Observations placeholder
North, Stephen – A spring exposed to Stephen North becomes permanently deformed
Identifier
026945
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
THE METAL-BENDERS” by PROFESSOR JOHN B. HASTED
It is of course important to verify by other experiments that the signals do not arise from paranormal action on the electrical equipment or on the pen of the chart-recorder, or simply from electric mains or electromagnetic artefacts coupled inductively to the battery-operated equipment.
Two subsidiary experimental programmes were mounted for this purpose.
In the first a galvanometer mirror was mounted on a very thin spring steel strip, with strain gauge attached. One end of the spring was attached to a stable horizontal surface under a glass dome, and an optical beam from a helium-neon laser was passed through the dome and was reflected through it again from the mirror and onto a scale. The overall optical path was about 6 m. Small movements of the light spot were seen to synchronise with strain gauge signals, and some ringing was observed, due to the long-period mechanical resonance in the system.
One spring exposed to Stephen North became permanently deformed. This is the experiment which seems in retrospect to have been a miniature of the Bealings Bells situation (chapter 1).
In the second type of experiment a dummy strain gauge is included with real strain gauges on a metal strip. Signals are observed on the real strain gauge chart-record throughout a session, but signals are not recorded from the dummy gauge. Sometimes a stable resistor mounted on or near the metal is used as a dummy strain gauge. Sometimes a resistive thermal sensor (Micro-Measurements type STG 50D) of 70 Ohms resistance is connected with compensation in one channel of the electronics. In physical appearance the thermal sensor is similar to the resistive strain gauge (Micro-Measurements type EA09 125 BT 120), but its resistance is insensitive to strain although highly sensitive to temperature.
Sudden temperature changes are unknown to us in paranormal metal-bending sessions, although temperature drifts usually occur, arising from convection currents. Paranormal strain signals on the other hand are sudden, in that they are sharp-fronted pulses; the measured durations are now known to be, on occasion, less than a millisecond.