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From: ntt@dciem.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Re: ESP (Darrell Plank's phone-predicting friend explained)
Message-ID: <725@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 20-Feb-84 17:43:19 EST
Article-I.D.: dciem.725
Posted: Mon Feb 20 17:43:19 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 20-Feb-84 22:35:15 EST
References: <258@vortex.UUCP>, <162@ihopa.UUCP>
Organization: NTT Systems Inc., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 45

Darrell Plank (ihopa!dap) writes, in part:
	
	I used to know a guy down at school who once told me in passing
	that he often knew that the phone was going to ring before it
	actually did so.  ...  Later on, during a cooperative work
	assignment, I became roommate to the same guy.  Several times during
	our rooming together he would say "Phone's going to ring" and
	within a few seconds it would ring.  It would often be my parents
	who only call when they have a definite reason (i.e., no regularly
	made calls every night, maybe averaging once a week).  He was NEVER
	wrong!  I would remember that quite vividly because it would have
	been the exception to the rule.  ...  I didn't think it worked at
	will.  Maybe three or four times throughout the summer.  ... the
	calls came only about once a week (again, not on any "regular
	basis") and he nailed down the time to within seconds.

I agree with Darrell that coincidence and conspiracy are unlikely here,
and I suppose we can assume that he is telling the truth.

Well, here's another explanation.  What makes a telephone ring?  The
central office ("exchange") sends it a "ring signal".  It sends a
pulse of voltage about 1/2 second long at 6-second intervals.   The suggestion
is that on your particular phone system, the ring signal generator would
occasionally be caught "out of phase" and produce a very short pulse
(or one of subnormal voltage) at the beginning of the signal -- that is,
6 seconds before the first ring.  Since most phones have mechanical
ringers ("bells"), this abnormal pulse could cause some motion in the
mechanism but not enough to sound a ring.  Thus it could be audible but
very faint.  So the friend is simply someone who has attuned himself to it.
The fact that he doesn't like to talk about it suggests that he has not
learned this consciously, but only knows that he gets the feeling.

Confirming evidence:  It only happens occasionally; it happens in the home
where it is usually quiet (and where you can become familiar with the phone);
and it happens *only a few seconds before the phone actually rings*.

If the telephone was known to occasionally start with a short ring,
that would be additional confirming evidence (but not necessary evidence).
If he ever predicted a ring in a noisy environment, this explanation
is shot.

The sensitivity of human hearing is unbelievable to those who have
not had it directly demonstrated, or so I read and believe.

Mark Brader