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| Tony Cornell 'chasing spectres with a Spectrum' |
Psychical researchers these days can utilise a wide range of sophisticated instruments when studying spontaneous cases (possible ghosts, poltergeists and the like), even if the theoretical basis for their application is often dubious. But while the power of the equipment at their disposal has increased enormously over the last decade, attempts to record evidence of paranormal phenomena have long been an important aspect of the field. A significant figure in applying technology to the detection and documenting of spontaneous cases was Tony Cornell (1924-2010), a Cambridge-based researcher with extensive practical experience. In his 2002 book Investigating the Paranormal he discusses the use of instrumentation and in particular an innovative method for collecting information. This was a piece of kit called the ‘Spontaneous Psychophysical Incident Data Electronic Recorder’, or SPIDER, which he largely developed with Howard Wilkinson of Nottingham University, and with input from Alan Gauld, who was also at Nottingham, in trialling it.
There have actually been two separate versions of
SPIDER. The prototype was put together
by Cornell with help from a technician and a computer programmer in 1982 and
was initially housed in a cardboard box.
Modifications were made, then Cornell and Wilkinson unveiled the Mark II,
christened SPIDER, in 1984, though Wilkinson continued to improve it. It is essentially a large black-painted box,
accompanied by a smaller brown chest labelled ‘C.U.S.P.R. (Cambridge University
Society for Psychical Research, a group Cornell ran for many years), containing
an array of devices to monitor an environment.
Controlled originally by a 16K ZX Spectrum computer with DCP
Interspec, relay box and Sinclair printer, it could record motion, temperature
changes, sound and electromagnetic activity, and included floodlights, an audio
recorder, a cine camera (later a camcorder), infrafred video and still 35mm
cameras. These operated for set periods,
as selected, or when initiated by the sensors.
Readings were logged automatically so the equipment could be left to
operate without any supervision for several days.
The editor of mass-circulation magazine Your Computer deemed the project of
sufficient interest to send excitable journalist Meirion Jones to
interview Cornell in his basement HQ in Victoria Street, Cambridge, putting
Cornell on the cover of the May 1983 issue and devoting three pages to ‘Captain
Spectre and his Spectrum-powered spook hunt’, though the interview covered more
than SPIDER (not yet known by that name).
There was a sober status update, co-written by Cornell, in the
subsection ‘Notes on the instrumentation of spontaneous cases’ of the ‘Research
Report of the Cambridge University Society for Psychical Research (CUSPR)’, which
appeared in the (national) Society for Psychical Research’s June 1984 Journal.
The total cost to date was put at about £850, from which it is clear
that over the years Cornell sank a considerable amount of his own money into
SPIDER.
Cornell used SPIDER on at least a dozen occasions
between 1982 and 1996, amounting to about 1,200 hours, and several of these are
described in his book. The Mark I was
first employed over a six-week period in 1982-3 in an antique shop storeroom in
Cambridge which appeared to be experiencing poltergeist phenomena. SPIDER was then taken to such diverse
locations as Chingle Hall, a Leicestershire stately home, Abbey House in
Cambridge, Stirling Castle, Berry Pomeroy, Chillingham Castle, and others. In 1988 the television network NBC invited Cornell
and Wilkinson to investigate stories of
disturbances on RMS Queen Mary, permanently moored as a tourist attraction in
Long Beach, California, USA, for its series Unsolved
Mysteries (one dreads to think how much the excess baggage charge
was). With poltergeist researcher
William Roll, who brought several mediums with him, they made an extensive
10-day examination of the ship (in addition to Cornell’s chapter on the trip
Roll refers to it in his Journal of
Parapsychology review of Investigating
the Paranormal, though with greater interest in his own participation than
in that of his English colleagues).
Cornell and Wilkinson, along with a production company
making a television programme, visited the Bell Inn at Thetford with SPIDER in
September 1991 to continue an investigation into a haunted bedroom, and Cornell
spent further time there the following year.
In 1994 he returned to the Bell with members of a group I was in,
Norfolk-based ESPRI, for a programme in Inca Productions’ series Ghosthunters. Cornell brought SPIDER with him, but it was
not operational as that would have taken about 90 minutes to organise and the
room was already crowded (and overheated) with people and equipment. Instead only the video cameras and monitors
were set up to simulate how it would look (described by Andy Waters in his 1994
report for the ESPRI newsletter). With
Inca’s cameras rolling Cornell explained the case, I explained how SPIDER
worked, and the group pretended to conduct a vigil. The programme aired in June 1996 but the
ESPRI contributions, including mine, were left out, as was the entire visit
from Cornell’s book.
It probably wouldn’t have made any difference had
SPIDER been operating because little of significance was noted during the
hundreds of hours of SPIDER’s deployment. There were electrical failures with
no apparent cause which rectified themselves, some object movements which could
not be accounted for, and occasional temperature drops which may have had
normal causes, but that was it. However,
Wilkinson gave a talk at an SPR combined study day and training event in 1994
which was reported by Peter Flew for the SPR’s magazine The Psi Researcher (forerunner of the current The Paranormal Review). Wilkinson’s
talk, ‘Recording the evidence’, covered SPIDER, later technical elaborations,
and the problems involved in using electronic equipment on location. Alluding to a lack of results, he argued that
a police speed camera might be trained on a traffic black spot for many hours
before capturing an accident, and paranormal activity is a lot rarer than
traffic accidents.
Investigating
the Paranormal contains several pictures of SPIDER: on
p. 6; p. 117 (at the Bell); and p. 197 (the Mark I in the antique shop). The Your
Computer article also contains photographs.
The boxes are certainly clunky, but as the above account indicates, SPIDER’s
importance in the evolution of psychical research as a scientific enterprise
cannot be underestimated. Even though
superseded by more complex, and much smaller, gadgets, it is still of
historical significance. So what of SPIDER
now? The two boxes are currently sitting
in a corner of the meeting room in the SPR’s new headquarters at Vernon Mews in
London. That is not a long-term solution
because the space they occupy is required for the installation of AV equipment.
If a home is not found for SPIDER the
chances are it will go into a storage unit where it may deteriorate. It deserves to be where it will be cherished,
and preferably displayed to the public.
A tall order certainly, but if anyone has any thoughts on what can be
done to preserve SPIDER and make sure it is remembered for the pioneering
undertaking it was, I would be interested to hear them.
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| SPIDER at Vernon Mews, October 2016 |
References
Cornell, Tony. Investigating
the Paranormal, Helix Press, New York, 2002.
Flew, Peter. ‘Investigating Spontaneous Cases’, The Psi Researcher, No. 15, Winter 1994,
pp.16-23.
Jones, Meirion. ‘Where Micros Fear to Tread’, Your Computer, vol. 3, no. 5, May 1983,
pp. 50-1, 53.
McLaren, I. P. L., Loosemore, R. P. W, and Cornell, A.
D. ‘Research Report of the Cambridge University Society for Psychical Research
(CUSPR)’, Journal of the Society for Psychical
Research, vol. 52, June 1984, pp. 307-11.
Roll, William. Review of Investigating the Paranormal, Journal
of Parapsychology, vol. 67, Spring 2003, pp. 187-203.
Waters, Andy. ‘A Night to Remember’, ESPRI Newsletter, Winter 1994, n.p.
Update
10 November 2016
There has been a surprising development in the SPIDER
saga. It transpires that the equipment
does not actually belong to the SPR!
Through a misunderstanding it was thought that the SPR was to be the
ultimate destination. However, as I have
now learned, ownership in fact passed from Tony Cornell to a third party and
was finally vested in Dr Melvyn Willin, the SPR’s Archives Liaison Officer.
As a result of this misapprehension the Society
thought it had responsibility and was wondering what to do with the big boxes
sitting in its Vernon Mews HQ, but now it can rest easy. Melvyn tells me he is going to collect SPIDER
at some point and take it home where it can be conserved and stored in optimal
conditions.
So for the foreseeable future it is in safe hands, looked
after properly and preserved for future historians as the groundbreaking
initiative it was. I think Tony would
have been pleased with this positive outcome.
Update
23 May 2022
Alan Murdie’s ‘Ghostwatch’ column in the June 2022 Fortean Times briefly discusses SPIDER,
and one of my photographs taken at Vernon Mews in 2016 accompanies the article
(p. 19). The cover of Your Computer featuring Tony is also
used, but gives an incorrect date of 1987; the correct date is May 1983. Alan expresses scepticism about the value of
instrumentation: noting that despite SPIDER’s extensive deployment, ‘the
results were negligible,’ he refers to it as a ‘relic’, and doubts whether its
‘or any other heavily technical approach’ is superior to more basic
investigative methods at capturing evidence of the paranormal.
The Paranormal Review
referred to above is now The Magazine of the Society for Psychical Research.
Reference
Murdie, Alan. ‘A Vigil in Westwood Lodge’, Fortean Times, issue 419, June 2022, pp.
16-19.
