STARTLING NEW RESEARCH FROM THE MAN WHO "TALKS" TO PLANTS, by Janice and Charles Robbins

Here's another piece from National Wildlife magazine, about former CIA interrogation specialist and polygraph innovator Cleve Backster. Backster was a pioneer in the movement to explore plant consciousness and ESP, and the authors mention previous coverage by National Wildlife from 1968. Backster would also feature in the smash hit 1973 book The Secret Life of Plants, by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird (themselves also former OSS/CIA men).

In this article, Janice and Charles Robbins describe some testing by Backster including plants recoiling at a murderer - a murderer of plants, that is, as Backster has a volunteer destroys one unlucky plant and then records the reactions of other plants to this person's presence. At the end of the article Backster describes another attempt at unmasking a real murderer via plant ESP that didn't pan out. Chicken eggs are also hooked up to the polygraph electrodes. Backster and the Robbins assure us that this is all very scientific and thorough.

More than fifty years later, sadly, lie detectors and plant ESP are looking a little less reliable than Backster's "slam dunk" claims. A recent New Age scam podcast with some mainstream cachet has featured plant ESP in an episode, but the subject is mostly confined to the New Age ghetto and the "human potential" hopes of yesteryear, when it seemed like all it would take is a breakthrough here or there to unleash all the power of the universe.

This article is also available to read and download at archive dot org.

From National Wildlife magazine, Vol. 9 - No. 6, Oct/Nov 1971.

ON THE TRAIL OF BIGFOOT by George H. Harrison

From National Wildlife magazine and editor George Harrison (no, not that one) comes a shocking update on the hunt for Bigfoot! It's not the big man himself who provides the scares though, but rather the colorful antics of expedition leader Robert W. Morgan, who poses for paramilitary pics and says he plans to use drugged bait on Bigfoot and then track him with, specifically, a specially trained Labrador. Harrison ends things with the classic Warren Smith-style line "What do you, the reader, think?" and ponders if federal funding might not aid in the hunt. This article also references an older piece on the Patterson-Gimlin film and claims that Roger Patterson passed a polygraph test over the PGF's authenticity in the course of being interviewed by this magazine!

"Quit scarin' the neighbors, Bob!"

Nowadays George Harrison keeps us posted on how to understand bird plumage and mating habits, marking this vintage article as just one small piece of a long career in wildlife writing.

George H. Harrison, in an undated photo.

Robert W. Morgan meanwhile is quite the character, with a filmmaking career that includes the documentary Big Foot: Man or Beast? and the Bigfoot/hicksploitation horror flick Blood Stalkers and a stint as (he claims) an informant/two-fisted vigilante against mob drug running! Morgan's still alive and kicking today at 90 years old ... way to go, Bob!

Newspaper ad for Big Foot (1972)

Blood Stalkers (1976), which was never banned anywhere.

And a tip of the ol' hippo to Stef for the lead here ...
this book's a trip!

"On the Trail of Bigfoot" is also available to read and download at archive dot org.

From National Wildlife magazine, Vol. 8 - No. 6, Oct/Nov 1970.