26:34Again, I didn't expect that I was going to hear back just like with the Randi letter.

26:38I never expected I was going to hear back.

26:39I got a letter back saying we are very interested in hearing from you.

26:42We'd like to fly you out.

26:44Probably about four or five days after that I got a call from Randi who said, hey, there's this university that's been given half a million dollars and there's a gentleman there that's going to be in charge.

26:56I said to Randi, stop, think of his initials.

26:59Is it start with a P and an O?

27:03No, maybe a P and a P.

27:05He says, how the hell do you know?

27:07I said, I was going to let you know.

27:08I was going to write you a letter and tell you.

27:09I've already been accepted.

27:10But it was in that same phone call that he says, yeah, well, I've been approached by another kid by the name of Mike Edwards.

27:17I said, well, can I trust Mike?

27:19He says, I really don't know that much about Mike.

27:21I said, all right, I will play it by ear.

27:24So I had no clue if Mike and I were going to get along.

27:28I also knew that if Mike wasn't any good, that I was probably going to out him at some point because I couldn't have that danger coming over to me.

27:36Randi calls Mike back.

27:37And Mike is equally skeptical about getting a partner in on this.

27:42Okay, tell me a little bit about him.

27:45And he tells me Steve Shaw and he's from Pittsburgh and things along those lines.

27:50And I said, okay, Randi, but I will I will just tell you right now, I didn't spend all this time and energy to get where I am right now with these guys to have some unknown clown.

28:01He's got to be much more attentive to the con and this being a long con.

28:08Then here's a couple of quick tricks.

28:11Because if he looks phony, it's going to reflect on me or it could reflect on me since I'm the one that's talking about.

28:21So out of the 300 people that initially auditioned or tried to become subjects as the Mac lab, the Mac lab decided to focus on two metalbenders, Steve Shaw, bandage check now, and myself.

28:33So the data set travels arranged.

28:36Mike and Steve are about to meet at the Mac lab to find out once and for all how good the rigors of psychic research are.

28:45Mike, somebody meticulous, careful, who began with a grand plan, someone who wanted to prove on a small scale what he could do before hitting the big leagues.

28:56And Steve, somebody who read about the Mac lab stops making out with Tammy for five seconds shrugged and said, why not sign me up.

29:05These two polar opposites of psychic performance are about to team up whether they like it or not.

30:42Mike 18 the perfect son mastermind of the whole scheme lands at the airport even I had this in The early part of our relationship this little trust dance He's joined by Steve 19 years old the kid from the wrong side of the tracks that hasn't met a single person He can't fool I get to the airport.

31:12I land I land first and then I go over to where Mike's coming in And what's Mike's first impression of Steve?

31:17This is gonna come this is gonna come way out of left field I'm gonna get so much shit about this later from the bandage Arnold Horschach from the old welcome back Cotter And soon after the boys meet Peter Phillips the man who will oversee the experiments which will come to be known as the Mac lab Steve immediately starts sizing him up and he's got a We talked to him but he has this weird wristband on and I asked him about it And he says to me he got it from a witch doctor, you know, and it keeps him safe I lost something along those lines.

31:53This is too good to be true.

31:55I Mean seriously the head of the experiment immediately brings up witch doctors.

31:59I mean, it's got to be a ruse, right?

32:03Unless it isn't Does that would make sense that if they're doing a psychic thing?

32:08They would be kind of But I mean, it's so on the nose, but then again they're bringing in kids to do a whoo So they're leaving the airport and there's this question of logistics Steve doesn't have a license and they have to rent a car The kids aren't old enough to drive the rental car So they decide Phillips will drive the rental car and the kids will drive Phillips's car This is the first moment that the two of them are actually alone completely alone.

32:36No prying eyes This is the moment they can forge their alliance and more importantly a moment where opportunity comes knocking I Look in the back seat and I see there's a briefcase back there I bring the briefcase below the dash to the front seat.

32:54I look and it's locked.

32:55I'm going well It's locked.

32:57That means they don't want you to get in there It must be something they don't want us to see easy to open a briefcase as you know So I get the briefcase open I look inside there's all this cutlery in there all this silverware, right? I go.

33:07Oh, this must be this stuff that they're gonna be using, you know in the lab.

33:10What are you doing?

33:11He twists it up Kind of making a mess out of this thing.

33:15I open the glove compartment.

33:17There's some metal objects in there I stopped bending those up.

33:20I close it It was at the point when I started reaching over for the keys that Mike said, I think you've done enough damage That set our tone and so it is on Both talented young magicians one way more aggressive than the other both feeling each other out to be the alpha of Project alpha, but one thing is for sure Both of them know that one wrong move is gonna tip off the Mac lab make them suspicious in the project before it really begins Still they both want to show that they have the goods So a dinner at Phillips's house also becomes a proving ground There was like for instance There's an area where there's a dining room and there's a door that goes in the kitchen on one side But if you walk around the dining room on the other side you go into the living room Which also goes around then comes back into the kitchen again So I'm in the area by the living room and Mike standing by the area by the the dining room But he's in the kitchen and I make a signal to Mike to keep talking to Phillips I walk around I go to the the table I bend up all the silverware on the table I come back around while he's talking and he thinks I'm behind him the whole time and I signal to Mike not to go into the into the dining room Phillips goes into the dining room and he's like, oh my god, all the silverware has been on the table so yeah, we put we set up threads to knock cards off birthday cards off the Fireplace and we did all these things So we just we were playing havoc with this poor guy before we even got into a laboratory You can feel it right our nascent team is coalescing around their shared purpose They're gonna destroy the concept of parapsychology or the very least make it impossible for charlatans to disguise themselves as psychics For that to happen.

35:08They have to seamlessly Humiliate the MATLAB and everyone involved with it or as Steve puts it We see these people with the enemy we don't see them as people going forward keep in mind Mike and Steve they're not at the MATLAB full-time.

35:26They go back and forth between hometowns in st.

35:29Louis Mike goes back to college in Iowa Steve goes back to work in Pennsylvania Each of their trips to the MATLAB lasts around a weekend But just put yourself in their shoes that adrenaline coursing through your veins once you come back home Realizing what you did thinking about how you could do more It's those first few scattered sessions where Mike and Steve go from two performers trying to one-up each other To an actual team.

36:00There's a lot of us helping each other to be able to do things when we were bending metal rods You know I would distract or I would get mind-bending while he could actually put a bend into his and Mike and I had a cue and the cue was if we ever wanted to talk we would say hey Do you want to go ahead and get a drink because the machines were down the hallway, right?

36:21As the MATLAB was in a building with other businesses as well and we would tap each other on the table and he says hey Do you want to go get a drink and I know what he wants and I go?

36:32No, I'm good He puts his foot on my foot.

36:35Well, I'm really thirsty.

36:36Why don't you come with me?

36:37So he's grinding my foot on sound like oh, you know, yeah, so we go down the hallway and he says to me says How did you do that?

36:45I go you're not gonna believe me.

36:46He says well, how did you do it?

36:49I said well Mike, you know After all these hours of working in the MATLAB, I finally found out I'm a genuine psychic So Mike friendly, but he pushes me hard up against the machine tell me goddammit I think Mike and I became really good friends from spending so much time in the MATLAB and in the MATLAB We would mess each other with each other consistently, you know, there was always the joking.

37:12There was always the whistling There was always it was a lot of sarcastic humor Which tends to bond people if you've got sarcastic humor flow You don't get angry at somebody because they're being sarcastic with you and you give it back and they can take it that bonds to people pretty quickly and I think that that happened with Mike and I and after a few of these weekends as The pair became better and better teammates.

37:33They also start to realize that they're kind of celebrities They get flown out to perform the MATLAB rents them hotel rooms and all they got to do is spend a few hours in a lab each trip Even better.

37:46They don't even have to get everything, right?

37:48Being too accurate makes you look like a magician and being a little erratic is So much better if you want to prove you're a genuine psychic Speaking of erratic if you're young you're male you're fooling adults that are paying you to be there What do you suppose you do in your after hours?

38:10College students nightclubs You know, wherever a teenage boys meet women Steve loved to when we were out at nightclubs to use magic He'd use cocktail napkins and we'd do a you know billet switch Non-magicians gather round Steve is about to read somebody's mind a thought is written down on a piece of napkin All he needs to do is get a little sneak peek and then he can reveal her innermost thoughts Only problem is Mike has replaced the written down thought napkin with one.

38:40That's totally blank There's nothing for Steve to reveal and of course, you know Or they're lighting it on fire and he's gonna reveal whatever it was and I'm just there's absolutely Nothing to see and we would and we and so we would we would screw with each other Got it Fool the adults bond as fraudsters with hearts of gold head out to the bars pick up women Then show up at the Mac lab hungover and when the Mac lab, you know I would sleep sometimes on the couch while Mike was doing some stuff Mike would sleep while I'm doing some stuff Once when the boys were in New York City, they were at a bar and discovered that they were surrounded by What we would now commonly call sex workers each one of them looking for a Date and one comes up to me and says, you know, hey, what's hi? What's your name?

39:31I said Mike Where are you from? I said Chicago.

39:34There's nobody knows where the hell Cedar Rapids.

39:36I Chicago oh, okay.

39:37Do you want to buy me a drink?

39:40I said I'd love to but my buddy's buying tonight.

39:43So you'd have to ask him She goes over to him.

39:46He kind of gets rid of her quickly, but the second girl comes up She asks me the same questions Hmm I can have some fun with this. What's your name? Steve Steve Shaw.

39:56Well, where are you from?

39:58Pittsburgh want to buy me a drink my buddy right next to me.

40:01He's he's got the money.

40:04He's paying tonight Oh, she goes over hi, what's your name?

40:07And he innocently says Steve Steve Shaw Where you from?

40:11Pittsburgh, what are you doing here?

40:14Well, we're what are you assholes trying to prove?

40:19And here he is innocently deer in the headlights, it's now 1980 They've been back to the Mac lab again and again and a pattern emerges They're fooling then partying they're partying then fooling these two side-eye looking possible competitors have become bona fide bros and on one night They combine their two favorite pastimes It's kind of a sleepy day at the Mac lab.

40:50Neither Steve nor Mike have many hits that day But Mike realizes something the lab space that they're using is on the garden level And there are windows on the garden side During these mostly uneventful experiments Mike says he's a little stuffy and tries to crack the window Staff lets him and at the end of the day Mike closes the window, but makes very sure It only looks like it's latched This leaves the Mac lab exposed just like that first briefcase in Peter Phillips's car when they first met Mike and Steve now have access to Everything in the Mac lab, they can prepare items.

41:31They can find out what experiments are coming.

41:34I mean they could do anything The two go back to their hotel And they make meticulous notes on exactly what they've seen what they want to do and how they're going to do it Just kidding they go out and party till 2 in the morning Oh We're going hard yeah these two drunk unpublished stars of parapsychology Decide it's time to make their move Even at this advanced stage of partying and drinking they know how they're going to break in no flashlights When you get inside turn on all the lights so security assumes you belong there now mind you this is long before webcams They wouldn't even have motion sensors in there They get to the window I'm skinny. I climb up.

42:25You know Mike pushes me up.

42:28I get through the window.

42:29I step down There's a table there.

42:31I step on the table.

42:33I get in the Mac lab.

42:34I go around I let Mike in it was unlocked We were able to at this point Steve went in Went down the wall, and he propped the doors open to get out to the side door to where I got in came through and we got inside of the Mac lab and we Tore the place apart, and we're bending up everything inside like just bending everything every clock that we could find we changed to a different time Anytime that there were spoons or forks or anything else we went through all those we bent them we twisted And we kind of created havoc in this place You know they've done all this before Spontaneous PK bending silverware moving changing time One thing they hadn't done was effect with the Mac lab staff called the mini lab It's essentially an empty fish tank with no visual way to open it Inside the tank are a whole bunch of substances coffee grounds with metal cubes in them Inviting someone with telekinetic powers to move the cubes with their mind pens paper you get it In all their time in the lab the mini lab was one thing Stephen Mike avoided Because neither of them knew how to access it until tonight Mike notices that there are two brass rods running through the center of the mini lab into an acrylic base that hold the whole thing together Now middle of the night half in the bag he gets to work So I push this thing over off just towards the edge of the desk so I can look underneath it and sure enough There's a big screw That goes from there to hold this pole in place Well, nobody's thinking about this, and I don't think that they actually used any sort of Glue or anything to bind this so I found a pair of scissors that had just enough width To unscrew that base pulled the whole thing out of the bottom Lifted the top base off now.

44:43We've got full access to the aquarium.

44:46We're moving stuff we're writing little notes and and Steve actually takes one of the cubes actually both of them and spells as initials and this through the coffee grounds.

44:56I'm like, no, no, you can't.

44:58I mean, this isn't this isn't like you're you're tagging your graffiti art out there on the side of the street with your own little gang symbol. Don't do that.

45:09But I was too afraid to try to erase it because it's going to look different or it's going to look bad.

45:16So we just let it go.

45:18Now they're going farther than they've ever gone before.

45:19This isn't giving a little hint of psychic ability and letting Phillips and his crew measure the effect in millimeters.

45:25This is the whole shebang, the largest demonstration of psychic ability so far.

45:29And it happens in the middle of the night with no one watching and neither of them supposed to be in the lab, the boys do their best to clean up their shoe prints and they stumble back to the hotel.

45:44Then at five a. m. Phone starts ringing.

45:47He said, how'd you sleep?

45:48I said, oh, man, I didn't sleep well at all.

45:56I kept waking up all night.

45:58I was having nightmares that I was in the Mac lab and things were just bending all around me and going crazy.

46:04It was like there was a psychic hurricane inside of here.

46:07We'll go back to sleep for a couple of hours.

46:09You know, I'll call you later and you can come to the lab.

46:12Within maybe an hour or so, he's calling up. He's all excited. Oh, my God.

46:17Your dream came true.

46:18Your dream came true.

46:19Everything's bent at the Mac lab. Oh, everything bent.

46:22I think there was all this energy that built up because you guys weren't successful during the day and when we all left, it just went crazy.

46:30And they did it drunk.

46:31They did it sloppy.

46:32They did it in that impulsive way that only a teenager can complete with tagging the inside of the mini lab.

46:39OK, well, we'll be in.

46:40Yeah, we really want to see this.

46:43God, no, I'm hungover.

46:45I just want to go to bed for another couple hours.

46:49Holy crap, they did it.

46:50There's literally no way they don't become the poster boys of psychic phenomenon if the pillars of the scientific community swallow this prank hook, line and sinker.

46:58Mike and Steve will be his gods.

47:01And the Mac lab will be a.

47:04The Mac lab will be ruined. Ruined.

47:08And it's at this moment, this literal moment in our story that a very important transition occurs.

47:25In that hungover morning, both Steve and Mike realize not only have they gone too deep with the Mac lab, there's now no way they can end this quietly because in their adolescent zeal to drunkenly spike the energy of the Mac lab with the football, they broke the law and the true nurturing trust of the Mac lab staff to us in a lot of cases until the last, probably the last year, it was still just kind of fun and games.

47:57But it started weighing on us.

47:59We would discuss the times of like how difficult this was becoming because these people were becoming our friends and we were literally lying to our friends. And they're right.

48:11In the final write up from the Mac lab after Project Alpha is finished, the staff of the lab takes a fair amount of responsibility.

48:20But there are two things that in all of their statements since have remained intractable.

48:26The way Project Alpha was revealed and the break in.

48:30The kids, they know they've crossed a line from this moment on, Project Alpha just isn't the same.

48:39Sure, there's more deception and there is escalation.

48:43The experiments get harder and harder and harder.

48:47And come on, there's still plenty of partying because a 20 something who just realized their actions affect other people, still a 20 something.

48:56But they're about to undergo a grueling two year gauntlet.

49:00The experiments are less fun.

49:02The adrenaline is gone.

49:04Quietly at first and increasingly louder, the desire to end Project Alpha grows.

49:13We are deceiving friends.

49:15We are lying to friends.

49:19We knew that these people were going to hate us, that he could do anything, get away with anything, because even if it looked like trickery, no, Gell is not a trickster.

49:33There's absolutely no way.

49:34And he's like, oh, my God, we had it.

49:37And I screwed it up.

49:38And he went bat shit crazy to see this sort of complete mental breakdown that you induced really put everything into perspective.

49:47How do you feel when you know you're sitting on a gold mine, when everything you've worked for in your entire life is finally about to be validated?

49:59That's the Mac lab right now.

50:01They went looking for scientific proof of psychic phenomenon, and they have it on a level that no one has ever seen before.

50:10You got to be giddy, self-assured, maybe even a little bit arrogant.

50:15But what happens when your joy turns to dust in your hands, when the rewards you thought were in the bank become a scarlet letter that you have to wear forever?

50:28What about the boys?

50:29What are they supposed to feel?

50:32They're the ones who have to plunge the knife into the backs of their new best friends.

50:38It's got to be agony, right?

50:40The fruit of the poison tree continues to drop, including one night when the boys are responsible for nothing short of a psychological horror show.

50:50All for the advancement of Project Alpha.

50:53What for my money is quite possibly the world's greatest con.

50:58This episode of World's Greatest Con is written by Justin Robert Young and me, Brian Brushwood, your humble host.

51:31Production and research by Dog and Pony Show Audio in Austin, Texas, with additional production by Will Sattelberg.

51:38Original music by Carson Pace.

51:53Very special thanks go to Banachek and Mike Edwards for allowing us to tell their story.

52:01We greatly encourage you to see Banachek's new show, Mind Games, at the Strat Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

52:09Additional thanks go to George Slatter Productions, which along with contemporary news articles, retrospectives and archive videos made for the bulk of our research.

52:16Of course, you have questions and we want to answer as many as we can.

52:22So hit us up and we'll respond at the end of the season.

52:25Write us to world's greatest con at Gmail dot com.

52:27On the next episode, we get into the nitty gritty of Project Alpha's deceptions.

52:32The charm begins to wear off and all hell breaks loose. Thanks for listening.

52:38We'll see you next time.

52:40Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program.

52:43Dog and Pony Show audio.