After recognizing dubious assumptions regarding light detectors, a famous beam-split coincidence test of the photon model was performed with gamma-rays instead of visible light. A similar test was performed to split alpha-rays. Both tests are described in detail to justify conclusions. In both tests, coincidence rates greatly exceeded chance, leading to an unquantum effect. This is a strong experimental contradiction to quantum theory and photons. These new results are strong evidence of the long abandoned accumulation hypothesis, also known as the loading theory, and draw attention to assumptions applied to key past experiments that led to quantum mechanics. The history of the loading theory is outlined, including the loading theory of Planck's second theory of 1911. A popular incomplete version of the loading theory that convinced physics students to reject it is exposed. The loading theory is developed by deriving a wavelength equation similar to de Broglie's, from the photoelectric effect equation. The loading theory is applied to the photoelectric effect, Compton effect, and charge quantization, now free of wave-particle duality. It is unlikely that the loading theory can apply to recent claimed success of giant molecule multi-path interference/diffraction, and that claim is quantitatively challenged. All told, the evidence reduces quantized absorption to an illusion, due to quantized emission combined with newly identified properties of the matter-wave.
