Of psychics and volcanoes

As I write this blogpost, I am at the foothills of New Year’s, that time of year when all good soothsayers are called upon to say some sooth about the upcoming year. But, should we pay any attention to the sooth that they say?

In this post, I am not considering those pundits who predict stuff based on some sort of discernible trend. I am not thinking along the lines of predictions about sports, politics, or economics. I just want to consider psychics who predict events that don't lend themselves to prediction by careful analysis.

So, I started by setting the rules for the experiment. I first would decide on a topic where a lot of psychics might be making predictions. The topic should be considered by scientists to be “tough to make precise predictions about”. The topic should be verifiable by a trusted source. I would then look for predictions that prognosticators made about the year 2014, and limit my experiment to the first 20 psychics that Google found for me.

Note that I decided on the rules of the test before I went to research what psychics had to say. In this way, I avoided cherry picking the results.

I decided ahead of time that I should not worry about predictions that are made about likely events. Finding one a psychic out of 20 who correctly predicted a single coin toss is not very impressive. Ten of the 20 psychics should be able to guess that correctly. I’m looking for predictions that are tough enough that you would expect that none of the 20 guessers would be correct by chance.

After a little pondering, I decided I would look for predictions about volcanic eruptions. I found a reliable source for information: the Smithsonian Institution Global Volcanism Project. They seem to have done a pretty thorough job of documenting all the volcanic eruptions. There database has just over 3,200 eruptions from the past century alone.

http://www.volcano.si.edu/search_eruption.cfm

One note… I should define the term VEI (Volcanic Explositity Index). This is a measure of the amount of material that is ejected from a volcano during an eruption. The numbers go logarithmically from 0 to 8. The rank 0 means “effusive”, 1 means “gentle”, 2 means “explosive”, 3 means “catastrophic”, and so on. In the past century, the largest volcanic eruption was Mount Pinatubo in 1991, with a VEI of 6. There were 8 eruptions with a VEI of 5, and 61 with a VEI of 4.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_explosivity_index

I went googling on variations of the search “psychic predictions 2014 volcano”.

The results were pretty conclusive. I found 31 predictions that the 20 psychics made about volcanic events for the year 2014. I did not find a single prediction that was both correct and unlikely to have been stumbled on by chance.

My firm conclusion: psychics that Google says are popular have a perfectly lousy track record when it comes to predictions about volcanoes in 2014. This has been fairly well demonstrated.

Since I picked the topic more or less "at random", and since the results were completely unequivocal, it is my expectation that similar topics for predictions would reveal similar results. Until proven otherwise, I will make the bold statement that psychics do poorly at predictions that lack some sort of trending information that could serve as a basis for intelligent guessing.

Here are the details...

Tara Greene

[1] Major EARTHQUAKES worldwide, very high, 8+ on Richter scale and Volcano explosions- in usual places, In Indonesia, China, India, Central America- Guatemala. In California and up West coast- Washington State.

[2] Another blackout of flying because of Volcanic explosions in mid to late April 2014 in to May.

http://www.taratarot.com/id183.html

(The square brackets are mine. I am keeping a running count of specific predictions. Tara had two.)

She predicted that volcanoes will erupt in all the usual places? I hardly think this is much of a prediction. But she did mention some places that she said will have either major earthquakes or eruptions. Here is a list of the number of eruptions that each of these areas had:

Indonesia: 7, China: 0, India: 0, Central America – Guatemala: 0, California and west US coast: 0.

Granted, she said either earthquakes or volcanoes, but I am just looking at volcanic eruptions. I’m gonna call that prediction false.

Blackout in April or May? No. There were three volcanic eruptions in April and May, in Japan, Australia, and Alaska. None caused any issue with travel.

Tara is zero for two.

Betsey Lewis

[3] Major Earth Changes: … Extreme weather will continue worldwide--drought, flash floods, huge waves, volcanic activity, hurricanes, tornadoes, fierce winds. No place will be untouched.

http://betseylewis.com/Predictions.html

[4] Italy's Mount Etna will see a huge eruption and Rome could shake. I see structures falling in Rome--large earthquake.

Earthquakes and Volcanic Activity: ... Watch for Mt. Etna in Italy and many volcanoes to suddenly erupt.

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread989143/pg1

Extreme number of volcanic eruptions?  There have been 3220 volcanic eruptions since 1914. That’s about 32 per year. There were 34 in 2014, so this was hardly a banner year for volcanoes.

Mount Etna? The most recent eruptions of this volcano were from Jan 2011 to Feb 2012. Nothing in 2014, sorry.

For those keeping track at home, we have zero correct predictions out of four.

Nikki

[5] A huge earthquake and volcano eruption in Peru.

[6] A huge earthquake and volcanic eruption in Hawaii.

[7] Mt. St. Helen's erupting.

http://www.psychicnikki.com/predictions-archive.html

Peru had one class 1 eruption, hardly worth calling “huge”.

There were no volcanic events in Hawaii in 2014.

Mount Saint Helens has had no volcanic activity since 2008.

The count is now zero out of seven.

Jeanne Mayell

On Dec. 12, 2014, Jeanne Mayell reflected on her previous predictions, calling out the incredible number of her predictions that came true. The bold type is her indication of a correct prediction, “within a few months”. This was a prediction she made for April of 2014, which according to this webpage, she made “in 2013”:

[8] Volcanic eruption, smoke ash everywhere on an island. (lava flows in Hawaii threatening a town, volcanic eruption in Cape Verde)

She further predicts eruptions for the month of July, stating that this prediction was made January 9 of 2014: 

[9] Volcanic eruption somewhere (lava flows in Hawaii threatening town, Cape Verde volcanic eruption causes evacuations)

Another prediction was for an earthquake. She claims that she nailed this one, except that it wasn't a rural town in Italy, and was a volcanic explosion instead of an earthquake.

[10] Wash tub, Italian rural town, earthquake (Not Italian, but Cape Verde volcanic explosion)

http://www.jeannemayell.com/visions-2014-15-made-january-9-2014/

She claims lots of correct predictions, but how did she really do?

She predicted a volcanic eruption on an island?  I would hazard to guess that this happens in pretty much every period of a few months. Not such a daring prediction, if you ask me!

How about those lava flows in Hawaii? Didn't happen.

Eruption on Cape Verde Islands? Close… There was an eruption of a volcano on the Cape Verde Islands on November 23. This is something of an odd event, since there have been only three volcanic events in the Cape Verde Islands in the past century. If she got that prediction correct, then I would be suitably impressed. But, her original prediction was for April. She was six months off. On this page she states: “Note that visions can be off by a few months.” I’m sorry… six is more than a few.

And her claim that the Cape Verde volcano fulfills her prediction about the Italian earthquake? I find this preposterous.

Even if we grant her that the Cape Verde prediction was “close enough”, do we know that this prediction was actually made prior to 2014? I managed to find one independent report of such a prediction. It was posted in the International Business Times in January of 2014. It gives a truncated version of the prediction: Volcanic eruption, smoke ash everywhere on an island. This event was predicted to occur in April of 2014.

http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/532509/20140102/chinese-astrology-calendar-scorpio-taurus-capricorn-pieces.htm#.VKHicUCo

I am not trying to imply that she lied about her prediction, just that the timing of her prediction is yet to be verified. There may be some independent evidence of the timing of her prediction of the Cape Verde volcanic eruption, but until that shows up, I’m gonna call her prediction not only false, but also not verified.

So, she made an insipid prediction, made a prediction about Hawaii that failed, and missed her own time window on a prediction about Cape Verde.

Joseph Tittel

[11] Again causing many new quakes and the eruption of three big volcanoes in 2014. [12] One causing major complications for people traveling in that area of the globe.

http://spiritmanjoseph.blogspot.com/2014/03/2014-world-celebrity-predictions-from.html#sthash.5GMyirPf.dpuf

[12] Three ring of fire volcanoes erupt.

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?67094-Predictions-2014-start-sending-healing-and-love-now---

Three big volcanoes? I’m not sure what “big” means, but there were four eruptions rated at 3 VEI or larger: Japan, Kamchatka, north of Australia, and Indonesia. Close, but no cigar. Tittel didn’t say “three or four volcanoes”, he said three.

Might this just be an educated guess? Quite possibly. In the prior ten years, there were four years that had 2, 3, or 4 big eruptions. So, you could call his prediction “close, but not very daring”.

There were no volcanic events in 2014 that caused “major complications for people traveling in that area of the globe”. But, I guess if you consider people wanting to travel to the actual volcano, then almost all of the eruptions would constitute a major complication.

How about the claim of “three ring of fire volcanoes”? The “ring of fire” encompasses all the volcanoes at the edge of the Pacific. All four of the big eruptions in 2014 were on the Pacific rim.

Sorry. No valid predictions here, and we are still looking for a correct and significant prediction.

Blair Robertson

[13] I predict considerable volcanic activity around the Pacific Rim in 2014, causing scientific alarm.

http://blairrobertson.com/blog/category/predictions/

This is a vague prediction. Most volcanoes are around the Pacific Rim, and as I said before, the year 2014 was not remarkable for volcanic activity.

Elizabeth Good

[14] Good …. thinks Iceland will be in the news this year (possibly with a big volcano eruption) [15] as will North Korea (which will make a lot of noise but do no damage).

http://patch.com/california/novato/psychics-predict-2014-a-gentler-year-more-perky-and-maybe-a-flood

[16] Volcano eruption and a disaster in China. "It feels to me like something involving large numbers of people, possibly a large public disaster, such as a train wreck with a significant release of toxic material, affecting many," according to psychic Elizabeth Good.

http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/532508/20140102/obama-barrack-u-s-november-election-2014.htm#.VKG-EUCo

Was there an eruption in Iceland? Yes, at Barbarbunga. But this first prediction was hardly gutsy. Iceland has had at least one volcanic eruption in 33 of the last 100 years. She had a 1 in 3 chance of getting this one right.

How about North Korea? Nope. She got that wrong. The prediction of North Korea was very gutsy, though. North Korea has not had a volcanic eruption in recorded history.

She also predicted a Chinese volcanic eruption. Sorry… the most recent eruption in China was in 1951. Another gutsy and incorrect prediction.

So, the only volcanic prediction that Good has gotten correct was a fairly safe bet.

Heather Zais

[17] Earth changes or calamities continue: earthquakes, eruptions, lava, volcanos and floods. Waves and high tides and seas. Ships may need rescue. Build new ones or refurbish.

http://www.globalpsychics.com/our-predictions/predictions2014/

Once again, 2014 was not abnormal.

Cherie

[18] There could also be volcanic eruptions that would cause the fires to be an issue, so look to volcanic activity this year in a major way.

http://www.globalpsychics.com/our-predictions/cherie-predicts-2014/

Major way? No way.

Green Wood Horse

[19] With fire energies running strong this year, we can expect some significant volcanic activity and some devastating fires come summer. International tensions and conflicts will persist, as will events involving fire-related calamities, volcanoes, explosions, air and sea accidents, wind disasters such as Katrina, as well as environmental challenges related to air, oil and water.

http://www.globalpsychics.com/our-predictions/2014-year-green-wood-horse/

Significant volcanic activity? If "significant" means "more than zero", then this is an obvious prediction. If it means "considerably more than usual", then nope.

So far, that brings us up to zero predictions that could be considered correct and significant.

Lisa Caza

[20] And weather-wise – unfortunately we will need to expect much of the same that we saw in 2013. I continue on with my concerns about the volcano eruptions – both 2013 and 2014 we have seen and will see a huge number never seen before.

http://soul-psychics.com/blog/psychic-predictions-for-2014/

Huge number? Nope.

Before It’s News

[21] Yet another pope! Anytime between now and January 31^st [April 16, 2014], the world could see a new Pope, because of the supposed plot to end corrupt Vatican powers. Also, during this upset and confusion, a volcano in Italy will produce some steam. Psychics expect this to happen in the winter while it is still snowing.

http://beforeitsnews.com/prophecy/2014/04/top-10-psychic-predictions-for-summer-2014-2460440.html

Italian volcano?  Nope. This prediction is notable in that Italy often does have volcanic events. Mount Etna had eruptions during seven of the ten years between 2004 and 2013. Not only was this an incorrect prediction, but he (or she) lost while betting with the odds.

Incidentally, this psychic's time window hasn't elapsed yet, but as of December 29, Pope Francis is still in the Vatican.

Patricia McLaine

[22] The NEW YEAR promises to start out with a BANG, with a possible MAJOR EARTHQUAKE and/or VOLCANIC ERUPTION as yet another force of destruction on our planet rumbles back to life: [23] ICELAND? MOUNT RAINIER? YELLOWSTONE? The NEW MADRID FAULT?  Prepare to be frightened and amazed.

http://www.patriciamclaine.com/2014_predictions.htm

You gotta love those capital letters! So much excitement!

Did we get a major eruption in the start of the year?  The largest volcanic eruption of the year was on Feb 13^th. This was a major eruption, with a VEI of 4. Only 61 of these have occurred in the last century. But I don’t think I would quite call this the start of the year. 

If Patricia had been specific (like "in the first quarter of the year"), then she might have gotten a point for this one. But she left it vague, with "The new year promises to start out..." I take that to mean the first week or two of the year. Sorry. If you want a prediction to pass scientific muster, you can't be vague.

There was an eruption in one of the places that she mentioned. It was in Iceland, but that didn't occur until August 29^th. And as I said before, Icelandic volcanic eruptions are not that uncommon. As for the other locations, neither Mt. Ranier or Yellowstone had any volcanic activity.

I'm still looking for that excellent prediction.

Chuck Bezio

[24] Italy Volcano erupts in July

[25] Greece Volcano eruption in Dec.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/sylvia-browne/XDM5EClhXiA/tCgGhOWd0xYJ

Unlike Patricia, Chuck provided some great predictions. They are precise, giving both a month and a location. He should be commended, since this makes the predictions actually predictions. Unfortunately both of his great predictions were wrong..

Psychic Science

[26] Jul 17 2014 17:52 PT       A big earthquake in California with volcanic eruption afterwards

http://www.psychicscience.org/premview.aspx

Nope. Nothing in California in 2014.

Grassy Knoll Institute

[27] A major U.S. volcanic eruption will occur. It will erupt with almost no warning time. Everything in its eruption path will be incinerated.

http://lotgk.blogspot.com/2014/01/50-psychic-predictions-for-2014.html

In the US, there were two small eruptions during 2014. Both were of Mount Pavlof, off the Alaskan peninsula. But saying that there will be volcanic activity somewhere in the US is a pretty safe bet. Of the last 100 years, 94 of them have had volcanic activity in the US.

I may have lost count somewhere along the line, but I think my count is up to zero now.

Barbara DeLong

[28] 2014 is going to be a year of shifting and change for not only us as individuals but the planet as well. There are going to be above average storms of all types as well as an increase in natural disasters such as earth quakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.

http://www.barbaradelong.com/cosmic-forecasts/cosmic-forecasts-2014/

Above average? Nope.

Stargazer Phillipines

[29] A volcano eruption

https://www.facebook.com/stargazerphilippines/posts/572489459487517

OMG! No!!!! 

Come on. Really? This is a pretty worthless prediction.

The score currently stands at zero for the psychics and 29 for the skeptics.

Rebecca

[30] Papua, New Guinea will experience a major volcanic eruption this year.

http://www.iamrebecca.com/#!rebeccas-2014-world-predictions/c1sw9

There was a volcanic eruption of VEI 2 at Manam, off the coast of Papau, New Guinea.  This could hardly be called a major eruption. There was another eruption at Rabaul, with a VEI of 3. I wouldn't really call that major, either. My interpretation of "major" is VEI greater than 4.

But even if VEI of 3 is considered major, this is Papau New Guinea. There are six volcanoes in Papau New Guinea that are more or less active. If my count is correct, there have been 50 eruptions between them in the past century. Six of the past ten years have had eruptions. So, you basically have even odds if you guess that there will be an eruption of a volcano in this country in any year.

So, this prediction fails if “major” is taken to mean “VEI > 3”, or is not significant if a VEI of 3 is considered major.

Nancy Bradley

[31] Either 6 pt. or better earthquakes, flooding, tornadoes, draught, explosions or volcanic earth eruptions will affect the following countries and places: Japan, Mexico (BAHA in particular,) the Philippines, Columbia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Mideast, Nicaragua, Fiji, Peru, No. and So. Korea, Canada, Australia, the Cayman Islands, many of the small islands, Pakistan, Africa, Russia, Taiwan, Turkey, Greece, Guam, England, China, Spain Venezuela, Indonesia, New Zealand, El Salvador, Ecuador, Chili, Iran, Argentina, Panama, and New Guinea for just some. In THE U.S, California heavy hit, Eureka area, near San Francisco, San Simeon, Southern Ca,

http://theshowbizwizard.blogspot.com/2014/01/predictions-for-2014-from-our-favorite.html

Wow. Some sort of major natural disaster will occur in some place that regularly has earthquakes, flooding, tornadoes, and volcanic eruptions? Go figger. I’m not even going to bother with this vague and obvious prediction.

So... that ends the contest. It may take me a while to tally the results, but I think that the folks in the bleachers who were rooting for the psychics might be a bit disappointed.

What color are your blue jeans?

The language of color can be silly at times.

Flat paint is not flat. 

I know this will probably rock the very foundation of your belief system, but glossy paint is a whole lot flatter than flat paint. The very thing that makes a flat paint look un-glossy is the fact that the surface is very far from being smooth.

Cool colors are hotter than warm colors. 

If a color is reddish, we say it is warm. A warm light fixture might have a color temperature of 3500 K. If a color is bluish, we call it cool. A cool light fixture might have a color temperature of 6000 K. The color temperature scale is based on saying that the color looks like the color of a solid object that has been warmed up to that temperature, in degrees kelvin. 

Stolen from the Sensational Color blog

We call all kinds of things red that aren't red.

People with red hair are called "gingers". Now tell me, what color is ginger? And this so-called "red" hair is really orange. Am I the only person to ever notice this? Oh... and the breast of the robin red-breast is also orange. Thanks, Mom. I'm still in therapy over that one.

By the way, the pigment responsible for gingers is only found in humans. No kidding. I red that on the internet, so it must be true.

Red shirt and "red" hair

Red roan horse? Red marmoset? Red fox? Red kangaroo? Red elephant? Red squirrel? Red bat? Gimme a break. Cardinals are red. There ain't no such thing as a red mammal.

 

Well, maybe some mammals are red

(I threw in that red elephant thing just to see if you were paying attention. Every elephant that I have ever seen for sale is white.)

Apples and tomatoes can be red, but red onions?  Red cabbage??!?  These are both some shade of purple. Maybe a reddish shade of purple, but I'm gonna call them purple. And I hate to say it, but most of the white cabbage I have seen is actually more of a green color.

Speaking of fruits and vegetables...

It has always bothered me that carrots are oranger than oranges.

Mommy: "What color is that shirt, Johnny?" 

Johnny: "It's carrot." 

Mommy: "Oh, you silly boy. Carrot isn't a color name." 

Johnny: "I thought orange was a fruit"

Which food deserves to be called an orange?

Did'ja know that the original carrots were purple? They had the purple bred right outa them. Goodbye anthocyanins.

Before I forget, most oranges that I buy in the grocery store have been artificially ripened with ethylene to make them go from a greenish-orange to a richer orange color.

Thank you for the appropriately-named blueberries, but how about blackberries?? And how about them red and black plums? I'm gonna need a glass of red wine (which is purple) to get through this. Or white wine, maybe. ...which is amber colored, or something.

What about dog breeds?  

You might not have heard of a kerry blue terrier, but do you think it's blue?  Guess what...it's not. Neither is a blue heeler, or a Texas blue lacy.

I'll have a blue hound dog, without you...

How about the greyhound? Most of the greyhounds that I chum around with are some shade of tan or brown. I guess some are gray. Or grey, if they are British.

Is a golden retriever really golden? And speaking of which...  

All that's golden doesn't glitter.

There is just a plethora of things that we call "gold" that lack that metallic luster that lustrous metallic gold has. Goldfinches, golden retrievers, golden delicious apples, a sunset, and Goldie Hawn. Not to mention Goldilocks.

Gold isn't really a color name... it's a goniochromic effect

(I am happy to say, though, that brown bears and black bears have proper names--"Mama Bear" and "Papa Bear". But of course, the red panda is neither red, nor a bear.)

Human skin is neither white nor black.

Come on now. Is my skin really white? And my good friend Barack... I would say that his skin is brown. I don't dare mention Native Americans. I have never been green with envy that I am not a blue-blood.

Look... up in the sky!

If someone says "all the colors of the rainbow", are they aware that they have excluded pink, brown, gray, black, and white? Not to mention periwinkle, tangerine, lavender, mauve, and chartreuse.

Technically, the sky isn't "blue", it's more of a cyan. But I am sure that my wife will argue with me on that one. She'll probably say that it's aquamarine or azure or cerulean. Or flooberskullion.

How about a blue moon? Yeah, right. If a calendar month has two full moons (which happens maybe once a year), then the second one is called a blue moon. It's not blue, though.

Not a blue dog, but he does have a blue cape

All I can say is that our language is pretty messed up when it comes to color.

The man who invented a color

An article from the BBC recently caught my eye. It promised to be a good read, since it combined a number of my avocations: color, history of science, and patents. The article is entitled "Yves Klein: The man who invented a colour". It did prove to be an interesting read, but my fact-checking proved a bit more interesting, and ultimately shows a error in the article.

Yves Klein in a creative moment

Prior art

Yves Klein invented the color blue??? I know that the claim in the article is just plain bogus. Why? Because I patented the color blue, long before Yves Klein picked up a paintbrush. The patent was granted to me just over 100 years ago. Frankly, the article ticks me off just a bit. They will be hearing from my attorneys.

The original patent on the color blue

Ok... so I am kidding. I wasn't living in New York when this was filed for in 1909. The picture above may contain certain clever Photoshop elements.

Allowing for a bit of artistic license

The title of the BBC article has a little bit of a hyperbole, but an excusable one. Maybe it's just artistic license on the part of the author. Here's the thing: you can't patent a color.

Lemme 'splain. A "color" is an abstract thing... Light which is made up of a great deal of wavelengths enters the eyeball where it is converted into three signals that pass into the brain. We could think of these signals as being hue, value, and chroma. The thing is, until the light enters the eye, all we have is light at a bunch of wavelengths. It isn't "color" until somewhere inside the head.

It's just a combination of wavelengths of light until someone sees it

I am, of course, taking this pretty literally. But, we are talking about patents here. Patents are legal documents and they must be taken literally. On many occasions, I have spent literally hours locked in a room with patent attorneys, quibbling over the exact definitions of a handful of words. It all depends on what the definition of "is" is.

But let's take a definition of color that is closer to the colloquial meaning. If Monsieur Klein was actually granted a patent, a claim might have started out something like this: "A collection of wavelengths of light, wherein said wavelengths of light consist at least in part of wavelengths of light within the visible spectrum, predominantly in the range from 400 nanometers to 500 nanometers, and wherein said collection of wavelengths may be assembled so as to impart a sensation on a human observer, wherein said sensation ..." 

Could this actually be patented? Would a patent examiner grant allowance on a claim like this?

I readily admit that I am not an authority on French patent law from 1960, but I will turn to US patent law, which I also readily admit to not being an authority on. (Note that I reserve the right to pretend to be an expert on whatever subject I care to espouse expertise in.)  The US PTO website says that it is permissible to patent "any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof". Since a collection of wavelengths of light does not fit in any of those categories, a "color", defined in those terms, cannot be patented.

An authority on French patent clams

Beyond the fact that a color is not permissible material for a patent, in order to be patentable, an invention must be useful, novel, and not obvious. It seems to me that it might be tough to convince a patent examiner that a collection of wavelengths of light that has a certain property is not obvious. Yves would have needed to convince the examiner that someone of "ordinary skill in the art" would not have thought of that particular collection of wavelengths of light.

So, unless French patent law is considerably different from the US, Yves didn't patent a collection of wavelengths of light, but maybe he invented a composition of matter that has a unique color? Or perhaps a clever process for creating that splendiferous color? 

If I had actually bothered to read the BBC article, I would have found that this was indeed the case: "As early as 1956, while on holiday in Nice, he experimented with a polymer binder to preserve the luminescence and powdery texture of raw yet unstable ultramarine pigment. He would eventually patent his formula as International Klein Blue (IKB) in 1960."

This interpretation is echoed in Philip Ball's book "Bright Earth, Art and the Invention of Color" (p. 248). 

Searching through the patent database

Or so the article and book claim!!!

I spent considerable time with the search engine on the Espacenet website. Not familiar with this website? "Espacenet offers free access to more than 80 million patent documents worldwide, containing information about inventions and technical developments from 1836 to today." This is my go-to website whenever I am looking for some casual reading. 

Two patents from Yves Klein came up in the time period around 1960:

"Method of decorating or architectural integration and products obtained by application of said method"  (FR 1258418)

"Method of decorating or architectural integration and products obtained by application of said method" (FR 77637)

These two patents were both filed in 1960. They may actually be different stages of the same patent, or they may be the same patent, but with different sets of claims. Espacenet offers a machine-generated translation of the second French patent:

"... it consists in coating partly or wholly the body of a or more subjects or models of one or more suitable to the skin colors and to apply, under the direction of a master of works with the benefit of hindsight, the said subjects or on a suitable support or vice versa, Suitable blanks and in that in one or more successive stages or simultaneously, in order to obtain colored marks on said medium." 

In other words, Klein has a patent on a human paintbrush.

Yves made a big splash in the art world around 1960 by splashing unclothed women with blue paint and having them roll on a canvas. If you are not offended by nudity presented in an artful way, French speech, string music, or the color ultramarine, then I suggest you search for "Yves Klein Anthropométrie" on YouTube.

Bloobies

So, I am afraid that I must disagree with the columnist Alastair Cooke of the BBC and with the author Philip Ball. Yves Klein did not have a patent on the color blue, ultramarine, a paint composition, or a process for creating that paint.

Resolution of the conundrum

How did this loathsome rumor about Yves Klein patenting a color start?

The confusion lies in a misunderstanding of a unique French creation, the Soleau envelope. This is a sealed envelope which an inventor sends to a department of the French government. The inventor thus provides proof that he or she thought of a given idea some time before the date that the envelope was delivered.

Note that the envelope is sealed, and stays that way unless a lawsuit comes about. No one at the French patent office peeks into the envelope. And in particular, no one in the French patent office goes through the exercise of deciding whether there is anything novel about whatever happens to be in the sealed envelope. Also, the Soleau envelope does not grant any rights of exclusivity to the one who files. The only legal right offered by the envelope is that the filing party is allowed to continue using the invention even if someone else patents the invention at a later date.

Yves Klein filed a Soleau envelope on May 19, 1960. This envelope contained a formula for making a paint containing ultramarine that preserved the rich color of the raw pigment. The binder called "Rhodopas M" has a good adhesive strength so you could get a good pigment load. It also has a low index of refraction so that the paint has a color closer to the color of the raw pigment.

So, technically, Yves Klein did not patent his shade of Klein Blue, or even a formula for making Klein Blue. I can only surmise why he did not file for a patent, since as we have seen, he was no stranger to the French patent office. Perhaps the paint formulation was not all that novel, since Rhodopas M was already commercially available as a binder? Perhaps Yves didn't file because the real creative work was done by a fellow by the name of Eduoard Adam?  I can only surmise.