WEBVTT - S04 Episode 10 Extra: PEAR Review 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:03.400 Nothing's better than feeling comfortable in your own shoes. Maybe 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:05.760 you're a parent raising a little rock star, or a 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:08.560 tech nomad working from anywhere. All Birds wants you to 0:00:08.560 --> 0:00:12.520 be comfortable in your actual shoes too. They're wool runners, pipers, 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:15.720 and loungers are so cozy you might forget you're wearing them, 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:18.599 and they're crafted from natural materials that tread lightly on 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:21.759 our planet. So get comfortable in your shoes. Get to 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:25.800 know the wool runners, pipers and loungers at Alberts dot com. 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:37.800 That's ALLLBI rds dot com. Welcome to un Explained Extra 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:41.320 with me Richard McClean smith, where for the weeks in 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:44.239 between episodes, we look at stories and ideas that, for 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:47.280 one reason or other, didn't make it into the previous show. 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:52.120 In last week's episode, The Creeping esther Cox, a young 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:55.600 woman living in the town of Amherst, Nova Scotia, found 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:58.120 herself at the center of a series of peculiar and 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:03.280 terrifying events. For some, these events, which would collectively become 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:06.720 known as the Great Amherst Mystery, are among the most 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:12.480 convincing examples of a poltergeist haunting ever recorded. For many others. 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:16.120 These strange events, despite apparently being witnessed by a number 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:20.080 of credible individuals, had merely been concocted by Esther and 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:24.760 possibly others in her family. As many will know, one 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:28.920 interpretation of the apparent poltergeist phenomenon is to consider such 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:32.959 things as excitable, often malicious entities with an agency of 0:01:33.000 --> 0:01:37.600 their own. Esther Cox herself claimed that the moving objects, 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:41.200 loud bangs, and fires that broke out around her were 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:46.240 caused by ghosts. Another interpretation of the apparent poltergeist, however, 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:50.120 is the belief that its supposed manifestations are in fact 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:54.880 the result of psychokinetic power. As the lover of science 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:59.000 fiction in particular bran to Palmer's thrilling nineteen seventy eight 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:02.840 classic The Few, it is this interpretation that I find 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:08.120 personally most interesting. The notion of psychokinetic powers, or having 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:11.160 the ability to effect objects and systems with the power 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:14.040 of the mind alone, has been around for many years. 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:18.480 Even as far back as four hundred BC. Shakuni, a 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:23.320 character from the Sanskrit epic Maha Barreter, was depicted manipulating 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:27.399 dice using only his will to do so. More recently, 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:31.800 characters in stories that possess psychokinetic powers similar to those 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:36.480 supposedly displayed by esther Cox have often been, though not exclusively, 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:41.160 young women or teenage girls, from Jean Gray in X 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:45.080 Men to Stephen King's Carry, and more recently the character 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:48.960 Eleven in Stranger Things. This trope is often laden with 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:54.120 the variety of complex and stereotypical implications, from being pejorative 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:58.400 depictions of women as hysterical and unable to control their emotions, 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:02.080 to being expression of a male fear of powerful and 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:07.240 vengeful girls and women. Such sexist underpinnings are also often 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:11.080 found in the literature of psychical research, where adherence to 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:15.240 the idea that poltergeists are indeed the result of psychokinesis 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:18.639 have tended to favor the view that adolescent girls were 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:24.200 the most likely culprits with parapsychology. Like most industries being 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:29.960 largely male dominated, such a perspective is unsurprising. That said, 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:33.400 if such powers were to manifest as the consequence of 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:37.200 years of trauma, or, as in Estercox's case, as a 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:40.840 reaction to a horrific assault, it wouldn't be surprising that 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:43.400 women and girls would be the more likely of the 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:48.360 cis genders to develop them. In any case, whether you 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:51.400 believe in the possibility of such powers or not, the 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:55.240 idea that humans could have the potential to exert psychokinesis 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:59.640 remains a potent one. Incredibly, it is also one that 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:10.480 has not only been confined to art and parapsychology. It 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:13.120 was back in the early autumn of nineteen seventy seven 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:17.760 that a student approached Professor Robert John, then dean of 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:21.800 America's Princeton School of Engineering and Applied Science, with an 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:26.839 unusual request. A few days earlier, John had informed his 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:29.920 students that a large part of that year's grade would 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:33.800 be apportioned to a project of their own devising. While 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:37.159 most students had no trouble getting their projects accepted, the 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:39.960 student in question had approached a number of professors to 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:44.039 supervise her, but all had refused, declaring her idea to 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:48.560 be nothing but pseudoscience. The idea was to attempt a 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:53.600 replication of an infamous psychokinesis experiment first devised by German 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:59.320 physicist and parapsychologist Helmut Schmidt in the nineteen sixties. Schmidt 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:02.280 had come to Prominance with the outlandish claim that he'd 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:05.600 found evidence of the mind's power to manipulate the outcome 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:10.720 of a random event generator, although they come in many guises, 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:15.480 a random event generator or random number generator is, as 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:19.080 the name suggests, a machine designed to generate a random 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:22.680 series of events or numbers in order to create results 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:26.480 that cannot be predicted. A basic version of this would 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:29.280 be the rolling of a dice, for example, or tossing 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:32.920 of a coin. Such machines are invaluable in the study 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:38.080 of statistics, among many other applications. Schmidt, however, was the 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:41.599 first to use the machines to test for signs of psychokinesis. 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:45.640 In one of his more famous experiments, Schmidt used a 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:48.520 device that omitted one red and one green light in 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:52.640 a random sequence. Participants were examined to see if they 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:55.200 were able to use their minds alone to make one 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:59.680 light up more times than the other. According to Schmidt, 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:03.640 it was found that, on average, participants were able to 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:07.480 influence results to the minute but noticeable degree of two 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:13.360 percent deviation from chance. However, Schmidt's apparent results had never 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:18.440 been replicated, a vital necessity for something to be accepted scientifically. 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:23.039 John's student wanted to see if they could replicate it. 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:27.320 Seeing no reason to prevent them, provided they approached the 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:30.920 experiment with all the rigor of any other experiment, John 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:36.080 granted them permission to do it. After all, a negative result, 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:39.560 as he expected the outcome to be, would be as valuable, 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:43.120 if not quite as earth shattering as finding a positive result. 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:48.360 So it was with some surprise that John's student claimed 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:53.400 to have replicated Schmidt's original findings. John was, in fact 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:56.719 so impressed by the results he decided to set up 0:06:56.760 --> 0:07:01.919 an entire lab dedicated to similar investigations, and so, in 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:05.680 nineteen seventy nine, in a small, cramped basement room of 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:11.160 Princeton's Engineering Building, the Princeton Engineering Anomaly's Research Lab, or 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:20.320 Pair for short, was created. Are you always taking care 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:22.840 of your family? Do you often take care of others 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:26.240 and not yourself? Now it's time to take care of yourself. 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:30.120 To make time for you. You deserve it. Tele Adoc 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:32.960 gives you access to a licensed therapist to help you 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:36.440 get back to feeling your best to feeling like yourself again. 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:40.360 With teledoc, you can speak to a licensed therapist by 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:44.040 phone or video. Therapy Appointments are available seven days a 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:47.600 week from seven am to nine pm local time. If 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:51.960 you feel overwhelmed sometimes maybe you feel stressed or anxious, 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:55.280 depressed or lonely, or you might be struggling with a 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:59.960 personal or family issue, teledoc can help. Teledoc is committed 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:03.760 to facilitating great therapeutic matches, so they make it easy 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:08.160 to change counselors if needed. For free. Teledoc therapy is 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:12.360 available through most insurance or employers. Download the app or 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:16.800 visit teledoc dot com forward slash Unexplained podcast today to 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:27.119 get started. That's teladoc dot com slash Unexplained podcast. Robert 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:30.920 John had first attended Princeton as a student, completing first 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:34.200 a degree in engineering physics in nineteen fifty one and 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:38.520 then his physics PhD in nineteen fifty five. John would 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:41.240 go on to join the faculty in nineteen sixty two. 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:45.320 It was soon after that the John established the Electric 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:49.080 Propulsion and Plasma Dynamics Laboratory, with which he oversaw a 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:54.080 number of major research programs developing aerospace propulsion systems in 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:58.520 cooperation with NASA and the US Air Force. In fact, 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:02.760 much of what John helped develop continues to power spacecraft today. 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:08.560 But what Charm was most interested in was consciousness. Though 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:12.319 well aware that studying the potential for psychokinesis was at 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:16.760 best of fringe science and at worst utter nonsense, since 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:19.360 the existence of it would break a number of accepted 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:22.400 laws of the universe, he reasoned that if such a 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:25.520 thing were to be investigated, he could at least provide 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:29.800 the best of laboratory conditions to do it. For almost 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:33.600 thirty years under the guidance of lab manager Brenda Dunne, 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:39.840 the pair laboratory investigative primarily mind machine interactions and precognitive 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:44.960 remote viewing. A typical experiment for psychokinesis would involve a 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:48.160 participant being asked to stare at a random number generator 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:51.520 and to think high or low to influence the result. 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:55.920 For remote viewing, participants might be sent to a remote 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:59.679 but distinct location and told to think about the characteristics 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:03.240 of the place, while another participant in a different location 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:06.360 was tested to see if they could pick up anything 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:16.600 about where this other person was situated. In investigating the 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:20.880 possibility of psychokinesis, the researchers would look constantly to see 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:25.520 if their results were non Gaussian. A Gaussian curve, named 0:10:25.520 --> 0:10:30.280 after mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss details the average distribution of 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:34.080 statistical information that you would ordinarily expect to find in 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:38.920 any given experiment. Anything contravening that would suggest that something 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:44.400 unusual was actively affecting the result. Often, according to Jan 0:10:44.600 --> 0:10:48.719 and others at the Pair Laboratory, their experiments did exactly that, 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:53.800 supposedly revealing that thoughts alone could physically alter the results 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:58.520 of the random event generators. Critics, however, have pointed out 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:01.720 that their results would often only deviate from the norm 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:05.680 by a few percent, sometimes as little as nought point 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:10.800 nought two percent. Such results would fall significantly below the 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:14.880 usual margin of error demanded in similar experiments in order 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:19.600 to be certain that they weren't just statistical flukes. As 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:22.280 others have pointed out, it may also be the case 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:24.920 that there is no such thing as a truly random 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:30.600 event generator. But more fundamentally, even their most seemingly impressive 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:35.400 findings failed to be replicated elsewhere, and as such none 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:39.120 of their results achieved peer review, since most considered the 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:42.319 sheer notion of the peer lab's work to be inconsistent 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:45.560 with what are widely considered to be firmly established laws 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:50.840 for most science labs. Successful negotiating of the peer review 0:11:50.920 --> 0:11:55.400 process is what maintains their funding. The Peer Lab was 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:59.920 funded by private investment. It is also worth noting that 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:03.960 despite containing the word Princeton, the Pair Lab was only 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:08.480 nominally associated with the university, who, along with most of 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:12.200 their affiliated scientists, are thought to have been deeply embarrassed 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:16.400 by the connection. In two thousand and seven, with funds 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:19.520 dwindling and their state of the art equipment no longer 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:22.880 quite what it used to be, the Peer Lab closed 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:27.320 its doors for good. Professor Jan who died in two 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:38.720 and seventeen, stood by everything they claimed to have discovered. Often, 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:42.320 when we think of the idea of psychokinetic power, we 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:46.480 imagine some kind of force being generated by our minds, 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:51.319 something that can manipulate gravitational or electromagnetic fields, perhaps that 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:54.439 can then in turn interact with the atoms or molecules 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:58.200 of the space around us. Many are seduced into the 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:01.400 prospect of it by the oft repeated myth that we 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:05.480 only use ten percent of our brains, the implication being 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:08.199 that if only we could exploit the other ninety percent, 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:13.320 who knows what powers we might uncover In reality, As 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:17.320 neurologist Barry Gordon of John Hopkins School of Medicine pointed 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:21.439 out in Scientific American we in fact use virtually every 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:26.040 part of our brain almost all the time, and yet 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:28.720 there is little doubt that there is much about the 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:32.160 function of the brain that isn't known, let alone the 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:35.560 workings of the quantum mechanical processes that underpin it on 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:39.800 a subatomic level. And though we might not ordinarily have 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:43.400 the ability to manipulate spaces around us with thoughts alone, 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:48.000 thanks to a number of recent developments in neurotechnology, such 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:53.400 a thing may well one day be available to all. Already, 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:58.480 Companies such as Nurable and Elon Musk's neurolink are developing 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:02.240 ways to measure patterns of electrical brain activity in order 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:06.679 to enact physical actions with thought alone, and Facebook are 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:10.000 currently developing a system that detects chemical changes in the 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:12.360 brain in the hope that it might one day be 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:17.079 used to convert our thoughts into type. Such developments are 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:20.920 likely only to become more sophisticated and more integrated into 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:24.680 our bodies. It might not be exactly what we had 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:29.720 in mind, but one way or another, psychokinesis could be 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:37.800 coming to us all. If you enjoy listening to Unexplained 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:40.600 and would like to help supporters, You can now go 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:46.080 to Unexplained podcast dot com Forward Slash Support. All donations, 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:51.520 no matter how large or small, are massively appreciated. All 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:55.280 elements have Unexplained are produced by me, Richard McClain Smith. 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:59.280 Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes and feel 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:02.200 free to get touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:05.400 the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:09.040 an explanation of your own you'd like to share. You 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:13.080 can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com, or 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:18.120 Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com. 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:31.160 Forward Slash Unexplained. Now it's time to take care of yourself. 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:35.320 To make time for you. Teledoc gives you access to 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:38.560 a licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:42.320 your best. Speak to a licensed therapist by phone or 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:46.280 video anytime between seven am to nine pm local time, 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:50.600 seven days a week. Teledoc Therapy is available through most 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:55.320 insurance or employers. Download the app or visit telldoc dot com, 0:15:55.480 --> 0:16:00.160 Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast Today to get started. That's t 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:04.520 e l a d oc dot com. Slash Unexplained Podcast