BERN: Scientists have created an invisible objective at a laboratory in Switzerland.
The invisible, creepy presence reported by so many people over the centuries is just a set of mixed-up signals in the brain. The sensation was re-created by researchers using a robot to interfere with the sensory signals in the brains of blindfolded volunteers.
Two volunteers were so unnerved by the feeling of being surrounded by ghosts, they asked for the experiment to stop. They counted up to four phantoms positioned where no-one was standing – and touching their backs with invisible fingers.
The illusion came from a programmed delay between the brain’s processing of the body’s movements and the body’s position in space. The interference in the brain was sufficient to make the volunteers believe the signals were no longer from their own bodies – but from someone else. The findings appear to explain the common experience people have of feeling an unseen presence, even a guardian angel, demon or apparition stalking their movements.
These are frequently reported by people in extreme physical or emotional situations, such as mountaineers and explorers, or those grieving for a lost loved one. They are also associated with medical conditions that affect the brain, including epilepsy, migraine, schizophrenia and cancer.
Professor Olaf Blanke, who led a team at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, says the research has given up the ghost to science. Two of the 12 healthy participants were so disturbed by the experience that they asked the scientists to halt the experiment, the results of which appear in the journal Current Biology.
