MASSIMO POLIDORO

NOTES ON A STRANGE WORLD]

Massimo Polidoro is an investigator of the paranormal, lecturer, and cofounder and head of CICAP, the Italian skeptics group. His website is at www.massimopolidoro.com.

A local Italian newspaper, La Nuova Provincia di Biella, published an article titled and Daughter of Zubiena Communicate Through the Power of Thought.” It reported a telepathic link that seems to exist between Carmela Paola and her daughter Amalia Maruca, both of Zubiena, a small town in the province of Biella. It’s a link that was allegedly proven through the use of Zener cards. According to the newspaper, the two women have an accuracy that varies between 90 percent and 100 percent. Each one almost always guesses the symbol (circle, cross, waves, square, or star) the other is thinking of—an experience that, if confirmed, would represent the first case in the world of documentable telepathy. It would be an exceptional discovery, as well as the opportunity to bring home numerous prizes offered around the world to those who could first demonstrate any skill of this kind.

Massimo Polidoro and Luigi Garlaschelli look over the mother and daughter during a preliminary test where they could see each other.

‘This Case Has Really Struck Me’

The case, of course, attracted the attention of CICAP, the Italian skeptics committee. I got in touch with Alberto Serena of the Biella association NuovaMente (NewMind). It is he, in fact, who discovered the talent of the two women by subjecting them to tests with a deck of Zener cards (cards that appear to be those that were attached to one of my first books: Are YouPsychic?, published in 1997!).