God Light

May 12, 2005 11:45 AM

The God Light was previously discussed here. Once known as the Angel Light, it has been modified and now cures cancer, parkinsons, fibrocystic disease etc. As a side-effect of its healing powers, the device no longer allows one to see through walls.
posted by jb5dogs (35 comments total)

Well, after seeing this picture, I'm convinced.
posted by Specklet at 12:23 PM on May 12, 2005

Back in college, when I first saw Hurtibese in the totally fantastic (and simpsons parodied) Project Grizzly, I thought "Here's a nut to keep an eye on." And boy, has he never let me down. Here's a good link to his 'fire paste.'

I have no idea if anything he has ever claimed works, but MAN, I love that backcountry hick inventor vibe he gives out.
posted by lumpenprole at 12:24 PM on May 12, 2005

I can't help but think of the F-Ray from Futurama...

[Bender points the beam at Fry's crotch]
Fry: Ow, my sperm!
Bender: Wow, neat. Mind if I try that again?
[Again at Fry's crotch]
Fry: Huh! Didn't hurt that time.
posted by Gamblor at 12:27 PM on May 12, 2005

Also, what happened with the manufacture of 500 of his Magnetic Blast Cushions?
posted by lumpenprole at 12:29 PM on May 12, 2005

Wow! This thing cures everything except gullibility!
posted by eatitlive at 12:32 PM on May 12, 2005

What is this exactly? A bright light? I've got a 2000 watt heat filtered light going through a 1/2" fiber optic cable and, yes, it will shine through your hand like an x-ray, but its just a bright light.
posted by StickyCarpet at 12:33 PM on May 12, 2005

Tumors have a great deal of water in them, right. So exposing them to light just evaporates some water I'd imagine. Not really much of a cure if your gonna dehydrate the patient to death.
posted by tkchrist at 12:36 PM on May 12, 2005

Wow. The haircut also defies physics.
posted by billysumday at 12:41 PM on May 12, 2005

Seems like a local crackpot has figured out the "Media Loves God Stories" angle and combined crackpot physics with a silly God name and hit paydirt.
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 12:51 PM on May 12, 2005

I like how it says that someone demonstrated complicated electrical concepts and instructions to him over a webcam, when he had admittedly no working knowledge of such things. I'm not sure a webcam could transmit such detailed technical operations, at least not a ridiculously expensive one.

This part is great: "But if you can’t prove them to be fraudulent, which you can’t, you’re going to give me 20 grand. Let’s see where your mouth is now.”

Where would science be if this was the scientific procedure? "Alright guys, you can go ahead and test my theory, but if you can't falsify it you have to give me $100,000. Or your wife and your house, whichever."

I'm sure this guy will be forgotten soon enough when he spends all of his hoax-born "credibility".
posted by baphomet at 12:55 PM on May 12, 2005

Someone set this guy up with John Titor and we'll be set.
posted by leapfrog at 1:01 PM on May 12, 2005

Common now lets give him due scientific process.

Oh, wait he named it the God-ray. Never mind
posted by Suparnova at 1:21 PM on May 12, 2005

I'm as skeptical as the next rational person, but he's offering his machine up for inspection and tests. Dangit, I want to see some real peer-reviewed articles refuting/proving whatever the heck he's claiming.

NOTE: IIRC, his grizzly suit did in fact, protect from grizzlies, no?
posted by eurasian at 1:27 PM on May 12, 2005

One scientist interviewed said Hurtubise had “rewritten” the laws of physics with the God Light. ...If you're gonna rewrite the laws of physics, you could at least spend a few minutes thinking of some better names. God light? Fire Paste?
posted by sandmonk at 1:27 PM on May 12, 2005

I love it when two worlds collide:

" I just read your feature about Troy Hurtubise's safety suit, and I couldn't help noticing an error: the picture labeled "The conjunction of a brick wall (left), Troy (center), and a bulldozer (right)" clearly shows not a bulldozer but a loader bucket such as would be found on a backhoe. See the image of a bulldozer here (I know, I know, but it was the first reasonable image google turned up) versus the backhoe here. You noticed, I hope, that the shape of the loader bucket is about the same as that of the equipment in your photo? See, it's good to have a few readers who spend as much time around construction workers as around academics!" (link)
posted by mr.curmudgeon at 1:32 PM on May 12, 2005

NOTE: IIRC, his grizzly suit did in fact, protect from grizzlies, no?

He never got to find out. The irony was that, in order to protect against grizzlies, it had to be too damn heavy to get anyhwhere near grizzlies in the wild. And no self-respecting zoo was going to let him in a cage with bear.
posted by lumpenprole at 1:42 PM on May 12, 2005

The Angel Hurtibise? There's a gay French poet/playwright/painter/filmmaker behind this somewhere, mark my words...
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 1:50 PM on May 12, 2005

I posted the original story about the 'see-through-walls' Angel Light, and I've been waiting for a validation or debunking. With his claims of curing cancer, I now formally declare this a hoax.

Having said that, his fire paste does seem to work in this video.
posted by WinnipegDragon at 1:50 PM on May 12, 2005

“It dissipates heat at an exponential rate, it’s beyond belief, and I have no idea why it does, all I know is that it does.”

Troy, I have a ball. Would you like to bounce it?

eurasian, the problem is that there are hundreds of these guys making similar claims. I once gave my PhD EE friend a self-bound book I bought at a Borders (!) called "Gravitobiology" that postulates that "the Soviets" "are" already in posession of the technology that enables them to transmit diseases to the U.S. populace using gravity (and, IIRC, not just gravity, but the predicted but as-yet-undiscovered gravitational force particle, the graviton). This guy would, I'm sure, have loved the however fleeting popular legitimacy that would have been bestowed upon him by a visit from a known, tenured, well-regarded professor at a major research university.

Legitimate researchers get contacted by these guys all the time, and (according to Brian Greene) their information goes directly into the crank file. They're not trying to join the scientific community, they're trying to circumvent it.
posted by gramschmidt at 1:57 PM on May 12, 2005

I'm as skeptical as the next rational person, but he's offering his machine up for inspection and tests. Dangit, I want to see some real peer-reviewed articles refuting/proving whatever the heck he's claiming.

Having read Skeptic mags for a while, there is always a catch. This ranges from clamied psychics never returning phone calls, never agreeing on a fair protocol for the test, to rewriting the victory conditions after the test.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 2:45 PM on May 12, 2005

I like the phrase "physics defying," if the thing worked then by definition it would follow laws of physics - perhaps previously unknown laws but nevertheless...
I mean I'm given to hyperbole, but it has no place in science.
I'm sure if any of this stuff worked DARPA would be right up his ass.
posted by Smedleyman at 3:38 PM on May 12, 2005

Yeah, "interesting" guy. Tests that Project Grizzly suit by getting three guys from the bar to hit him with baseball bats. Brilliant!
posted by zoinks at 4:39 PM on May 12, 2005

I'm sure if any of this stuff worked DARPA would be right up his ass.

Not without dinner and a movie first, it wouldn't.
posted by shmegegge at 4:42 PM on May 12, 2005

So, when you remove the Hyde effect from your Angel Light to create a God Light, you can't detect stealth or see through walls anymore, but you can now cure cancer. Well, its good to know the trade offs.
posted by Bort at 5:00 PM on May 12, 2005

That's funny--I would have thought the Hyde effect is what kept you from detecting stealth.
posted by kenko at 5:04 PM on May 12, 2005

Wow, it's been a long time since I laughed so hard at a post.

I especially like the part where after inventing a physics-rewriting magic lightbulb that can make walls transparent, he's ABOUT to sell it to France (why only France? why was there not a bidding war between, you know, EVERYONE?) but then refuses to because it has unspecified ill effects when pointed at people. And, in fact, he becomes SO concerned about it potentially not being good for human beings that he's willing to remove all its functionality just to stop that from happening.

I have to wonder what sort of fits the guy will have when we tell him about microwave ovens.

And gosh, it's a good thing no researchers came in the meantime to check out his Dream Beam's amazing powers of perceptions. Talk about embarassing!

Someone's e-mailed this to Randi, right?
posted by InnocentBystander at 6:24 PM on May 12, 2005

Someone's e-mailed this to Randi, right?

You know, I was thinking about that earlier, but this doesn't really come under the claim of supernatural powers. Name aside, he's claiming it's a scientific method that he doesn't understand.

I was sort of with him when he came out with the fire paste thing. It seems believable that an outsider could come up with a weird combination of stuff that would have unexpected properties. And the videos shot by the news crew were fairly impressive, if not definite. But this coming a year after a shady "magnetic blast cushion" has pretty much permanently relegated him to the crank file.

Unless of course, he's a genius and we're all idiots......
posted by lumpenprole at 7:05 PM on May 12, 2005

nah, its easy to break the laws of physics with a name like 'Troy Hurtubise'
posted by 0bvious at 7:13 PM on May 12, 2005

I don't know why everyone is getting down on this guy. Sure, he's not really doing science - he's doing Science!, which is an entirely different field and a lot more fun. No, it might not be peer reviewed or follow any specific methodology, but who cares? Science! is all about testing how fast your riding law mower can do in reverse or seeing what common house hold items look like when burned with a propane torch.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 8:40 PM on May 12, 2005

If I could get a reasonable testing protocol in writing, and verify that he actually has $20,000, I'd take his challenge in a heartbeat. Unfortunately I'm sure he'd "reconfigure" the machine just before the test, to create world peace or something, and then kill the action on the bet.
posted by mosch at 11:15 PM on May 12, 2005

Sure, he's not really doing science - he's doing Science!,

Hahaha! Thanks for the laugh.

Kinda like "Lamar!" and "Jeb!" Add some excitement to your life. I'm gonna! nofundy!! [heh, doubled my excitement]
posted by nofundy at 6:55 AM on May 13, 2005

Sure, go ahead and laugh. You're the same type of people who scoffed at the orgone box, and aren't you sorry now?
posted by herostratus at 8:08 AM on May 13, 2005

and then kill the action on the bet.

I wonder if he would. Whatever else you might say about him, he seems to be a believer. Randi splits the categories of people who apply to his challenge into those who are fakes and those who are self-deluded. If this magic ray doesn't cure cancer, he sure seems to believe it does.

Of course, people can go through some pretty odd contortions to justify their belief systems, so who knows?
posted by lumpenprole at 8:15 AM on May 13, 2005

God Light Mark II: cures cancer and programs your VCR.
posted by slackdog at 10:06 AM on May 13, 2005

lumpenprole: if he's self-deluded and has $20k, I should head on over there now!

It's either easy money, or there's a cure for cancer... no way for me to lose!
posted by mosch at 1:14 AM on May 21, 2005