October 31st, 2009
Researchers wanted to prove that those who believe in paranormal experience are completely nuts, so they scientifically haunted a room using ultrasound waves and stuck people in there. Results? A lot of dizzy, tingly, aroused, and gullible individuals.
To conduct the experiment, ultrasound and electromagnetic wave producing speakers were hidden inside the “haunted” room, to simulate the frequencies associated with paranormal experiences. Volunteers were then sent inside and asked to report any “strange feelings” as soon as they felt them. If there was something to the business of paranormal experiences being genuine, then there would be a correlation between the speaker zones and the sensations reported.
As you can guess by now, all the sensations of dizziness, tingling, disembodiment, dream-remembrance, and arousal had no correlation to the volunteers locations within the room. Researchers concluded that the responses were due to suggestibility and the fact that the volunteers were expecting to feel something.
They did leave some room for skepticism and said that it is possible that some individuals may sense things that others can’t see, but frankly I don’t care either way. I’m still going to keep on believing in fairies. [Wired]
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Posted in Gizmodo