7 - People Who See Without Eyes

Charlotte Young, a teacher in Spring Valley Junior High School, near San Diego, California, had her class take part in a parapsychological study. All of her pupils put on blindfolds and were asked to identify the colors of sheets of paper which she handed them. Alan Ames' identifications were almost 100 per cent correct.

The only way the young man could explain his astonishing score, was to say that he "saw" the colors that came under his hands. After the boy had proved his ability over and over again to unbelieving witnesses, word spread until a reporter from the Saturday San Diego Union came to investigate the lad. By the time the reporter began to follow the story, Alan could describe any article that was placed between his hands. To convince the reporter, Alan, while blindfolded, not only read the serial number on a dollar bill, he described the man's press card perfectly.

Alan Ames has the peculiar ability to perceive visual sensations without the use of his eyes. This ability, which is currently undergoing extensive research in both the United States and the Soviet Union, has been termed "Extra Ocular Vision" by those investigating the phenomenon. Even more amazing than simply being able to read with his hands, Alan Ames is also able to identify objects which are placed under opaque cloth. In some cases his hands can "see" where his eyes would fail.

In the Soviet Union the first wave of interest in EOV came after a young woman, Rosa Kuleshova, was able to distinguish colors with the use of the tips of her fingers.

She developed the ability on her own, practicing with the aid of her eyes. Although Kuleshova's case was the first to gain wide attention, many more individuals have been found who have such talent. Some are even more sensitive than Rosa.

The close association between this ability and clairvoyance cannot be denied. Yet EOV is rapidly coming under the scrutiny of traditional physics, biology, and psychology and, if the present trend continues, will soon be removed from the realm of parapsychology altogether. Some parapsychologists have scornfully suggested that these orthodox scientists have begun a study of psychic phenomena under the more respectable name of Extra Ocular Vision. Whatever the case, research with people who have light-sensitive portions of their skin is being carried on with increasing intensity in the U.S. and in the Soviet Union.

Several interesting explanations have been attempted, but none has been completely satisfactory. Once the ability had been discovered, experiments were performed to determine what forms of energy were being detected by the subject. Colors printed on all textures of cloth and paper were put under the sensitive fingers of Rosa Kuleshova, yet no matter what the texture, the girl was able to identify the color. Even when the color was placed under thin layers of glass, she was still very accurate. But when a thick plate of glass or plexiglass was placed between her fingers and the color, her accuracy fell sharply.

The Soviet experimenters next tested the girl's sensitivity to infra-red rays, which if intense enough, can be felt by any individual, because they raise the temperature of the skin. Soviet scientists made the intensity of the infra-red a thousand times greater than that of the normal colors which Rosa was to perceive. But, in this experiment, Rosa was unaware of the intense infra-red beam, and she again correctly picked out the colors which were arrayed before her.

In yet another Soviet experiment, a picture was projected on a screen and a blindfolded subject was asked to identify it. While normal light was used in the projector, the picture was identifiable. But the minute infra-red light was used, the subject lost contact with the form and the colors.

The conclusion, which the Russian scientists drew from these and other experiments, is that EOV is accomplished with the use of special sense receptors in the skin which are sensitive to electromagnetic radiation at the wave length of light. It seemed the only logical explanation.

Meanwhile in the U.S., Dr. Richard Youtz, a psychology teacher at Columbia University's Barnard College, has been leading the research. Working extensively with a Mrs. Stanley, he has arrived at some of the same conclusions that the Soviet scientists have. Not interested in becoming a scientific specimen, Mrs. Stanley has agreed to aid Youtz's experiments in the hope that the research will some day be able to give added light sensitivity to the blind. It is to her credit that she allows Youtz to observe her talents, since she must divide her time between his research projects and her four children, a husband, pets, and two jobs.

Dr. Youtz has devised several tests which give some indication of the conditions that affect Mrs. Stanley's ability to detect light with her finger tips. When Mrs. Stanley's accuracy fell to half its normal frequency in the face of New York Times reporters, Dr. Youtz was at a loss to explain her failure. The month was January and, shortly after the test, Youtz tested the hypothesis that the temperature and the humidity of the air surrounding Mrs. Stanley had affected her ability. He turned up the thermostat and boiled water on the stove until he had brought the temperature to 80 degrees and the humidity to 50 per cent. In those conditions, Mrs. Stanley's ability regained its normal accuracy and, in fact, was the highest for the entire month of January 1964.

Dr. Youtz has attempted to explain the effect of the temperature and humidity change in terms of the blood vessels which are near the surface of the skin. In warm weather, there are more vessels near the surface of the skin than in cold. Dr. Youtz thinks that the light receptors which are within the skin are more sensitive under these conditions.

It took much talking, but Dr. Youtz was able to convince a colleague, Dr. Donald E. DeGraaf, to visit with Mrs. Stanley. Protesting that such investigations were all "nonsense," the associate professor of physics at Flint College of the University of Michigan went away from the Stanley house convinced that what he had observed was not a hoax at all, but a genuine phenomenon that was worthy of investigation.

Dr. DeGraaf's explanation, which he cautions is very tentative, fits with Youtz's. He feels that the radiation that is being detected is electromagnetic in character, which sparks off a photochemical process, which in turn relays an impulse to the brain. The most important unknown is the nature of the receptors, which are sensitive to light and relay the signal to the brain.

While orthodox scientists are busy discovering Extra Ocular Vision, the files of "psi" researchers have long contained accounts of people who were able to "see" without the use of their eyes.

The first white men who visited the Samoan Islands witnessed several demonstrations in which blind natives were able to detect visual sensations without the use of their eyes.

An Italian investigator, Dr. Jules Romain, detected this ability in several people and did extensive work trying to determine the exact nature of the phenomenon. All he got for his efforts were a number of interesting case studies and a collection of jibes from his scientific colleagues. His experimentation ended in 1924, and the official view of the scientific establishment at the time was that his work was not orthodox in nature and that it had not been complete.

Dr. Cesare Lombroso, famed Italian physician and Criminologist, described an experience he had with a girl who went blind, then developed the ability to see with the tip of her nose and the lobe of her left ear!

Perhaps the most famous case of a person possessing Extra Ocular Vision is that of Miss Mollie Fancher of New York City. When she was a child, this woman sustained injuries which not only made her blind, but an invalid as well. Her case was investigated by Judge Abram H. Daily who eventually wrote a book describing his experiences with Miss Fancher. It is probably the most well documented account of EOV in existence today. Hundreds of people were able to witness Mollie Fancher as she performed. Several physicians certified that she was completely blind, yet she was able to relate the contents of letters and newspapers by running her fingers over the tops of them.

When asked how she was able to see, Mollie replied that she saw with "the back of her head." She could do expert needle work, which she found easier to manage when she held the piece above her head in a strong light.

It would be convenient, from the scientist's point of view, if these were the limits of EOV. Without any added challenging facts, the position now fits neatly into some branches of biology and physics. But facts pay no heed to theories, and orthodox scientists on both sides of the Atlantic are finding too many facts for present scientific theory to handle.

Mollie Fancher is a particularly disturbing case, for this remarkably gifted woman did not always require the use of her skin for the detection of images. At one time she was with a group of people at her home and a letter came for one of those present. Before it had been opened she related the entire contents to the group. She could read newspapers without bothering to unroll them - a simple matter of running her fingers over the wrapper and then relating the contents to a friend, who then could read it for himself if he desired to open the paper and hunt for the articles on the center pages. Exactly what kind of light receptors are able to pierce opaque pieces of paper are not known to man.

Mollie Fancher also claimed that she was able to look around the city at times. Once she described a man whom she had never met to Judge Daily, claiming she had seen the man at the Judge's house. The Judge was astounded, because she had described the visitor perfectly.

Soviet Russia's push to understand EOV has lead it to a series of amazing discoveries. Rosa Kuleshova, who, with practice, has been able to extend her ability to reading sentences and music as well as separating colors with the tips of her fingers, has, in addition, developed the power to merely touch the topmost piece of material in a pile, then call off the color of each succeeding piece of material without letting her hand leave the top.

Even though Rosa cannot see with her hands when the room is darkened, most of the people who possess Extra Ocular Vision are able to detect colors and figures in the darkest surroundings. In such a situation, electromagnetic radiation in the visible range is not being reflected from objects, which makes them invisible to the eyes and all other light-sensing apparatus. Yet Nadia Lobanova, a Russian girl of ten, who has been blind since she was one, is able to read big letters and detect colors in such a setting.

Soviet and American researchers have tested the hypothesis that the colors and figures have been delivered telepathically from the observers to the subject. But Rosa Kuleshova is able to take a book, open it to a random page while blindfolded, and identify words or sentences on the page when no observers are present. This can then be checked, and each time the girl has tried, she has been able to read the first words of a random page correctly. Thus it does not seem possible that telepathic signals disclose the colors or the words.

These sensitive people do not describe colors with the same words that usually accompany visual sensations. Rosa Kuleshova, for example, describes white as smooth, and black as "peas under my fingers." Red is a zig zag line, while green comes to her in little squares. Others have termed colors hot or cold, slippery, or a "series of little lines." Whatever the acceptable explanation will finally be, it will have to encompass considerably more facts than the tentative hypotheses do. Until such an explanation can be formulated, "psi" investigators can only hope that this inroad of the orthodox will lend credence to the entire effort of parapsychology.