Case file · High strangeness
Carlos Mirabelli, São Paulo medium
Carlos Mirabelli, a São Paulo medium, claimed from about 1919 to speak dozens of languages in trance, levitate and materialise the dead. Photographs of his 'materialisations' were widely published.
1919 CE · -23.55, -46.63 · status: disputed
The account
A committee of the 'César Lombroso' Academy of Psychical Studies issued a favourable report in 1926. The British researcher Eric Dingwall summarised it with great caution, and Guy Lyon Playfair later revisited the case in 'The Flying Cow' (1975).
The sceptical view
Later researchers found that his photographs were retouched, and one 'materialised' figure was a cut-out. No controlled test by independent investigators ever succeeded.