The Daily Mail has a report of a self-proclaimed "slider" or one who causes havoc with streetlights and other electrical and electronic gadgetry just be being near to them. Critics note that the "slider" effect has never been shown to exist in a controlled setting.
Street lamps flicker when she passes, TVs change channels when she walks into a room and she sends electronic clocks haywire.
Debbie Wolf claims she is one of Britain's growing army of "sliders" – people who believe their presence causes havoc with household appliances, radios and light bulbs.
Her bizarre abilities, dubbed by paranormal experts "Street Light Interference" syndrome or SLI, don't just make life a nuisance for Debbie, they have earned her international fame.
In Japan she has been likened to heroines from cult Manga comic strips. Others have made comparisons with the cult fantasy show Heroes – in which ordinary people develop superhero abilities.
Sceptics say SLI is purely wishful thinking and coincidence – and has yet to be demonstrated by Debbie or anyone else in a controlled laboratory experiment.
But if Debbie and her fellow "electric people" are proved right, scientists will have to re-write all the known rules of physics.
Well, no, they wouldn't necessarily. They would have to figure out how the sliders manage to send interference. Different thing altogether. But onward to the skeptics:
Prof Richard Wiseman – who studies paranormal phenomena at the University of Hertfordshire – said he is contacted by two new sliders each week.
He suspects that phenomenon is caused by "observer bias" – and the fact that aging sodium street lamps flick on and off for days or weeks before they day.
"There's nothing cranky about this – this are ordinary people who genuinely believe they have this effect," said Prof Wiseman.
"However, to my knowledge this effect has never been demonstrated in a controlled setting.
"I think it is most likely to be the result of selective attention. Street lamps are going on and off all the time because they are faulty or because their timers aren't set properly.
"People only have to walk under a couple of lamps going off to think that they might be the cause.
And once they think that, they start noticing every instance where a light goes off and ignore the times when they don't."
He added: "I was once sent a video where a man filmed himself walking under street lamps for three hours.
"At the end of three hours one went out and he was convinced he had caused it. But statistically, nothing special was going on."
I'd go with observer bias unless and until the effect is shown under controlled, replicable experiment. I'm sure the people involved truly believe they have this power, but I have serious doubts about the claims. Of course, if they want to claim they can pull an Uncle Fester, they may end up being wired to the electrical grid.
There you go again…wanting scientific data to be demonstrated and verifiable again. You need to get with the new post-modern science which dispenses with that old rigamorole!
Just imagine all the research grant possibilities when we finally do away with the notion that something needs to be replicated in a controlled setting.
Yeah, I guess I’m just old fashioned.
I’m going to keep an open mind about this because of personal experience. When I was younger I found it impossible to wear a wristwatch because after a few hours on my wrist the watchs all tended to jump ahead or backward – not by a few seconds or minutes, but by whole hours. My father had the same condition. Interestingly my sister once bought me a watch for my birthday. However, knowing about the condition, she bought a leather band for it which went completely under the body of the watch (remember those wide leather watch bands in the late 60s and early 70s?). Then she put a layer of silicone rubber under the watch on the band so that there was a layer of leather and a layer of rubber between my skin and the watch. I wore that watch for years without it ever having a problem.
As I’ve gotten older, the problem seems to have faded or perhaps it’s just that all watches are now electronic. I don’t know. But I do know that it happened because I observed it myself.
If someone is talking on a cell phone, and they hand it to me, the reception drops off to a point that the other party cannot hear me. As soon as I hand it back it works fine.
Now there is a simple scientific explanation for this, I must have a very thick and dense head that blocks the signal.
I read about some studies done with several people who claimed to be hyper-sensitive to cell phone radiation. When they were blindfolded, they could not tell whether an object passed near their head was cell phone that was on or off, or a piece of wood the same size as a cell phone (or, at least, something that did not emit “radiation”) . Apparently, NONE of them could identify a cell phone that was on, in spite of being “sensitive” to cell phone radiation.
Cell phones do emit signals and some sort of radiation. But, so do human bodies – apparently, we get most of our radiation exposure by sleeping with another human.
Jeez! Some folks just need to lower their intake of “metal” type minerals in their diet, I guess.
I got this thing with spiders … I KNOW when there is one in the room. All I have to do, once I get that feeling, is roam about, like a human Geiger Counter, until I come upon the eight-legged freak(s) … And since childhood I have been bitten by spiders at least once a year (spring/summer) … (No Spiderman jokes, please … thank you.)
But then, again, what are the odds that anyone can do the same scanning of a room and find a spider anyway?
I have had streelights go out when I pass underneath more times than I can count (but not always). I have been fascinated by this “phenomena” because of tmy personal experience. I told my girlfriend about this and she didn’t believe me, but it has happened in her presence enough times while we walk our dog that she’s now wondering….. about me.
I read somewhere, not all that long ago, that a human being is never more than three feet from a spider anywhere on the face of the earth. There are that many.
Oh, if someone can do it in a controlled setting, I’ll be happy to start theorizing on how it’s happening. But up until now, there really isn’t much in the way of proof.
Atheist! I’ll have you know that, almost every time I enter the right room, my TV goes on!!! Of course, I have the remote.
Incandescents are easy, the new bulbs take a little effort, though.
Maggie: I read somewhere that the average person eats 8 spiders in their sleep over the course of a lifetime. I bet you needed to know that. Heh heh.