ChaoSkeptic

If you are a fan of the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe podcast you probably have already heard this week's interview with James Randi and Banachek. Here's the video they were discussing of Randi debunking faith healer Peter Popoff from way back in the 80s. It was pretty ingenious how Randi, Banachek and Alec Jason were able to use some high tech gadgetry to figure out that Peter's wife was using radio communication system to feed him information in the 39.17 MHz range. The debunking caused Popoff to go bankrupt in 1987 but of course it didn't finish him for good. He's still making hundreds of thousands of dollars "healing" people and selling water that is supposedly from the Dead Sea. As Randi says, Popoff is an unsinkable rubber duck and he is very good at tricking desperate sick people into giving him money.