In 1929, Arthur Ford was credited with revealing the secret code that Harry Houdini said he would transfer to his wife if he survived death. After that, Ford was considered the greatest American medium of the twentieth century, and he attained extensive public recognition again in 1967 when he delivered a message from the deceased son of Bishop James Pike. One biographer averred that he was “subjected to every test a highly developed science of psychical research could devise and passed them all” (Ford and Ellison 1971, 162).

The focus of this article is a 1964 séance that Ford conducted with an Ohio couple who lost their only son in the explosion of a U.S. Air Force refueling tanker at Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks, Alaska. The séance was recorded and transcribed, as were many of Ford’s séances, and Allen Spraggett devoted about four pages to the event in his biography of Ford (Spraggett 1973). The parents were so impressed with Ford’s revelations that the father stated, “Our lives were changed from that time on.” The father concluded his letter by saying, “There is no way that Arthur Ford could have obtained most of this material and it couldn’t be mental telepathy because some of the things we did not know at the time of the sitting.”

I obtained Ford’s notebooks and files from his heir,¹ including the original twenty-page transcript of the séance that Spraggett used for his book, Arthur Ford: The Man Who Talked with the Dead. For further evaluation, I requested the official Air Force Investigation and Analysis of the fatal crash through the Freedom of Information Act. We can now compare the information that Spraggett provided with the words of Ford and facts of the event.

The Séance with Three Dots

In a typical séance, Ford reclined on a davenport or soft chair and entered a trance state. His spirit guide, Fletcher—a deceased boyhood friend of his—then took over. Ford described Fletcher as a “discarnate” who assisted other less experienced discarnates to communicate with seekers. Fletcher informed the parents that people who die do not go directly to heaven; they live with others who help them achieve their ultimate destination. At this point in the narrative, Spraggett entered three dots, an ellipse, which indicates that text has been excluded. Next, the reader sees that Fletcher relayed the son’s love and greetings to his parents.

But what did Spraggett omit with those three dots? When the couple visited Ford, they told him nothing about who they wanted to contact during the séance. Thus, the first task of Ford was to determine the person of interest so that he (or Fletcher) could address the couple’s grief. The original transcript shows that Fletcher claimed people were appearing before him but were obscured by a hazy aura, “a kind of magnetic field” that he would interpret.

Fletcher: There are several people. I am impressed mostly with a young person, you understand, who was very close to you.

Parent: Could you tell us more about this person?

Fletcher: I have to wait ’til I pick it up; I cannot force it. I can see, even now I can’t see whether it is a boy or a girl, man or woman, but I see a great light coming which indicates I know how to interpret it. A great eagerness and a great love and rushing out, don’t you see? And I have a feeling of some kind of a, I don’t know what it is, how to interpret it. It’s like a, that my body was hurt some way, you understand? It was a, suddenly I felt, the thought was thrown at me. I don’t know where it comes from that, that whatever I am talking about is that something hit me or I hit something, you understand?

Parent: Can you get a little more information of how this person looks? What are they doing?

Fletcher: Was it an automobile accident, or what was it?

Parent: No, it wasn’t an automobile accident.

Fletcher: I think this is a child yours, isn’t it?

Parent: Yes, it is.

Fletcher: Well, it was a crush—my body was—it might have been surgery or something. I don’t know.

Parent: No, it was an accident, it was an accident, and it was …

Fletcher: It might have been a train or car, something moving, I don’t know what. An airplane.

Parent: An airplane, yes.

Spraggett returned to the transcript to show Fletcher reassuring the parents that their child did not suffer in the fatal event. Then he focused again on the nature of the accident, but the reader sees only a snippet of Fletcher’s attempt to gather information.

Fletcher: He wasn’t flying the thing, was he?

Parent: No.

Fletcher: He was only a passenger, wasn’t he? There must have been four or five others.

Parent: Right.

Fletcher: There must have been quite a few other people in the thing, wasn’t there? Four or five?

Parent: Seven on board with him.

Fletcher: Seven on board. Yes. I know it was not a great big passenger plane, you know what I mean … ?

Fletcher: It was a, it was a private plane, you understand. [no response]

Fletcher: Maybe it was a government plane, I don’t know.

Parent: It was a government plane.

Fletcher: And a, if he’d had time, expected the thing, he could have jumped, you understand? But they weren’t prepared to jump, did you know that?

Parent: That is probably very true.

But that was not true. The son was the food-service provider on a KC-135A air refueling craft that exploded one minute after taking off from Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks, Alaska. The plane was similar to a Boeing 707 airliner, which has no provisions for jumping or ejecting; moreover, the plane failed at an altitude too low for a parachute.

Fletcher: I want to go southwest with this. You know why I want to go southwest? This didn’t happen near where you live, did it? [These questions get no responses.]

Fletcher: It was either, I don’t know whether it was the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean. I see the ocean, know what I mean? I don’t see it in war time though.

Parent: No, you are right.

Fletcher: It’s just the, comparatively recent, maybe two or four years?

Parent: Not quite two years.

Fletcher: But, it was a, flying east. I am sure; east. See if I can make it out.

The father ignored this statement and asked about the accident. Fletcher again gave comforting statements and returned to the “east” issue.

Fletcher: Wasn’t he stationed in the east somewhere?

Parent: No, not in the east.

Fletcher: Well, he was flying east when it happened.

Parent: He could have been flying east, or the take-off was to the east probably.

Fletcher: Because I see the ocean, I don’t know if it was the Atlantic or Pacific.

Parent: That’s Pacific.

Fletcher: This thing happened in the Northern part, Northwest.

Parent: Yes. That would be right.

Fletcher: I don’t know whether it’s in Northern California, or Oregon, or Washington, out that way. You know?

Parent: Do I know?

Fletcher: That’s where it happened.

Parent: Well, actually, it happened in Alaska.

Fletcher: Oh! Well, I know it was in the Northwest, but that they were flying toward this country. They were on a training flight, see what I mean?

Parent: Umhm.

Fletcher: And it happened over the water, you know what I mean? And there wasn’t time to jump but there was nothing to worry about. Now he reached out and a woman comes and she’s your mother, sir, his Grandmother, I guess, couldn’t it?

Parent: No there must be somebody else.

Fletcher tried to introduce the parents to someone on the other side whose name started with and E, or it could be a C. Or maybe it was a B—because they all sound alike. Maybe her name was Lottie or “sounds like Lollie or Lockman or something.” Then Fletcher became certain the name was Charlotte, but they called her Lottie. He asked about the cancer of Elizabeth, but the parents could not recall any Elizabeth, so Fletcher said it was Mary, not Elizabeth, who had the cancer. Again, the parents could not identify Mary. Fletcher asked about the mother losing a sister (no) or a brother (no). Then he returned to Elizabeth or the person whose name started with an E.

All this fishing—and much more—is omitted from the text. Instead, readers only see Fletcher’s declaration that their son is happy and did not suffer in his death. The parents repeatedly asked what their son was doing, but Fletcher never answered that question. They said he was passionate about aviation, but Fletcher would have sounded absurd to say that he was flying airplanes in heaven.

After all these fishing failures, Fletcher began offering names of people their son might have known on earth who were now with him on the other side. These startling successes included greetings from a deceased pastor in their hometown and a former school superintendent that the father later identified as someone he knew from his local Masonic Lodge. The parents were further surprised by the introduction of a Rev. Bean, who baptized their son, and Bean’s wife. They did not know she had died but confirmed her death after returning home, hence the parents’ declaration that Ford’s success “couldn’t be mental telepathy.”

Massive Failure Framed as Success

Success is best judged after considering the larger context. For example, the transcript of a séance should always be compared with the original recording (Shuy 1996). I possess only the transcript of this séance but have no reason to believe that the document is unfaithful to the statements of Ford. On the other hand, Spraggett’s summary clearly fails to convey the extent of guessing. Furthermore, many of Fletcher’s statements about the accident seem initially plausible until they are compared with the official government investigation. Fletcher was almost always wrong, often wildly wrong, even when his declarations were expressed with bold confidence.

The crash at Eielson was about three hundred miles from the Gulf of Alaska, nowhere near water. Their son could not have flown the plane or made a parachute jump, as Fletcher stated, and the plane did not take off to the east or fly east. Fletcher was wrong in his description of the airplane, its location, its mission, and the nature of the accident. Fletcher said the son’s body was not returned home, but that was not true. When the parents asked if their son had any messages for his friends, Fletcher gave some platitudes about life that reflected the belief of Ford, not statements expected from an adventurous youth.

Ford knew little about the family when he met them, and Fletcher did not know the name of their son who was purportedly standing in front of him. Sixteen pages into the twenty-page transcript, Fletcher finally had to ask the parents for their son’s name, a dialog that Spraggett included in his summary. Fletcher had tried but failed to name some relatives, but he was able to identify a couple of deceased pastors from their hometown. Even if we give Fletcher credit for this success, these individuals were a side issue in the life and death of their son. The flight crew was conspicuously never mentioned.

We are left with the task of explaining how the parents ignored these massive failures and declared the séance a success. The answer must lie in Ford’s style and skill in creating a belief that for a few brief minutes he was in contact with their only son. The experience can be compared to the difference between reading a play and sitting in the front row of live theater. They were overwhelmed (or distracted) by the reassurance that their son had not suffered and was now happy.

Hot and Cold Running Patter

Arthur Ford said that “mediums should be kept off our platforms until their work becomes evidential” (Ford 1937). Thus, he has given us permission to ask if he provided evidence that he was in contact with the other side, or if he role played and faked that ability. The amount of fishing in this transcript is typical of a common cold reader. Ford’s direct hits on the names of those dead pastors suggests prior knowledge, and this is consistent with what we know about how Ford surreptitiously prepared for séances.

Ford kept an extensive file of death notices, especially of pastors and priests from across the nation (Rauscher 2006, 120). He collected this information by reading three or four newspapers in addition to magazines. The discovery of one specific clipping unraveled his most famous séance success. Rev. William Rauscher was sorting through Ford’s personal papers when he found a clipping of the obituary of Bishop Karl Morgan Block (Rauscher and Spraggett 1975, 112). This article contained details that convinced Bishop Pike that Ford had divined information so obscure and idiosyncratic that it could only have come by revelation in the séance. In a final analysis, Spraggett was forced to admit that “data which once loomed large as evidence for paranormal processes have shriveled to virtually nothing” and that “the evidence is disquietingly strong that Ford cheated” (Spraggett 1973, 261). Similarly, Ford utilized knowledge available to him for his successful séance with Beatrice Houdini (Rauscher 2000). And, incidentally, Ford did not pass all the psychical research tests administrated by scientists (MacRobert 1954).

After attending Ford’s demonstration of clairvoyance in London, Arthur Conan Doyle said it was “one of the most amazing things I have ever seen” (Ford 1958, 47). However, there was a darker side to Ford’s life. A year after this praise, Doyle warned a friend that Ford was “astray into night life and unsavory adventures.”² Indeed, Spraggett devoted a whole chapter to the social and moral failings of Ford. For example, Ford claimed that he did not make his living as a medium because he had inherited Florida real estate, but that assertion was false (Editors of Psychic Magazine 1972, 22).

Some of Ford’s difficulties were the result of an auto accident he suffered in December 1930. His sister and another passenger were killed, and Ford became addicted to morphine while hospitalized. Ford admitted that his suffering was followed by “about twenty years of alcoholism” (Ford 1958, 148). However, Ford was involved in binge drinking before the accident; he often drank excessively before séances, and he struggled with alcoholism to the end of his life. Even more, he consumed large quantities of nutritional supplements and pills.³ Sadly, he was seldom free of health complaints, and he spent considerable time seeking medical care. At the end of his life, he endured over 212 electro-cardioversions for atrial fibrillation (Rauscher 2006, 175).

I have no reason to conclude that Arthur Ford’s work demonstrated contact with departed spirits. Even his sympathetic biographer, Allen Spraggett, cited many examples of Ford cheating at séances, although sometimes he included less damning alternative explanations. I believe that Spraggett and the parents he described were overwhelmed by the charisma of Arthur Ford. Despite all the contrary evidence, Ford easily convinced people that he talked to the dead.

Notes

1. Rev. William Rauscher was a longtime friend of Ford who conducted his funeral.
2. Letter from Doyle to W.F.R. Fast, August. 17, 1928.
3. Ford also experimented with LSD, administered by Ian Stevenson, MD, as a way of investigating psychic phenomena. (Letter from Stevenson to Ford, June 6, 1960.)

References

Editors of Psychic Magazine. 1972. Psychics. New York, NY: Harper & Row.

Ford, Arthur. 1937. Who are the genuine mediums? The Harbinger of Light (February 1): 91–92.

———. 1958. Nothing So Strange: The Autobiography of Arthur Ford. New York, NY: Harper & Brothers.

Ford, Arthur, and Jerome Ellison. 1971. The Life beyond Death (as told to Jerome Ellison). New York, NY: Putnam.

MacRobert, A.F. 1954. Proxy sittings: A report of the study group series with Arthur Ford. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 48: 71–73.

Rauscher, William. 2000. The Houdini Code Mystery: A Spirit Secret Solved. Pasadena, CA: Mike Caveney’s Magic Words.

———. 2006. Religion, Magic, and the Supernatural: The Autobiography, Reflections and Essays of an Episcopal Priest. Woodbury, NY: Mystic Light Press.

Rauscher, William, and Allen Spraggett. 1975. The Spiritual Frontier: A Priest Explores the Psychic World. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

Shuy, Roger W. 1996. Language Crimes: The Use and Abuse of Language Evidence in the Courtroom. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.

Spraggett, Allen. 1973. Arthur Ford: The Man Who Talked with the Dead. New York, NY: New American Library.