Science experiment picks up telepathic ‘signals’

EVIDENCE that people can communicate with each other using thought transference has emerged from ground-breaking research in Scotland, it was claimed last night.

Experts at Edinburgh University have carried out a unique series of strictly controlled experiments to test whether telepathy is really possible.

The experiments are ongoing, but an interim report to be presented this week at an international convention in France suggests the psychic phenomenon exists.

Dr Paul Stevens, who has been conducting the experiments at the university’s world-famous parapsychology unit, said: "Our research is not yet complete, but we may have found a significant pattern which we hope will demonstrate psychic ability and the underlying mechanisms responsible for it."

His research involves splitting "emotionally close" couples - whether they be lovers, friends, or relatives - into groups of "senders" and "receivers".

The sender watches video clips selected at random from a library of 100 and is instructed to try to telepathically "transmit" this information to the receiver, who sits in a sound-proofed room 25 metres away.

The receiver is then asked to speak in a stream of consciousness, saying the first thing that comes into his or her head.

Stevens, who is one of only six parapsychologists in the world who has a background in physics, says that his subjects do in fact talk about things that are relevant to what their partners are seeing on screen.

Moreover, skin conductance tests, similar to those used in lie detection, reveal that when they refer to "relevant themes" they become simultaneously aroused.

"It looks as though the sender is sending out some kind of ‘signal’ to the receiver," said Stevens, who believes electro-magnetic fields are responsible for the signal which he is measuring using a magnetometer.