2014 James Randi Educational Foundation's Million Dollar Challenge.

[mr blur]

Richard Saunders provides the background, foreground, inside and outside of this year's Million Dollar Challenge test in front of a live audience at TAM 2014.

The Amazing Meeting, the annual gathering of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) in Las Vegas, is amazing for a number of reasons. I, for one, find it amazing that although a whole year goes by from one meeting to the next, once ensconced in the venue, the South Point Casino, one can be forgiven for thinking the last meeting was only the other week. In the six years I have been going to the South Point, it has scarcely changed while I just get a little older.

In 2012 and 2013 it was my pleasure to assist the JREF in organising and staging the preliminary test for the Million Dollar Challenge (MDC) which over the years, has become the grand finale of TAM. In 2014, shortly before heading off to Las Vegas, members of the MDC committee, Banachek, Jamy Ian Swiss and Chip Denman, asked if I would once again come to the aid of the party. With such highly regarded people as these acting on behalf of James Randi, the answer was easy.

The emails started following my way a day or two before my arrival, followed by Skype meetings with Banachek and new to the MDC Krystyn Lambert, a highly respected up and coming magician who works with the likes of Cris Angel.

This year the claimant was one Mr. Fei Wang (pronounced 'Wong'), a Chinese national living and studying in Boston. He had already been tested by "The New England Center for the Advancement of Paranormal Science" with seemingly positive results. This report together with letters of recommendation satisfied the MDC committee that it was worth proceeding with testing this claimant.

Mr. Wang's claim in his words is: "I have some supernatural power that I can send out from right hand and other people can simply feel it in distance about 30cm away."

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http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/2382-the-trials-and-tribulations-of-the-2014-james-randi-educational-foundations-million-dollar-challenge.html

Interesting!

(Spoiler: he didn't win)