Not even the most hardened skeptic has come up with a rational explanation for genuine psychic episodes. That is also true of a man named George Anderson from Long Island, New York. George claims to have the uncanny ability to communicate with the spirits of those who have passed on:
“At times it does seem even for me, that I am literally listening to them or listening to a conversation or feeling… It’s a feeling that you’re seeing, a feeling you’re hearing, a sensation more, it’s like getting an electrical charge all through yourself.”
Author Joel Martin first heard of George Anderson in 1980, and initially had his doubts:
“I was hosting a late-night radio talk show on a rock station on Long Island. And the format, we dealt heavily with unexplained phenomena.”
Joel called George Anderson in for a reading. They had never met before. According to Joel, George maintained he knew nothing about his background:
“And he started to talk about Shirley, my late wife, who had been killed the year before. She was hit and killed by a car, crossing a street in New York. Then he did something that could not be explained by any way that I could reason. Whenever she was annoyed at me, she would say, ‘You’re like a little boy.’ But that was only a private thing she and I knew. Nobody would have known that. So now I’m figuring how the heck—I could not have told that to anybody. There’s no way he could’ve known this or should’ve known it. That’s a very private thing.”
Joel persuaded George Anderson to undergo tests at a New York City hospital. According to Joel, George’s EEG was extremely unusual. While George conducted a session, half of his brain registered sleep, while half showed normal waking patterns:
“The neurologist who conducted those tests said he’d never seen anything like it before. Is it what we expect to see? No. Is it what’s supposed to happen? No. Is something unusual going on? Yes.”
Joel Martin had always considered himself a skeptic in matters of the paranormal. But after meeting George Anderson, he became a believer. Martin began to give George a significant block of time on his radio call-in show. And George Anderson became something of a celebrity in his hometown.
George was born in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, in 1952. When he was six, he was stricken with a severe case of chicken pox. He almost died and immediately began to hear voices and saw visions of people who had recently passed away. Soon after, George began to earn his living by conducting psychic readings.
Barbara and John Licata contacted George Anderson in 1982, four months after the death of their 16-year-old son, David. According to Barbara, David had gone out to a party the night before his death:
“He had to be in by 12:30. I went to bed, but I laid there awake because I don’t sleep until my kids are in. And at 1:30, I got up because it was unlike David not to call. And then I knew. It was a night of hell.”