Tuesday, April 01, 2008

The first of the day?

There is an article on New Scientist's site about poltergeists.

Whenever I see this kind of subject in that kind of venue, I have conflicting feelings. One side says 'It's going to be another ridicule' and another says 'Maybe they're taking it seriously'.

I am also conscious of the date. It's April First. The article is timestamped 00:01, 1st April.

With that in mind, take a look at the physicists' explanation of the poltergeist phenomenon.

First impression - it's even crazier than the paranormal explanation.

Serious, or April fool? You decide.

4 comments:

Romulus Crowe said...

Turns out it's not an April Fool joke. These guys are serious.

Can we now expect a quantum explanation for telekinesis, telepathy and all other paranormal events?

I might end up as part of mainstream science if this goes on. Scary!

Dr. Brainiac said...

Woohoo! I can see the media lining up to meet with you.

astrologymemphis.blogspot.com said...

Well. Hmm. Not a joke, you say? All right, well, I try to keep an open mind, so I guess it's as good an explanation as ... I don't believe I've heard any other explanations other than "ghost." I must admit that when I lived at Poltergeist Central, I was pubescent, and I had a sister who was about 14 at the time. But we always blamed it on my mother, who simply had a knack for attracting that sort of thing. And, there have been many other instances I've observed / experienced besides those at Central, so I can't say, really, either way.

Romulus Crowe said...

Dr. B - the media haven't made too many friends in this profession so far. They might not get a warm reception.

SW - well, that's the thing. There are lots of theories around poltergeist activity but nobody can say for sure how they work.

I know there are hardened sceptics who say it's all, always, faked and back that up by showing how it could be done. The same way they 'debunk' other paranormal events by replicating them. All they prove is that it's possible to replicate the effect by other means - that's not proof that all such events are fake. As I've said before, just because someone has a fake Rolex, doesn't mean all Rolexes are fakes. It just means it can be faked.

Unfortunately, there are many fakers around the paranormal, so many that picking out any real events is literally like finding a needle in a haystack.

One constant with poltergeists is that there's normally an adolescent involved, and normally a girl. So that's where we need to look for the effects.

Unfortunately, spending too much time with children causes my lip to curl so much I'm in danger of turning my face inside out. I'm just not a 'children' person. Someone else can deal with that part of it.

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