Have you ever walked near a streetlight and it turns off and then as you continue down the street the light turns on again? Is this an explainable phenomenon or the product of unknown effect?
Many have witnessed public streetlights that go dark as someone passes below. Some may say this is due to chance, but evidence suggests that a few individuals may have an “ability” to influence electrical devices. Over the years, as these individuals have come to be known as Street Light Interference (SLI).
Are there certain people that really have a field of influence on electrical equipment? While there are motion detecting lights for security reasons, that switch on when it senses movement, street lights only come on when dusk or darkness sets in. Unless they come in contact with an electrically influential individual.
Hilary Evans working with the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (ASSAP), has been studying this subject since the early 90s. Evans' book, The SLI Effect, covers several cases of SLI in an ongoing project known as SLIDE (SLI Data Exchange). SLIDE compiles testimonies and explores the possibilities that could lie behind the phenomenon.
Evans writes “…History demonstrates that there can be widespread belief in a phenomenon which is nonetheless nothing more than an artifact derived from an erroneous interpretation of witness testimony. However, SLI has a basis in physical reality which is amenable to investigation: street lights are physical objects and the SLI effect, if it exists, must be ultimately a physical process. By its nature, SLI lends itself to methodical observation and controlled testing,”.
Although there are numerous reports of SLI experiences, each case can vary a lot. Some report switching off a single streetlight close to them; others say they have affected a row of streetlights; and a few randomly affect only certain streetlights, making it difficult to view a pattern in SLI. Those who believe they cause SLI (SLIders), suffer from a lack of validation from friends and family, until they witness occurrences themselves. With no good explanation for the phenomenon they experience, SLIders are left to imagine what behind the influence they feel they possess.
“It occurred to me that the ones I zap are all on light-sensing switches, and perhaps my energy at certain times for who knows what or why, is the right kind and strength to trick the switch into thinking it is daytime,” Said one SLIder in his testimony to SLIDE.
Many skeptics suggest that SLI occurs because of lights near the end of their life. Sodium (amber) bulbs, or mercury for blue lights, have security systems that regulate the temperature the lights can reach. These two types of streetlights are most used in public lighting, and it is common to encounter some lights that begin to fail when the temperature of the gases are outside of the normal range. Electric power interruption makes these streetlights go without light for a few minutes, until the temperature lowers and a impulse of high tension makes them turn on. Skeptics argue, this could easily occur when a suggestible individual interested in paranormal phenomena passes below and the light goes dark.
Even so, aging streetlights still does not resolve many of the cases of SLI.
“These appliances need not be street lights, of course: and the reports we have of persons affecting computers, supermarket check-outs, etc. can be seen as providing confirmatory testimony to this. However, there is good reason to think that street lights are particularly sensitive compared with other types of equipment: this could be because they operate at close to the critical level, or because it is not normally considered necessary to provide them with substantial shielding,” writes Hillary.
A large percentage of SLIers also make small electrical discharges with many objects they touch. They can often have problems with compasses or clocks, causing them to stop or malfunction.
The explanation for many “believers” the SLI phenomenon is that certain people have a level of energy that acts with the streetlights or electrical equipment. Some have observed that radio equipment can also interfere with public lighting, so some attribute SLI effects to an abnormal amount of static in the body. The issue has never been proven scientifically; It most likely requires a serious investigation, as Evans suggests.