News Front

Failure haunts ghostbuster

By KINGSLEY FIELD and FIONA BARBER

The man at the centre of the "ghostbuster" controversy last night admitted the scheme had fallen apart because of "fundamental mismanagement" on his 3 part.

Kevin Barnard, aged 28, a fourth-year Waikato University student who took the parapsychology study proposal to the Department of Labour for approval, said the buck was stopping with him.

"Someone has got to stand up and say 'I'm staying with this thing' Everyone else has gone walkabout," he said.

In a 45-minute Interview In the substantial penthouse flat he shares with seven other people on top of the former New Zealand Co-operative Dairy. Co building In central Hamilton, Mr Barnard said he was now "flat out servicing debts," In an attempt to pay back the money from the failed scheme.

At least $90,000 was put Into the scheme by the Labour Department under its Restart programme after it approved the scheme late last year,

Although Mr Barnard accepts that little was done on the project, It Is now $58,000 in debt. Of that, $8000 is owed in wages to nine staff employed to conduct the research.

Mr Barnard said he was trying to establish a correlation between normal medical data and data obtained by Kirlian (aura) photography

"It was fairly basic stuff, to some extent," he said.

"They [the research staff] couldn't see to the point of what they were doing.'

He said the initial programme put to the Labour Department was scheduled to run for 12 months.

"But to do a decent piece of research would have taken five to six years," said Mr Barnard.

He said that when he took the Initial Proposal to a Labour Department employment projects adviser in Hamilton fast year, he was told the plan "seemed to fit the criteria — write an application."

It took four or five days to put together. Mr Barnard said that although New Zealand was basically a Christian society with a belief in a holy spirit it did not want to accept that someone was studying other forms of spirits outside of theology.

He said his own personal research was the only project to be completed, but he did not want to talk about it except to say that it was a piece of computer hardware "to conduct parapsychological research not previously undertaken.

"I'm not ready to talk about this one yet. It's been picked up by someone else offshore."

Mr Barnard said he was born in Dunedin, but lived most of his life in Tauranga.

He spent a year at Massey University, studying philosophy, and the past four years at Waikato University, studying Philosophy, psychology and "a mixture of subjects."

"l was going to have a crack at completing my degree this year, but I have been flat out servicing debts."

He said he had previously gone bankrupt, running a group of small businesses in Tauranga — construction, cobblestoning and advertising.

Mr Barnard seemed at ease and somewhat bemused at all the media and public attention.

The Waikato University psychology lecturer named as the chairman of the Kevin Barnard Trust Foundation, Mr Richard Aukett, could not be reached yesterday.

The person who answered his home telephone said Mr Aukett had "left the Island" and would not be back for a fortnight.

In the latest "Experts File." released this week by Waikato University, Mr Aukett's specialty subjects are listed as love, sexuality, intimacy, meditation, extra-sensory perception, transpersonal psychology-spirituality, the future of sport and welfare, rebirthing, primal therapy, psychotherapy and the Gaia hypothesis, with research Interests of personal transformation through love and spiritual development.

Bethea Weir, education and legal officer of the Northern Clerical Workers Union, said yesterday that the union had begun proceedings under the Labour Relations Act to recover the $8000 in wages owed to Mr Barnard's research staff.

"Although I'm super hopeful of getting it, I doubt very much whether there is any money in the kitty."

A senior Employment Service auditor has been instructed to comb the background to the project and results will be included with a review of the other 1177 Restart schemes.

The Minister of Employment, Mr McTigue, wants to know whether there are grounds for legal action.

Sceptics rubbish ghostbusting

WELLINGTON (PA) — The Skeptics Society today rubbished the Labour Department-funded "ghostbusters" scheme, calling it "absurd".

Spokesman Denis Dutton said the project was one of the most outrageous the society had encountered

"Contrary to what the Labour Department in Hamilton may believe, quantum mechanics is not an advanced kind of auto repair," he said.

"In order to even discuss it you'd require high degrees in mathematics or physics to advanced university level.

"It's our understanding that the participants in this scheme would require IQs of at least 150. Though we have no way of knowing the IQs of the organisers it's quite clear that the people who funded it in the Labour Department don't have IQs of 150," said Dr Dutton

Average IQs are around 100.

Employment Minister Maurice McTigue yesterday launched an inquiry into the Restart scheme, set up last August with $90,000 of the department's funds to identify ghosts, track them down and photograph their auras.

The project was canned at the end of March

Dr Dutton said it was not the department's job to fund research as that was better left to universities and the DSIR.

"It's an absurd scheme involving quantum mechanics, kirlian fields. It is very old hat — they simply don't exist as paranormal phenomena.

"We start off to equip people with skills for worthwhile jobs. What would one do after this — palm reading? Clairvoyancy. Levitation?"

Application riddled with mistakes

WELLINGTON

Employment Minister Maurice McTigue yesterday released the 24-page application for the "ghostbusters" Restart research scheme in Hamilton.

Mr McTigue has ordered a full inquiry into the $90,000 payout by the Labour Department on the project set up to investigate ghosts and poltergeists.

The application states all prospective employees would need IQs of at least 150 (genius level) and four or five people would be needed with PhDs, "of which we already have two on our staff."

In spite of this, the application includes many spelling mistakes and nonsensical statements.

Aotearoa is spelt "Aeteroa" or "Aetreroa" in places.

The first page of the application includes a section which says: "Through NZIP (the New Zealand Institute of Parapsychology) a maximum of 12 persons shell (sic) be employed from the long term, unemployed body of Aetreroa's populous with a mean IQ of 150+. These persons will be devisable (sic) into three teams. of fore (sic) persons per team.

"These person (sic) -will- be thrown to a large exstent (sic) into the deep end in which they will be set the task of investigating the most complex and new areas faceing (sic) science today."

One paragraph says: "The individual will not be expected to learn 30 to 40 languages but will instead be working with one of the most advance (sic) (OCR) Optical Cariture Recondition Programs in the world. The Program will take hand or typed data into it and convert it to hexi, then into any other language. However it does not cover many other points to which the individuals will be tough."

Stage three of the project, according to the application, "is to be conduction by the institute in the greater populous of Aotearoa,' le Tarpoos (sic), morai (sic) magic, and there (sic) effect on the community as a hole (sic)."

The department took only 20 days to approve the scheme to employ 10 people as researchers, paying out a six-week wages advance of $20,760. It then provided monthly wage cheques totalling about $70,000 until the scheme was terminated. – NZPA .

Seabed find

AP Miami

One of the Bermuda Triangle's deepest mysteries may be solved — high-tech explorers have located what appear to be the wrecks of five Navy planes that vanished off Florida in 1945.

The five TBM Avengers, four of which appear to be in excellent condition, were spotted in 225m of water, about 10 nautical miles off Fort Lauderdale, Florida, said Mr Robert Cervoni, managing director of Scientific Search Project.

"It was incredible, we were filled with excitement," said Mr Cervoni, "We rushed out to the library and tried to read everything we could about the Bermuda Triangle."

The exploration vessel Deep Sea, armed with sonar instruments and underwater cameras, made the discovery in early May while searching for sunken Spanish galleons. The company released the information yesterday after filing their salvage claim in Miami federal court.

Judge Kenneth Ryskamp granted the initial claim, although the Navy has been granted a chance to contest it, said Barbara Locke, a lawyer for the company.

The team's first priority is to send submersible robots down to the site to determine if the planes are indeed the so-called Lost Squadron, which disappeared on December 5, 1945, during a training flight from the Naval Airbase in Fort Lauderdale.

No trace of the planes or the pilots was ever found after they apparently became disoriented over the Atlantic. The disappearance helped to build the myth of the Bermuda Triangle, an

area bounded by Bermuda, Miami and Puerto Rico where ships and planes seemed to vanish mysteriously.