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unearthed patents Andrija Puharich had filed back in the 1960s for a variety of tooth radios. The significant point, however, was that these projects were never built; the electronic components for anything workable simply didn’t exist. As a sensible precaution, however, Uri submitted himself for an examination with a prominent New York dentist, Dr John K. Lind, who was a full clinical professor at Columbia University, and in his private capacity looked after Greta Garbo’s, Errol Flynn’s, Arthur Miller’s and Marilyn Monroe’s teeth. ‘I can attest to the fact that clinical and radiographic examination of Geller’s mouth, teeth and jaws reveals no foreign objects implanted such as transistors, metal devices, etc.’ Dr Lind reported in a statement.
    Another amusing example of the sceptics’ near-panic at the spectre of Uri Geller being taken seriously was when, under the auspices of another government agency (ARPA, the Pentagon’s Advance Research Projects Agency), they managed to get a renowned sceptical psychologist who was also a skilled magician to observe the SRI tests for a day. Using his trained eye, he reported back, without being specific, on all kinds of areas in which it was probable Geller was fooling SRI. Unfortunately, his observational expertise also led him to state in his report that Geller’s eyes are blue; they are, in fact, brown. So much for the trained eyes of the sceptical.
    Uri Geller had finally got to the SRI at the end of 1972. The rumour that he was going to be tested at such a prestigious establishment had spread throughout a bemused scientific world, not to mention an incandescent conjuring fraternity. Uri knew that how he performed at SRI would be crucial to his future in the States, and that a failure here would almost certainly wipe him out worldwide, as well as bury forever, the fledgling academic study of psi – the blanket term for all forms of parapsychology and the paranormal.
    The pressure on Geller was immense. He knew that he was genuine, but if he failed to convince the scientists testing him that he was not some sort of clever charlatan who had managed to contrive ever more clever ways of covering his tracks in ARPA’s fully fledged laboratory setting, he would be finished. His reputation in Israel, especially among the intelligence community there, which he had been assiduously courting (and they him) in his efforts to fulfil his childhood dream of being a spy, would be in tatters.
    Uri, Shipi and Dr Puharich were met at San Francisco Airport by Edgar Mitchell, Dr Wilbur Franklin of Kent State University’s Physics Department, who was interested in him, and Puthoff and Targ. Puthoff at the time was a senior research engineer at SRI and held patents in the field of lasers and optical instruments. He was also co-author of Fundamentals of Quantum Electronics , a textbook on the interrelation between quantum mechanics, engineering and applied physics. He had been a lieutenant in naval intelligence, handling the highest category of classified material, a civilian operative of the National Security Agency, and was involved in the early 1960s in the development of ultra-fast computers for military use.
    Targ, meanwhile, was a senior research physicist and an inventor, who had been a pioneer in the development of lasers, and had a series of abstruse laser devices, such as the tuneable plasma oscillator and the high-power gas-transport laser, to his name. He had built a laser-listening device for the CIA to ‘get information from distant places’ as he puts it guardedly. Targ had sought out Puthoff for two reasons when he heard that he was doing high-level research into psychics. The first was that he already had an interest in psychic research, the second, his fascination with magicianship.
    SRI had been part of the neighbouring Stanford University since 1946, but had become an independent think tank, laboratory and problem-solving organization in 1970. Its 2,800 staff