Fun_People Archive
13 Dec
Adventures in Randi-land -:- Quadro Corp.

Date: Wed, 13 Dec 95 03:37:06 -0800
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: Adventures in Randi-land -:- Quadro Corp.

From: James Randi --- Wizard <randi-hotline@ssr.com>


		MORE ON THE LATEST PIECE OF PSEUDOSCIENCE

You may recall the offer that I made on November 26th to the Quadro
Corporation, who make and sell the wonderful QRS 250G "Detector" that is
supposed to find drugs, arms, golf balls and almost anything else.  It's a
$955 glorified dowsing stick, and simply doesn't work, as I've shown several
times.  I announced the specific challenge to Quadro here on the Hot Line.
I offered Quadro Corp., or ANYONE they designated (one of their
distributors, the "inventor," any of the staff, any client) the $500,000
prize.  It's been two weeks now, and nary a response.  But they have until
January 26 (60 days) to answer, after which I go to the media with this.

Well, a scientist named William Llope in Texas asked my advice on how to
handle the invasion of the Quadro-wavers, and then did an excellent
double-blind test to establish that the stupid thing was a fake.  It made
big news in the local paper.  Now I'm told by Sandia Labs in Albuquerque,
New Mexico, that the local police force was prepared to spend $200,000 on
these gimmicks, and a Sandia investigator did a double-blind test of her
own; the stick, again, failed the tests.  When she called the VP of Quadro,
she was told to go to hell.  She didn't; she came to me, and told the story.

Quadro Corp. seems unhappy with all this challenging, and they have been
urging their distributors not to allow the device to be tested.  Could this
mean that they KNOW it doesn't work?  Surely the half-million prize is
enough to make them take notice?

Any suggestions on what we might do about this?  No state authorities have
shown any interest, and I don't know where to go next.

					James Randi.

© 1995 Peter Langston