Ninel Sergeevna Kulagina was recognized as one of the most powerful psychics of the last century. Her amazing abilities aroused admiration, bewilderment and distrust, were refuted and confidently established, and, according to some, became the cause of her premature death.

For the first time, they learned about her in the early 60s, when Ninel Kulagina heard about the phenomenon of one girl who, with her eyes closed, accurately determined colors.

"I can do that too!"

During her treatment in the hospital, she took out the right ball of embroidery thread without looking. Other women drew attention to this, and now Ninel Sergeevna remembered this episode and became interested in how developed such abilities she had. As it turned out, she could, blindfolded, set the color of paper cards, read, find hidden objects, and, when the TV sound was turned off, determine which program was on.

At first, she could not do everything at once, but by training daily with the help and support of her husband, a month later she achieved stable positive results. Then the couple turned to the attending physicians and told them about the ongoing experiments. Those showed interest and in the laboratory tested the abilities of Ninel Sergeevna. Being strongly impressed by what he saw, Professor L.L. Vasiliev, an observer of the experiment, advised to protect and develop a unique gift, but hide it from strangers. The situation in scientific circles did not allow at that time to openly study and discuss extrasensory perception. The professor turned out to be right - after some time, laboratory studies amounted to an attempt to convict Kulagin of deceit and fraud.

20 years of painful experiments

However, Ninel Sergeevna did not stop improving her gift. She learned to move small objects and lift them into the air, to influence the compass needle. With hand movements, she revived withered flowers, changed the chemical properties of water and the acidity of solutions, the structure and state of dense materials, illuminated photographic film through a dense envelope. By touching or looking at, it caused a burning sensation on the skin of volunteers, after which a severe burn remained.

As she trained, she could perform increasingly complex experiments. But the work has always been very difficult. She had to expend too much mental and physical strength. In addition to enormous stress and extreme fatigue, Kulagina experienced dizziness, severe pain in the spine and neck, ending in vomiting. After the experiments, she could lose up to 700 grams of weight, her blood pressure increased and her pulse quickened - 240 beats per minute ...

But the desire to understand the nature of amazing abilities was no less strong. Together with her husband, she passed one test after another. For 20 years they have visited about 30 different scientific laboratories in state institutions. Many researchers, without hiding their skepticism, declared to Kulagina that they would reveal the cunningly rigged deception and bring her to clean water. But when they failed, they recorded that attempts to "figure out how she does it" were in vain.

In the conditions of a suspicious and unfriendly attitude, she refused to work. But over time, the ability to tune in came, and although the experiments were difficult and exhausting, she managed to show stunning results. And in a state of incredible overload, she experienced great moral satisfaction: another unique experiment was a success.

"The most offensive thing is when they call a charlatan!"

The experimenters set up numerous experiments of the same type, each time trying to "catch" Kulagin and declare her a fraud. But it was not overstrain, but accusations and aggressive attacks that oppressed Ninel Sergeevna the most. In the end, they forced her to seek protection of honor and dignity in court, and the proceedings led her to a heart attack.

She spent a huge amount of strength and energy on demonstrating unique experiences. Were there enough resources to restore it? You can't say this with certainty. After a serious illness, not having lived even 65 years, Ninel Sergeevna Kulagina died.

In April 1988, Central Television introduced viewers to Ninel Sergeevna Kulagina, and everyone could see with their own eyes what telekinesis is. Prior to this, Kulagina was often attacked in the press, where she was not called otherwise than a hoaxer. And finally, she was able to show everyone the very “trick” that haunts many scientists. Taking off her gold wedding ring from her finger, Ninel Sergeevna put it in front of her on the coffee table. Waving her hand over the ring, she moved it from its place, and it moved to the edge of the table... Matches spread out on the table also moved... So Ninel Sergeevna demonstrated the ability to move objects without touching them with her hands.

Fifteen years before this demonstration, a documentary film was made about Kulagina's abilities, which only viewers in Japan could see.

Scientists from Leningrad, Moscow and other cities of Russia and foreign countries showed close interest in the phenomenon of Kulagina. The results of the experiments carried out became the subject of reflections of physicists. Academician Yuri Borisovich Kobzarev, convinced of the abilities of N. Kulagina, gave her a written document certified by the seal of the institute where he worked. The document confirmed that Ninel Sergeevna Kulagina had an extraordinary ability to cause the movement of light objects without touching them, and that she did this solely by straining her body. In addition, the document stated that this phenomenon could not be explained by the occurrence of electric and magnetic fields. The phenomenon demonstrated by N. Kulagina, said in the document, is of great interest to science, and its study can lead to fundamental discoveries that are not inferior in their significance to the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics.

Since 1964, scientists from more than 25 different scientific laboratories have been studying the phenomenon of N. Kulagina: at Leningrad and Moscow universities, at the V.M. Bekhterev, at the Neurosurgical Institute named after A.L. Polenov of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR, in the magnetic-ionospheric observatory of the Leningrad branch of the IZMIR of the USSR Academy of Sciences, at the Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics of the USSR Academy of Sciences and in a number of other institutions. In the course of the experiments, it turned out that, in addition to telekinesis, Ninel Sergeevna is capable of: reading a text ... with her hand, causing a burning sensation in other people and even leaving burns on their bodies, creating an acidic environment in various liquids, influencing the propagation of a laser beam, increasing the electrical conductivity of air , to have an analgesic, therapeutic effect in inflammatory processes, some diseases.

Viktor Kulagin, the husband of Ninel Sergeevna, wrote in his article about her phenomenon: “When my wife announced that she could distinguish colors not with her eyes, but with her fingers, I did not believe her. Got to check. They blindfolded her eyes with a woolen down scarf, folded several times. They tied it tightly, eliminating the possibility of peeping through the bandage. On the table lay a book of color photographs, open to pages containing vivid images. To my surprise, after a short training, Ninel Sergeevna accurately identified all the colors on the pages of this book with the fingers of her right hand.

From the definition of color, they moved on to printed text. “Not immediately, but it began to work out. Started with large print, then moved on to reading small. Everything is going well, with minor bugs and glitches. And here's what we notice: running his hand along the line of text, N.S., it turns out, does not close the readable line with his fingers. Her fingers slide under the line! It turns out that the so-called “skin-optical” effect has nothing to do with it ... perhaps it is not at all necessary to touch an object in order to determine by touch a color, font or image?

We conducted the experiment not only “blindly”, blindfolded, but also in the dark. N. Kulagina gave correct answers. Sheets with numbers, letters, short words were placed in black envelopes. And in this case, the results were amazing: Ninel Sergeevna called everything correctly.

But, of course, the most interesting and mysterious is telekinesis, which Ninel Sergeevna has repeatedly demonstrated to scientists (and not only). The first laboratory experiment was carried out with Professor L.L. Vasiliev. Victor Kulagin recalled this as follows: “The excited Ninel Sergeevna was seated at a small table covered with a newspaper. Half a meter from the subject, L. L. Vasiliev placed a metal case from a Cuban cigar vertically. I marked the position of the case by tracing its end with a pencil on paper. Not immediately Ninel Sergeevna coped with the excitement, managed to tune in. The professor sitting next to her calmed and encouraged her. Everyone present was watching the scene intently. No one spoke, no one broke the silence. ...Finally, thanks to the extreme tension of the body, she managed to move the case by five centimeters ... without touching it with her hands. ...Professor L.L. Vasiliev, it seemed, was both delighted and at the same time very worried. He immediately fixed the place where the object had moved, again tracing the position of the case with a pencil along the contour.

Later, Professor Vasiliev admitted that he had never seen anything like it. And here, besides, it’s also publicly, without any sacrament.

N. Kulagina underwent a comprehensive examination at a high instrumental and professional level at the observatory of the Leningrad branch of the IZMIR Academy of Sciences, where Professor V.I. Pochtarev not only treated the research with understanding, but also took part in it himself. The psychological situation in the observatory was the most favorable, which allowed Ninel Sergeyevna to reveal her abilities to the maximum. After these studies, scientific reports appeared that contained a detailed description of all the experiments.

In 1963-1965, N. Kulagina was treated by a psychotherapist with hypnosis and auto-training. It was then that she began to feel spontaneous flushes ... burning. Mostly burned legs and arms, and this happened during sleep. The sensation was very painful, but the body temperature remained normal. Attempts to get rid of this by self-hypnosis failed, moreover, the cases began to become more frequent, and the painful condition lasted for several hours. Over time, Ninel Sergeevna began to get used to unexpected pains. When the burning stopped, no complications arose.

Viktor Kulagin wrote about this period in the life of the family: “Thinking about how to get rid of this scourge, we decided that my wife would try to mentally convey the burning sensation to me. We decided to try, although we didn’t know what to do and how to do it. What was our surprise when, during the next attack, my wife transferred a disturbing burning sensation to me on the forearm of the hand, which I applied to her “burning” leg. At first, I felt nothing but the usual warmth. Soon, however, a slight tingling appeared, and then a slight burning sensation, which gradually increased, turning into a strong one. I have reddened skin on my arm. The burning sensation continued for at least 10-15 minutes even after I took my hand away.

When N. Kulagina learned to transfer the burning sensation to another, her attacks stopped. Nevertheless, if she did not do this for two or three months, she began to have headaches, malaise, discomfort in the spine. But over time, Ninel Sergeevna learned to regulate the intensity and direction of her "thermal" impact. During the procedure, she moistened her palms with cologne, alcohol or water, which facilitated the effort.

In the laboratory, experiments were also carried out on the transfer of burning sensation through an object. Even the metal screen was not an obstacle! Burning was transmitted in the water. In place of burns, the subjects' skin appeared to be covered with a tan, sometimes holes appeared on clothes (for example, in underwear made of acetate silk), but there was no infection of the skin. An increase in skin temperature at the site of exposure was also not observed. Doctor of Medical Sciences F.V. Balluseka noted that burns cannot be considered thermal. The experimenter did not feel the burning sensation transmitted by N. Kulagina, only in the case when a copper screen was used.

It turned out that thanks to her gift, Ninel Sergeevna is able to treat vascular diseases and heal wounds. The flowers on which she acted remained fresh for a long time, the opening of buds and buds was significantly accelerated. “It was observed more than once how wilted flowers came to life, their smell intensified,” Viktor Kulagin wrote. “Control flowers that were not exposed to irradiation usually withered after two or three days. Those that were exposed to two to three minutes of exposure 3-4 times a day remained alive, without fading for more than two weeks.
After many physical experiments, the assumption was confirmed that N. Kulagina, transmitting the burning effect, sharply increases the electrical conductivity of the air. So, once a transparent cube was placed in front of the owner of an inexplicable gift, in which there were two metal plates. To exclude free access to the plates, this cube was placed in another transparent Plexiglas cube. The plates were connected to a battery and a microammeter. When exposed to the device, Ninel Sergeevna changed the electrical conductivity of the air between the plates, although they were inside the cubes. The arrow of the device showed that an impulsive direct current flows between the plates.

Scientists could not explain this paradoxical result by laws known to physics and physiology.

During experiments on telekinesis, it was observed several times how thin shiny dotted threads resembling beads appeared between N. Kulagina's fingers and a movable object. One of those moments was captured on film. Later, when analyzing the frames, it turned out that the threads come from the fingers of one or the other hand. Glimpses were visible only in those places that were not blocked by a shadow. In addition, they had different thickness and brightness. And on separate frames, glimpses of threads came from both hands at once.

Scientists suggested that the film does not record a self-luminous formation, such as, for example, a spark discharge, but a reflection from some surface, from a rapidly moving smallest particle ...

In the autumn of 1977, the Kulagins visited Moscow twice at the invitation of the Institute of Chemical Physics of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Experiments were carried out there, the purpose of which was to find out how Ninel Sergeevna affects chemical reactions. Scientists have prepared three solutions of complex composition. Their ultraviolet spectra were preliminarily recorded. The solutions were divided into two halves. One was left for control, and the other was sealed into molybdenum and quartz glass ampoules. At the end of the experiments, protocols were drawn up. There was no reason to doubt the discovered phenomenon. In conclusion about these experiments, in particular, it was said:

“Three sheets of non-exposed photographic paper were placed in a black bag, which N. S. Kulagina irradiated for five minutes with contact. During development, partial light exposure of the photographic paper was detected with a decreasing light intensity from the top sheet to the bottom.

Thus, N. Kulagina was a mystery to chemists as well.

In 1987, Ninel Sergeevna again became the object of lengthy experiments. This time the initiative came from Doctor of Technical Sciences Professor L.A. Wolf, who headed the Department of Chemical Fibers of the Leningrad Institute of Textile and Light Industry. A series of chemical experiments convincingly confirmed the existence of the Kulagina phenomenon (it began to be called the “K” phenomenon). However, not all of the planned program was completed. The work had to be interrupted, since an article appeared in the journal "Man and Law", the author of which classified the ongoing research as unscientific, and Ninel Sergeevna as a charlatan. The Kulagins went to court. In January 1988, the People's Court of the Dzerzhinsky District of Moscow made a decision obliging the editors to publish a refutation. This decision was also upheld by the Moscow City Court. Ninel Sergeevna suffered a heart attack and was out of action for a long time.

The phenomenon of N. Kulagina, despite hundreds of studies conducted at scientific institutes, has not been fully unraveled. For a quarter of a century, Ninel Sergeevna demonstrated her gift to all scientists who wanted to explore it. But this was not enough, because officials from the highest echelons of power, completely denying the reliability of such phenomena as telekinesis, telepathy and clairvoyance, separated them from science. N.S. openly presented himself with the opportunity to talk about such things. Kulagina too late. In 1991, after a serious illness, she died.

telekinesis magic

Famous professors believed their eyes, but refused to recognize

Leo KOLODNY, Moskovsky Komsomolets dated 03/16/2007

When they talk about the secrets of nature on television, they show telekinesis performed by a pretty woman with dimples on her cheeks.

My friend Eduard Naumov and I flash by her side. And the cap of my long-lost Chinese fountain pen moves on the table by itself.

The other day I saw a painfully familiar story in a program dedicated to Academician Khokhlov. He dared to let Ninel Kulagina into the temple of science. At the Department of Physics at Moscow University, she moved various objects without touching her hands, and swung a pendulum in a glass vessel. Regarding the experiments, Landau quipped that telepathy is a deception of the working people. Since then, telekinesis has been inexplicable.

I am writing with the hope that among the readers of “MK” there will be a genius who will be able to solve a riddle that did not succumb to the best minds of the twentieth century.

I saw telekinesis in a publishing house on Chistye Prudy, on the floor of Moskovsky Komsomolets in a crowded conference room. An amateur movie camera chirped, and on the screen a woman either stopped or accelerated the disk of the pendulum. The clock in the case was in Mendeleev's office at the Institute of Metrology, Leningrad. According to him, science begins where measurements begin. How to measure the force that forced the pendulum to behave contrary to the laws of physics and common sense?

To Leningrad - a stone's throw. With the film demonstrator, Eduard Naumov, I found myself on the outskirts, where a housewife lived with three children and her husband, party member, leading engineer of the Baltic Shipbuilding Plant, Viktor Vasilyevich Kulagin. I put the cap of a fountain pen on the dining table. Matches were scattered around. Found a tourist compass. And we saw how, under Ninel's hands, the cap jerkily, without falling, moved along the rough tablecloth. Matches huddled together as if magnetized. The compass needle twirled. The compass itself with the strap spun and approached the edge of the table.

I did not know anything about telekinesis then, I had no idea what kind of mine I was stepping on, intending to write about what I had seen in the organ of the CPSU MGK. I didn't know that Leonid Vasiliev, a student of Bekhterev, a professor at Leningrad University, had been studying Kulagin for two years. After showing telekinesis to his colleagues, the professor asked everyone: “Did you see?” Having received an affirmative answer, he excitedly said: “Friends, yes, you have seen the rarest natural phenomenon, but I ask you not to tell anyone about this!”

Why was the Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences timid? Because the magazine "Communist" attributed telekinesis to charlatanism. Kulagin put a weight of 30 grams on one scale of the home photo lab. Another empty bowl naturally rose. And she miraculously sank when Ninel, straining, but not touching her hands, pressed her to the table. Where does such power come from? Especially in your head? Thought is ideal, powerless, and if we recognize the reality of telekinesis, it means overturning the cornerstone of materialism, shaking the foundation of Marxism-Leninism, the ideology of the USSR. His rank-and-file employees understood this no worse than Professor Vasiliev. They spread the rumor that the gullible professor was being fooled by a swindler, manipulating "invisible threads". Not wanting to be ostracized in his old age, the sick professor withdrew.

That's when, at the end of the "thaw", Ninel's husband, a member of the CPSU, asked for support from his district party committee. And with his wife he ended up in Mendeleev's office. The behavior of watches and scales, objects under a transparent cap amazed the successors of Dmitry Ivanovich's work. In a closed report sent to the district committee, they admitted that they could not explain the “observed phenomenon”. But in an open report, telekinesis was explained by “a piece of a magnet or a coil with current somewhere in the bust area.” So, after the “invisible threads”, the myth of “magnets in clothes” was born.

It didn't stop me. In one breath, he wrote about what he saw. He mentioned the clock of the Institute of Metrology. He brought in an academician and three professors to explain telekinesis. On the morning of March 17, 1968, an information bomb exploded in Moscow. The editorial phones are hot. Correspondents from foreign newspapers asked for photographs. “KGB Colonel Ivanov” asked on the phone: “Do our comrades in Leningrad know about Kulagina?” The writer Leonid Leonov asked to be introduced to her. This is on the one hand. On the other hand, physics students scoffed: “Does she move plates and saucers?” The professors instructed: “But this, young man, is the well-known 'table-turning', ridiculed by Friedrich Engels in the article 'Natural Science in the World of Spirits'. Read!” ... An urgent telegram from the director of the Institute of Metrology with a refutation was received.

I asked the Minister of Shipbuilding of the USSR to send the senior shipbuilder Kulagin to Moscow, and booked a room at the Minsk Hotel. Naumov agreed that Kulagina would be tested at FIAN. From the station, she and her husband drove to my house. There, the head of the department of the Physics Institute, Ph.D. Fedor Bunkin, and his staff saw telekinesis. "Won't this doctor," I thought, "would go down in the history of physics like Newton?"

Recently, having looked into the Big Encyclopedic Dictionary, I read that Fedor Vasilievich was elected an academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is the brother of Boris Vasilievich Bunkin, academician, twice Hero of Socialist Labor, laureate of the Lenin and State Prizes. It would seem, to whom, if not them, to solve the riddle of the twentieth century?! But the brothers did not take advantage of this opportunity.

The next day at FIANA, they decided not to accept Kulagin. Rem Khokhlov, head of the department of wave processes at Moscow State University, mountaineer, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, came for her on the Volga. “If Kulagina is a conjurer, then she is a genius, but here, apparently, it’s not about the threads,” he told me while driving on the way to the Lenin Hills. For three days, from morning to evening, in his office, Kulagina moved aluminum cylinders, an anodized cup, matches, a piece of sugar, and so on, to the point of exhaustion. I quote from the protocol: “The subject repeatedly spun the compass needle by moving her hands over the compass, as well as by looking.” She was given the task - "to spin the pendulum under a glass cap." She did that too. They invited me to watch the telekinesis of the host of the program “Obvious - Incredible”, the son of the great Peter Kapitsa. We wanted to get his attention. The academician's son sat down next to Kulagina and began to hold her hand. Looking for thread! Another invited observer, the dean of the Faculty of Biology, looked under the table, under Kulagina's skirt. He lost his temper and shouted: “No, it's still a trick. She's cheating!"

What did Ninel leave Moscow with? With protocols that ended with the words: "Experiments were set up incorrectly, and conclusions about the discovery of any new physical phenomena do not seem possible." Who interfered with correctness? About people like Khokhlov, now they say: superman. He was elected an academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences, appointed rector of Moscow University. He died after an unsuccessful ascent. And he did not conquer the pinnacle of science called “telekinesis”.

What's next? The libel "Miracles in a sieve" appeared in Pravda. Poor Ninel was compared with the hero of Gogol, to whom dumplings jumped into his mouth, they called him a liar, a swindler. “MK” correspondent Vadim Marin and I were classified as “greedy for imaginary miracles, overly gullible, illegible journalists”. Eduard Naumov served time for lectures on telekinesis in clubs in Moscow. Our connection with the Kulagins was interrupted.

Ten years later, fate brought the persecuted with Academician Yuri Borisovich Kobzarev, Hero of Socialist Labor. He received the Stalin Prize when the war began, for radars that proved themselves during raids on Moscow. He served as an academician at the IRE - the Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The Kulagins frequented the house on the embankment. There, Ninel “to warm up” swung the compass needle. And then, according to the academician, “something happened that literally shocked me. Kulagina, without touching the cap, made it move across the table, but the needle of the electrometer did not flinch. It turns out that the amazing phenomenon cannot be explained by a simple electrostatic interaction!” In order for a light object to move, a mechanical force is needed, which an electrostatic field of hundreds of kilowatts can cause. But the needle of the electrometer did not move. Kulagina at home moved a decanter weighing 480 grams! It needs a power plant. Under the angry gaze of Ninel, a glass once cracked ...

Yuri Borisovich demonstrated it to the company of academicians and Professor Yuri Gulyaev, Deputy Director of the IRE. Touched by the attention, she impromptu moved the glass that was on the table. At that time, she left Moscow with a “protective certificate”. On the letterhead of the institute, Kobzarev certified his signature under the words: “The phenomenon demonstrated by N.S. Kulagina is of tremendous interest to science. Its study can lead to fundamental discoveries that are not inferior in their significance to the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics.” So not a scammer.

But three times Hero of Socialist Labor Zel'dovich thought Yury Borisovich that it is possible to influence the metric of space-time by volitional tension, seemed "monstrous". He told Kobzarev that Kulagina, of course, uses strings, and he "simply did not notice all the manipulations."

Convinced of the reality of telekinesis, not only physical experiments.

Once, cervical sciatica broke out in me, - Kobzarev recalled, - and I asked Ninel Sergeevna to warm up the sore spot. She put her hands on her, there was some terribly strong sensation, like a burning sensation.

Laying her hands on the cold cast-iron iron, Ninel heated the smooth surface like a stove. IRE produced a plexiglass cube. A cardboard sleeve from a hunting cartridge was placed in it. Ninel moved him and proved that Zeldovich's notorious threads were a hallucination.

The vice-president, on a letterhead of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR with two Orders of Lenin, asked the executive committee of the Leningrad Council to improve the living conditions of the Kulagins: 9 family members lived on 42 square meters. The letter, but not the scientific report, says for the first time that Kulagina's study led to "a major scientific discovery, the discovery of the human ability to emit ultrasound." They heard sounds reminiscent of the clicking of dolphins, Gulyaev and Kobzarev. Gulyaev asked to put his hand close to his ear. Ninel was afraid that he would go deaf. “Turn up the heat!” - Going into the excitement, asked Gulyaev. She “succumbed” so that the membranes of the microphones could not withstand the voltage. Physicists saw the glow of hands with the naked eye. With them, she could hold the ball in the air, read in absolute darkness, illuminate the film, determine the color of the bookmarks in the envelopes...

Before being elected as a full member of the academy, Gulyaev turned to Academician Zeldovich for support and heard: “Almost all of your work you reported at my seminar. Therefore, we are ready to support you in the elections. But it became known to us that you were engaged in some kind of psychics, and now the election is in question ... "

The famous magician Akopyan was invited as an expert to the laboratory created by Gulyaev in 1982 to study the “physical fields of biological objects”. I was friends with him and the head of this laboratory, Professor Eduard Godik, I was looking for “non-residential premises” with physicists all over Moscow. Found in an alley near Solyanka. Millions of dollars were given to resolve the issue of "does Dzhuna treat Brezhnev or cripples him." But Ninel was the first to cross the threshold of the laboratory. She scattered the laser beam in front of the illusionist. Hakobyan admitted that he does not know how it is done.

Since then, Gulyaev has been silent about telekinesis. Although I saw the “burning effect” and much more. Once he showed me a piece of paper with phone numbers, kept as an expensive souvenir in a notebook. While waiting for the late professor, the annoyed Ninel, who had never seen his notebook, wrote out intimate and office telephone numbers from it on a piece of paper that turned up under her arm. The numbers in the book and on the sheet matched, moreover, she marked the home and work phones with the letters “d” and “r”.

Speaking as a witness at the trial in defense of Kulagina, who was again called a fraud in the magazine “Chelovek i Zakon”, he answered the questions of the judge as follows:

Gulyaev: Ninel Sergeevna showed some unusual ... (difficult to determine). We just saw what we saw. We saw movement...

Judge: Are you working with her now?

Gulyaev: No. She doesn't interest us that much.

He is not interested because the shadows of Landau and Zel'dovich are frightening.

They didn't scare me. But to tell what he had seen for three years in Starosadsky Lane, was not allowed to visit here in May 1985, the President of the USSR Academy of Sciences Alexandrov. I did not leave a visa on the article. That is why my view in the picture published today is so lost.

Perestroika broke out. Kulagin openly began to be investigated at four departments in Leningrad, including the medical department. Secretly, she "warmed" Shostakovich, many famous and unknown. Figure skaters Belousova and Protopopov wrote from Switzerland that they miss her hands. She didn't help herself. She died at the age of 64 on the operating table.

Yuri Borisovich was buried in the church of Ilya Obydensky. Eduard Naumov was killed in the apartment by robbers. Our film about telekinesis was taken all over the world. Professor Godik is doing well in the USA. On the Internet, on the site http://www.edgodik.net, he gave an article “A Man in His Own Light”, where, deeply regretting the unrealized project, after 20 years he calls it “promising” and “relevant” even today.

Video about Kulagina

Soviet ideology did not recognize mysticism and metaphysics, but allowed belief in the paranormal abilities of individuals.

Phenomenon from Leningrad

Belief in paranormal (or extrasensory) abilities originated in the 19th century. In Bolshevik Russia, for a long time, no attention was paid to circles of researchers of the “astral” and public performances of mediums, but the “cultural revolution” started by Joseph Stalin put them outside the law.

Therefore, beginning in the 1930s, occult practices began to dress up in the garb of science. Many scientists and even entire institutes dealt with the issues of telepathy, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, hypnosis, clairvoyance, etc. In most cases, the self-styled "uniques" were found to be either swindlers or crazy. However, from time to time, real nuggets came across among them.

In 1962, Soviet researchers were attracted Rosa Kuleshova. An illiterate woman suffering from epilepsy demonstrated "skin vision", that is, the ability to read texts of any complexity with a single touch - not only with her fingers, but also with her elbow, feet, through an impenetrable partition or a tight envelope.

In December 1963, a Leningrad housewife accidentally heard about the "Kuleshova effect" Ninel Kulagina(before Mikhailov's marriage).

She decided to tell the experts about her own phenomenon. She had a difficult fate: she went to war as a girl, served as a radio operator in tank troops and was seriously wounded. Ninel was awarded various awards, including the Order of the Patriotic War II degree. In peacetime, she was on the council of veterans of the 268th division.

According to Ninel Kulagina, she inherited unusual abilities from her mother. From childhood, she noticed that she was able to move objects when she was angry, that is, she was a psychokinetic.

Ninel herself had to resort to meditation to remotely influence things, so she was not always able to demonstrate her abilities. Nevertheless, she managed to convince the scientific world that she deserves attention, and the study of the "K phenomenon" (as Kulagina's gift was called in the press) began with full seriousness.

Miracle or scam?

For the first time, the unusual abilities of Ninel Kulagina were announced at a special conference held on January 10, 1964 in Leningrad. The psychophysiologist Leonid Vasiliev, a leading Soviet specialist in telepathy and paranormal human abilities, who took part in its organization, highly appreciated the experiments carried out then, called them a “scientific event” and admitted that in 30 years of his activity he had not seen anything like it.

Kulagina regulated her own pulse rate, rotated the compass needle, read the text in a magazine with her fingers, and burned strangers with the touch of her hand.

At the end of the same month, Kulagin was sent for a comprehensive examination to the Leningrad Psychoneurological Institute named after V.M. Bekhterev. The results were disappointing: experts did not find any hereditary "abnormalities" in the woman's body. Moreover, she was unable to reproduce any of the experiments presented at the conference, so she was declared a swindler.

A year later, Kulagina appeared in court on charges of fraud: she allegedly collected money from citizens who wanted to purchase scarce furniture, and lured them out of more than seven thousand rubles. Most likely, the woman really acted as an intermediary in one of the many shadow schemes for the distribution of consumer goods, but she preferred to plead guilty under the article “Fraud”, since a much more serious term was supposed for a crime as part of an organized group.

Despite the petition of scientists led by Vasiliev, who were eager to continue studying the "K phenomenon", the court delivered a guilty verdict, and Kulagina went to a colony for two years.

It seemed that the star of Leningrad-psychokinetics had sunk forever, but in March 1968, articles appeared again, where she appeared under her maiden name - Mikhailova. At the same time, a new series of experiments, during which Ninel Sergeevna demonstrated her abilities, as the journalist Lev Kolodny claimed, was carried out by specialists from the All-Union Research Institute of Metrology named after D.I. Mendeleev.

The directorate of the institute issued a refutation, but a small popular science film was made about Kulagina, which attracted the interest of foreign specialists. The Czechoslovak scientist Zdeněk Reidak was the first to meet her. The observation of the “K phenomenon” made a great impression on him - he came to the conclusion that it was necessary to study the physiological changes that occur in the body of Ninel Sergeevna during psychokinesis sessions.

Lost Talent

Various institutes began to invite Kulagin to their laboratories to conduct experiments. She moved objects at the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University, influenced liquids within the walls of the Institute of Chemical Physics, read texts with the back of her head at the Institute of Fine Mechanics and Optics.

Phenomenon K was received in different ways. Someone recognized its reality, someone was looking for a catch. For example, Kulagina's ability to rotate a compass needle at a distance was explained by the fact that she hides magnets on her body; the movement of objects such as a box of matches or a ping-pong ball - by manual dexterity and special threads that are not visible to an outside observer.

However, each time Ninel Sergeevna demonstrated new unexpected effects, leading scientists to astonishment: for example, she illuminated a photographic film in a tight envelope or changed the acidity of water in a closed vessel with a glance.

The controversy didn't stop. To dot the "i", Academician Yuri Kobzarev contributed to a series of experiments in a special laboratory created under the roof of the Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics. They were carried out during 1981-1982 with amazing results. It was established for certain that a strong electric field arises around the hands of Ninel Kulagina.

According to Yu. B. Kobzarev, among the recorded phenomena associated with Kulagina were the following:

1. moving small objects, such as a piece of sugar or a matchbox;
2. rotation of the compass needle;
3. touching another person's hand with one's hand can cause severe burns;
4. hand scattering of the laser beam;
5. change in acidity (pH) of water;
6. exposure to a photographic film placed in a closed bag (flare).

At the end of 1987, Ninel Kulagina appealed to the People's Court of the Dzerzhinsky District of Moscow, accusing the editors of the magazine Man and Law of disseminating slanderous information degrading her honor and dignity. In fact, the court had to establish the authenticity of the paranormal abilities that the plaintiff demonstrated. In January 1988, unexpectedly for many, he made a decision obliging the magazine to publish a retraction. The process went down in history under the name "The Case of Telekinesis".

Laboratory employee Alexander Taratorin recalled:

“It was possible to find out that small droplets of histamine are sprayed out of her palm, possibly through the sweat glands. While escaping, it forms a charged aerosol, which explains all the observed effects.

The injected droplets caused clicks in the microphone, they changed the dielectric constant of the medium, scattering the laser beam, corroding the skin ... We did not succeed in understanding the physiological mechanism of such injection, it really was a physiological phenomenon.

Ninel Kulagina began to enjoy the fame of a psychic, and with the skills of a folk healer. Her ability to warm the skin was perceived as a medical method. It is known that the famous conductor Maxim Shostakovich, actor Innokenty Smoktunovsky, figure skaters Oleg Protopopov and Lyudmila Belousova turned to her for help.

On April 11, 1990, Ninel Sergeevna Kulagina died at the age of 63, and the nature of the “K phenomenon” remained undisclosed. Probably, she was let down by her desire to please the researchers: she had a unique gift, but she tried to demonstrate it even in situations where it could not work, which caused a natural distrust of the phenomenon. As a result, today scientists refuse to discuss experiments involving Kulagina.

Anton PERVUSHIN, magazine "Mysteries of history. Secrets of the USSR" No. 3, 2017

Ninel Sergeevna Kulagina(also known as Nelya Mikhailova) (July 30, 1926 - April 1990) - a woman who was alleged to have demonstrated telekinesis and other anomalous abilities, which were studied at several research institutes for more than 20 years.

• 1 Biography
• 2 Awards
• 3
  • 3.1 Criticism
• 4 Interesting Facts
• 5 See also
• 6 Literature

Biography

She was born on July 30, 1926 in Leningrad. At the age of 14 she joined the Red Army, and during the Great Patriotic War from April 1941 to June 1946 she served as a radio operator in tank troops. She was wounded several times and received a group II disability. She was a member of the council of a veteran of the 268th division.

In 1966, Kulagina was convicted of fraud by the Kirov District People's Court of Leningrad. The Prosecutor of Leningrad, State Councilor of Justice of the 3rd rank S. E. Solovyov and journalist M. N. Medvedev note on this occasion that the reason was that “ she presented herself as a person who could help in acquiring furniture from the back door, and in a short time she collected more than seven thousand rubles».

Awards

• Order of the Patriotic War II degree
• Medal "For Military Merit"
• Medal "For the Defense of Leningrad"

Research on the “Kulagina Phenomenon”

She gained international fame in the 1960s when her abilities began to be explored. The newspaper "Komsomolskaya Pravda" dated August 16, 1981 in the article "On weeding in the biofield" contains the following information:

At one time, journalists talked about Roza Kuleshova, who had skin vision. After reading about her, another woman, Ninel Kulagina, decided to show herself to people. Together with E. Naumov, a well-known collector of such information on such phenomena, with a group of physicists from the Lebedev Physical Institute, they organized the arrival of Kulagina in Moscow for 4 days, researched at the department headed by Khokhlov at Moscow State University

Kulagina claimed to be the first to discover the abilities she believed she had inherited from her mother when she realized that objects moved randomly around her when she was angry. She said that in order for the abilities to manifest, it took some time for meditation to clear her mind of all thoughts. Kulagina said that while she concentrated, she experienced pain in her spine, and her vision was blurred. It was noted that thunderstorms prevented her from carrying out telekinetic actions. Perhaps the most famous experiment involving Kulagina was carried out on March 10, 1970 in a Leningrad laboratory with the participation of the head of the technical parapsychology section at the Scientific and Technical Society for Instrument Engineering, psychophysiologist and mathematician Gennady Sergeev. According to eyewitness reports, in the course of experiments captured on film, Kulagina psychokinetically affected the frog's heart, separated from the body: first, she changed the pulse in both directions, then stopped the heart.

In 1968, black-and-white films made in the USSR documenting experiments with her participation were presented to Western experts and caused a sensation, at least among parapsychologists, some of whom were quick to announce that they had obtained decisive proof of the reality of psychokinesis. According to reports from the Soviet Union, 40 scientists took part in Kulagina's research, of which two were Nobel laureates. Larry Kettlekamp claims that Mikhailova was caught on videotape separating broken eggs, which had previously been immersed in water, into whites and yolks. During the experiment, all physical changes were recorded to her, including the acceleration and change in the heartbeat, brain waves and electromagnetic field. In order to prevent external electromagnetic impulses from interfering, she was placed inside a metal cage, where she allegedly showed the ability to remove the marked match from a pile of others lying under a glass cap.

According to Yu. B. Kobzarev, the experiments, which were initially carried out by academicians Kikoin, Gulyaev, Kobzarev, served as an impetus for the creation of a laboratory of radioelectronic methods for studying biological objects, headed by Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences E. E. Godik. According to Godik, the laboratory’s work plan included the task of “dealing with” the psychics who became active in the USSR at that time, among whom was N. S. Kulagina.

According to Yu. B. Kobzarev, among the recorded phenomena associated with Kulagina were the following:

• moving small objects, such as a piece of sugar or a matchbox;
• rotation of the compass needle;
• touching another person's hand with one's hand can cause severe burns;
• hand scattering of the laser beam;
• change in acidity (pH) of water;
• exposure to a photographic film placed in a closed bag (flare).

According to Yu. B. Kobzarev, studies carried out at the Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics (IRE) of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1981-1982 established that there was a strong electric field around her hands, and a sensitive microphone installed near her hands recorded short ultrasonic impulses.

Laboratory employee A. Taratorin writes in his memoirs:

it was possible to find out that small droplets of histamine are sprayed out of her palm, possibly through the sweat glands. While escaping, it forms a charged aerosol, which explains all the observed effects. The injected droplets caused clicks in the microphone, they changed the dielectric constant of the medium, scattering the laser beam, corroding the skin (the famous “burn”), and finally, they “sit down” on the object, charging it. ... We did not manage to understand the physiological mechanism of such squirting; it really was a physiological phenomenon.

October 27, 2010 at the Physical Institute. P. N. Lebedev RAS hosted a presentation of the book by E. E. Godik (since 1993 in the USA) - “The Mystery of Psychics: What Physicists Have Seen” about experiments that have been carried out for more than 10 years at the Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Criticism

Many people and organizations, like the James Randi Foundation and the Italian Committee for the Investigation of Pseudoscience Claims. (CICAP) are skeptical about telekinesis. So Italian psychologist, journalist and writer, co-founder and executive director of CICAP Massimo Polidoro. wrote that the lengthy preparation and uncontrolled environment in the room (like in a hotel room), where experiments were conducted with the participation of Kulagina, leave a wide field for obvious cheating.

Magicians and skeptics argued that everything done by Kulagina can be repeated with simple sleight of hand, using well-hidden and disguised threads, small pieces of magnetized metal or mirrors; in addition, opinions were expressed that, under the conditions of the Cold War, the Soviet Union had an obvious interest in falsifying and exaggerating the results of research for propaganda purposes in order to win in a "psychological race" like the space race and the arms race.

The writer and popularizer of science V. E. Lvov in his article in the newspaper Pravda accused Kulagin of fraud. He wrote that she performed one of her tricks with a magnet hidden on her body. The article also reported that Kulagina was arrested for deceiving the public with five thousand rubles. And also cites as evidence the examination of Kulagina at the Leningrad Psychoneurological Institute named after V. M. Bekhterev, which “ concluded with a sixteen-page protocol and a press release signed by six leading psychiatrists and physiologists of higher nervous activity" and " scientific workers of the institute easily uncovered the tricks and machinations used by Kulagina in her demonstrations of "telepathy" and "clairvoyance"". From the text of the message of Leningradskaya Pravda it followed that " It was a common deception. An experienced swindler managed to commit another scam ...". In addition, Lvov cites the data of the commission of the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Metrology named after D. I. Mendeleev (VNIIM named after D. I. Mendeleev), which, under the chairmanship of Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor S. V. Gorbatsevich, in May 1965 established that: “ N. S. Kulagina refused the proposal to repeat the experiments on moving objects in a sealed glass vessel ...» « It was proposed to repeat the experiments in a closed vessel made at VNIIM ... which would make it possible to exclude the possibility of moving objects with invisible threads, etc. ... Kulagina's repeated attempts did not give positive results»… « Experiments with clocks and scales did not give positive results ...”He also refers to the protocol of the visit to Kulagina’s apartment of the head of the laboratory for magnetic measurements of VNIIM Studentsov and senior engineer Skrynnikov, entitled “Report on the visit of Kulagina N. in order to identify physical reasons that allow Kulagina to turn and rotate the magnetic needle” from which it follows that the visitors “ I was surprised by the equipment of the apartment with magnetic devices: a topographic compass, a marine (floating) compass, a horseshoe magnet and a more powerful magnet of another form ...". They are " we began to study the state of the magnetic field ... At the same time, we positioned the pointer device in such a way that Kulagina could not see it. They put the probe on the edge of the table ... They suggested that Kulagina stand up and turn, standing, around the horizontal axis". After that, hidden under the clothes " a well-defined dipole (that is, a piece of a magnet or a coil with current) and then they started look for where she hid the magnet". As a result, they found that " below the belt or at the hips there is a permanent magnetic dipole, the magnetic moment of which is completely independent of the mental state of the subject ...". Lvov notes that when Kulagin was asked not to move her "waist and hips", " there were no deviations of the arrow (in the magnetometer)". In addition, the authors of the protocol noted that “ Kulagina's husband and she herself all the time offered to show us the movement of various bodies' and show ' cigar case movement", and during the observation it was noticed that" Kulagina stretches the tablecloth just in the place where the object is located”, and after the physicists established control over the left hand of the subject, psychokinesis ceased to manifest itself.

The Pravda newspaper, in its issue of June 24, 1968, criticized Kulagina as follows: After leaving prison, the swindler again settled in Leningrad and ... succeeded in the mysterious field of fooling people who are fond of parapsychology ... How could some editorial offices occupy a fair amount of space in their newspapers with exaggerated tricks presented in the form of a scientific sensation? ... After all, our press is always and in everything called to illuminate the achievements and searches of science with perfect knowledge of the matter, with deep, exacting thoughtfulness, objectivity and insight ...»

American mathematician, writer, popularizer of science, one of the founders of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal Martin Gardner called Kulagin " beautiful, plump, dark-eyed little charlatan" (eng. pretty plump dark eyed little charlatan ), who was twice caught using tricks when moving items.

Corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences A. M. Ivanitsky, according to him, took part in the 1960s in the study of Kulagina's phenomena. In 2006, his memoirs were published in the Novye Izvestia newspaper:

One woman was moving a pen cap across the table in front of everyone. No matter how many experiments we set, she still moved ... However, after looking closely, we determined from the film that the woman imperceptibly threw on the table a long hair torn off beforehand, on which knots were twisted. One of the ends of the hair was fixed on the stomach. Skillfully moving it, she moved the cap a little on the table.

A little later, in the course of a conversation published on the website of the Club of Skeptics, A. M. Ivanitsky clarified that the newspaper had written incorrectly about hair, in the version he corrected, it was about nylon threads. Ivanitsky notes that Kulagina's hoax was discovered " during the change of linen (in the psychiatric clinic where she was lying) on ​​the belt of her dressing gown, we found nylon threads with knots twisted on them.", and also indicates that " Without threads, she did not try to do anything, saying: “you yourself now know everything”". And in the experiment with the impact on the compass needle, Kulagina used a magnet hidden under a bandage on her finger. Ivanitsky also refuted the statement of the psychotherapist M. I. Buyanov, who in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda on January 18, 2007 stated that “ Once I watched as the famous unique Ninel Kulagina moved the compass needle. But how she did it, no one has yet figured out. Skeptics say she held small magnets between her fingers. But her abilities were tested by famous scientists and she was never caught on magic tricks.', pointing out that: Just got caught.»

Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences E. B. Aleksandrov characterizes Kulagin as “ well-known swindler"And believes, despite the fact that she was repeatedly convicted of fraud, and those who investigated her abilities did not find anything unusual, she is still" subsequently ... fooled the settled simpletons at LITMO».

• The phenomenon of Ninel Kulagina is described in one of the episodes of the American film Scarecrows.

Literature

in Russian

• Alexandrov E. B. Problems of the expansion of pseudoscience // In defense of science. - M .: Nauka, 2006. - No. 1. - S. 8-16.(copy)
• Anufrieva, Anna; Gavrilov, Vladimir Sixth Sense // Novye Izvestia. - 28.07.2006.
• Dulnev G. N., Volchenko V. N., Vasilyeva G. N., Gorshkov E. S., Krylov K. I., Kulagin V. V., Meshkovsky I. K., Shvartsman A. G. Study of the K-phenomenon // Parapsychology and psychophysics. - M .: Fund of parapsychology named after L. L. Vasiliev, 1992. - No. 5. - S. 35-51. - ISSN 0869-3323 .
• Dulnev G. N. Energy-information exchange in nature . - St. Petersburg: ITMO, 2000. - 140 p. - (Outstanding scientists of ITMO). - 130 copies.(part 1), (part 2)
• Dulnev G. N. In search of the subtle world. Description of scientific experiments on the study of psychic abilities . - SPb. : Ves, 2004. - 286 p.
• Kuzina, Svetlana Once Juna resurrected Brezhnev // TVNZ. - 18.01.2007.
• Kulagin V.V. Phenomenon K (The Phenomenon of Ninel Kulagina) // Phenomenon "D" and others ... / Comp. L. E. Kolodny. - M .: Politizdat, 1991. - S. 107-221. - 335 p. - ISBN 5-250-01221-3.
• Kolodny L. E. telekinesis magic // Moscow's comsomolets. - 16.03.2007.
• Kolodny L. E. Untorn Mystery // Moscow's comsomolets. - 27.10.2007. - № 24601.
• Kolodny L. E. Mysterious Telekinesis // Moscow's comsomolets. - 11.07.2013. - № 26252.
• Lvov V. E. Miracle fabricators . - L. : Lenizdat, 1974. - 300 p.
• Medvedev M. N., Solovyov S. E. On invisible tracks. - 2nd ed. - L.: Lenizdat, 1971. - 312 p.
• Carriers A. N. It's about telekinesis. Transcript of the trial // Technique - Youth. - 1988. - № 5-7.
• Carriers A. N. Psychics - myth or reality? // Question mark. - 1989. - № 10.
• Strelkov V. Resurrection of Dracula, or Who sows mysticism // Person and law. - 1986. - № 9.
• Strelkov V. From mysticism to crime // Person and law. - 1987. - № 6.
• Taratorin A. The true story of psychics in Russia . - Santa Clara, 1997.
• Scan of the test certificate of Ninel Kulagina (1978), signed by Acad. I.K.Kikoin, acad. Yu.B.Kobzarev, prof. V.B. Braginsky, prof. Yu.V. Gulyaev and others.

in other languages

• Bowater, Margaret M.; Stein, Diane All Woman Are Psychics: Language of the Spirit . - The Crossing Press, 1999. - 348 p. - ISBN 0-89594-979-2.
• Buckland, Raymond The Fortune-Telling Book: The Encyclopedia of Divination and Soothsaying. - Visible Ink Press, 2003. - ISBN 1-57859-147-3.
• Chughtai, M. H. H.; Abbas S.G. life. - Majlis-e-Milli, 1980.
• Couttie, Bob Forbidden Knowledge: The Paranormal Paradox. - Lutterworth Press, 1988. - ISBN 978-0-7188-2686-4.
• Ebon, Martin Psychic Warfare: Threat Or Illusion?. - McGraw-Hill Education, 1983. - ISBN 0-07-018860-2.
• Gardner, Martin Good, Bad and Bogus. - Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983. - ISBN 0-19-286037-2.
• Gardner, Martin The New Age: Notes of a Fringe-Watcher. - Prometheus Books, 1988. - ISBN 0-87975-644-6.
• Kettlekamp, ​​Larry Investigating Psychics: Five Life Histories. - New York: William Morrow & Company, 1977. - P. 16-17.
• Kettlekamp, ​​Larry Investigating Psychics: Five Life Histories // Understanding a Midsummer Night's Dream: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents / Faith Nostbakken. - Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003. - P. 179-180. - ISBN 0-313-32213-9.
• Kurtz, Paul A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology. - Prometheus Books, 1985. - ISBN 0-87975-300-5.
• Mishlove, Jeffrey The Roots of Consciousness: Psychic Liberation Through History, Science, and Experience. - Random House, 1975. - ISBN 0-394-73115-8.
• Moss, Thelma . The Body Electric. - J. P. Tarcher, 1979.
• Parodi, Angelo Science and Spirit: What Physics Reveals about Mystical Belief . - Pleasant Mount Press, 2005. - ISBN 0-9767489-3-2.
• Planner, Felix superstition. - Cassell, 1980. - ISBN 0-304-30691-6.
• Polidoro, Massimo Secrets of the Psychics: Investigating Paranormal Claims. - Prometheus Books, 2003. - ISBN 1-59102-086-7.
• Polidoro, Massimo Secrets of a Russian Psychic // CICAP. - 12.12.2000.
• Randall, John L Parapsychology and the Nature of Life. - Souvenir Press, 1975. - ISBN 0-285-62177-7.
• Randy, James Kulagina, Nina // An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural. - James Randi Educational Foundation, 2006.
• Soviet stare gets action: Woman's look puts mind over matter // The Hartford Courant. - 1968-03-18. - P. 36.
• Stein, Gordon. The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal. - Prometheus Books, 1996. - ISBN 978-1573920216.
• Taylor, John Gerald . Science and the Supernatural: An Investigation of Paranormal Phenomena Including Psychic Healing, Clairvoyance, Telepathy, and Precognition by a Distinguished Physicist and Mathematician. - Temple Smith, 1980. - ISBN 0-85117-191-5.

Nowadays, some write about Ninel Kulagina as an ordinary swindler, others as a "great psychic" who has suffered persecution from official science. So who is she really and what is the secret of this woman?

Ability Test

Footage from the black-and-white documentary showed a woman wearing a 1970s hairstyle. She tries to do something with her hands, moves her palms over the compass. A beautiful, well-placed voice-over explains that this is Ninel Kulagina, a woman with unique telekinesis abilities. She tries to turn the needle on the compass. At first, she fails, and the announcer explains that Ninel is distracted by the noise of the camera, the presence of strangers. But now the arrow begins to obediently turn after Kulagina's palm, and after that the compass moves on the table by itself, obeying the movement of her hands. Meanwhile, a voice-over reports that Ninel also managed to move the decanter and other objects placed under a cubic box made of transparent plexiglass.

"The Kulagina Phenomenon"

This name - Ninel Kulagina - was well known fifty years ago in the USSR, and not only in the USSR, by everyone who was interested in various paranormal phenomena, such as telekinesis, telepathy. It was all very much in vogue back then. It is clear that where is Ninel Kulagina up to modern "uniques" who gather halls and go out to television "psychic battles", but for her time she was a very famous lady. He wrote scientific journals, made popular science programs, and to study the "Kulagina phenomenon" a whole laboratory of radio-electronic methods for studying biological objects was created.

A serious Soviet scientist in the field of radio engineering and radiophysics, Yu. B. Kobzarev, claimed that the following phenomena associated with Kulagina were recorded: the movement of small objects, such as a sugar cube or a cap from a pen; rotation of the compass needle; hand scattering (!) of the laser beam; change in acidity (pH) of water. Finally, Kulagina, according to the authorities who watched her, could cause a skin burn by simply touching a person with her hand and lighting up the film in a closed package.

Kobzarev claimed that there was a strong electric field around Kulagina's hands, and this was recorded by studies conducted at the Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics. Moreover, the venerable scientist also claimed that the microphone, installed at her hands, recorded ultrasonic pulses.

Laboratory employee A. Taratorin, who studied Kulagin, reported that:“Histamine is sprayed out of her palm in small droplets, possibly through the sweat glands. While escaping, it forms a charged aerosol, which explains all the observed effects. The injected droplets caused clicks in the microphone, they changed the dielectric constant of the medium, scattering the laser beam, corroding the skin (the famous “burn”), and finally, they “sit down” on the object, charging it.”

For twenty years, the “Kulagina phenomenon” has been studied by scientists, a film about her was made by order of Japanese television, and for twenty years the debate about the nature of her extraordinary abilities has not ceased.

However, then and now there are people who do not want to take seriously the abilities of this woman. Magicians and skeptics claim that all the miracles of Kulagina are nothing more than clever tricks that any circus magician can reproduce.

Charlatan or unique?

There is evidence of people who directly caught Kulagin on fraud. Thus, the commission of the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Metrology named after Mendeleev, chaired by Doctor of Technical Sciences S. V. Gorbatsevich, recorded that Kulagina refused the proposal to repeat the experiment on moving objects by the “power of thought” in a hermetically sealed glass vessel. The head of the laboratory of magnetic measurements at VNIIM, Studentsov, and senior engineer Skrynnikov, went to Kulagina's apartment. They concluded that Kulagina had a magnetic dipole under her clothes, and when she was asked to sit still, without moving her waist and hips, the compass needle stopped deviating. In addition, Kulagina insisted on moving exactly the object that she herself would point to, for example, a box of cigarettes. She refused to move the subject brought by the testers. Finally, there is evidence that Kulagina moved objects with the help of a thin thread or hair, and as soon as the witnesses of the experiment established “eye contact” with her hand, the movement of objects stopped.

Since, apparently, Kulagina did not conduct a single experiment in clean laboratory conditions, but demonstrated her abilities in her apartment or in hotel rooms, there is no need to say that her gift was scientifically recorded.

It is quite difficult to suspect a not very young woman of quackery, that she deliberately led serious scientists by the nose for 20 years. Why would? It would make sense these days, psychics make good money, but then?

On the other hand, Ninel Kulagina was a swindler even before she became "a phenomenon unique to science." In 1966, she was convicted of fraud by the Kirov People's Court of Leningrad. She presented herself as a person who could help in acquiring furniture from the back door. And earned more than seven thousand rubles on this.

Martin Gardner, an American mathematician and popularizer of science, one of the founders of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, called Kulagina “charming. A plump, dark-eyed little charlatan" who was also twice caught using tricks in telekinesis experiments.

Nevertheless, they believed her, they wrote and still write about her, and there are people who elevate her almost to the rank of a martyr from extrasensory perception.