Uri Geller rose to fame in the 1970s by staring at spoons and apparently bending them with his psychic powers.
But while he was wowing TV audiences, did he have an even more amazing career -- working as a spy for the CIA and Mossad?
A new British documentary, "The Secret Life Of Uri Geller –- Psychic Spy?," contends that Geller was recruited to work with U.S. intelligence agencies to help in a “psychic arms race” with the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War.
“When Jimmy Carter was elected President, one of the first things he did was to have Uri Geller give him a four hour briefing on the Soviet psychic threat. America didn’t want a psychic gap and Uri was the go-to guy about these things,” filmmaker Vikram Jayanti told the Independent.
“Sometimes, you wonder whether Uri’s entire public career has actually been a front for his shadow world activities.”
Geller's public career has been controversial, especially after magicians like James Randi have shown that his signature act of bending spoons psychically can easily be replicated, according to the Skeptics Dictionary.
While Geller has his detractors, he apparently has some impressive supporters. Former CIA officer Kit Green, Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, and retired US army colonel John Alexander, re all interviewed in the film, according to the Independent.
Mitchell's work in various military paranormal studies was detailed in "The Men Who Stare At Goats."
Geller remains coy in the documentary about whether he was or wasn't a spy, but according to evidence uncovered by Jayanti, some of his assignments included attempting to telepathically influence the mind of a Russian negotiator during Cold War arms talks in Geneva by beaming peace messages at his head and psychically erasing floppy discs being carried on jets by KGB agents, the Daily Mail reported.
There were some assignments apparently Geller wouldn't do. He was once asked to telepathically stop a pig's heart, but declined because he figured he'd then be asked to do the same thing to then-Russian premier Yuri Andropov, according to the paper.
In the documentary, Geller makes a public apology to Scotland for telepathically making a soccer ball move just before Gary McAllister fluffed a penalty kick against England at the Euro 96 tournament, the Sun reported.
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