Telepathy experiment sends first mental message from India to France

For the first time, scientists have been able to send a simple mental message from one person to another without any contact between the two, thousands of kilometres apart in India and France.

But anyone hoping for proof of ESP will be sorely disappointed, with the research by Harvard University experts instead amounting to a brain-to-brain email, sent via the internet.

"It is kind of technological realisation of the dream of telepathy, but it is definitely not magical," said Giulio Ruffini, a theoretical physicist and co-author of the research. "We are using technology to interact electromagnetically with the brain."

For the experiment, one person wearing a wireless, internet-linked electroencephalogram or EEG would think a simple greeting, like "hola", or "ciao".

A computer translated the words into digital binary code, presented by a series of 1s or 0s.

Then, this message was emailed from India to France and delivered via robot to the receiver, who through non-invasive brain stimulation could see flashes of light in their peripheral vision. The subjects receiving the message did not hear or see the words themselves, but they were correctly able to report the flashes of light that corresponded to the message.