Observations placeholder

Experiments in mental suggestion – Professor L L Vasiliev

The Soviet biologist Fabri has studied …. night butterflies for a period of six years. On summer evenings a non-fertilised female was placed in a wire cage out on a balcony of a bungalow standing in a wood 5 km distant from two large villages. In 30 minutes or less males began to fly to her.

In three evenings 64 males of this butterfly, rare in our country, were caught. They were marked with paint and carried away 6 to 8 km from the house, and set free. Some of the males returned. Flying slowly, which is characteristic for this species of butterfly, they covered the distance in 40 to 45 minutes.

To accomplish this the males had to select the shortest direct path and to work their wing muscles hard in order to reach the female so quickly. Lt would appear that the female called the male in some unknown manner.

The males felt the call in this distant region, sometimes when there was no wind at all, and sometimes when the wind blew in the opposite direction to the smell (or "current" to use the author's expression) emanating from the female.

It was established that it was the antenna of the male that were the sense organs for perceiving the call by the "calling sender." Males whose antennae had been cut off did not perceive the call of the female, and did not fly towards her (this was established long ago by L. Harl and acknowledged by Fabri).