Fortean Links

Ted Serios was a humble bell-hop from Chicago, a hard drinking, hard smoking working man. For years, he lived a fairly ordinary life, but Ted was nothing but ordinary.

What set Ted apart was his incredible claims that he could 'think' images onto ordinary photographic film. A process that Ted dubbed 'Thoughtography'.

So called 'psychic photographers' were far from uncommon, and a great many of them who claimed to have this ability were exposed as fakes or charlatans. Because of this, Ted's claims were widely rubbished.

One man however, a Dr Jule Eisenbud was sufficiently intrigued by Ted to fly to Chicago to conduct a series of experiments.

Dr Eisenbud came to the Windy City as a sceptic, and was convinced he was to witness 'some kind of shoddy hoax'.


Dr Eisenbud realised that by using Polaroid cameras, not only could he get results quickly, he could also ensure that the resulting exposures could not have been tampered with before they entered the camera. This he thought, would surely expose Serios' exotic claims as a hoax.

When Dr Eisenbud pointed the camera at Ted Serios and pushed the shutter, what emerged was not a picture of a face, but the unmistakable lines and shapes of a tower. The tower was later identified as the distinctive Chicago Water Tower.

Another 'thoughtograph' featured the image of a shop front in Chicago. The shop in question was, at the time named 'The Old Wells Fargo Express Office' but many years before had been known as 'The Old Gold Store' - Serios' image was of the store in it's past guise.

Serios was also tasked with producing images of something from the distant past. What appeared was astounding; an apparent image of a Neanderthal man leaning over what looked like a fire. Future examination of the photo revealed that it bore a striking resemblance to an exhibit in the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.

Initially, Serios produced his 'thoughtographs' using nothing but a Polaroid camera. Later on in the experiments however, Serios insited on using a cylindrical device that he dubbed 'The Gismo'. Some believed that Serios was using the 'gismo' to somehow project images using very small slides, but this does not explain his previous success without using the device.

In a further experiment volunteers were asked to attend the experiment with a photograph sealed in a cardboard backed manila envelope. Ted was then tasked with reproducing the image with no prior knowledge.

One of his most notable successes was the image he produced of a hangar used by the Canadian Royal Mounted Police. The image was conspicuous not just by it's accuracy, but also by the characteristic misspelling of the word 'Canadian' - in Serios' 'thoughtograph' the word was spelt incorrectly as 'Cainadian'

Was Ted Serios, a hoaxer? Or was he harnessing powers that maybe he couldn't explain? Certainly parallels with Remote Viewing experiments can be drawn.

You decide.