Croydon Bob

I've always been a big fan of Peter Hurkos (1911 - 1988), obviously not because he was a "psychic detective" (indeed he was the very first ever psychic detective) but because he was so spectacularly crap at being a psychic. I started a thread about him on the UK-S forum but it didn't get much interest so I'm hoping a blog entry here will spread the word and that some of you will enjoy reading about him.

Randi's encyclopaedia entry on him is here: http://www.randi.org/encyclopedia/Hurkos,%20Peter.html

His wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hurkos
Includes this gem:
"Hurkos also claimed to have identified the Boston Strangler, and he did in fact travel to Boston and spend time with the police there. However, he was not of help to them. Several days after he concluded his consultation, he was arrested (and eventually convicted) for impersonating a police officer. Hurkos allegedly posed as a police officer in order to gather information that he could later claim to be psychic revelations."

His "official" website (run by his widow) is here: http://www.peterhurkos.com/

But the best piece on him written by anyone ever is here: http://www.povonline.com/cols/COL054.htm
Mark "Evil" Evanier's account of Hurkos trying to do a reading of Larry "Buster" Crabbe, the original screen Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. I’ve read this article at least five times and it still cracks me up. Despite the evil that Evanier has unleashed on this world he can write funny stuff. Although, on balance, if you gave me a Time Machine and a gun, I'd still go back in time and kill Evanier when he was a baby.

When we skeptics are dealing with modern day "psychic detectives" it is worth remembering that they are all riding on the coat tails of Peter Hurkos, a convicted liar and fraud who never solved anything. To quote Evanier: "Peter Hurkos is a portly little man whose psychic abilities, whatever they are, obviously do not extend to knowing that his hairpiece looks like a Lhasa Apso. "