Curators in Conversation: The "Thoughtography" of Ted Serios 

These 2 actually think Serios was legit??

I really wanted to say that this video was interesting, but the only takeaway for me was how trusting people can be. And it's not just the two people in this video, but for the sake of this specific video, I will refer to these two people. And, how these two seemingly logical and educated people fell for this fraud stunt so easily. And, how these same two people are now too invested to exercise logic and reason. Paul Roth has been following Ted Serios since he was 10-years old, which basically makes him a child who grew up watching Superman and believing, now as an adult, that Superman is real and somewhere out there. And Emily Hauver is no better than Mr. Roth because she refuses to even consider that Ted Serios could be a fraud. It's no wonder that they hit it off! Likeminded people somehow tend to find each other. For me, I don't care what day of the week I'm asked the question, my answer will always be the same, Ted Serios is a fraud! And the worst thing is that these two appear proud of the fact that this exhibition was presented without any attempt to answer whether or not Ted Serios was a fraud. When it comes to Serios, that is easily the most important question in the world. However, these two individuals would have us believe that this question should be placed on a shelf, ignored and never addressed. So, they simply bury their heads in the sand, consider this man to be legitimate and then expect all of us to do the same! The Ted Serios stunt has all of the earmarks of a magic trick, an illusion, or simple slight of hand. The props, the theatrics, the alcohol consumption...These are all things that are meant to create an illusion, and distract away from the con. However for me, the most telling thing was the Polaroid camera itself...Stay with me! Apparently, Polaroid cameras were used in order to ensure honesty, however for me, these particular cameras were the only way to execute this trick successfully. A polaroid camera simply would have been the easiest way to fake this stunt. Prepackaged films will mean little, if the film itself has already been tampered! Of course, everything in this case should have been examined closely, but the camera's film should have been examined more than anything else. I'm pretty sure that if Ted Serios was put in a different room, and all of the pictures inside the camera were snapped, while he was in another room, one or two of those pictures would have produce Ted Serios-like images! And, hat makes me wonder if anyone ever did anything remotely close to that while they were doing these stunts! Or, did they all just assume the prepackaged film was legit? And by the way, why wasn't there ever an attempt at using a regular camera just to see what developed? Or maybe they did but the results were not noteworthy! They say that it takes a village to raise a child, but I believe that it also takes a village to make a stunt like this work successfully! Today, cons, grifts, complicated slight of hand stunts are executed with the help of dozens of people on the magician's staff. When David Copperfield made the statue of Liberty disappear, there were dozens of people, at least, involved in making that trick happen the way it did, which is to say, appear real! So, I am pretty sure that back when this Ted Serios grift was being executed, it was no different to have dozens of people in on it. If I had make a run at this trick, I have a pretty good idea of how I would get it done... First, before anything, people need to ask themselves who would benefit the most from this stunt. To me, I believe that the Polaroid film company and its executives would have benefited the most. It is very simple economics and the trick itself is even simpler....One camera, one pack of film and one film manufacturer! This means that no other manufacturer could ever be involved. One manufacturer meant total control over the film stock during the entire time. And, it also means that getting the film pack to the right hands was just as easy! So, this is the million dollar question.....During this entire Ted Serios time period, did anyone ever bother to check Polaroid sales and company growth before and after this stunt went public? Probably not, but if I were a betting man, I would bet that sales probably went through the roof with all of America trying to duplicate "Thougtography" once all of America knew that this man existed. Luckily this information can be looked up today....So, I looked it up. guess what I found..... Ironically, in the early '60s Polaroid was on the verge of bankruptcy. Somehow, they managed to find some kind of magical solution in the mid '60s and by the late '60s and '70s, they controlled about 25% of the film an photo marketshare! Hmm, what an unbelievable coincidence, if you ask me! All it would take to make this happen is just one Polaroid executive with a brilliant idea that he would willingly take to his grave! It would begin with careful and meticulous planning, hiring the right people, placing the images on the film ahead of time, making the images slightly different in order to appear credible, and then stocking every drug store and convenience store with the doctored film for miles around M.I.T.. Of course, paying off a few drugstore clerks, possibly committing some unspeakable crimes in order to ensure silence, because greed tends to murder, but after all that, they were off to the races! And on top of that, whose to say that Jule Eisenbud was not involved in coordinating this stunt. What better way to ensure success than by being personally involved...I did say that it takes a village! And by the way, pulling off a stunt like this was far easier back then than it is today. In those days there was no social media, no security cameras, and a whole lot of people who were willing to believe in the paranormal and take a bribe! If there was ever a clear argument for Occam's razor, this would be it! The problem here is that it's hard to consider the simplest solution when everyone who reports on this has their heads buried in the sand! And, if we're relying on the people in this video to clarify things, or find the truth, forget about it! That will simply never happen because these two individuals are way too invested personally! In the end, this entire Ted Serios thing just goes to show that any person, no matter how educated, can get carried away by something that the little kid inside of them wants so desperately to believe! Anyone can be fooled...Anyone can be made to believe in unicorns...Unicorns and Ted Serios!

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