Russian 'X-Ray Girl'

[Phantasm]

http://english.pravda.ru/science/19/94/377/14551_XRay.html (pic included!)

Natasha Demkina from Russia's Saransk first got popular in London and then disgraced in New York

The world learned about the unique ability (http://english.pravda.ru/printed.html?news_id=11797) of the 17-year-old girl at the beginning of the year. Newspapers reported about the X-ray girl who could see through people like a medical apparatus. Natasha"s talent became evident at the age of 10.

Once the girl suddenly said she saw her mom"s blood running through the veins. However, neither the girl nor her mother got surprised with the incredible talent. Soon, the girl started using medical terms correctly. That was especially astonishing as there were no doctors in the family at all.

Friends of Natasha"s mother became the first patients of the unique girl. A line of patients from different cities of the country lined up near Natasha"s door the year when the girl was leaving school. Natasha X-rayed ten thousand people over the seven years since her talent became evident.

The Russian girl got really popular in January 2004: British journalists brought her to London, and Natasha did successful diagnostics of patients right during a live show on TV. The popular Discover Channel decided to make a film about the unique Russian girl. Natasha Demkina concluded a contract with the TV channel for six months according to which she was prohibited to give interviews to other mass media.

Over the period since that time, Natasha left school with honors. She successfully passed entrance examinations to Moscow"s Semashko State Stomatological University.

Some time ago, the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper gathered "X-ray" people from all parts of the CIS for a congress. Unfortunately, Natasha could not come to the congress. But the newspaper staff was surprised to know that the Commission for Paranormal Phenomena in New York discredited the Russian "X-ray" girl. What is more, Britain"s The Guardian called Natasha a quack.

When the Komsomolskaya Pravda journalist met the girl the latter angrily said she was no X-ray. She explains that the X-ray unit seriously differs from her ability: the unit does scanning of the whole organism completely, but Natasha scans every organ separately to see condition of the whole organism. The journalist decided to try Natasha"s ability and asked the girl if she could see anything in her gums. At that, the gums were closed tightly. Both girls fixed their eyes on each other for some seconds and then Natasha pronounced a stunning diagnosis. The X-ray girl managed to see a pin screwed into the tooth canal after nerve extraction a year ago and even a hardening on the inner side of the gum.

Natasha"s family says something incredible happened in New York. At first, Natasha was brought to London where journalists tested her ability. No doctors were present at the examination. Natasha was told to specify diagnoses of patients, from six to eight people; then her predictions were compared with official medical diagnoses of the patients. They coincided absolutely! As a result of the success Natasha soon appeared in a live show where she "X-rayed" patients in front of big audience. And again the girl performed successfully! Unfortunately, there was no scientific confirmation of the phenomenon.

Other Discovery journalists brought Natasha to New York to head of the Commission for Paranormal Phenomena Richard Wiseman. The man once exposed Uri Gellar who amazed the audience when curved iron spoons and stopped the Big Ben just with a glance. Wiseman is a former illusionist, not a scientist and his main objective is to lay bare other people"s tricks.

The Commission organized another even tougher testing. The girl was put to one room with seven patients at once and was to diagnose each of them. But usually Natasha receives one patient at a time for accurate diagnosing. As a result, the examination lasted for several hours. It was too wicked of Wiseman but Natasha could not compare her diagnosing with the official medical certificates after the examination. The examiners alleged that one of the patients had a metal plate in the head and said Natasha did not scan it. Did the guy actually have the plate? Also the girl was told to point at a patient with a scar somewhere on the body. There were two women with identical scars but of different origins: one woman had her appendicitis operated and the other had a scar after a gynecological operation. Still, the Commission insisted the girl must point at only one patient with a scar. Natasha considered the scar caused by a gynecological operation to be more important and thus indicated this very patient to the Commission. But as it turned out, the examiners wanted the Russian prophet to indicate the woman with a scar after an appendicitis operation. So the girl lost a point. One of the Commission members insisted Natasha got SMS from someone who sent her information about the patients. "I have neither friends nor enemies in the USA. Who could send SMS to me?" A psychologist wanted to prove that Natasha could guess diagnoses of patients by their gests and mimicry and even diagnosed patients together with her. As a result, the psychologist got no points while Natasha was given four out of seven points. Unfortunately, the Commission did not recognize Natasha"s phenomenon.

Natasha did not like the film that Discovery Channel made about her. She is extremely displeased with the final phrase in the film saying that the fundamental medicine must go to the dump if Natasha"s phenomenon is officially recognized. So, the Russian girl was in the focus only when experts wanted to expose her unusual ability.

Svetlana Kuzina

Read the original in Russian: (Translated by: Maria Gousseva (http://english.pravda.ru/author/_99.htmld))

All I can say is WOW!!!:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

How is THAT possible?!

[zmanjz]

While it is concieveable that a genetic mutation could change the spectrum that a person can view, possibly including infrared, (there are animals that can see in additional layers of the spectrum)

But I really can't say if she has it or something like that.

[Clayface]

How is THAT possible?!

Well, from the sound of it, it's not. Check out this article (http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/propaganda/guardian.html). There's more details here (http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/demkina.html) as well. At best, all that can be said is that the test done there wasn't terribly scientific, but it still proved the point, IMO. One of the more interesting quote from that last article:


We wanted to conduct a blinded test. Natasha claims to see through people's clothing, yet she says she cannot see through a fabric screen, which we wanted to use to prevent her from seeing the test subjects. We found this unexplained contradiction curious-and frustrating: Any test she would agree to would have to allow her to study the test subjects using her normal senses. As Hyman points out, this study flaw alone could provide an astute person powerful clues about a person's health problems. It would be less of a problem if we were able to recruit subjects who were physically and demographically similar. Unfortunately, we had great difficulty recruiting subjects for the test and had to settle for several people with characteristics that suggested their target conditions.

Natasha claims she can see everything inside of people's bodies down to the cellular level, and her mother says her readings are 100 percent accurate. So the test-which required her to match at least five of the target medical conditions to the correct subjects-should have been very easy compared with her normal readings. She didn't have to scan entire bodies looking for unknown conditions. She was told exactly what to look for and exactly where to look. Yet it took her more than four hours to complete the test and, inexplicably, she took an hour to examine the seven subjects before deciding which one was missing a large part of her left lung! She guessed that one correctly, but why would anyone who claims to be able to see "every cell" inside a person take an hour to decide which person was missing a large portion of one lung?

Natasha matched only four of the conditions correctly-a score that everyone prior to the test had agreed would not justify further testing. Natasha's most dramatic misdiagnosis was her failure to see a large metal plate covering a missing section of skull in a man who had a large brain tumor removed. Instead, she indicated that she "saw" a metal plate and missing skull section in a man who had his appendix removed but a normal skull.

Here's another article. (http://www.randi.org/jr/031805x.html) When she's taken and passed the millon dollar Randi challenge, then I'l believe it.

[solarflere]

Japanese and English scientists said she is for real, American scientists were divided on this issue and Russian scientists will be testing her soon. I would feel like a test subject or a lab rat from all of these tests, and she seems to enjoy it. Ironic isn't it, she has x-ray vision, and yet, she is being tested, weard huh?

[Ben]

Japanese and English scientists said she is for real, American scientists were divided on this issue and Russian scientists will be testing her soon. I would feel like a test subject or a lab rat from all of these tests, and she seems to enjoy it. Ironic isn't it, she has x-ray vision, and yet, she is being tested, weard huh?

Hey, why shouldn't she enjoy it? She gets free money for appearing on television and free trips all over the world. It's a great con.

[solarflere]

Hey, why shouldn't she enjoy it? She gets free money for appearing on television and free trips all over the world. It's a great con.I dont think its a con. Amercans are realy hard to perswade. English and most of all Japanese scientists are some of the best. I think they have studied her and found her conclusive and beliavable.

[cross blues]

the Blair Witch Project was more believable than this. nevertheless, it did entertain me for a few minutes.

[Clayface]

I dont think its a con. Amercans are realy hard to perswade. English and most of all Japanese scientists are some of the best. I think they have studied her and found her conclusive and beliavable.

Who are the English and Japanese scientists that declared her abilities real? What experiments did they perform? What control did they use in thier experiments? What are their credentials? All these are questions you should have answers to before you believe them. Otherwise you're just feeding into the con.

[solarflere]

Who are the English and Japanese scientists that declared her abilities real? What experiments did they perform? What control did they use in thier experiments? What are their credentials? All these are questions you should have answers to before you believe them. Otherwise you're just feeding into the con.
Read the supported links and dont aks pointless questions. If you don't beliave it, you have that right, but dont bash my oppinion on it. Damn!

[Clayface]

Read the supported links and dont aks pointless questions. If you don't beliave it, you have that right, but dont bash my oppinion on it. Damn!

Woah, relax my friend. I did read the links, and none of the questions I asked above were answered in them - just a lot of vague claims of "officials" and "experts" without real names, credentials, or descriptions of the experiments performed (including the environments and controls used). I'd suggest you also read the links I provided, which offer much more info than the original story did. I don't believe any of my questions are pointless - they're all basic questions anyone with any healthy critical thinking skills should and would ask. Asking questions is not bashing. You are certainly entitled to your opinion - I'm just offering up questions and suggestions to ponder.

[solarflere]

Woah, relax my friend. I did read the links, and none of the questions I asked above were answered in them - just a lot of vague claims of "officials" and "experts" without real names, credentials, or descriptions of the experiments performed. I'd suggest you also read the links I provided, which offer much mroe info than the original story did. I don't believe any of my questions are pointless - they're all basic questions anyone with any healthy critical thinking skills should and would ask. Asking questions is not bashing. YOu are certainly entitled to your opinion - I'm just offering up questions and suggestions to ponder. I did read the links you provided, I also did a lot of googling on this subject. And I found that the info had enough credebility, to be beliaved by an open mind. Mutations happan on a daily basis, who is to say you cant have x-ray eyes. Ten years ago, if someone mentioned cloning, people would be sceptical as well. We learn new things every day but those things take time.

[Clayface]

I did read the links you provided, I also did a lot of googling on this subject. And I found that the info had enough credebility, to be beliaved by an open mind. Mutations happan on a daily basis, who is to say you cant have x-ray eyes. Ten years ago, if someone mentioned cloning, people would be sceptical as well. We learn new things every day but those things take time.

How did you determine that there was enough credibility to the claims?

And note, I never said it was impossible. I simply said that the evidence collected so far does not lend credence to the idea that this girl has it. In fact, the only evidence that approaches anything scientific seems to say exactly the opposite. Show me controlled scientific experiments that prove it. Show me repeatable results confirmed by several independant sources. Show me peer reviewed articles. These are all basics in any scientific study. I've googled it as well, and see nothing solid to back the claim.

[solarflere]

How did you determine that there was enough credibility to the claims?

And note, I never said it was impossible. I simply said that the evidence collected so far does not lend credence to the idea that this girl has it. In fact, the only evidence that approaches anything scientific seems to say exactly the opposite. Show me controlled scientific experiments that prove it. Show me repeatable results. Show me peer reviewed articles. These are all basics in any scientific study. I've googled it as well, and see nothing solid to back the claim. I see what you are saying, but you already taking sides by calling it a con. I try to keep an open mind about these things.


Otherwise you're just feeding into the con. I never disputed the possibility of it being a hoax, but I personaly choose to beliave it.

[Clayface]

I see what you are saying, but you already taking sides by calling it a con. I try to keep an open mind about these things.

I call it a con because that's what the evidence seems to point to. Things like this quote from the first article I linked:


Prof Wiseman, who helped design the test, says that although they have no proof Natasha cheated, a lot of text messages were being sent between her and her companions during the test, something the scientists had expressly forbidden.

Perhaps it's not a con, and she's just a misguided soul that truely beleives she has these powers. But either way, the evidence doesn't seem to support that there is any validity to the claims of something extraordinary going on here.


I never disputed the possibility of it being a hoax, but I personaly choose to beliave it.

Fair enough - that's certainly your call. I'm just trying to understand why you would believe in it.

[solarflere]

I call it a con because that's what the evidence seems to point to. Things like this quote from the first article I linked:



Perhaps it's not a con, and she's just a misguided soul that truely beleives she has these powers. But either way, the evidence doesn't seem to support that there is any validity to the claims of something extraordinary going on here.



Fair enough - that's certainly your call. I'm just trying to understand why you would believe in it.
I beliave it because I long beliaved that a human eye can see far beyound than just the normal color spectrum, like infra red and ultra violet rays. I have done pleanty of my own research to show that this is a posibility. It has not been documented YET. But there is still time. My reserch is still in theory form (Im not a scientist, just practitioner of science). So it leads me to beliave this X-ray girl phenomenon.

[Clayface]

I beliave it because I long beliaved that a human eye can see far beyound than just the normal color spectrum, like infra red and ultra violet rays. I have done pleanty of my own research to show that this is a posibility. It has not been documented YET. But there is still time. My reserch is still in theory form (Im not a scientist, just practitioner of science). So it leads me to beliave this X-ray girl phenomenon.

Interesting. I look forward to seeing your work someday published.

[solarflere]

Interesting. I look forward to seeing your work someday published. Thanx. Oh, and Sorry for that outburst above. My temper gets out of control simetimes.

[Faethie]

Thats so cool! And weird!! Reall weird...

If this girl really turns out to be what she appears to be then...wow....