Greetings readers and listeners. You may remember me writing about mentalist Adrian Saint before, in The California Aggie, here on my blog, and the Skeptic’s Circle also picked up the story and promoted it. Back in February, he claimed to have predicted the results of Super Bowl XL, and got The Aggie to report that he did, abandoning skepticism entirely, so I felt I had to say something. Our local Davis mentalist responded in The Mentalist Strikes Back, making several more predictions that turned out to be wrong. Every saga has an end, so now it’s time for The Return of the Science Guy.

Tonight on my show, my special guest is none other than mentalist Adrian Saint himself. During the show, we will discuss his feats of mentalism, including a little insight into how he makes predictions, and of course his alleged Super Bowl prediction. Adrian Saint is leaving Davis within a couple days after his appearance on my show, so this was really the last opportunity to get him on the Mindcast.

This post is intended to help guide listeners, for an interview that I predict will be very revealing. In fact, I will reveal how Adrian Saint performed his Super Bowl prediction trick, live on the air, and we’ll all see how he reacts. He has probably no idea what is coming, and this post will automatically publish the moment he enters the studio, so he will have no chance to read it. If you are reading this, it is either because I pointed you to the post from the show so you could read it while he’s on the air with me, or the show is over and you’ve heard about it through some other means. If you haven’t had the chance to hear it, it will be published as a podcast within the next couple weeks, so check back and I will have more for you.

Okay, here we go. Adrian Saint gave the Aggie an audio tape locked in a metal box that was further sealed inside a taped cardboard box. On this tape, he supposedly recorded a prediction about the results of the Super Bowl. One day after the game, in full view of the audience, Jeff Katz at the Aggie removed the tape from the box in full view of everyone and placed inside a small stereo. Adrian Saint hit play on a remote, and what played out of the stereo was an accurate Super Bowl score, as well as an “important” number, which was the same number on the jersey of the MVP. Everyone was convinced that Saint had predicted the Super Bowl.

I started investigating, for journalistic reasons as well as out of pure skepticism - that scientific perspective of verifying facts and building up evidence before accepting extraordinary claims. I talked to people at the Aggie and ASUCD senators looking for patterns. The first pattern I noticed was that each of these predictions had been unveiled after-the-fact. Whenever predictions were revealed before the event in question, they were often dead wrong. So I started thinking about how one could set up a trick wherein an amazing prediction is made on tape to fool students and the newspaper.
In my guest opinion, Reason for Skepticism, I pointed out that there were gaps in the reporting of the event, such as the fact that no one verified that the recording tabs were removed and whether or not there was a CD in the stereo. I suggested that it would have been possible for Adrian Saint to have dubbed from a CD onto the tape and remove the tabs afterward, it would seem entirely possible for a magician to accomplish that.

At this point I am going to apologize to everyone for misleading them. I had it all figured out within a week and a half, and by the time my guest opinion was published I had all the evidence that I needed to convince reasonable people that it was a trick. By doing very simple google searches I found Adrian Saint, whose real name is Amir Ghasri, and has also gone by the name Amir Saint, in online magic forums talking about the very trick that he did.

Some people on his wiki page credit him for thinking of a way to fool everyone, but in fact he did not think of it. He asked all of his fellow magicians what was the best “Headline Prediction” he could buy. Having already seen ads for other headline prediction tricks, he soliticed advice on which one to get. What are these tricks, perchance?

They are run-of-the-mill stereos that have been modified to contain an internal recording system. You put a blank tape in the box, with the recording tabs removed, and give it to your “spectator” before the event you are going to “predict.” Then after the event is over, you record the results onto the internal recording system in the stereo, and when you unveil the tape with your “prediction,” you are actually putting a blank tape into the modified stereo, which plays the recording, simultaneously dubbing it onto the tape. The recording tabs have been removed, but the stereo has been modifed to get around this, and record anyway.

So what the audience sees is a tape rolling in the player, and they hear the “prediction” being played. The tape has its recording tabs removed, and it has the recording now on it, so it appears to everyone present as if it was indeed on the tape to begin with. And the stereo he used during the show was a spot-on-match for one of the headline prediction stereos. It’s called the “Impossible Cassette Prediction.” And it’s not a cheap trick, expect to pay $700-800 for this device.

But of course, Adrian Saint can always claim that although this is possible, and although he knew about these tricks, was apparently planning to use them, that he didn’t do it and this prediction is genuine. So naturally I couldn’t just come out and say that this is what he did without verifying it. I decided I would try to lure him into doing it again.

I contacted him several times, suggesting that he set up another, and that I verify its veracity, checking for a CD, checking to see if the recording tabs were removed, etc. But he was very wary, and kept saying that he was not interested in doing another. I submitted my guest opinion, hoping that it might nudge him to want to defend himself, and I deliberately withheld what I had found out to try to make myself seem ignorant of the method he used. I will reveal later how I would have undermined the trick.

Still, no dice. I ran out of time, and even last week I gave a final offer to set up this trick to be revealed on his last Davis mentalism show, which was yesterday. So it would appear that there wasn’t a way to demonstrate that it was indeed a trick. Not so.

The Aggie was kind enough to provide me with his Super Bowl “prediction” tape, and I have been told that I may keep it. Having listened to it, I now know how I can test my theory and come up with a conclusion that it was indeed a magic trick that was set up.

You see, the modified stereos record the message electronically digitally, and this leaves a signature on the recorded sound. Certain sound frequencies are cut out when it is compressed, and you are left with less than the total sound of the person’s voice. It’s like when you listen to someone on the phone, it sounds different than in person because it cuts out low frequencies.

Analog stereo recorders do not have the same problem. The sound quality is still low, but those frequencies are included, and we can tell the difference between the two by looking at the “shape” of the sounds on a computer with suitable audio analysis software.

Here we have it, a scientific experiment. The two competing theories are that Adrian Saint recorded his prediction on the tape before the super bowl, or, that he did not record it directly onto the tape, but instead used the electronic digital recording feature of the modified stereo to dub it on the tape during his show. If he did indeed record a genuine prediction, then he will be vindicated if I find that the shape of the sounds matches what we would expect from the analog recording system on a stereo. But if instead I find that the tape has digital recording signatures, then he will be revealed for what he is - a magician.

Many people would of course say, ‘of course he’s a magician.’ Magic shows are controlled illusions, intended to entertain people. It should be obvious, but the problem is that a newspaper printed that he did indeed predict the Super Bowl, which seems to me to be false. Additionally, he claimed in print that he did in fact predict the Super Bowl, again repeating the falsehood. Finally, he put a $1,000 bet on the successful completion of a magic trick, which was dishonest (besides being illegal) and violated one of the codes of ethics that most magicians adhere to. Finally, he very stupidly put an empty $25,000 reward for anyone who could prove that he set anything up in his shows.

It seems that he is trying to create a reputation for himself as quickly as possible, without becoming a seasoned mentalism performer. That by getting newspapers to print that he genuinely predicted the Super Bowl, and then putting a $25,000 reward on it, he is trying to make himself look serious, appear to be genuine. (But it is empty because his brother does not count as a third party and he has refused to test his predictive abilities) He seems to be taking after one of his idols, Uri Geller, who used magic tricks to deceive people into thinking that he had supernatural powers. Though Adrian Saint claims to have no supernatural powers, he is claiming that he uses psychology and statistics to make predictions that aren’t real, or were written in his pocket in front of everybody. I intend to demonstrate tonight that he lacks even a rudimentary understanding of statistics.

I predict that Adrian Saint will deny that his Super Bowl prediction was a trick, even after I reveal all of this. I will give him a chance to admit everything and retract his public claims before I do an analysis of the tape, but I predict that he will not go for it. This post has been put up to establish that I knew this beforehand, in case he decides to admit it before I present my case. And plus, it makes for good radio.

He may try to erase the posts he has put up in magic forums, but it will do him no good because I have saved them on my computer. I will follow this up with links, pics, and of course, my analysis of the tape, if it is necessary.