Massimo Polidoro

As a child in the 1970s, Polidoro was fascinated by magic and the claims surrounding psychic phenomena. He learned in his teens about the work of James Randi, and CSICOP through a TV series and a book by Piero Angela investigating parapsychology from a critical, skeptical point of view. Polidoro studied Randi and his publications. Randi, like Houdini, was a magician and investigator of mysteries who employed a scientific approach to his investigations.[1]

Polidoro corresponded with Randi and Angela by letter where they planned a skeptical organization in Italy based on CSICOP’s work in the United States. He was invited to meet both Angela and Randi and again later to a meeting in Rome as Angela's guest in 1988.[1][2]

After spending three days with Polidoro in Rome, both Angela and Randi agreed that Polidoro had the talent and passion to become an apprentice of Randi. During dinner at Angela’s house, they asked Polidoro if he was interested in learning how to investigate mysteries as Randi’s apprentice, a proposal which Polidoro gladly accepted. With a grant from Angela, Polidoro left for the United States and became Randi's only full-time apprentice in the art of paranormal investigation and psychic testing.[1]

After several years during which he helped Randi in his investigations, research, writings and lectures, Polidoro returned to Italy in 1990, where he founded CICAP. He studied psychology, and graduated from the University of Padua with a master thesis on the psychology of eyewitness testimony of anomalous phenomena.[3]

Massimo Polidoro participating in "The Investigators" panel at CSICon 2011 in New Orleans.

Polidoro is the Executive Director of CICAP,[4][5] and was the editor of its journal, Scienza & Paranormale, from its debut in 1993 to 2006.[6] In 1996 he became the European representative for the James Randi Educational Foundation.[7] In 2001, he became a member of the European Council of Skeptical Organisations (ECSO), and was nominated as a research fellow of CSICOP, the Committee for the Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (now Committee for Skeptical Inquiry).[8] When Martin Gardner left his regular column "Notes from a Fringe Watcher" in The Skeptical Inquirer, the magazine of CSICOP, Polidoro was asked to take over, and the column was retitled "Notes on a Strange World".[9]

Polidoro continues to investigate and test alleged psychics, astrologers, clairvoyants, dowsers, mediums, prophets, psychic detectives, psychic healers, psychic photographers, telepaths and many others.[10] He has conducted historical investigations on famous cases and personalities of the past, including Eusapia Palladino, Margery and his childhood hero Houdini. Some of this work is collected in his books, two of which, Final Séance and Secrets of the Psychics, have been published by Prometheus Books.[9]

In 2004, Polidoro's passion for magic led him to start the magazine, Magia, devoted to the study of the history, science and psychology of conjuring.[11]

In 2005 he became the first Italian to hold a course on "Scientific Method, Pseudoscience and Anomalistic psychology", as a member of the psychology faculty of the University of Milan Bicocca.[12]

In 2017, Polidoro organized the first CICAP Fest, a festival of science and curiosity held annually in Padua and co-organized with the city and the University of Padua. CICAP Fest 2018 featured over 200 events and recorded an attendance of more than 12,000.[13]

Since 2018, Polidoro teaches a postgraduate course on science communication at the University of Padua.[14]

In October 2018, Polidoro was interviewed by Susan Gerbic for Skeptical Inquirer, and announced that he was starting an English language YouTube channel named Stranger Stories. Polidoro told Gerbic:

YouTube today is the best vehicle for reaching a wider, and mostly younger, audience. On YouTube I can talk to people who don’t usually read my books, hear my lectures, or see me on TV. So, last May I started a news series in Italian, “Strane Storie,” where in ten to fifteen minutes I would tell you the story of a famous, or less famous, mystery... and then walk you through the solution.... I could find nothing of the sort on YouTube and so I thought there could be an audience for it... my plan is to start a new series in English, “Stranger Stories,” which will take the same approach but address an audience that is a gazillion times bigger.[15]

On October 20, 2018, Polidoro announced on his YouTube channel that the series would soon premier,[16] and the first episode, "Randi Tricks the Trickster", was posted on October 31.[17]

Polidoro is the host, special guest, author or consultant of many TV shows, both in Italy and abroad. His international series, Legend Detectives, devoted to the investigation of famous European legends, including Dracula, Robin Hood, the Pied Piper, Rennes-le-Château, the Blood of Saint Januarius[18] and the Man in the Iron Mask, was broadcast on the Discovery Channel.[19]

In 2006 he started a podcast in Italian I Misteri di Massimo Polidoro (Massimo Polidoro's Mysteries), dealing with investigation of mysterious subjects both by himself and by other colleagues that contribute to the show. The podcast was broadcast as a radio show for three years, through 2014, on an Italian-language Swiss radio station.[20]

In 2014, Polidoro started a new podcast in Italian, L'esploratore dell'insolito (The Explorer of the Unusual), which deals with strange or unusual, historical enigmas, unsolved crimes, methods for the exploration, and investigation of mysteries and writing.[20]

For the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, Massimo Polidoro introduced the documentary on the subject, Il giorno in cui camminammo sulla Luna(The day we walked on the Moon) and together with Paolo Attivissimo conducted the program Luna: ci siamo andati davvero? (Moon: did we really go there?), both broadcast by the channel Focus.[21][22] In 2019 he presented and conducted the documentary Base Tuono. Un segreto della Guerra fredda (Tuono Base. A secret of the Cold War), regarding an Italian Air Force and NATO ex-missile base in Trentino-Alto Adige[23] as well as a series of documentaries dedicated to the genius of Leonardo da Vinci, Leonardo: l'uomo che anticipò il futuro (Leonardo: the man who anticipated the future).[24]

Polidoro at book signing TAM 2013

As a journalist, Polidoro is a contributor to the monthly Italian magazine, Focus. He is the author of over 40 books in Italian, some of which have been translated into other languages. These cover a variety of subjects related to mysteries, the paranormal, and historical enigmas. They cover a wide variety of topics, including a critical history of Spiritualism, a dictionary of Parapsychology, the wreck of the RMS Titanic, a biography of Houdini, famous unsolved crimes of the past, and legends related to the mysterious deaths of celebrities. In 2006 he published his first novel, Il profeta del Reich (The Prophet of the Reich), a thriller loosely inspired by the life of magician Erik Jan Hanussen.[25][26]

In mid-2007, Italian newspaper La Repubblica, one of the larger daily general-interest newspapers in circulation in Italy, reprinted six of Polidoro's books in a series that was sold at newsstands, along with the many local issues of the newspaper.

Final Séance (2001) deals with the strange friendship between Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, their friendly exchanges first, and then the quarrels over their opposing views of Spiritualism.[27][28]

Secrets of the Psychics (2003) is a collection of investigations carried out by Polidoro on psychic phenomena, including tests of psychics, poltergeists, miracles and other strange phenomena.[29] Both books are published by Prometheus Books, and have been translated into several languages.[9]

The publication of Polidoro's fiftieth book, Leonardo. Il romanzo di un genio ribelle (Leonardo: The Story of a Rebel Genius),[30] coincides with the 500th anniversary (in 2019) of Leonardo da Vinci's death.[15] Along with the book, Polidoro celebrated da Vinci's legacy with a new YouTube video series.[31] He also undertook a touring theatrical performance mixing narrative, science, and art to highlight the man who was Leonardo, exploring how da Vinci came to be regarded as history's best-known polymath despite personal difficulties, societal resistance, and the limits of his own humanity.[32]

James Randi & Massimo Polidoro at CSICon 2016

At The Amaz!ng Meeting 2014 Polidoro announced that work on the biography of the life of James Randi was underway.[33]

The need for the biography was Penn Jillette’s brainchild, and in 2005 Jillette began interviewing Randi for this reason. Kim Scheinberg helped Jillette with his research for the book which included the search for stories, documents and clippings. This resulted in the collection of hundreds of hours of interviews and a large amount of material covering 60 years.

Polidoro began work on the biography in 2010, and spent time reviewing the material gathered by Jillette and Scheinberg, along with source material used for the documentary An Honest Liar, directed by Justin Weinstein and Tyler Measom, which tells the story of Randi’s life. In an interview Polidoro stated, “One of the most interesting things is that going through the research about Randi's life, his stories, when he tells them, that's quite something because many times you see they are different, but the original ones, they're even more interesting, more surprising! And that's how memory works.”[34]

The biography will be co-authored by Scheinberg with an introduction by Jillette.

In September 2017, Polidoro was able to interview James Randi for attendees at the 17th European Skeptics Congress.[35]

Polidoro’s experiences investigating mysteries, legends and other paranormal phenomena[36] inspired the main character in a novel by Giacomo Gardumi, L’eredità di Bric (Bric’s Legacy). The character Mark Pollard of the Martin Mystere comic, The Great Houdini, created by Alfredo Castelli, was also inspired by Polidoro.[37]

During his teenage years, Polidoro started and led a Beatles fan club, Beatles Staff Organization, from 1984 to 1988. The club had approximately 100 members from around Italy and issued Help!, a fan magazine whose articles, in-depth reviews, and news were dedicated to the band. At the time, Polidoro didn’t have a personal computer, so he wrote the articles using a typewriter. In order to get the desired layout of the magazine pages, he would physically cut and paste, photocopy and hand-bind the magazine. A total of 24 issues of “Help!” were published.[38]

• CICAP
• Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
• James Randi Educational Foundation

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Massimo Polidoro.

• "Massimo Polidoro's YouTube Channel in English"
• "Introducing Italy's Version of Harry Houdini"
• "Massimo Polidoro: A Champion of Skepticism in Italy"
• A Report on the 5th World Skeptics Congress organized by Massimo Polidoro and CICAP
• "The Art of Deception Revealed" Anecdotes and tricks revealed by Massimo Polidoro during his apprenticeship with James Randi