The Experiment
James Michael Chouinard
©
Copyright 2024 by James Michael Chouinard
|
Photo by Farzad Sedaghat at Pexels. |
This is a true story, only the names
have been changed and the school kept private. It is now
fifty
years since the events that occurred in the science lab in 1976 and I
feel I can share it safely for all concerned. This is a true account
of a science experiment that was conceived and designed by a
wonderful, intelligent group of students that I had the privilege to teach. Please note, it is all of their design
and
how they thought of how to tackle each aspect of the problem and
their wisdom at the end.
I was now a new science teacher at
the high school of 118 students out in the ranch lands of
Wyoming.
I had the privilege of teaching a group of thirteen very inquisitive
group of 11th graders. I had been
teaching Chemistry
and Biology for eleven years and was especially good at guiding
students through the use of questions.
A girl came in late for class with a
broken wrist, and of course in this class of thirteen students
everyone want to know why. Angela explained that she came
home
late from a date, the yard light was out, the house was dark, but she
knew where all of the furniture was located and then ran right into
the sofa, flipped over and broke her wrist. Mom had moved the
furniture that day. And so, the discussion began. There was
one
family where the girls and their cousin never bumped into anything in
the dark. Even if things were moved. They said they
could
always sense the layout and where there were openings.
The class wanted to find out why some
people could sense things in the dark and other could not.
Being a science class they wanted to do an experiment. Now it was
time for the class to set up various hypotheses and test
them.
Perhaps it was air currents that were felt, perhaps there was a small
amount of light to perceive it by, or perhaps they heard or felt a
change in air pressure in their ears.
The class had to remove as many of
the body’s own sensory capacities as possible, one at a time.
Finally, they had limited each of the sensory mode enough that the
individual had to be led to the start of the maze. We had to
cancel out all of those senses. So, the subject was put into
a
snowsuit with snow boots. That covers air currents
stimulating
the small hairs of the body. Biscuit dough was put into the
ears, covered with wax paper, and then head phones on that, so much
for sound. The sense of smell was handled by having a strong
perfume inside of the hood (that was one they did not like!)
The subject was blindfolded, opaque goggles followed, then a helmet,
and a typewriter cover placed over the head. We set up
four-foot-high movable barriers as a maze. Ten of the
students
failed the maze, but three did not. We had eliminated all of
the normal senses, or as much as we could safely do in a high school
lab. Why did they still succeed?
Back to the theories. Now we
were in an area with microwave towers. Aha. Maybe they were
sensing the microwaves? How do we remove that
influence.
Here again, the students came up with various ideas. Could we
wrap them in aluminum foil, shield them, completely. That did
not seem to work.
The school had a basement, the
overhead, walls, and floor were concrete. It also had no
windows. This could be ideal. Now if we did
everything as
before, plus the aluminum foil, that should eliminate microwaves.
The class set up a movable maze down
there and never let the subject see the set up. The students
again ran the tests. Margo again found her way through the
various mazes. We would have an opening silently close and
she
would immediately turn and use her whole body “to scan”
for another opening. We did this to her about seven times,
tricking her and she always turned away before she reached the former
opening.
Margo finally screamed and ripped off the
head coverings
“YOU ARE NOT BEING FAIR! You are closing the opening just as I
approach them. I am doing it fairly and you are
cheating.”
She was right, but she refused further testing.
We cleaned up the experiment and allowed
her to ‘cool
down’, then returned upstairs to the classroom. What
happened? We checked off all of the things we had
eliminated.
There were no sensory elements that we had not muted. What
could it be? The other two who had gotten almost as far as Margo were
asked to go back our and write down what they experienced when having
success.
Margo began to tell us, “I would use my
body to
sort of scan in front of me. I would sense a sort of darkness
and less darkness, depending on which way I turned my body. I
would scan left and right with my torso, sense a darker narrower
‘hole’ and head for it. When you were being fair, I
could walk right through it, when you were cheating, I could sense
the area suddenly become lighter and I would change direction.”
“Margo, where were you sensing
this?”
“It seemed as though I was
sensing it through my torso, not through the normal sense. It
was just a black or a ‘lighter shade of black’, but not
gray that I was feeling. My brain was interpreting what my
body
scanned and giving it back to me as though I was seeing it, yet not
seeing as much as feeling.”
The class discussed this and after
school they were to think on it and bring back possible
answers.
The next day when they assembled, they were rather subdued.
Several students who had conclusion had all come up with the same
ideas.
Johana initiated the conversation
“Mr. C. We are dealing with something that is beyond the
normal senses. I do not think we should investigate it any
more, it scares me.”
This was followed by John. “Mr.
C. I think we have entered some kind of spiritual realm that
is
beyond our testing and maybe we have opened a door that needs to be
closed and left alone.”
Adriana suggested, “Sherlock
Holmes said ‘How often have I said to you that when you have
eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however
improbable,
must be the truth?’ That is what I feel, Margo has
a special sense that is not among the normal cataloged
senses.
That being the case, it is beyond what this class can evaluate. I
feel uncomfortable going further because I do not want to consider
the improbable of Mr. Holmes.
Why? Because I think
we are entering maybe a spiritual realm, either the ‘dark
spirits’ or one of some kind. This should be left alone.”
I looked at Margo, “Margo, what
do you think?”
“Mr. C., Adriana may be right.
We don’t understand it. We are still in high school and
don’t have the ability to investigate it further, nor do we
have the ‘safe guards’ that would be needed.”
The class of thirteen was in total
agreement and they decided not to discuss the matter. I think
they decided that because they wanted to protect me from any backlash
that could possibly occur.
The students are now in their
mix-sixties, and I have not discussed this since I happened.
I
have wanted people to know, not of where it went and how close we
came to ‘whatever’ it was. But how a group of
sixteen-year-old students carefully applied scientific principles,
engaged in an experiment that caught their attention, and followed it
as far as it would take them before they called it to a logical halt.
I want to reassure you that this was
a real event, with a real class, doing a real experiment. I
am
as proud of them today as I was fifty year ago.
Sincerely,
James. M. Chouinard,
retire science teacher.
I
am James Michael Chouinard, BA, ThM, retired science teacher and
former Navy Lieutenant from the Vietnam War. I retired from
my
final school in 2006 from Calaveras High School, in San Andreas,
California. I often write short stories, true and fiction,
under my name and the pseudonym of Clifton Lee. I am not yet
a
published author.
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