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'They're here': The mechanism of poltergeist activity

00:01 01 April 2008

NewScientist.com news service, Zeeya Merali

The sight of small blonde girls watching television is guaranteed to strike fear into the heart of anyone who has watched the movie Poltergeist.

We're right to be terrified, say physicists. Children generate poltergeist activity by channelling energy into the quantum mechanical vacuum.

Pierro Brovetto, whose last known address was the Instituto Fisica Superiore, in Cagliari, Italy and his colleague Vera Maxia wanted to explain the origin of poltergeist phenomena, characterised by objects flying around the room "of their own accord".

The researchers note that poltergeist encounters have been reported around the world and across different cultures, but tend to have one thing in common.

"Poltergeist disturbances often occur in the neighbourhood of a pubescent child or a young woman," the authors note in their paper.

So Brovetto and Maxia have come up with a mechanism to explain just how these women and children create such havoc. Like so many problems that arise in adolescence, puberty gets the blame.

"Puberty is a modification of the child body which involves various organs, chiefly the brain," they state.

Teenage telekinesis
Brovetto and Maxia hypothesise that the changes in the brain that occur at puberty involve fluctuations in electron activity that, in rare cases, can create disturbances up to a few metres around the outside of the brain.

These disturbances would be similar in character to the quantum mechanical fluctuations that physicists believe occur in the vacuum, in which "virtual" particle and antiparticle pairs pop up for a fleeting moment, before they annihilate each other and disappear again.

Brovetto and Maxia believe that the extra fluctuations triggered by the pubescent brain would substantially enhance the presence of the virtual particles surrounding the person. This could slowly increase the pressure of air around them, moving objects and even sending them hurtling across the room.

The poltergeist paper will appear in the journal Neuroquantology.

We contacted Brian Josephson, a Nobel laureate physicist who is on the editorial board of Neuroquantology.

"This looks distinctly flaky to me," Josephson commented.

By Polemos

Tue Apr 01 13:52:28 BST 2008

Total cerebral volume peaks on average at 14.5 years in males and 11.5 years in females (Giedd et al., 1999).

After these ages, the cerebrum shrinks, while the body keeps growing. The body consumes much spiritual energy in the form of trophic impulses - that is why the amount of free spiritual energy in adults is lower and adults are less capable of psychokinesis.

By Shamus Shea

Tue Apr 01 00:59:33 BST 2008

This certainly goes a long way to explain the pressure I feel when I'm one or two metres away from a pubescent female. Thanks to Ilya Prigogine's exploration of complex quantum systems, I now know more about the phenomenon of nonequilibrium thermodynamics.

By Richard Mcconchie

Tue Apr 01 04:00:27 BST 2008

I've read New Scientist for over 30 years now. Its standards have declined considerably. It used to cover hard science - now it's a mishmash of leftist politics, idiot speculation (Boltzmann Brains, anybody) and this sort of tosh. It's not an April Fool's joke (Google the authors). For this type of information I buy Fortean Times.

For shame.

By Mark Houston

Tue Apr 01 06:13:04 BST 2008

Yes, I can see substance in the theory. As someone who experimented with, the psychic experience, in the 1980s, as a young man, I truly did experience phenomena, which was out of the real world. As a scientist, not a theosophist, there has to be an answer to psychic phenomena, and this article, well was just fascinating. At the age of 23, I could trigger, an effect of the human aura, producing bursts of light up to 20 feet beyond my body. At the time, I was just fascinated. All my friends thought I was just odd. Lets be honest. What exactly is normal.
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To Experience Is To Believe
By Zarquon

Tue Apr 01 08:35:52 BST 2008

I've seen phenomena like this in action too. The light or lightning (whatever it was) emerged between a person sitting behind a desk and the ceiling near electrical wires, tripping circuit breakers. Later, electricians found no fault in the wiring, no signs of short circuit or burned spots.The person was completely unaware of it, except of hearing a loud bang.

Also, no nearby lightning storms were recorded around that time.

Well, there were times when scientists laughed at ball ligntning phenomena too. Not anymore, AFIK.

Making fun of sci-fi is turned out not so funny anymore as several things from old sci-fi's are reality now. Makes me wonder if our minds explore the reality or does our mind somehow shape the reality, instead.

By Ali Raheem

Tue Apr 01 00:09:59 BST 2008
I was gob smacked until I noticed the date.