This article was first published in The Montreal Gazette.

My interest in magic was sparked at an early age, and I spent many a Saturday afternoon either at Perfect Magic or Morrisey Magic, Montreal’s two great magic stores that alas are no more. You went there not only to purchase tricks but also to soak up the magical atmosphere.

It was here in that pre-internet era that magicians from neophytes to pros gathered on Saturdays to test new effects and critique each other. There were also lively discussions about how David Copperfield, Doug Henning or Siegfried and Roy carried out the illusions on their latest television special.

Any customer who was lucky enough to wander in would be treated to an impromptu performance by magicians eager to try out a routine and would walk away amazed, often with a bag of tricks they purchased. Only when they got home did they realize that something other than the tricks was needed to mystify their friends — hours of practice that could not be purchased.

There was something else available at the magic store and it was free: a lesson in critical thinking. The appeal of magic is that it presents a puzzle for the brain. “How was it done?” is the question that springs to mind on seeing a coin vanish, a dove appear or a person being cut in half. It all seems miraculous, but once you get involved with magic and start buying tricks and reading books, you realize that the secrets behind the effects that appear to defy the laws of nature have some very down-to-earth explanations.

I remember how on one of my first visits to a magic store I was told to catch an invisible deck of cards tossed at me. I dutifully pretended to catch it and was then asked to select any card from the deck and name it out loud. To this day I remember that I had selected the eight of hearts because Billy Hicke, who was my favourite hockey player at the time, wore that number. I was told to reverse the invisible card, place it back in the deck and throw the invisible deck back to the magician. I played along. The magician pretended to catch the invisible deck, and all of a sudden a real deck appeared in his hands. He then took the cards out of the box and proceeded to fan them. Indeed, one — and only one — card was turned around. It was the eight of hearts.

My jaw dropped. Although I racked my brain till it hurt, I could not figure out how this was done. It seemed impossible. There was only one way to find out. I had to buy the trick. The secret was simple and brilliant. It was obvious that many other card tricks could be performed using the same principle, and now when I see one of those I am no longer puzzled. I can don my critical thinking cap and figure out how the trick is done.

Similarly, once you learn the basic methods used for vanishes, appearances and “take a card, any card” routines, you are unlikely to be fooled. That doesn’t mean you will always know how a trick is performed since there are some outstanding magicians who can make the impossible seem possible. But that is because they have spent thousands of hours practising. You may not know exactly how they did what they did, but even if you can’t explain it, you know that there is a mundane explanation. You will not conclude the performer used “real magic” or that he or she has real psychic power just because you do not know how the apparent miracle was performed.

I bring this up now because I just watched a series of “documentaries” on UFOs, or as they now are called, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, or UAPs. These programs were clearly designed to leave the viewer with the impression that alien visitations are a real possibility. Before going further, let me state that I think it very unlikely that intelligent life evolved only on our little planet in this galaxy of ours that is one of about 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe. Each of those galaxies has hundreds of billions of stars just like our sun, with planets orbiting them. But even if aliens exist somewhere out there, I think it extremely improbable that they are visiting us. The distances involved are just too great.

Given that we know there are no little green men on Mars or on any of the other planets in our solar system, the closest planet that could conceivably support life is approximately 4.2 light-years away from Earth. Considering that our moon is 1.3 light-seconds from the Earth and that with our technology it takes about three days to get there, it would take us 73,000 years to get to that planet. Of course, it is possible that there is some civilization out there that is billions of years ahead of us in evolution and has developed some Star Trek-like space travel technology, but if that were the case they would have no reason to fear us. Why hover in front of a pickup truck in the backwoods of North Dakota instead of landing on the White House lawn?

Now about those “documentaries.” They focus on observers who conclude they have seen something unworldly, perhaps even a proverbial flying saucer. The fact is that the vast majority of such observations have been explained as unusual cloud formations, missile launches, camera artifacts, aircraft, light reflections, balloons, satellites, birds or planets, Venus in particular. And in some cases, clever hoaxers have been at work.

True, there are some sightings that have not been explained. But that should not lead us to conclude they are alien crafts, just like not being able to explain how a spoon visibly bends in the hand of a magician should lead to the conclusion that he has real psychic powers.

As far as aliens go, I would be thrilled to have contact with them. It would make our life all that more exciting. I would like to show them the invisible deck trick that fooled me, and with which I have fooled many. But if they were smart enough to get here, I think they could figure it out.

@‌JoeSchwarcz