I read about a study in which people (I'm assuming they had white coats) - it was a fairly decent scientific minded person writing this book (It's Brian Green - either The Fabric of Reality, or the Elegant Universe), so I assume they checked the authenticity of this study... anyway...
I read about a study in which people were basically exposed to large electromagnetic thingies (the scientific term) in an attempt to induce an out of body experience, in a similar pattern to things like MK-Ultra or the various memory experiments which have been taking place for the last fifty years (inducing memories, that sort of thing).
Their methodology basically involved inducing sleep and shocking various portions of the brain which they seemed to think would respond to these stimulus. The participent was sent to sleep with the instructions that they were to find a particular road nearby and note things like parked car colours and types.
They, as you might expect, had some rather patchy results. Some people didn't experience anything, and some did - but got it wrong. Some came with incredibly vivid accounts including things like particular people or things that were happening at the same time.
There were people stationed in the target streets
all day making a note of what cars were parked where etc. Some actually matched the list of cars identified by the recorders at the time the experiments were taking place. Some matched at other times - slightly earlier or later. The really interesting thing about the experiment was that one of the participents allegedly produced a vivid account of seeing the head honcho, who was conducting the experiment, checking the various cars, along with various other details, like a man on his bike, a punk with an alsation. A man with a bowler hat tripping over an old pushchair...that sort of thing. The scientist was disappointed mainly because he didn't go out and do the counting bits - so that invalidated the entire account as far as he was concerned. Later that day, however, the guy who was supposed to be car counting did not come back when requested so... so the head honcho went looking for him in his street and...you'll never guess what happened! Well actually, you're all smart people so you've probably worked out where this is leading and what he saw there.
Simple chance and probabilities? The human mind showing it's falibilities. A badly done experiment? Or maybe there is something more to it but it's hard to test empirically. Most of that was just anecdotal evidence, and I'm sure everyone has a particular story of that kind they could share.
The point is, there could be a mechanism in the universe by which these sorts of things occur, just as certain people are more sensitive to changing weather pressures... or electricity supplies...or whatever, but one which we just have not found yet.
But I can safely say one thing: such an answer could never be found at a site named "Crystallinks" or whatever!
