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ten cents to hear someone talk to a rapping spirit—but I would happily pay five dollars to examine someone who could duplicate the rapping sound by snapping his toes. Later the two sisters said the confession was false, and they had been bribed to make it. Mrs. Houdini was genuinely astonished and impressed by Reverend Ford’s messages from her husband, and she made numerous public statements to that effect, as well as signing various affidavits. But later, in the 1930s, she chose to deny it all for a time. Then, shortly before her death, she reversed her denials. In ufology we have to contend with teenagers’ hot-air balloons, and in psychic phenomena we have to worry about youngsters firing rocks at houses with slingshots and phony mediums levitating ‘‘spirit trumpets” with black thread. But there are many more UFO sightings than there are plastic balloons, and there are more poltergeists dumping rocks in living rooms than there are wild-eyed youngsters with slingshots. There are also more ultraterrestrial entities than either the occultists or the UFO enthusiasts dream of. 222 / Operation Trojan Horse