Project Alpha

2-15-20 Here's what we know about the origins of Project Alpha. The project was first instituted in the late 1970s. Magician James Randi contacted the McDonnell Laboratory for Psychical Research that had been newly established. He gave them suggestions on how to conduct their tests for paranormal phenomena. Little did he know, at the time, that he was getting way in over his head and that the little experiment of his own that he was finagling would blow up in his face big time. He would be the key instrument in taking Project Alpha even deeper underground than it has ever been before. I guess that's what happens when you go sticking your nose where it doesn't belong. Randi conspired with two teenage boys names Steven Shaw (later known as Banachek) and Mike Edwards. He had them contact the MacLab as it was called and posed as test subjects. The goal? To expose what was really going on at the MacLab. This went on from 1979 until 1982, when Peter Phillips, the head of research at the MacL