Scientist investigates phone call telepathy

Dr. Rupert Sheldrake conducted a study to see if we really can tell who is calling before picking up.

If you've ever received a phone call out of the blue that you weren't expecting but somehow found that you knew who was on the other end before you even picked up the phone then you aren't alone - the phenomenon of 'telephone telepathy' is not a new one.

In a recent experiment Dr. Rupert Sheldrake tested this concept in a group of volunteers by having them answer a telephone call after writing down in advance who they believed was on the other end out of a possible selection of four options.

The results seemed to show a higher than expected tendency for the volunteers to correctly guess who was phoning. "The average scores were very significantly above the 25 percent hit rate expected by chance," he wrote.

In his research, which was published in the Institute of Noetic Science earlier this year, Sheldrake claims that several other studies, including those conducted at the University of Amsterdam in Holland and the University of Freiburg in Germany, have also shown similar results. The phenomenon was also allegedly found to be more prominent when the person phoning shared a strong emotional bond with the recipient.