Paranormalist Uri Geller was born in in Israel on December 20, 1946; at the age of four, an encounter with a mysterious sphere of light seemingly granted him telekinetic powers, and in the years to follow he honed his otherworldly skills by performing tricks for his schoolfriends. From the ages of 11 to 17, Geller lived in Cyprus, returning to Israel in 1964 to serve as an army paratrooper; wounded in battle during the Six-Day War of 1967, he later worked as a fashion model as well. As the decade drew to a close, Geller began performing publicly, and soon his telepathic and psychokinetic feats made him a national sensation; upon travelling to Germany in 1972, he made headlines for stopping a cable car in mid-air, and later that year was invited to the U.S. by astronaut Edgar Mitchell and scientist Andrija Puharich, participating in a series of laboratory tests documented in his 1975 book The Geller Papers. By telekinetically bending spoons and keys on television variety programs including The Tonight Show and The Mike Douglas Show, Geller also emerged as an international celebrity, and in 1977 even recorded a self-titled LP. ~ Jason Ankeny