Unsurprisingly the James Randi Educational Foundation has had a problem giving away their million dollar prize to someone who could demonstrate scientifically under controlled circumstances that they could perform some sort of paranormal ability. They aren't even that specific on what kind of paranormal ability it has to be. It could be ESP, telekinesis, talking to ghosts, oh hell even showing the existence of a ghost - no talking needed. Many have stepped up, usually confused individuals, but none have been able to claim the prize. For some strange reason no big name has stepped up to try their luck. Hmm... weird! It's almost as if they didn't want their abilities to be disproved since they make their money from lying to people.. hmpf...

In any case, since this cool 1,000,000 dollars is just sitting around not doing anything (or even have the chance to ever do anything) for the James Randi Foundation they decided to discontinue the challenge to free the money for more worthwhile pursuits. Here's the details:

As of March 6th, 2010 - twelve years after the challenge was first offered - it will be.

The James Randi Educational Foundation Million-Dollar Challenge will be discontinued 24 months from this coming March 6th, and those prize funds will then be available to generally add to our flexibility. This move will free us to do many more projects, which will be announced at that time.

This means that all those wishing to be claimants are required to get their applications in before the deadline, properly filled out and notarized as described in the published rules.

Now, we're sure that there will be those who will offer all kinds of objections to this decision - though they could have simply applied and won the prize. There will be accusations that the JREF is concerned about the safety of the prize money - which was never any sort of concern, I can assure you - and there will be more claims that the money was never there in the first place. I can see the professionals out there sighing in relief that they no longer have to answer questions about why they won't take the prize, and they'll just wait out the remaining period that the prize is available. All that's to be expected.

Ten years is long enough to wait. The hundreds of poorly-constructed applications, and the endless hours of phone, e-mail, and in-person discussions we've had to suffer through, will be things of the past, for us at the JREF.

Those who believe they have mystic powers now have two full years to apply... Let's see what happens.

So don't worry! You still have a full two years to waste the foundations time showing them you're amazing! paranormal abilities.

-via boingboing-