Paranormal skeptics to open center

LOS ANGELES -- With the motto "The Bunk Stops Here," an international skeptics' group said Friday it will open a Hollywood media center to promote its views on everything from UFOs to speaking with the dead.

The National Media Center, scheduled to open sometime next month, will try to hook up reporters and the public with scientists and experts to cast a critical eye on fringe science and religious claims.

Such debunking rarely gets a voice in the media, where the ratio might be "six believers and one skeptic," said Paul Kurtz, chairman of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal.
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"Fox Network aired the alien autopsy three times, knowing it to be a hoax," said James Underdown, executive director of the Center for Inquiry-West

. "They're in it for the money. We're in it for the information."

The center is part of the skeptics' group, which for decades has tried to debunk belief in everything from faith healing and the Shroud of Turin to homeopathic medicine.

A recent target has been John Edward, who claims to make contact with dead people on his syndicated show "Crossing Over." Kurtz said Edward appears to be using a series of leading questions and tricks used by phony mediums for decades.
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The media center will be housed on Hollywood Boulevard, a location chosen because Southern California is a center of movie, TV and other media production, and also a "hotbed" for beliefs of all kinds that lack scientific foundation, Underdown said.
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Paranormal skeptics to open center

The facility will give the media and the public a critical look at fringe science, religious claims