"We are not bound by earthly constraints," stated Wilbur and Ralph Torres' full-page advertisement in the New York Times published during 1921. "We came from another galaxy, and will return there when our work is done. We are free beings."
Vainly did cynics point out that Wilbur and Ralph Torres, then both in their early twenties, were the sons of a Mexican-born taxi-driver available for hire in Detroit and that their parents could attest to that fact.
Believers cared only about the feats which Wilbur and Ralph apparently performed. For instance, they seemed able to transmit thoughts to each other over thousands of miles, as quickly and precisely as if they were talking on the telephone. And no one ever discovered how they did it in spite of the most rigorous testing procedures of the day.
The Torres brothers first hit the headlines in Detroit shortly after the First World War with a routine which utilised the city's brand new skyscrapers. Wilbur would sit inside a sealed box on the sidewalk outside the building with a witness, while his brother, also accompanied by an impartial witness of civic standing, would ascend the building in the elevator stopping at floors chosen by the witness.
He would then come to a window on that floor and Wilbur, in his blacked-out, sealed box, would say on what floor his brother stood. He was never known to be wrong . . . In one day-long test Ralph appeared 35 times on 20 different floors and Wilbur unerringly gave his brother's whereabouts. The fact that the witness choosing the floors was the Roman Catholic Bishop of Chicago ended all talk of collusion!
When the brothers went to New York they continued to astound onlookers with their apparent gifts of thought transference. A routine achievement was to ask a witness to write a message which could be shown to Ralph while Wilbur sat in another room. Wilbur would then write out the message transmitted to him by Ralph, and it would be compared with the original. They were always identical.
In the spring of 1921 the brothers embarked on a series of experiments devised by the American Academy of Sciencies to test their powers. There had been rumours that the Torres brothers used the new-fangled science of radio to perform their miracle, but a body search revealed nothing.
To rule out the possibility of their using a code, the tests were to be carried out in silence. So it was that on March 24, Wilbur Torres set off across America for Los Angeles by train, in the company of two officials of the Academy while Ralph, under strict guard, stayed behind in New York.
Four days later, at midnight, the first tests began. According to a report on the incidents later published by the Academy, "A written message was composed by a third party (a past- president of the Academy), which read 'George Washington was the first President of the United States and a major figure in our heritage. He was a man of distinction and his honesty was never in question.' "
This message was given to Ralph Torres who read it silently and then attempted to transmit it to his brother who was in Los Angeles. According to witnesses, Wilbur Torres suddenly went very pale and began to tremble. He then said: "My brother is trying to communicate with me," and started to write furiously on a pad in front of him. When the message was complete it was sealed and taken by officials of the Academy to the Western Union office, where it was telegraphed immediately back to New York City.
An hour later the message, in a sealed envelope, was delivered to the New York apartment in which Ralph Torres and several witnesses waited. Slowly the brother opened the telegram. He read it briefly and handed it to the waiting officials. The message from Wilbur Torres was absolutely identical to the one transmitted an hour earlier by his brother.
Other tests followed over the course of the next week, and in all of them the brothers scored an unfailling 100 per cent rate of success. The tests included passing on messages of up to 200 words in length, and identifying colors, shapes, playing cards and objects taken at random from the pocket of volunteers.
As the perplexity of the experts mounted, so the Torres brothers' modesty increased. "Where we come from, thought-transference is accepted as being as natural as talking and seeing," said Wilbur, as though that explained everything. "We were brought to this planet as babies by rocket ship, and will be returning before too long."
Three years later the Torres brothers did indeed disappear. One theory was that they feared their monumental hoax was in danger of being exposed. Another was that they owed vast amounts of money and had done a moonlight flit to Mexico.
Whatever the reason, the brothers with the power to crash the "thought barrier" were never seen again in America from that time onward. For they vanished as completely as if they had returned to a distant galaxy, white suits and all.
Throughout the early 1920s America was captivated, mystified and occasionally iritated by two squeeky-voiced young men in white suits who claimed to be able to do the impossible.
