Scientists have put one of humanity’s strangest questions to the test: can our consciousness actually leave the body and see things somewhere else?
The experiment didn’t prove it can. But something happened during the study that researchers admit they cannot yet explain.
A team led by University of Virginia neuroscientist Marina Weiler recruited 21 people who had experience attempting so-called out-of-body experiences.
Each participant stayed in one room while a laptop in another inaccessible room displayed a randomly selected image.
There were 100 possible images and, importantly, neither the participants nor researchers knew which one had been selected during the experiment.
The volunteers were given up to 90 minutes to try to “leave” their bodies and see it.
Nine said they managed to have an out-of-body experience.
But when researchers compared their descriptions with the hidden images, the results were no better than chance.
So far, nothing paranormal. Then came the strange part.
Two participants, without being asked, described what researchers were doing in a different room behind closed doors.
One said a researcher was sitting on the left looking at a computer while another person farther back was reading a book.
Records from the experiment reportedly showed that was what was happening.
Another participant described one researcher taking notes on the right and another sitting at a computer on the left. Again, researchers said the description matched the scene.
That still doesn’t prove they somehow saw through walls.
The observations weren’t part of the experiment’s planned targets, meaning they could not be subjected to the same statistical test. Coincidence or an unnoticed sensory clue also cannot be ruled out.
Researchers now want to run new experiments specifically designed to test whether the phenomenon can happen again.
“If studies demonstrate that people can obtain accurate information that they could not have accessed through their ordinary senses, we would have to reconsider some of our assumptions about the relationship between consciousness, perception and the physical world,” Weiler said.
2026-09-15 00:28:00
