Is it possible?

For a gifted person to look at the board for three seconds, and see a mate in 12?

Ah... you just watched Criminal Minds too huh... creepy episode.

That show is the best.  Love it.  Was that on an episode?

Edit* Oops, I guess I don't watch enough TV lol

It completely depends on the pattern recognition.  Three seconds is too short to calculate 12 moves.  Likely if this happened it means the player recently was solving some longer mate puzzles and happened to immediately recognize the same theme.

If it was a very involved forced mate with different defenses possible, even very strong players, who might see the idea immediately, would pause for many minutes to check the variations during a game.

If you mean gifted person as in an intelligent person who has never played chess... I suppose it's possible, people being born speaking dead languages and alien UFOs and such, but the answer should be no.

Oh man... well, a lady was kidnapping women in the 25-35 age range, paralyzing them while keeping them conscious, doing their hair all up and dressing them fancy, and sitting them around a table for a fake tea party.

EDIT:  Oh, and... Agent Reid glanced at a friend's chess board as he was playing against himself in a park and saw mate in 12, and then proceeded to prove it by taking up one side and playing the moves.

Which one is Agent Reid?  I love the young socially inept nerdy boy.

Yes, that would be none other than Agent Reid, lol...

him in a chess scene...omigosh.  drool...hehe.

 That's right, but you still didn't answer the question.

No, because orangehonda did.

 Orangehonda might have, but your first post was before his.

Oh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Sorry about that (??)

 Answer my Chess fever post. The film is only 20 something minutes.

Interestingly, there've been several chess scenes in Criminal Minds.

So what? Is it really possible? 

Seems unlikely.

I agree. I don't know much about chess, but even I think that's mighty fantastic. I also know how stupid television shows can be. 

I guess there are mate in 12 positions where it's possible to see that it's forced mate ("oh, sac, sac, check, and the king won't get out of that corner with queen and knight bearing down on it").

Working out that it's forced in exactly 12 moves isn't possible in three seconds.

It could be a reasonable feat for someone with the chess knack. I, as an average student of the game, saw what was a 6-mover in 1 or 2 seconds--as it was a combination of an obvious, forced 2-mover and then the classic smothered mate. A chunked sequence. It helped that my study mate and I were looking at smothered mates just before, and that he set it up for me.

So, with the right kind of position, sure why not.

Some mates, such as smothered mate can be easy to spot right away, it would probably take me more time to count the number of moves before the mate, than to find the actuall mate.

But spotting a mate in 12 when you aren´t an active player? I´d say hell no.