Real-Life X-Files (38 page)

In summary, therefore, I suggest first that the “Money Pit” and “pirate tunnels” are nothing of the sort but are instead natural formations. Secondly, I suggest that much of the Oak Island saga—certain reported actions and alleged discoveries—can best be understood in light of Freemasonry s Secret Vault allegory. Although it is difficult to know at this juncture whether the Masonic elements were opportunistically added to an existing treasure quest or whether the entire affair was a Masonic creation from the outset, I believe the mystery has been solved. The solution is perhaps an unusual one—but no more so than the saga of Oak Island itself.

References

Atlantic Advocate.
1965. Article in Oct. issue, cited in Crooker 1978,85-86.

Blankenship, Daniel. 1999. Author interview, July 1.

Bowdoin, H.L. 1911. Solving the mystery of Oak Island.
Colliers Magazine
, Aug. 18. Cited and discussed in Harris 1958,110-20; O’Connor 1988,63-66.

Bunson, Matthew E. 1994.
Encyclopedia Sherlockiana
. New York: Barnes & Noble.

Creighton, Helen. 1957.
Bluenose Ghosts
. Reprinted Halifax, N.S.: Nimbus, 1994,42-59,118-20.

Crooker, William S. 1978.
The Oak Island Quest
. Hantsport, N.S.: Lancelot.

———.1993. Oak Island Gold. Halifax, N.S.: Nimbus.

Duncan, Malcolm C. 1972.
Duncan’s Masonic Ritual and Monitor
. Chicago: Ezra A. Cook, 217-65.

Faribault, E. Rudolph. 1911.
Summary Report of Geological Survey Branch of the Department of Mines.
Quoted in Furneaux 1972,110.

Finnan, Mark. 1997.
Oak Island Secrets
, rev. ed. Halifax, N.S.: Formac.

“Freemasonry.” 1978.
Collier’s Encyclopedia
.

Furneaux, Rupert. 1972.
The Money Pit Mystery
. New York: Dodd, Mead.

Hamill, John, and Robert Gilbert. 1998.
Freemasonry
. North Dighton, Mass.: J.G. Press, 228, 241,245.

Harris, R.V. 1958.
The Oak Island Mystery.
Toronto: Ryerson.

Hunter, C. Bruce. 1996.
Masonic Dictionary
, 3rd ed. Richmond, Va.: Macoy.

Lester, Ralph P. ed. 1977.
Look to the East
! rev. ed. Chicago: Ezra A. Cook. Macoy, Robert. 1908.
Illustrated History and Cyclopedia of Freemasonry.
New York: Macoy.

Masonic Heirloom Edition Holy Bible
. 1964. Wichita, Kans.: Heirloom Bible Publishers.

Morris, W.J. n.d.,
Pocket Lexicon of Freemasonry
Chicago: Ezra A. Cook.

Nickell, Joe. 1980. “Uncovered—The Fabulous Silver Mines of Swift and Filson”
Filson Club History Quarterly
54 (Oct.): 325-345.

———. 1982a. Barbados’ restless coffins laid to rest.
Fate,
Part I, 35.4 (April): 50-56; Part II, 35.5 (May): 79-86.

———. 1982b. Discovered: The secret of Beale s treasure,
Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
90, no. 3 (July): 310-24.

———. 2000. Canada’s mysterious Maritimes.
Skeptical Inquirer
24 (Jan./Feb.):15-19.

O’Connor, D’Arcy. 1988.
The Big Dig
New York: Ballantine.

Preston, Douglas. 1988. Death trap defies treasure seekers for two centuries.
The Smithsonian.
June, 53-63.

Randle, Kevin D. 1995.
Lost Gold & Buried Treasure
. New York: M. Evans and Co., 75-107.

Revised Knight Templarism Illustrated.
1975. Chicago: Ezra A. Cook.

Rosenbaum, Ron. 1973. The mystery of Oak Island.
Esquire
79 (Feb.): 77-85, 154-57.

Sora, Steven. 1999.
The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar
. Rochester, Vt.: Destiny.

Waite, Arthur Edward. 1970.
A New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry
, vols. 1 and 2. New York: Weathervane.

Chapter 38

Gosh, I thought, after watching an episode of the then-new Fox TV series,
Psi Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal
Those Office of Scientific Investigation and Research (O.S.I.R.) types sure seem cool. “Case file 20168, ” they would begin. They would make sure their phone calls went out over “secure lines”—real “secret agent-y” stuff. And the equipment O.S.I.R. uses, like Magnetometers—wow! According to the Psi Factor Web page, these are used because “Fluctuations in the magnetic spectrum are common in coincidence with anomalous activity.” Really? I don’t think there’s evidence that ghosts have magnetic personalities, but I’ve always wanted to talk like that. I began to dream of the possibilities…..

Suddenly, I perceived a dark shape approaching. Was it real or—? I broke off in mid-thought to reach for an O.S.I.R. Spectral Photometer, a “sophisticated device ” that is used to “determine whether unusual phenomena is [
sic
] real or if the phenomenon is a purely subjective experience.” It showed I was right: I was dreaming. Then I realized I wasn’t in a Psi Factor episode; and the dark shape wasn’t the host, “actor/writer/producer/musician Dan Aykroyd, a lifelong student of the paranormal. ” It was actually Barry Karr, CSICOP’s executive director, leaning over me. Apparently I had fallen asleep at my desk again. I raised my head, pushed aside my Maltese Falcon paperweight, and asked, “What is it, shweetheart?”

“Martini lunch again?” he asked. I let that pass. “Here’s the video from New York you’ve been expecting, ” he said, and walked off.

“Oh, yeah. ” Now it was coming back to me. I had agreed to look into the case of a young Lebanese girl who “miraculously ” produced “crystal
tears ” from her eyes. A Brazilian TV production company—the largest in South America—was doing the story and wanted our view. They had rushed the video from their New York office.

Now I knew why I was thinking of Aykroyd. Episodes of his new Fox TV series
Psi Factor
are “fictionalized ” from “closed cases ” taken from the files of O.S.I.R., a group whose “methods and technical support run the gamut, from state-of-the-art science to folklore and mystic philosophy. ” Their “lab facilities ” (and tarot-card divination quarters?) are located in “Central California. ” (Where better to mix science with mystic philosophy?) (
Psi Factor
Web page, 1996) It’s pretty easy to see why they use the term “fictionalized. ” One episode features a meteorite that has brought with it some huge eggs. These hatch into gargantuan
fleas
that kill a team of NASA scientists. (
Psi Factor
1996) (Does NASA know about this?) Aykroyd hosts the show, which is coproduced by his brother, another man, and a magician named Christopher Chacon. Chacon—to finally get to the point—is supposedly a professional conjurer who investigates paranormal claims. One of these was an earlier case of “crystal tears ” that was featured on TV’s
Unsolved Mysteries
in 1990. It gives us a chance to assess Chacon’s critical acumen—or lack thereof.

The program heralded “a woman named Katie, ” whom her psychiatrist—paranormal enthusiast Berthold Schwarz—described as “a great, classical physical medium ” and “a medical marvel. ” She demonstrated a wide variety of alleged psychic phenomena, notably producing “apports ”—such as a “glass stone, resembling a diamond ” that supposedly materialized from her eye. Schwarz gushed his approval and stated he could not envision trickery being involved, although Katie’s effects seemed to skeptics to be on a par with the efforts of a beginning conjurer. For example, the glass gem was never seen in her eye; rather, she covered her eye with her hand and then opened her fingers, whereupon the object fell from between them. Seen in slow motion, the effect was entirely consistent with the object having been hidden between her fingers. Indeed, at the behest of CSICOP, magician Bruce Adams demonstrated the trick for the
Unsolved Mysteries
program. However, before approaching CSICOP, the producer of the program had sought out Christopher Chacon. He responded to Katie’s effects by stating: “From my observations I don’t feel that she is, at present, utilizing magical abilities to produce the materials that she is producing. I don’t think she is skilled in those particular aspects of sleight of hand or illusion. ” (Chacon 1990)

Figure 38.1. “Crystal tears ”—actually, natural quartz crystals known as “Herkimer diamonds ”—are obtained.

I don’t know whether or not Chacon works for O.S.I.R., but if Dan Aykroyd and his
Psi Factor
are relying on Chacon’s critical skills, they might wish to reconsider. (Incidentally, Chacon’s segment was not aired but was instead replaced by the one featuring CSICOP’s duplication of Katie’s major effects.) (
Unsolved Mysteries
1990)

I have presented this 1990 case not only for the light it sheds on the new television series but also because it serves as a useful introduction to the case at hand—that of the girl who produces “crystal tears. ” As shown on a Globo International documentary, a twelve-year-old girl named Hasnah, who lives in Lebanon’s fertile Bekaa Valley, has the apparent ability to produce small crystal stones from her eyes. No sleight of hand is involved, since the camera zooms in close as the girl’s father gingerly pulls down her lower eyelid and a crystal comes into view. It then pops out, whereupon it is shown to be a hard, faceted rock whose sharp points can cut paper. Her father believes the appearing crystals represent “a gift from Allah. ” Lebanese ophthalmologists say the stones are “crystal rocks, ” but otherwise they are reportedly unable to explain the phenomenon.

Figure 38.2. The author demonstrates how the lower eyelid is pulled out and a crystal inserted.

Figure 38.3. A tug on the lower lid causes the crystal “tear ” to come into view. (Photos for the author by Tom Flynn)

Hasnah, who claims to produce up to seven crystals a day, showed a collection of the allegedly apported rocks. From their rhomboidal shape and other properties, I recognized them as types of natural quartz crystals that are generally known as “Herkimer diamonds. ” With the television crew being expected to arrive here the following day, I hastily made some phone calls and soon had acquired a handful of the gemstones. (
See figure 38.1
.)

Although such stones are indeed sharp—and I could see a dark red
spot inside the girl’s eyelid that probably represented a wound from one of them—I decided to duplicate the effect. All that was necessary was to pull out the lower eyelid to form a pouch and drop in a small crystal so that it rested, only a bit uncomfortably, out of sight (
figure 38.2
). A tug on the lower lid causes the stone to come into view (
figure 38.3
) and then pop out of the eye. This I demonstrated at an appropriate time for the television camera, allowing their reporter to actually do the extraction himself. The effect was indistinguishable from the Lebanese “miracle. ”