James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) is an initiative I have been following closely the past couple of months. OK, from a purely design-wise view this could need some cleanup, but contentwise, this site is as rewarding as the feeling you get after you have struck gold from digging through an entire mountain.
James Randi, the head of this foundation, my hero, and the very reason why I gave up my interest in UFOs, ghosts and the paranormal. You see, some years ago I attended a UFO-meeting in town and I have been watching UFO-documentaries, cropcircle-videos and stuff like that and all the time had a honest belief in that. At one point I began to become scared of aliens coming to abduct me in my sleep, which was when I started thinking that something had to be done about this. This went on for a couple of years, but at the same time, the aliens just did not come to abduct me, and I started doing more rational studies and my interests switched over to more down-to-earth things like vehicles, architecture, guinea pigs and puffy cheeks (oh yes). I was still a believer until this year thanks to my mother and her group of weird people who deals with anything related to the paranormal.
When I was doing some research on the internet for my Prolog-course (esoteric, but awesome programming language), I came across several mentions of debunking of psychics and other things related to pseudoscience and the “unknown”. It was not until I started using my Youtube-account to save movies that I came across the first few clips of James Randi and his hilarious debunking of psychics and his guidelines on homeopathy for gullible people. Mind, I was also one of those gullible people who was into alternative medicine even though it never produced any desirable results. I am, however, still very skeptical to pill-subscriptions as I do not want to become too dependant on things a daily dose of vitamins through healthy foods like vegetables and fruits can give me instead. Anyhow, as I started digging into Youtube’s vast archives I saw James Randi not only appearing on his own, but also in connection with Penn & Teller and other people of a higher status. It was really amazing to see him take on Rosemary Altea and other psychics on shows, and see them try to talk their way out of winning the JREF’s 1 million dollar prize. This really opened a whole new world for me.
So to skip right to it, now I never fear aliens or the “uknown” anymore. I can sleep soundly at night without getting afraid of being abducted. I am cured, praise the JREF! Now all we need is a miracle water production company sponsoring the JREF.