The Scole Experiments. These were a set of experiments that made scientific inquiry on the proverbial question: Is there life after death?

In 1993, psychic researchers conducted a set of experiments in the Norfolk village of Scole. These experiments lasted for about five years.  What the researchers observed during this five-year testing period has since been a controversial subject with many scientists and skeptics.

Many skeptics claim that non-scientific tests were conducted, therefore yielding non-scientific analysis and data. with psychic mediums being in total control of the tests, it’s hard to argue with that claim.

But…there were those who claimed to have witnessed extraordinary things with their own eyes. Things that could not have been hoaxed or so easily dismissed.
According to the Scole Experiments website:

“The investigators… encountered evidence favouring the hypothesis of intelligent forces… able to influence material objects, and to convey associated meaningful messages, both visual and aural”

Skeptoid has a good article on the weak points of the Scole Experiments:

Unfortunately, the Scole Experiment was tainted by profound investigative failings. In short, the investigators imposed little or no controls or restrictions upon the mediums, and at the same time, agreed to all of the restrictions imposed by the mediums. The mediums were in control of the seances, not the investigators. What the Scole Report authors describe as a scientific investigation of the phenomena, was in fact (by any reasonable interpretation of the scientific method) hampered by a set of rules which explicitly prevented any scientific investigation of the phenomena.

The primary control offered by the mediums was their use of luminous wristbands, to show the sitters that their hands were not moving about during the seances. I consulted with Mark Edward, a friend in Los Angeles who gives mentalism and seance performances professionally. He knows all the tricks, and luminous wristbands are, apparently, one of the tricks. There are any number of ways that a medium can get into and out of luminous wristbands during a seance. The wristbands used at Scole were made and provided by the mediums themselves, and were never subjected to testing, which is a gross dereliction of control by the investigators. Without having been at the Scole Experiment in person, Mark couldn’t speculate on what those mediums may have done or how they may have done it. Suffice it to say that professional seance performers are not in the least bit impressed by this so-called control. Tricks like this have been part of the game for more than a century. Since hand holding was not employed in the Scole seances, the mediums effectively had every opportunity to be completely hands free and do whatever they wanted to do.

Note: Video removed by request of Producer