Streetlights go out when you walk under them... pt2

Someone said that they had this problem on the last board ... here is a post about it I came across...

paranormal.about.com...




SLIders & the Streetlight Phenomenon

Do streetlights suddenly go out when you pass beneath them? Do watches or credit cards stop working in your possession? Perhaps you are a SLIder.

A reader writes:

Around five years ago, I have noticed that at times while I am driving down the road at night a street light will go out as I am passing below it. It happens frequently and seems to be happening more.

It has been giving me the creeps. If it happened only once or on very rare occasions, I don't think I would have given it a thought. However, it happens about once or twice a week. Could it be some electronic thing or could it be something less explainable?

The phenomenon is known as street lamp interference, or SLI, and it possibly is a psychic event that is just beginning to be recognized and studied. Like most phenomena of this type, the evidence is almost exclusively anecdotal. I have received several stories like the one above from readers.

Typically, a person who has this effect on streetlights - also known as a SLIder - finds that the light switches on or off when he or she walks or drives beneath it. Obviously, this could happen occasionally by chance with a faulty streetlight (you've probably noticed that it's happened to you once in a while), but SLIders claim that it happens to them on a regular basis. It doesn't happen every time with every streetlight, but it occurs often enough to make these people suspect that something unusual is going on.

Very often, SLIders also report that they tend to have an odd effect on other electronic devices. In letters I've received, these people claim such effects as:

Appliances such as lamps and TVs go on and off without being touched.
Lightbulbs constantly blow when the SLIder tries to turn them off or on.
Volume levels change on TVs, radios, and CD players.
Watches stop working.
Children's electronic toys start by themselves when the SLIder is present.
Credit cards and other magnetically encoded cards are damaged or erased when in their possession.

What's the Cause?
Any attempt to pinpoint a cause for SLI at this point would be mere speculation without a thorough scientific investigation. The problem with such investigations, as with many forms of psychic phenomena, is that they are very difficult to reproduce in a laboratory. They seem to happen spontaneously without the deliberate intention of the SLIder. In fact, the SLIder, according to some informal tests, are usually unable to create the effect on demand.

A reasonable speculation for the effect, if it is a real one, might have something to do with the electronic impulses of the brain. All of our thoughts and movements are the result of electrical impulses that the brain generates. At present it is known that these measurable impulses only have an effect within an individual's body, but is it possible that they could have an effect outside the body - a kind of remote control?
Current Results
Ongoing research at the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) lab is suggesting that the subconscious can indeed affect electronic devices. Subjects are able to influence the random generations of a computer far more than would occur merely by chance. This research - and research being conducted at other laboratories around the world - are beginning to reveal, in scientific terms, the reality of such psychic phenomena as ESP, telekinesis and soon, perhaps, SLI.

Although the SLI effect is not a conscious one, some SLIders report that when it does occur, they often are in an extreme emotional state. A state of anger or stress is often cited as the "cause." SLIder Debbie Wolf, a British barmaid, told CNN, "When it happens is when I'm stressed about something. Not really manically stressed, just when I'm really mulching something over, really chewing something over in my head, and then it happens."

Could it all be just coincidence, however? David Barlow, a graduate student of physics and astrophysics, suspects that the phenomenon might be attributed to people seeing patterns in "random noise." "It is unlikely that a light will turn itself on when you walk past it," he says, "so it is a shock when it happens. If this should happen a few times consecutively, then it appears some mechanism is at work."

SLI Research
A research project into SLI has been started by Dr. Richard Wiseman at the University of Berkfordshire in England. Wiseman recently made the newspapers with a project to test ESP with a kiosk-type machine - called The Mind Machine - that he set up in various locations around England to collect a large amount of data about the possible psychic abilities of the general public.

Hillary Evans, an author and paranormal investigator with The Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (ASSAP), is also studying the phenomenon. She has established the Street Lamp Interference Data Exchange as a place where SLIders can report their experiences and share those of other SLIders. "It's quite obvious from the letters I get," Evans told CNN, "that these people are perfectly healthy, normal people. It's just that they have some kind of ability... just a gift they've got. It may not be a gift they would like to have."

the street light thing happens to me all the time, but i dont buy thats its anything paranormal. i think its just sensors in the lights and or the way they work, by turning off and on at certain times.

hehe this is so silly. as far as my understanding go it's just that those street lights go off for a bit because of the heat they generate. they turn off or go dim to cool down. think of how many lights one goes under when driving or walking down the road. there's a good chance one will go off as drive past one.

it happens to everyone!

Alright, a quick suggestion to any people who get the feeling that they are somehow special because they 'often' see streetlights go out when they are near them. Perhaps park and watch the stretch of road where it 'always' happens for a while, you'll notice they go out up and down the road quite 'often'. As they have thermostats in them to stop them from overheating.

PS, I wrote 'often' instead of often as it seems generally that it only has to happen a handful of times over a few months or so for people to conclude they are somehow causing it

i dont know i thought about that to... but have you have walked back under like just 10 min later and they go off agian??? i have... i think it is like vibes you give off... you know much electricity we give off i think some people just give off the wrong kind for some lights... i blow a lot of lights at my house... it always happens to me...

well wetdog, if it happens to you *that* much, just start hoping that you don't get assigned to a *nuclear* vessel...

It's never happened to me. Am I normal ?

M i know what you mean... when i took my asvap they said i scored high enough to work with the nukes and do anything i wanted and i said HELLLLL NOOOOO.. cuz i know i would prolly blow us allll upppp hahah...

Pretty much the same thing here, wetdog...At the MEPS station, they said that my ASVAB scored high enough to qualify for *any* rating.

They tried to get me to sign up for some nuclear rating but I declined...I told them that I may someday want to have kids, not radioactive blobs of mutant protoplasm.

They said that the US Navy had *never* had a nuclear accident...I finished that phrase with, "That they're willing to admit".

I wound up with the OTM (Ocean Systems Technician-Maintainer) rate & worked on computer systems...

coool... i am working on computers as well... i am going to switch to MP though so i can work with the dogs... what was that naval mishap where like have of people were stickin out of ships because they energized it to make it disappear then reapear???

the philadelphia experiment...in fact, that subject is how i found this site..

how about automatic doors working for people in front of and behind you but failing to open when you come up to them? that happens to me all the time- along with the lights and my nose gets a little sore whacking into the glass. in fact so often i swear i go invisible. oh and people just stepping in front of me at registers like they never saw me- when i've been in line the whole time. that is hard to understand since i am 6'3" and 190 pounds.

maybe i am just easily ignored? seems to happen even in these forums too. "say-la-vee"

I find the automatic doors a bit slow all the time as well. I usually will stick out my hand to help them open a bit faster so I don't accidently hit any of the doors. I've heard a number of people wondering why street lights go off suddenly when they drive by. Just recently I noticed someone's headlights had part of the beam going up. If a street light has sensors, guess what happens when your headlight beam hits the sensor? There could also be water puddles that your headlight beams reflect off of and that could possibly hit the street light sensors as well. I've seen all of the surrounding street lights go off at one time but I don't think that was paranormal either. It's just lightning over my head and the bright light flash knocks off all of the street lights. I've seen that a few times. Nothing that unusual I believe.

i once had a friend who could turn streetlights off and on at will. Used to make him demonstrate on demand. He could.

...me, have a had a few periods in my life where I blew out electrical appliances whenever I touched them... hair blowers, kettles etc. Expensive times. Not purposeful. Doesn't happen any more.

hey that is happening to me too!
there is a street light, i pass almost every day,
and if its on, it turns off,
and the other way around,
when i pass it.
almost always...
first i thought its like that "warning system", you know,
that turns on the lights when you approach the house.
but why would it turn OFF when i pass?

strange indeed....

good point Orion on the senosrs- very logically thought through and i am sure smacks the nail on the head for most occurances.

the street lights would go out on me while WALKING! No flashlite either.

At college the lady's would call these 'rape lights' when they went out as we were walking. Not that anything ever happened - it would just freek out the girls.

i think sometimes the doors not opening could be attributed to walking up on them a bit too fast- sometimes though i know/sense they are not going to open before i even get close so i make extra effort to get the sensors attention if you know what i mean- i still usually end up waving my hand/ jumping up and down in front of the doors like and idiot unsuccessful at getting them to open until someone else walks up and causes the thing to open as if nothing was unusual. sometimes it almost makes me wonder if there is some hidden camera show following me around where there is a person with a remote switch and actors to film the extremes i have to go through to get out of a supermarket.

Here are some facts from the lighting world: The most common type of streetlamp these days is Sodium Vapor HID (High Intensity Discharge), you can tell these types from the yellowish/orange light they produce. The reason they are so abundant is high efficiency and long life (approx. 20,000 hours). When these lamps reach the end of their life cycle, they draw excess current from their ballasts (power supplies) and and internal circuit breaker cuts the power to the lamp to avoid overheating/fire/etc. After a few minutes, the lamp starts up again and runs for a bit then repeats the process. If you stick around for a while, you'll see the light turn back on after it goes out.
It is seemingly unusual to have this happen just as you are walking by (happens to me too), but it's really nothing more than being at the right place at the right time.
Pure physical science, nothing more.

Here ya go. www.straightdope.com...
Cecil explains all.

not really Ceicel says all the same things the other de-bunkers say- if you read the whole article you are left with a feeling that he really doesn't know.

if the sdium vapor lights were really all that bad- they would be flicering all the time- this isn't what people are describing.

also exactly WHERE is the sodium vapor supposedly going? if there is a leak in the bulb the lights cease to work altogether inside of a minute. Is the engineer in the article saying that the mear passing of electricty through the vapor causes it to turn into something else- darn if i'm not curious as to what! basic 10th grade chemistry says not! you need something else for it to react with. and if electricty passing through it causes it to turn into something else then that too would be a VERY short existance of the said lamp becasue the bulbs have a VERY small amount contained within them to be converted.

nothing like debunking debunkers

I have had the sodium HIDs go out before as well, but they always do if you continue to watch them. I also have two street lamps, every thing except the pole, shell/reflector, they have a light sensor at the top and they never go off or on just because I'm there.

No, the sodium doesn't leave the HID tube, it either leeches into the tube and can't ionize anymore or it gets covered by metal deposits after it leechs into the cooler parts of the tube. Sodium could still leak out of those HID tubes when they are hot, helium-neon lasers lose thier gass over time.

an.hitchcock.org...