She Told Them Boy Was Dead

...and she was wrong.

From a NY Daily News article on recently recovered Shawn Hornbeck, titled She told them boy was dead:

Montel Williams' psychic pal Sylvia Browne told the family of missing Shawn Hornbeck he was dead shortly after the Missouri boy vanished...

...Shawn, now 15, was found alive and well last Friday, living just miles away with a man now charhttp://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifged with snatching the boy when he was 11.

Browne's "vision" of his death caused search teams to redirect their efforts and drew dozens of calls from the public who believed they lived near the woods matching Browne's descriptions.

This is the kind of silliness danger that can result from the belief in the irrational claims of Browne and her ilk. Can't blame the parents for reaching out to any port in a storm, but some ports can be rock strewn and worse than the storm.

Hopefully, this will serve as a lesson learned about the limits evil phoniness (even if self-deluded) of psychics, spiritualists, and others claiming other than natural, rational, evidence-based, and logical skills in such matters.

(James "The Amazing" Randi challenged Browne to a supervised test of her "powers", which she agreed to in September of 2001. She has yet to show up for it.)

(The story on CNN.)