RE: Dr. Patrick Flanagan?

Billy Brown (bbrown@conemsco.com)
Fri, 7 May 1999 17:53:16 -0500

Jasmine wrote:
> I had run across Dr Flanagan. I had heard a great deal about his
> neurophon. I was curious if any of you all had more information about him.
> Some of this inventions seem pretty amazing, and others seem a bit
> sketchy. I also had heard discussion once of a "russian sleeping machine."
> I searched the web and found no information on it. Thanks for the help on
> any resources that might help me better investigate.

I'm afraid the neurophon is a fraud. The information you pointed to contains several clear indicators of this:

  1. The 'explanation' of how it works is so vague as to be meaningless.
  2. It is claimed that it functions via 'telepathy', yet the author gives no evidence in support of this extraordinary claim. In fact, he acts as if there were nothing unusual about it.
  3. The device was supposedly covered up by the military. Now, what possible military necessity could lead to a hearing aid being declared classified?
  4. On the same item, there is no 'Defense Intelligence Agency' - and if this had really happened, you'd think they would give the actual name of the agency responsible.
  5. The device is supposed to have been public knowledge since at least 1994. Somehow, I think the invention of a miraculous, universal artificial ear would have made both the mainstream press and the medical literature by now.
  6. A whole laundry list of unrelated, and improbable, benifits are claimed for the device (including super learning, pain control and 'enhanced psychic powers').
  7. The same page refers to all sorts of unrelated pseudoscience as if it were real.
  8. The page is hosted by a site devoted to promoting into psychic phenomena, channeling, UFOlogy, alien technology, new age spiritualism and related topics. While that doens't automatically mean that everything therein is false, it does mean that any unusual claims should be viewed with the utmost scepticism. In light of the warning signs mentioned above, I can see no good reason to think the neurophon story is any different from their tales about psychic explorations of ancient Atlantean super-technology.

Billy Brown, MCSE+I
bbrown@conemsco.com