Jewish Telegraph
24th Dec 1996
Uri Geller offers close encounter in Eilat sell-out
By HAIM SHAPIRO
JUST in case you're wondering what happened to Uri Geller, he's
alive and well and, at the age of 50, he can still bend spoons.
Israel's most famous ESP practitioner, whose birthday is next
week, was the main attraction at a press conference this week
to announce a conference on UFOs this weekend.
All 500 places at the conference, which will be held in Eilat,
are sold out according to organiser Carlos Ben Nun, and he is
presently seeking a larger venue to accommodate another 200 would-be
participants. Looking extremely fit for his age, with a shock
of pitch black hair, Geller wore a T-shirt bearing the logo of
Encounters, a magazine he now publishes.
A current issue features an apparent giant face carved out of
the nountains of Mars, a photograph which, the magazine says,
NASA tried to suppress. He told of his own experiences with UFOs,
starting at the age of four, when he heard a terrific noise and
found himself facing a burning ball from which a ray came out
and pierced him. It was after this, he said, that he began to
discern his own powers. His Public life began after he was discharged
from the paratroopers in 1968 and he began to appear at parties.
His career took a giant leap, he said, when he met Golda Meir
and demonstrated his powers of ESP to her.
When, afterwards, reporters asked her about the future of the
state, she responded that they should ask Uri Geller.
However, he explained, since his powers are real and not a trick,
he could not improve on them, and he found his audiences decreasing
to the point where he was appearing in small night clubs in Ramleh
and Lod.
It was then that he took up an offer to go to the US to engage
in research with the CIA. These days, Geller said, he is a millionaire,
with money earned by locating deposits of precious metals.
"Someone convinced me that there was more money to be made
in finding metal than in bending it," he said. Asked if he
could help create a better feeling between Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, Geller
said he could, but the request to do so would have to be a formal
one from the prime minister.
He also tells that someone had asked him to help locate the missing
Israeli navigator, Ron Arad, but that his part was leaked to the
press and some member of the family suspected that Geller had
wanted to publicise himself. "After that I dropped it"
he said.
In another instance, he says, he was asked to locate a British
submarine that had been missing for a century. Eight years later,
it was found that Geller had pinpointed a spot on the map, which
the researchers said was totally unlikely; the submarine was found
there.
"Uri Geller vindicated," reads the headline of the somewhat
worn copy of the Sunday Telegraph which Geller holds up.
A more moving but unsubstantiated story involves John Lennon telling
Geller of an experience with UFOs only six weeks before the famed
musician was murdered.
Lennon, Geller says, gave him a heavy metal object which the extra-terrestrial
beings gave the musician.
"I have it, but I'm afraid to show it to anyone."
"I'm afraid they'll tell me it's from China or Korea."
(JPFS)
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