2001 DPE Reports

November 2001 DPE Report

Housekeeping: We are still looking for people to participate in the Department of Phenomenal Evidence (DPE) Egroup.  In the Egroup, you can send an email to one address and it will go to everyone in the Egroup.  The purpose for this service is to provide a way for information about phenomena to be quickly reported and distributed to the churches.  We would like to have at least one person from each church who is willing to function as an emissary between the DPE and the churches.

Affidavits as Phenomena Reports: Remember that signed affidavits can be useful as phenomenal evidence.  Please consider sending us copies as they are approved within your church.

Society for Psychical Research Investigates Phenomenal Evidence: British EVP researcher, Tina Laurent, is reporting EVP contact with long-time SPR member, Arthur Ellison, who transitioned in 2000.  Tina has compiled samples of those contacts at the request of David Fontana, who is currently Chairman of the SPR.  We will report the results of Professor Fontana’s investigation as it unfolds.

Evidence Panel: An Evidence Panel is being organized to provide informed, experienced analysis of proposed items of phenomenal evidence.  We apologize to those of you who do not have access, but at this time, this panel will operate through the Internet only.  You can find out more information about this panel and the qualifications we are seeking for panel members at: [closed].  If you have a background in photography, or what you believe is appropriate experience in phenomena research, and are interesting in participating, please contact us.  The Evidence Panel will not function as the last word, but will offer constructive evaluation based on experience.

Evidential Photograph: Peter Berg of the Sanctuary of Infinite Spirit, Smithtown Long Island, NY took a picture at the NSAC 2001 Convention workshops that has caused quite a stir.  The picture is of the Rev. Gene Pfortmiller holding a piece of paper over Pat Duffield’s head.  Pat is a member of the Sanctuary of the Infinite Spirit and Gene is co-pastor of the Church of the Living Spirit in Glendale, AZ.

A trimmed and reduced version of the photograph is shown here.  You can see that the spot at Gene’s cheek does not resemble the usual flash reflection.  Review by the Evidence Panel has not presented any known, mundane explanation for the spot, and the before and after photographs do not display this phenomenon.  We cannot say with absolute certainty that this is not an artifact of the camera or situation; however, there is good evidence to support that it is a spirit light.

When Gene first viewed the picture in the digital display of the camera, he saw the spot of light as a hand and watched it change to an orb.  One of the Evidence Panel members and AA-EVP member, Erland Babcock, who worked with George Meek (Spiricom) and has more than thirty years experience in the field of ITC, enlarged the spot 800 times.  His wife, Mary, noticed the face of a woman in the resulting image.  If you look closely, you can see the image of a woman in the enlargement of the spot.  All but that image has been erased in the last picture.  Do you recognize the woman?  If so, tell us who you think it is—and why.

This is an interesting example of a photograph showing phenomenal evidence that, on closer examination, provides even further evidence.  We are exploring establishing a standard for Instrumental TransCommunication (ITC) images, such as the one above.  The standard would require that an image must exhibits six of ten reference points (face, eyes, nose, mouth, chin, ears, brow, cheek, hair and profile), before being accepted as a candidate for consideration as phenomena.  In ITC, the image version of EVP, it is not unusual to have images like the one shown here.  For this reason, there is precedence to believe that this picture is phenomenal.

A more complete report of this picture is on the DPE web site at http://nsacphenomena.com.  As always, your comments and suggestions are welcome.