By now, most of us are familiar with the term, “fake news,” but there is also “deceptive journalism,” where the basic premise may be true, but statements have been altered or omitted. The meaning is changed with intent to deceive and guiding someone down a path which is away from the truth.
A classic example of this occurred in history when a United States senator was asked about his family and he told the story of how his grandfather died years ago when the platform he was standing on collapsed. On the face of it, this ‘story’ seems plausible.
Maybe grandpa was a painter or a steelworker and frequently stood on scaffolds to do his work.
But the senator omitted certain crucial facts. He was concealing information that potentially could have resulted in the loss of votes during the next election. Long after the senator’s speech was over, the truth finally leaked out.
His grandfather did indeed die when the platform he was standing on suddenly gave way, but the ‘platform’ was the trap door on the gallows. It turns out the senator’s grandfather was hung for being a horse thief. The senator intentionally deceived his listeners with the classic lie of omission.
The “honorable” senator intentionally did not disclose pertinent facts knowing the listeners would be deceived. He only provided selected facts and omitted others. This was all designed to conceal salient information about his grandfather’s death because he feared losing potential votes.
Many people all over the world have been deceived by the underhanded technique of only telling half truths and not the whole truth. That’s why a witness in court is instructed to… tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Lying through omission happens in the home as well. If your daughter tells you, “mom, I’m going to spend the night with Sally,” the sly offspring knows that mommy thinks she will be spending the night at Sally’s house, down the street.
In reality, the daughter and Sally slipped out of town driving to Las Vegas to spend the night with the football team.
Politicians are renown for spewing lies of omission. Then, the news media began to like the fact they could sway the hearts and minds of millions of people by omitting certain facts just like the politicians were doing. So, the both got in bed with each other and the result was not good.
Newspapers have been doing this probably since Guttenberg invented the printing press. Radio has been doing this since Alexander Graham Bell yelled, ‘Watson, come here, I need you.’ And, TV journalists have been intentionally omitting facts to fit their narrative since Philo Farnsworth invented the first television.
A good reporter isn’t supposed to have an opinion about anything. Good reporters are interested in getting just the facts ma’am. The want both sides of the issue. Then broadcasting ALL the information allowing readers, listeners and viewers to decide on their own.
One of the worst examples of biased journalism was when William Randolph Hearst revved up his newspapers all over the country to railroad silent-screen star Fatty Arbuckle into prison, falsely claiming he raped and murdered a prostitute. It was all a lie of course, but a sensational lie that sold millions of newspapers.
After three juries trials, the third jury foreman stood up to say they found him not-guilty and then apologized for all that he had been subjected to. Arbuckle asked Hearst why he said all those false things about him in his newspapers. William Randolph Hearst told Arbuckle that it was necessary to sell newspapers.
Lying by omission was wrong centuries ago, and is still wrong to day.
WHY TO DO PEOPLE DO IT
AND WHO ARE THEY DOING IT TO?
The motivation for this deceptive tactic could be monetary gain, furthering an agenda, increasing readership, favors, or a multitude of other reasons. Sometimes people feel the only way to build themselves up in the eyes of others, is to tear down others in the process.
Our purpose in this article is to bring to light lies of omission that are maliciously injuring a good man and an outstanding scientist. His name is Dr. Arpad Vass and we have summoned his help on many tough cases as we attempt to find people who have gone missing and are presumed dead.
We have asked Dr. Vass to provide a rebuttal to what could be considered as libelous information which is beginning to fester throughout the Internet.
Dr. Arpad Vass feels he has been maliciously assaulted with a boat load of deceptive journalism. Dr. Vass said the most recent example was an article written by Rene Ebersole, with the so-called ‘fact checkers’, Emma Rindlisbacher and Sophie Murguia, through an article on a website called; TheMarshallProject.org.
After this slanderous newsletter came out, Dr. Vass received numerous emails and phone calls from colleagues & associates indicating how terribly unfair the article was especially in regard to the phrase ‘junk science’ being used as a tag word in the article.
TheCaliforniaRegister.com (TCR) caught wind of this attempt to besmirch Dr. Vass’s good name and asked Dr. Vass for his side of the story.
Since readers of many of these dubious articles were not provided a way to comment, we asked Dr. Vass to correct any ‘incomplete and/or misleading’ statements by submitting a letter to TCR specifically addressing each misleading point. Below is his letter of rebuttal with slight editing for brevity by our staff.
We’ve given Dr. Vass the opportunity to tell his side of the story in relation to the article by Rene Ebersole and posted at…
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2022/03/17/witching-dowsing-buried-bodies-police
His rebuttal is given below…
REBUTTAL LETTER
BY DR. ARPAD VASS
When approached by Rene Ebersole for an interview, I understood it to be about my latest invention: the Quantum Oscillator (QO).
The “QO” uses resonance frequencies to locate comparative objects in the environment. This can be live or deceased individuals, various objects – virtually anything.
I discuss this among many other topics when I teach Forensic Anthropology. Do I also discuss and demonstrate dowsing? – well, yes I do.
The QO was invented to overcome some of the negative aspects of dowsing (e.g., environmental factors) that would interfere with the detection of bone.
Can dowsing locate bone?
The answer is yes and I know why. I explain this to my students and let them play devil’s advocate and try it for themselves.
They can make up their own minds after they learn the proper way to use the antennae, the correct materials of which to make them, and the pros and cons of this technology – yes, you read correctly: TECHNOLOGY.
City workers, for instance, even today, still use this technology to find underground water pipes – also omitted from the Marshall Project article. Locating human remains, whether in clandestine graves or scatter fields which can be many years old, is the most difficult task I have yet faced in my scientific career.
One of the main reasons it is so difficult is because you don’t always have a starting point. The search area could be the size of a football stadium or an area the size of SW Virginia, and you almost never find a complete skeleton due to animal scavenging, acts by the perpetrator, or just the passage of time.
Perpetrators rarely just lay their victims out in the open where they can be easily found – they take steps to hide them which includes burial, dismemberment, etc. Every search is unique and poses its own challenges.
That is why I use EVERY TOOL in the toolbox to help locate missing individuals – and yes, dowsing and the Quantum Oscillator are part of my toolbox along with many other tools such as…
-
-
- ground penetrating radar (GPR),
- infrared technology,
- drones,
- canines,
- horses,
- magnetometers,
- soil resistivity,
- soil biomarker analysis,
- changes in the vegetation and soil,
- chemical tests like Schiffs reagent,
- helicopters,
- consultation with other experts, etc.
-
This is something on which Rene Ebersole conveniently didn’t elaborate on after many hours of interviews and email exchanges.
Have I had failures in trying to precisely pinpoint deceased individuals or objects? Of course I have, and it is not always clear why – you can miss a clandestine grave, surface scatter, or submerged object by as little as a few feet and it will never be discovered.
Possible reasons include environmental interferences, signal bounce, frequency overlap, or some other parameter, but I learn something from every unsuccessful recovery and use that knowledge to improve the QO instrument so that one day we will find everyone who has gone missing.
So let me address the newsletter article and correct what could be characterized by many as deceptive and libelous information.
The use of dowsing technology as explained to students is based on scientific principles which we learn about in science classes in secondary and college settings. It involves physics, chemistry, and engineering.
Claiming it is the ‘pseudoscience of witching’ is terribly misleading. These references indicate the unnamed experts Rene Ebersole interviewed have never seriously examined the science behind the technology.
The 2021 dowsing ‘study’ was, in my opinion, ‘useless’ because in order to properly dowse, you must be instructed in proper techniques and theory, use the right materials, and be informed of possible of interferences, which did not apply in that study.
Remember that dowsing technology in a forensic setting is used only to locate skeletal remains, is used in conjunction with other tools in the toolbox and is almost always used only when all other techniques have failed.
I wonder what question Rene Ebersole really asked Mr. Shrewberry when his reply was that if wrong, it can create “…life-altering impacts…”
This brings me to the case in Georgia where an NFA graduate used dowsing to locate the human remains of the missing person they were looking for which might not have ever been found without using this technology.
Using the antennae to find the victim’s remains did not convict the guilty party but was used only to find the remains.
It is interesting that Rene Ebersole failed to mention how significant this tool has been, that the technology did in fact work, and that OTHER students have ALSO found human remains with this technology but rather included a quote about junk science and continually calls this witching.
What does the discovery of confirmed human remains have anything at all to do with wrongful convictions? Rene Ebersole goes on later in her article and discusses the thoughts of unnamed scientists who claim that ideomotor effects are the reason dowsing works but unfortunately fails to mention that ideomotor effects only apply if you know something is there or want it to be there not if you are looking for something in an unknown location and actually find it.
The article continues with some of my accomplishments, but completely skips…
-
-
- all my research in determining the post-mortem interval of decedents,
- my other patents and publications in international peer-reviewed journals,
- the creation of the odor database of human remains,
- and all my other research, some of which has been used worldwide.
-
Instead, she focused on the LABRADOR, citing that it “never launched commercially” – without explaining why it didn’t and why it was out of my control, and also incorrectly reporting that it was meant to be ‘better than a cadaver dog’ which was never the intent, but was designed instead to augment their amazing capabilities.
I gave a TED TALK on this subject, which she did not reference. This was completely misleading as was the section on the Casey Anthony trial, which, by the way, had absolutely nothing to do with dowsing or the QO.
In Casey Anthony case, I proved that the odor of human decomposition in the trunk of the car did not come from the trash found in the trunk. Surprisingly, the chemist she chose to interview was on the defense team and she provided no comments from the prosecutors.
What ever happened to fair and balanced reporting? The defense lawyer in closing arguments even stated that the body was in the trunk (no one carries a body along the street before dumping that body in a swamp as they might be seen – they drive the victim there).
As mentioned earlier, the QO does not operate on the same technology as dowsing – it uses resonance frequencies to locate things. Interestingly, Rene Ebersole chose to talk about the patent.
For those who desire a closer look, I’ve written a point paper (The Forensic Resonance Revolution) which goes more in-depth about how and why the Quantum Oscillator (QO) works.
While Ms. France is correct that getting a patent doesn’t mean that it works, Rene Ebersole failed to mention that when we submitted it to the patent office, the lawyers asked us to come up to Washington, D.C. for a demonstration because they didn’t believe it worked as claimed.
They were so impressed that they wanted to fast-track the patent through National Security channels. Rene Ebersole’s discussion about Mike Hadsell from PRSAR was particularly disturbing.
It is true that I made several QO devices and have given them to individuals across the country for independent field testing purposes to be used in conjunction with other technologies such as canines, etc.
PRSAR is one of the organizations which has a unit and Mike has claimed a 60% proven success rate for the QO when looking specifically for something or someone. Rene Ebersole claimed in the article that he ‘couldn’t back up his data’.
The truth is that many of these cases he has worked on when using the QO have not been finalized in the court system and it would not be prudent to discuss these cases until they are adjudicated.
Also, providing all that data to Rene Ebersole would involve many days of tracking down investigators and family members asking for their permission which was explained to her. Rene Ebersole asked him to provide all this data and then turned around and published her article the next day.
To make matters even more egregious, Mike did in fact earlier provide Rene Ebersole and her fact checkers with a closed case, case number, and contact information for the detective on the case. Mike claims that the victim would never have been found without the aid of the QO.
He even invited Rene Ebersole to visit him in Florida to show her how they utilize the QO (since she was going to have been in Florida anyway).
Did she include this case in her article? Did she visit Mike in Florida? Of course not. That information really wouldn’t fit the narrative of her article.
Claims that the article length was cut so she couldn’t put everything she wanted in the article is a very weak defense.
She could have easily included this success story to make the article fair and balanced, which she obviously did not care to do.
Regarding the O’Sullivan search, no technology is 100%.
Rene Ebersole was told this yet failed to print most of my comments when asked about this search and instead wrote that I provided the GPS coordinates where they would find David, not where the searchers should focus their search.
When searching from a helicopter you can only give generalized coordinates that must be thoroughly searched. This was one of the most complicated and dangerous search areas I have ever seen with large predators and the possibility of only a few skeletal elements remaining.
One searcher in that area is insufficient and I maintain that one person could not have properly done that alone. She even ‘failed to mention’ that a trained human remains detection canine gave a positive alert in the wash coming off that cliff site confirming that human remains were in the area.
While there is much, much, more to this particular story, all I will say is that none of the other individuals who were convinced that David was to be found in ‘less difficult’ terrain were successful.
Regarding anthropology professors Bartelink and Gill-King, who claim the Quantum Oscillator is not scientifically valid (Rene Ebersole never indicates that they have any expertise regarding radio frequencies, resonance frequencies, physics, electrical signatures, or antennae theory, etc.), how are they qualified to comment on dowsing or the Quantum Oscillator?
It is doubtful, in my opinion, that these anthropologists had even heard of piezoelectricity (or knew that bone has this property) until Rene Ebersole talked to them and told them what I said. Have they ever called me to discuss my technology, gone out on a search with me, looked into how the QO works, or talked to people who do? Of course not.
I wonder how many older forensic clandestine graves they have located in their careers. I‘m not talking about excavating – anyone can dig a hole, but actually going out in the field and finding the correct spot to excavate.
Rene, of course, did not print that they were completely unqualified to comment on my instrument and did not print my comments in response to theirs, nor did she bother to interview professionals in my field who do understand what I am trying to do.
Rene Ebersole ends her article with me discussing false positives in the field. Because all bone is piezoelectric, animal bones will give you a false positive when looking for human remains. The students need to be aware of this if they plan to use this technology in the field.
It is also no surprise that there was no mention at all that we spent almost an hour at the gravesite discussing the excavation, what to collect as evidence, how to preserve the evidence, what the results mean, examining the skeletal remains for trauma and developing a bio-profile, etc., in addition to how to locate the grave in the first place using various technologies.
In conclusion, I want to say that deceptive journalism and the resulting lies by omission must stop. People who write these types of one-sided articles should be called out and prohibited from writing them in the future. I am a firm believer in free speech, but I do not think this should include deceptive journalism.
In my opinion, organizations who fund, support, promote, and/or redistribute this type of journalism (e.g. Mother Jones, Newsweek, etc.) are equally culpable. Rene Ebersole could easily have included one or more of the many success stories I have had over the years (live finds included), yet chose to focus almost exclusively on the negative.
In the end this hurts the families who want answers and to find their loved ones. If they believe the deceptive misinformation that Rene Ebersole has written, then they potentially have one less search option available to assist them in locating their missing relative(s).
No technology is 100%, but every day we are getting closer to that goal, and it is the out-of-the-box thinker who is going to get us there, not the close-minded individual who might have nefarious reasons for publishing articles that are defective and deceptive.
The staff at California Register have known Dr. Arpad Vass for many years and have never known him to be a man trying to sell snake oil. Unfortunately, there are people out there who are doing everything possible to discredit this internationally respected scientist.
This is why we asked Dr. Vass to submit a letter to specifically address how he was harmed by “deceptive journalism.”
The family and loved ones who have lost someone have become collateral damage in the dissemination of fake news and deceptive journalism. Their only desire is to located the body of the loved and lost and bring them home to a final and dignified resting place.
Some are being swayed by people who may have their own agendas. Dr. Vass feels his good name and reputation is being maliciously damaged with a cascade of lies and deceptions about the work he has dedicated his life to.
We suspect there will be those who feel our reporting on this subject is unfair and biased in favor of Dr. Arpad Vass. We accept that accusation because we have always viewed Dr. Apad A. Vass as an honorable man only interested in the furtherance of science to help mankind.
If anyone mentioned in this article who feels they have been wrongly characterized or maligned in any way, please provide us your rebuttal to the letter we received by Dr. Vass in the form of a sworn statement.
If you feel the discoveries or inventions by Dr. Vass are not based in science and not to be believed, then you should submit a sworn statement as rebuttal and provide evidence why the science is not sound.
We are happy to provide any with equal time on this website to tell another side of the story. All those who are searching for their lost loved one deserve the truth. The only way to provide the truth is to have a fair and open debate about all these issues.
Again, we welcome any rebuttal to Dr. Vass’s letter above, but again, we respectfully ask that it be submitted in the form of a sworn statement.