'Electricity Woman with amazing powers' causes lights to flicker when she gets stress

[AgeGap]

Sigh. She has to be in the right mood for her powers to work.

 

[Sasha]

"Her supposed ability, dubbed Street Light Interference syndrome - or SLI - by experts, has earned her international fame. "

I wonder what "experts" they're talking about.

 

[TV's Frank]

Sigh. She has to be in the right mood for her powers to work.

How did you know that about my wife??

 

[CptColumbo]

Does Deidre Hall know?

 

[Steve H]

From the Daily Mail link:

Yesterday, the Mail put Miss Wolf 's power to the test.

Sitting in the hospital canteen, she was given a torch, a mobile phone and a radio on which to use her electrical influence - but none responded to her interference.

The lights in the canteen, the battery-powered clock on the wall and the electric tills also continued to operate normally.

Whoops!

But Miss Wolf explained that she has to be in the right mood for her powers to work.

Yeah, that has to be the reason.

I don't know if Miss Wolf is deliberately trying to con the gullible or actually believes she has these "powers" but the fact that there is a woo segment out there in the 21st Century that continues to believe in this kind of malarkey in spite of results like the one I quoted above shows why JREF and similar initiatives that promote skepticism and critical thinking will have value for some time to come.

 

[Sasha]

"She claims she can turn street lamps off, send digital clocks haywire and even defrost her freezer."
"But 38-year-old Miss Wolf admits that she has no control over her power."
"But Miss Wolf explained that she has to be in the right mood for her powers to work."

Rather a lot of contradictions, but ultimately just the usual blather to explaing away the reasons that testing will never work.

 

[ExMinister]

"Her supposed ability, dubbed Street Light Interference syndrome - or SLI - by experts, has earned her international fame. "

I wonder what "experts" they're talking about.

Yeah, as opposed to the mysterious Burned Out Street Light Bulb syndrome. Sometimes I'm just walking by and the street lamp burns out! Weird!!!

 

[NobbyNobbs]

And she uses a wind-up alarm clock because her reaction on waking up in the morning "scrambles" digital ones.

This seems quite testable.

She claims she can turn street lamps off, send digital clocks haywire and even defrost her freezer.

I can do all this too, and I don't even have to be in a particular mood. I turns stuff off all the time. It's surprisingly easy to do, when you know where the power switch is.

 

[Babylon Sister]

Why is it that people with this "ability" can only turn electrical devices off?

 

[Monza]

It's a pure case of confirmation bias. If something happens (even though she wasn't actually trying to make something happen) then *poof*, it must be her magical powers. When nothings happens, well she isn't in the mood.

I have the power to make my favorite sports team win. Of course, when they lose it just means that my powers weren't working that day.

 

[JWideman]

Why is it that people with this "ability" can only turn electrical devices off?

I could turn on my TV. But only in the middle of the night when it got colder and only the TV that had been dropped on its control panel.

 

[bobhope2112]

oops

 

[bobhope2112]

For a woman who believes she interferes with electrical equipment, however, Miss Wolf has chosen a risky job. But her work as a pathology support officer at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton has never been affected, she said.

If you seriously thought that you can/will randomly disable electrical equipment, why would you put people at risk? I suspect that she, on some level, realizes that it's all just "the van is always at the corner."

 

[ThatSoundAgain]

The Straight Dope on this phenomenon.

ETA: Which strangely also uses the phrase "the van is always at the corner" to mean confirmation bias.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

"I can call monsters from the vasty deep."
"Aye. But do they come when you do call them?"
Bill S.

 

[hamelekim]

If you seriously thought that you can/will randomly disable electrical equipment, why would you put people at risk? I suspect that she, on some level, realizes that it's all just "the van is always at the corner."

Or her mood just isn't the same at work. You can come up with a million excuses if you really want to believe. I've been reading about "sliders" over at abovetopsecret. I have no clue how they can honestly believe they have powers. I walk by streetlights all the time and they go out. I find it strange that they seem to go out just when I walk past, but statistically that's going to happen, and it doesn't happen all the time or when I'm in any specific mood.

 

[hipparchia]

I electrocuted a computer. I wore a polar-lined jacket and fuzzy polar socks.

 

[Codger]

For those of you outside the UK, The Daily Mail is full of woo-ish nonsense all the time. That's when they're not printing stories about the Royal Family. An appalling rag.

 

[Spektator]

"I can call monsters from the vasty deep."
"Aye. But do they come when you do call them?"
Bill S.

Or
Glendower:I can call spirits from the vasty deep!
Hotspur:Why, so can I, or so can any man--
But will they come when you do call for them?

 

[sinclairmcevoy]

Streetlights? Yeah, there were certain ones that would always turn off when I drove by. Always. But only in certain vehicles. My truck and my car worked on different lights. They never worked on the same lights. I mean "worked".