Mentioned in the comments on this post was this story:
MIAMI (Reuters) – The man who made the Statue of Liberty appear to vanish may soon claim to do the same for unsightly bags and wrinkles.
Master illusionist David Copperfield says he has found the “Fountain of Youth” in the southern Bahamas, amid a cluster of four tiny islands he recently bought for $50 million (26.4 million pounds).
One of his islands in the Exuma chain, Musha Cay, is a private resort that rents for up to $300,000 a week and the other islands serve as buffers to keep prying eyes away from celebrity guests on the white sand beaches.
Copperfield is coy about his reasons for the Fountain of Youth claim, but the man best known for entertaining with grand deception insists his archipelago also contains the legendary waters that bestow perpetual youth. Seriously.
“I’ve discovered a true phenomenon,” he told Reuters in a telephone interview. “You can take dead leaves, they come in contact with the water, they become full of life again. … Bugs or insects that are near death, come in contact with the water, they’ll fly away. It’s an amazing thing, very, very exciting.”
Copperfield, who turns 50 next month, said he had hired biologists and geologists to examine its potential effect on humans but he’s not inviting visitors to swim in or drink from it just yet.
Well, well, well. Either Copperfield is the exception to the rule that magicians tend to be skeptics because their profession is to deceive for entertainment (or, as this article puts it, “entertaining with grand deception”), or he’s got quite the little publicity scam going on here. I wonder if any biologists have taken him up on his offer to study this supposedly miraculous water.
Calling The Amazing Randi, STAT! I think we need a woo intervention here from a fellow magician!
ADDENDUM: Tim Gueguen has also commented.
