2009

Everyone is fascinated by the paranormal. Subjects like UFOs, tarot cards and ghosts excite people worldwide. And behind it all there’s a massive industry. There are books, magazines, TV shows, live events, even psychic phone lines and websites all profiting from our fascination with the unexplained. The paranormal industry makes millions of pounds every year. And yet there’s actually no solid scientific evidence that anything paranormal exists. Are we all just falling for a big psychic scam?

We have all had the experience of absolutely believing something which turned out to be untrue. That so-and-so hated us, that we were about to die, that we had our wallet with us when we left the house. Sadly, how deeply we believe something has no necessary correlation with how true it is.

Derren and Kat Akingbade released seven hoax videos which appear to be paranormal phenomena. In fact they’re all based upon real scientific principles and there’s nothing paranormal about them at all. Over the past few months that hoax footage has been posted over the Internet in the attempt to find out if people would accept the footage as genuine or question it in an attempt to discover the real truth.

The Science of Scams was produced exclusively online and you can watch all seven episodes here.

The Science of Scams was nominated at the BAFTA Craft Awards for Interactive Creative Contribution in 2010.