We no longer have a news media.

[Archae]

With all the attention on Weiner's wiener, and this, it's plainly obvious we have supermarket tabloids.
No longer actual news.

11 June 2011. Texas tipster: Angels told me of mass grave site Liberty County, Texas, detectives got a phone tip from a psychic that led them to a farmhouse in search of a mass grave that did not exist. The psychic says she got the information from Jesus and 32 angels. She still maintains that there are three children "out there" in need of help. No doubt about that, but they aren't the only one's in need of help. Liberty County Sheriff's deputies, Texas Rangers, the FBI, DPS officers, and the media converged on the town of Hardin, Texas, to look for signs of a mass grave. A search at the farm turned up nothing. Duh.

The harm here is not that some mentally disturbed person thinks spirits exist and talk to her. The harm isn't that she called the police. The harm is that there are law enforcement officers who act on such flimsy evidence to justify kicking in the door of honest, law-abiding citizens. The psychic claims she's worked with law enforcement agencies in the past. There's no reason to believe anything she says, but it is a fact that many law enforcement agencies justify working with psychics either because "we have to follow every lead" or because "psychics have a sixth sense." No. Psychics do not have a sixth sense. Psychics do not solve crimes with their psychic powers. And No, not every tip is a lead. Some tips, on their face, are unworthy of follow-up, unless the follow-up is to investigate the person calling in with the "tip."

Embarrassing themselves further, authorities say the "tipster" could face charges for filing a false report. These authorities should be charged with the crime of impersonating officers of the law. If the police were interested in preventing psychics from wasting their time and resources, they would have arrested the "tipster" or had the mental health authorities give her a visit. Then they would publicize the fact that they do not find it amusing to have people wasting everybody's time by calling the police to share their delusions. The police should also be required to take a course in critical thinking and read about the sordid history of so-called proof of ESP and other paranormal powers. Here's a link to something they should read this summer: a short history of psi research. After they finish the short history, they should read my reviews of Dean Radin's Entangled Minds, Charles Tart's The End of Materialism, and Renée Scheltema's Something Unknown is Doing We Don't Know What.

The cops are diverting attention away from the real story by baiting the media with irrelevant information about what story the psychic fed them (was it several missing children or was it many dismembered bodies?). It doesn't matter. The woman got her information from spirits, for Christ's sake! The cops are also blaming the media for leaking the story and getting the details wrong.

http://www.skepdic.com/refuge/harm18.html#texascops