The wind in the trees...

Now for a bit of an amusing item.

For some time, skeptical organisations around the world have offered prizes to people able to demonstrate paranormal ability. The Australian Skeptics have a $100,000 prize availble for demonstration of paranormal ability under controlled conditions.

Perhaps the best known of all was the foundation associated with the late James Randi - the JREF's One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge.

Here in our country, Stuart Landsborough at Wanaka's Puzzling World has a $100,000 psychic challenge, so far unclaimed.

At this point in time NZ Skeptics does not have such a challenge, although work is underway in conjunction with another organisation to offer one. Of course, we don't expect to have to ever pay out as it's pretty obvious that if paranormal abilities existed, somebody would have conclusively demonstrated them by now. As such, once we get our challenge up and running, it will be a good rhetorical device - enabling us to actually challenge those making paranormal claims to back them up with a demonstration under controlled conditions. We confidently predict that they'll always find an excuse not to, though.

Anyway, the lure of easy money often brings out some potential challengers. One of the strangest ones we've received is somebody who sent us a link to a YouTube video, claiming they had the paranormal ability to control the wind. The video shows various trees with their leaves being blown around by the wind.

Although they don't explain it further, I think their claim is that they can point their powers at a tree and make the leaves move in the wind. It's unclear from the video whether they're actually doing that, or if they're just happening to film the tree when the wind changes. Given that some of the trees are close to a road, it would seem that the disturbance to the air when cars race by is at least some of the explanation for the movement.

This would be much more convincing if they could demonstrate the ability inside and on command.

Take a look at the video and let us know what you think!