The region I live in has several local elk herds. For anyone not familiar think of a deer except as big as a cow, or bigger.

Anyway that is a big creature to run into on the highway so local wildlife officials have put radio collars on members of each herd and there are signs on the highway that detect the radio signals and activate flashing warning lights to alert drivers when the herds are in the area. I have noticed with notable frequency that one of these signs begins flashing as I drive past. Just the one, not any of the others, no matter the time of day or the weather, and I make a point of checking my rear view mirror to see if it stops when I am an equal distance past. Usually it does. It does not always happen, but it does happen enough to make me wonder if my wife had a tracking device implanted in my neck while I was sleeping.

Actually I suspected it has something to do with my cell phone, but I am not the only one.  Mysterious Universe has reported on others with similar phenomena experiences.

Let’s say there’s a row of street lamps you pass every day while going to and from work. They are, being typical, modern street lamps, of the low-pressure sodium-vapor variety, emitting a red glow at start up and, once they’re operating fully, a steady monochrome yellow. The lamps automatically switch on at sundown, via the activation of a light-sensitive cell, or photocell. The cell is triggered again when sunlight returns at dawn, switching the lamps off. Generally, rather than each lamp having its own photocell, a single photocell is used to control a whole group of street lamps.

You’re returning home from work on what has so far been a completely typical evening, the street lamps illuminating your way as you stroll down the footpath. No one else is around. Oddly, the street lamp nearest you suddenly blinks out, turning on again as soon as you’ve passed it. A level-headed person, you attribute the event to coincidence and think no more of it. Three evenings later, however, while passing the same row of lamps, the phenomenon occurs again. On this occasion, three successive lamps are affected, each one blinking out as you approach, only to suddenly blink on again the moment you step away.

Known as street lamp Interference (SLI), experiences of this nature are common, with people in many different parts of the world claiming “that they involuntarily, and usually spontaneously, cause street lamps to go out. Generally the effect is intermittent, infrequent and without an immediately discernable sequence of cause and effect.”¹

These are the words of the British paranormal scholar Hilary Evans, who, prior to his death in 2011, was the foremost authority on SLI.

Richard M, a professional magician in his thirties who lives in London, England, recalls the moment he became aware of his SLI ability. A teenager at the time, he was taking his dog for a walk when he noticed “that lights were going out when we walked under them and then flickering back on when we had passed.” He continues: “It didn’t frighten me but I became conscious of it. I remember walking under them trying to make them go out but I couldn’t. The moment I stopped willing it to happen, it would start again – like someone catching me out. I sort of anticipated it for a while and didn’t really tell anyone about it. A few years ago, I noticed it happening again – the first time for a long time. Again, I was with my dog and this time we turned out a number of lights in a car park across the road. I told a close friend when I got home and he came out to watch from the other side of the road. As we walked around the park, they all went out as we passed under them, and then came back on when we had moved away… I seem to recall that both periods coincided with stress, some of it quite intense.”

Some SLIders say they affect only street lamps, other say their ability extends to a whole range of electrical devices, from battery-operated wrist watches to railroad crossings to aircraft navigation equipment. Diana B, an office worker from Texas, USA, belongs to the latter category. Not only do street lamps dim and go out when she approaches them at night, sometimes they also turn on when she approaches them during the day. Regular light bulbs and fluorescent lights also behave oddly in her presence, such as when she goes to a restaurant or enters the home of a friend. There have been occasions, too, when automatic garage doors have suddenly gone haywire on her, opening and closing quickly “in a crazy way.”

Human magnetic field

Magnetoception is a sense which allows an animal to detect a magnetic field to perceive direction, altitude or location. This sense has been proposed to explain animal navigation in vertebrates and insects, and as a method for animals to develop regional maps. For the purpose of navigation, magnetoception deals with the detection of the Earth’s magnetic field.

Magnetoception has been observed in bacteria. It has also been commonly hypothesized in birds, where sensing of the Earth’s magnetic field may be important to the navigational abilities during migration; insects (including fruit flies and honeybees); and other animals such as turtles, lobsters, sharks and stingrays.

Magnetic bones have been found in the human nose, specifically the sphenoidal/ethmoid sinuses. Beginning in the late 1970s, the group of Robin Baker at the University of Manchester began to conduct experiments that purported to exhibit magnetoception in humans: people were disoriented and then asked about certain directions; their answers were more accurate if there was no magnet attached to their head. Other scientists have maintained they could not reproduce these results. A 2007 study found some other evidence for human magnetoception has been put forward: low-frequency magnetic fields can produce an evoked response in the brains of human subjects.

I am sure many of you have heard the stories of people who have an unusually strong magnetic field. There are people who cannot wear an analog watch without it becoming magnetized and stopping as soon as they put it on, or touch a computer without it going haywire.

Biomagnetism is the phenomenon of magnetic fields produced by living organisms

The origin of the word biomagnetism is unclear, but seems to have appeared several hundred years ago, linked to the expression “animal magnetism.” The present scientific definition took form in the 1970s, when an increasing number of researchers began to measure the magnetic fields produced by the human body. The first valid measurement was actually made in 1963, but the field began to expand only after a low-noise technique was developed in 1970. Today the community of bio-magnetic researchers does not have a formal organization, but international conferences are held every two years, with about 600 attendees. Most conference activity centers around the MEG (magnetoencephalogram), the measurement of the magnetic field of the brain.

Some people even claim to have a magnetic field that allows them to attract heavy objects. James Randi has something else to say about it.

While these people are simply using a trick of friction on their bodies (notice that this guy and all others who stick objects to their bodies lean back) it is still quite common for people to complain that they cannot wear a watch, or use other electronic equipment.
Mark Hall’s Blog lists several ladies from Jolly olde England who report extreme static discharges from their bodies.

♦ Sally Wallbank of Lancashire in the UK, can power a light bulb with her hands.

♦ Two sisters in the UK glow and discharge lightening the size and shape of tennis balls whenever they sit together. They also enjoy shooting their younger sister.

♦ Pauline Shaw in London has destroyed every appliance in her house – but her specialty is light-bulbs. Whenever she walks beneath one – be it on or off – it instantly explodes.

♦By 1984, Jacqueline had wrecked more than twenty-four vacuum cleaners and local service-men were refusing to visit her home.

Of course we are only taking Mark’s word for this as I am unable to find any corroboration of any of these stories, and the same is true for stories of people who stop watches and affect electronic gadgets. Evidence seems purely anecdotal. In this day of YouTube and every person with some strange, or not so strange, ability posting videos of themselves I have not found a single video of anyone demonstrating any of these phenomena.

Juliet Lapidos of Slate Magazine has also delved into the mystery and come to the conclusion that these stories are just that, stories. There may be circumstance under which people become magnetized for a finite period of time, but no human magnets out there.

I wrote an “Explainer” column on the subject of human magnetization. A person could never become permanently magnetized, I concluded. But if you’re struck by lightning or otherwise shocked, you can act like a weak electromagnet for as long as the current flows. Along with some disdainful and disappointed responses (“[T]here has to be something just a little more intriguing than this?”), I received a barrage of e-mails from readers insisting they were walking magnets.

Doubtful of my own conclusions, I did some follow-up work. I e-mailed a Harvard physicist, who agreed that permanent magnetization is impossible; I called watch manufacturers and repairmen who assured me that a person’s body chemistry could never interfere with clockwork. John Safranek of the BestFix Watch Company recalled a customer who claimed that battery-operated watches stopped working as soon as she put them on. He gave her a watch in perfect condition, asked her to try it out, and wasn’t too surprised to find that it kept on ticking. I also talked with Kelly Robinson, an electrical engineer based in Rochester, N.Y., who’d met Magneto Man. Robinson said the kid probably shuffled his feet a lot and generated a bit more static than most.

As to SLIders, here is one self professed SLIder demonstrating his ability.

I can’t help but notice he focuses on lights attached to buildings, lights which potentially have a switch rather than a street light which is definitely automatic.

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