[00:01.53]Lesson 4
[00:03.06]Seeing hands
[00:11.70]How did Vera disover she had this gift of second sight?
[00:18.36]Several cases have been reported in Russia recently
[00:21.81]of people who can read and detect colours with their fingers,
[00:26.20]and even see through solid doors and walls.
[00:30.16]One case concerns an 11-year-old schoolgirl Vera Petrova,
[00:36.08]who has normal vision but who can also perceive things with different parts of her skin, and through solid walls.
[00:44.93]This ability was first noticed by her father.
[00:49.07]One day she came into his office
[00:51.90]and happened to put her hands on the door of a locked safe.
[00:55.75]Suddenly she asked her father why he kept so many old newspapers locked away there,
[01:01.85]and even described the way they were done up in bundles.
[01:06.64]Vera's curious talent was brought to the notice of a scientific research institute in the town of Ulyanovsk, near where she lives,
[01:16.34]and in April she was given a series of tests by a special commission of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federal Republic.
[01:25.35]During these tests she was able to read a newspaper through an opaque screen and, stranger still,by moving her elbow over a child's game of Lotto
[01:36.76]she was able to describe the figures and colours printed on it;
[01:41.54]and,in another instance,wearing stockings and slippers,
[01:45.85]to make out with her foot the outlines and colours of a picture hidden under a carpet.
[01:53.07]Other experiments showed that her knees and shoulders had a similar sensitivity.
[01:59.18]During all these tests Vera was blindfold; and indeed, except when blindfold she lacked the ability to perceive things with her skin.
[02:10.15]It was also found that although she could perceive things with her fingers
[02:15.12]this ability ceased the moment her hands were wet.