Human Knowledge Must Always be Imperfect

A Scientific Explanation of the Paranormal

If there is a scientific reason to the things we cannot explain. what is it? From the upper echelons of government. top academia and the respected scientific community right down to the myriad of spiritual groups, conspiracy-theorists and the media. the interest in finding ways and means to explain the unexplained has become heightened and extremely diverse. Though the media has portrayed the paranormal as truly strange phenomena that science may never explain, there are many scientific theories and experiments that do make sense of what is believable - and what is not.

In a quiet room, senior scientist Russell Targ got off the phone, wrote on a slip of paper and passed it on to Ingo Swann, artist, psychic and subject of a research project. On the paper was written '49°20'5, 70014T.

Swann looked at the numbers, closed his eyes and after awhile, said: "My initial response is that it's an island...Terrain seems rocky...! see some buildings rather mathematically laid out. One of them is orange. There is something like a radar antenna, a round disk. Two white cylindrical tanks, quite large. To the north-west, a small airstrip..." As he talked, Swann began to draw an island, annotating the coastline as he went and described natural and man-made features. By the time he was finished, Swann had given a good description of Kerguelen, a small French-administered island in the Southern Indian Ocean. (Russell Targ and Harold E Puthoff, MindReach, Delacourt Press 1977).

Unbelievable? Well, what you've just read is a paranormal experiment called 'remote viewing'. Being one of the more flamboyant episodes in the controversial science known as parapsychology, remote viewing was recently attempted by a questionable business outfit, called Psi Tech, to locate biological and chemical weapon depots in a third-world country. Though many dismissed the company as a crackpot, it's interesting to note that most of the principal employees of Psi Tech are high-ranking ex-military professionals with high-level security clearances.

Whether it's Ouija boards, ghosts or unidentified flying objects (UFOs), the paranormal has become an intriguing topic across all channels, because it transcends race, time, space and cultures to appear in guises and forms that are nearly as familiar as our superstitious beliefs. However, despite the fiery intensity and devotion of paranormal supporters (X-philes and Elvis-worshippers inclusive), scientists have their own 'versions' that explain the phenomena. Call it Paranormal Science, String Theory or Multi-dimensionalism, scientific explanations of the paranormal sometimes seem plausible and could explain the next step towards understanding ourselves.

The Quantum Theories that
Make Scientific Sense

Multi-dimensionalism
One very interesting theory that can be easily understood is the concept of multi-dimensionalism. According to this theory, human knowledge is limited to the phrase "I think, therefore I am". Quantum theory (in particular, the uncertainty principle) confirms that human knowledge must always be imperfect. This means that not only is our present scientific knowledge incomplete (because we don't know everything), but that we're also incapable of ever fully understanding the universe.

However, there are several reasons to suppose that life is more than a complex arrangement of physical matter brought about by chance (this would have been Frankenstein, not us). The first reason is that we want to survive as a species (a pure physical entity wouldn't really care). The second reason is that we have the freedom of will - to choose, to think, to speak. The third reason, is that throughout history, we have always felt a need to recognise the existence of supernatural forces through religion and mysterious phenomena. Some say this need arises from our fear of death, so we see life as containing something more than just a complicated configuration of fundamental particles. The 'more' is what some would call the 'soul' and others call the 'mind'.

According to some theorists,
he physical Universe of everyday
reality consists of four dimensions:
space, time, matter and energy.

According to some theorists, the physical universe of everyday reality consists of four dimensions: space, time, matter and energy. It is believed that the mind doesn't conform to the Laws of any of these four dimensions; thus it's possible that the mind belongs to a fifth dimension. Life, then, is defined as an interaction between the mind and the other four dimensions, which takes place starting from birth and ending with physical death. Based on this, paranormal events are dimensional experiences. Clairvoyance (seeing into the future) is a cause in space and time producing an effect in the mind dimension, psychokinesis (moving objects from a distance) is a cause in the mind dimension producing an effect in space and time, and telepathy (communicating from afar), is an event in the mind dimension. The theory also suggests that ghosts, hauntings and psychometry (the ability to read an object's history by handling it), are but symbols of the mind dimension, which then recalls memories of what has been associated with that place or object. When the body dies, the mind remains in the mind dimension but the physical body stays in the physical universe. However, there is very little in this theory to explain in a scientific manner, how exactly the mind dimension interacts with the physical universe, which brings us to the unique but highly complex String Theory.

String Theory

String theory, being much more complicated, is called a 'theory of everything'. It attempts to give a mathematical picture relating all of the familiar physical forces within our universe, in the same way Newton's equations were derived from Einstein's and Maxwell's. It presents a mathematical picture of the relationships between forces, time and space. Though quantum mechanics explains what goes on at the atomic level, it is string theory that examines events at a sub-atomic level and ties them with those on a cosmic scale to explain the paranormal.

Several string theorists assert that although mainstream science cannot explain paranormal phenomena at the current moment, it doesn't mean that science should be dismissed right there and then. They believe that string theory is one of the more plausible theories of science that could explain the paranormal, and possibly open up unthinkable avenues for humankind such as interstellar travel.

From the outset, string theory views all particles as vibrating packets of energy - a one-dimensional point vibrating in a ten-dimensional space, whether at the sub-atomic or at a cosmic level. Before we touch on why this is so, let us first understand why the universe is tendimensional. According to the theory, the universe was ten-dimensional before the controversial but scientifically-approved Big Bang. The explosion caused an unstable foundation that fractured the universe into our current four dimensions and a six-dimensional universe that collapsed into a singularity. The six dimensions are believed to continue to exist, but they can never be visited as such.
Anyway, the rotation of the strings at a sub-atomic level is what gives rise to electromagnetism at the atomic level. Similar to the strings on a guitar or the pipes on a harpsichord, the vibrations can only occur at certain frequencies integers and half-integers (a fundamental tone and its harmonics). The strings can only vibrate at their fundamental frequencies and the harmonics cause discreet levels to exist. A transition from one level to another can only be associated with a finite step. This is similar in concept to the idea that photons (or packets of radiant energy) will be absorbed or emitted when an electron jumps from one level to another. When such a transition occurs, the electron stops vibrating within our universe and temporarily phases out of our existence. This helps explain some of the paranormal phenomenon in great detail.

Though quantum mechanics
explains what goes on at the
atomic level, it is string theory
that examines events at a sub-atomic
level and ties them with those on
a cosmic scale to explain the
paranormal.

Take UFOs for instance, it is easy to accept the fact that huge distances between stars make travelling between them impractical using conventional space flight (it takes 20 years to leave our own solar system). There were accounts and supposed footage of an antigravity craft tested at "Area 51" in Nevada - the craft looks like a flying bedstead-type machine. The footage showed strange shimmering optical effects around the areas of the propulsion units, which could mean something about the vibrating energy based on string theory.

Explaining the Paranormal
with Science

Ghosts and Spirits
Scientists agree that we exist in a perceived 'three dimension - plus time' universe. This means that we have a representation, an existence of sorts, in these higher dimensions. Everything in our universe has expressions and inter relationships on these higher dimensions. This also means that events that happened in the past or future from our perspective exist at these times only in our dimension, while existing either 'at all times' or 'without time' in other dimensions. Scientists believe that ghosts could be echoes of past or future events held in a higher dimension but resonating within our own universe. Actions, thoughts and emotions could have a continuity of their own on one dimension and cast an echo back into ours.

Another study suggests that poltergeist experiences (a ghost or spirit supposedly makes its presence known by making noises or throwing things) could be a manifestation of mental disturbances from people. T. Cochran, who wrote the book, The Real Ghost Busters (Omni, 1988), studied a poltergeist experience of the' Herrmann family in Seaford, New York, where they heard loud, explosive sounds and objects that were mysteriously moved or broken. Cochran suspected that individuals experiencing rage or hostility might be more susceptible to poltergeist activities than others. This is an example that there might indeed be a correlation between one's personality (feelings or thoughts) and paranormal behaviour.

Aliens and UFOs
In 1995, Fox Television featured an hourlong special on what was termed an 'Alien Autopsy' documentary. The actual video was 17 minutes long but only 13.5 minutes were aired in broken sections. The rest of the time was filled with experts' testimony on the authenticity of the film. When skeptic filmmakers and scientists spoke, they were given very little time to comment and were quickly countered. It was later discovered that the video was a fraud because basic observations of the video showed that the doctor in the film held his dissection scissors wrongly and that the autopsy was done too quickly. Beyond just notes on a single piece of paper, care was not taken to properly document the procedure. Yet, throughout the 13.5-minute long feature, audiences were glued to their televisions, believing the entire thing, until truth of the fraud came out. Unlike The X-Files, which fans admit is purely fiction, pseudodocumentaries are often perceived as non-fiction. The media's portrayal of the paranormal and its bias against hard, factual scientific delivery has affected the perceptions of the world population in more ways than one. Of course, the greatest media sensationalism in terms of paranormal coverage is the reporting of aliens and UFOs.

According to Matt Nisbet:, who conducted and reported a survey published in the Skeptical Enquirer (1998), the percentage of the population believing paranormal claims has increased significantly over the last two decades. Between the years 1976 and 1997, belief in spiritualism went up 40 per cent, faith healing up 35 per cent:, astrology up 20 per cent:, UFOs up six per cent, reincarnation up 16 per cent and fortune-telling soared 10 per cent (margin of error was +/- 3 to 4 per cent).

It has been reported that close to ten million UFO landings must have taken place, based on the percentage of abduction reports gathered so far. Communion author Whitley Strieber claims to have received 250,000 letters describing 'fourth-kind' encounters with 'visitors' in his 1987 bestseller.

Many scientists believe that UFO abduction experiences are closely linked with either Near-Death Encounters (NDE) or a sub-category called Frightening Near-Death Encounters (FNDE). While some professors believe that aliens do exist ("and that they've conquered us and are living among us"), others believe that a sinister alliance exists between the aliens and the US military. Some even claim that the military is fabricating an entire "UFO alien mythology" as a cover-up for a highly secretive experiment that has to do with places like the aforementioned 'Area 51', abductions and animal mutilations.

Non-documented evidence aside, some questions that make the idea of alien abduction sound disbelieving are: 'Why do they need to abduct so many people when they must have lots of our genetic material by now?', 'Why have they been visiting us for so long?' and 'If so many of their crafts crashed, why do they always seem to crash in a desert in New Mexico (and not lake Toba or Beijing)? Until an actual UFO is shown and publicly demonstrated to the world for examination and experimentation, their existence remains questionable.

Extrasensory Perception (ESP)
Based on R.S. Broughton's 1991 book called Parapsychology: A Controversial Science, ESP is basically the ability to receive information without using the ordinary senses of the body or local interference. It includes behaviours like telepathy and clairvoyance. Scientists have often claimed ESP as an act of mere coincidence. One British statistician, Christopher Scott, went on to prove this by calculating how often death dreams (where a person dreams of his own death) come true. He assumes that each person has only one death dream in his lifetime and works out how often that should coincide with the death of the person. After studying how many people die each night, even in a small country like England, Christopher concluded that this startling coincidence will happen once every two weeks. Now each occurrence is pure chance, but people will almost certainly believe this is psychic - because they still want to believe.

Susan Blackmore, senior lecturer in psychology at the University of the West of England, attests that the reason why so many of us believe in the paranormal is because we are implicitly saying that it could not have been chance. "Of all the chance events that happen in our lives, we are likely to remember the strange coincidences and forget the meaningless ones. So the strange ones appear to happen more often than they really do. We start to look for an explanation, cannot find one, and so we call it paranormal. But actually, no explanation was ever required. The perfectly normal processes of chance and memory led us astray:' she says.

Her analysis extended to out-of-body experiences and the myth that people close to death fly through a dark tunnel to emerge into 'the light'. She feels that despite their differences from simpler subjects like telepathy, psychokinesis and precognition, these two are still not necessarily paranormal.

"To understand out-of-body experiences means understanding our normal way of seeing the world," she says. "Normally, we imagine that we are ourselves inside our heads looking out. In fact this is a mental construction. There is no little person in there. Our brains are constructing a model of the world from a viewpoint behind the eyes. The question then: why should I suddenly seem to see the world from somewhere on the ceiling instead, like from a bird's eye view?" Susan's analysis holds some truth in that many people see themselves through a bird's eye view to ease the brain from stressfully constructing things from an eye-level perspective. Recent experiments showed that people who have out-of-body experiences have better spatial imagery skills, better viewpointswitching abilities and are more likely to see themselves in their dreams.

As for near-death experiences involving dark tunnels leading to the light. Susan feels that the brain's visual system has far more nerve cells devoted to the centre of our visual field rather than the edges. When the brain starts to die (or falls into a state such as a coma), the first cells to be affected are the inhibitory ones, which damp down the activity of other cells. This means that there will be lots of activity in the centre and less towards the edges. The result would generate a bright light in the centre that gets bigger and bigger as the activity increases, in other words, light at the end of a tunnel.

Other psychologist-mentalists believe that ESP is no coincidence and that there is a connection, on a scientific level, between a person's personality and an ESP experience. For years researchers have sought to prove that paranormal belief is linked to certain personality characteristics such as dogmatism, locus of control and sensation seeking. In their 1991 book, A Study of Paranormal Belief, Magical Ideation as an Index of Schizotypy and Cognitive Style, L.M. Williams and H.J. Irwin wrote that there's a possibility that people could be affected by religious teachings, circumstances or desires, that may cause them to experience paranormal behaviours (such as ESP).

Another researcher, J. Glicksohn, went a step further to prove that there is in fact a correlation between paranormal beliefs and certain personality traits or performances.

Glicksohn formed two groups: one believing in the possibility of ESP and one of disbelievers. According to Glicksohn's study, belief in the possibility of ESP affected the ability to exercise it. This type of behaviour, in which people who believe in paranormal events perform better than individuals who don't. is known as the 'Shynes Effect', as coined by J. Randi in The Humanist in 1984. According to Randi, the Shynes Effect states that psychic events tend not to happen when they are closely observed, and skepticism and negativity interfere with the obtaining of positive psychic results. Glicksohn also discovered two personality traits that directly support the paranormal: experience seeking and absorption. This means that a person's belief in the paranormal is drawn to ideas that go beyond scientific explanation. As V.K. Kumar, R.J. Pekala and J. Cummins summed it in their 1993 book on Sensation Seeking, Drug Use and Reported Paranormal Beliefs and Experience - people would rather believe in something exciting and mysterious than accept "normative belief".

The Bermuda Triangle and The Philadelphia Experiment
One of the most unbelievable scientific experiments frequently mentioned among paranormal enthusiasts is the philadelphia Experiment (or Project Rainbow), that allegedly happened in the fall of 1943. A US Navy destroyer by the name of USS Eldridge (or USS Ethridge ), was made invisible and teleported from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Norfolk, Virginia. Though no documents of any kind were found, the ship's war diary charted Eldridge's course beginning in New York, then onto Bermuda and finally to Norfolk. During this time frame, it was never in Philadelphia.

Anyway, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) has stated that force fields to make a ship and her crew invisible do not conform to known physical laws. The ONR also claimed that the application of Dr. Albert Einstein's Unified Field Theory, by Dr. Fra nklin Reno, was never completed (many point to this as a cover-up of this secret weapon development). However, some researchers have concluded that 'degaussing' has a connection with making an object 'invisible'. In degaussing, a series of electrical cables is installed around the circumference of a ship's hull, running from bow to stern on both sides. A measured electrical current is passed through these cables to cancel out the ship's magnetic field. Degaussing equipment was installed on the hull of Navy ships during the war and could be turned on whenever the ship was in waters that contained magnetic mines. According to researchers, degaussing, when correctly done, could make a ship 'invisible' to the sensors of magnetic mines, but visible to the human eye, radar and underwater listening devices. Paranormal enthusiasts, on the other hand, believe it has something to do with the Bermuda Triangle...

Famous and credible UFO researcher, Jacques F. Vallee, finally uncovered the real truth behind the Philadelphia Experiment (there are still some people who want to discount him). In a 1994 article he wrote for the Journal of Scientific Exploration entitled "Anatomy of a Hoax: The Philadelphia Experiment 50 Years Later", Vallee discovered that the entire story was the insane crusade of one man – Carl Allen, a somewhat brilliant but very disturbed human being. Apparently, Allen claimed he witnessed the disappearance of a ship, seeing some Eldridge crew members disappear into thin air. Allen was proven to have fabricated the entire story because Edward Dudgeon, a surviving crew member of the U.S.S. Engstrom, reportedly told Vallee that the ship did leave the port but not disappear. The night he stepped out of a bar at 11pm, Dudgeon said that the Eldridge wasn't at the harbour. Many felt that this was odd and that it would be impossible for the ship to traverse the coastline, get to Norfolk and return in just six hours. A merchant ship would take two days to do so. It was later found out that the ship had used a special inland channel - the Chesapeake-Delaware Canal - to sail from Philadelphia to Norfolk and back.
Sometimes science does not need to explain the paranormal. Simple logic may put an urban legend to rest. In a world where frontiers are conquered and mysteries become dull and boring, it is interesting to learn of unexplored realms. Science is driven by a fascination with the unexplained, but the moment an answer is reached, the general public loses interest. It becomes old news. It is thus true that when science cannot answer a question, the human need for the spiritual is fulfilled. Though it can hurt when the spiritual (say, the dog that can talk) is shot down by science (no there's a robot-recorder in its larynx), the media almost always wants to believe in it and give people stories of wonder and hope.