Funding 1979 – The McDonnell Foundation, who gave $500,000 to Washington University in St. Louis to study spoon-bending children. (See Project Alpha) 1980 – The Millennium Foundation for giving $1 million to parapsychological research. (The award was withdrawn in 1982 when the foundation decided, instead, to invest the million dollars in a "psychically discovered" oil site, which turned out to be dry.) 1981 – The Pentagon for spending $6 million to determine whether or not burning a photograph of a Soviet missile would destroy the missile. 1996 – Robert Bigelow for funding John E. Mack and Budd Hopkins, and for purchasing the so-called Skinwalker Ranch in Utah known for alleged UFO attacks, "interdimensional portals", and cattle mutilations. 1999 – The Human Resources Administration of the City of New York, for training welfare recipients to work as telephone psychics. 2001 – The University of Paris for awarding a doctorate in Sociology to Élizabeth Teissier for a 900-page thesis on the validity of astrology. 2004 – The United States Air Force Research Laboratory, who paid $25,000 to Eric W. Davis at a Las Vegas company called Warp Drive Metrics to study the "conveyance of persons by psychic means" and "transport through extra space dimensions or parallel universes." 2005 – City Council of Auckland, New Zealand, for a NZ$2,500 (US$1,800) grant to the Foundation For Spiritualist Mediums "to teach people to communicate with the dead". 2006 – Templeton Foundation for spending US$2.4 million and ten years research on a study researching the effectiveness of prayer. 2007 – The White House, described by Randi as "faith-based". 2008 – Logan Craft, Walt Ruloff, and John Sullivan, producers of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. 2009 – Iraq's Interior Ministry, for spending tens of millions on bomb-detecting dowsing rods, the ADE 651. 2010 – CVS/pharmacy, for their supporting of homeopathic medication. 2011 – Syracuse University, for their continuing promotion and support of facilitated communication. 2012 – Pumpkin Hollow Retreat Center, for their funding and promotion of the spurious "contemporary healing modality which evolved from the process of laying-on of hands" called Therapeutic Touch. Category 3 – Media 1979 – Prentice Hall and American International Pictures, for The Amityville Horror, labeled as "A True story". 1980 – The reality television series That's Incredible!, for declaring a simple magic trick to be genuine. (The performer, James Hydrick, later admitted it to be false.) 1981 – TV station KNBC of Los