Miroslaw Magola - Human Magnet Tested On Max Planck Institute

Although I wrote about magnetic people before, this man deserves a post of his own. He is Miroslaw Magola, a Polish gentleman whose abilities caught attention of several TV shows and magazines but were also put to the test on Max Plank Institute in Germany. It was over there that Dr. Friedbert Karger investigated Mr. Magola in January 1997 and concluded that he was able to "pick up a cup from the floor without touching it, and to control its suspension in mid-air."

Although videos of that levitation are not available, you can see Mr. Magola at work here:

Many readers seeing the above video will go "hmm... I think I heard of other magnet people somewhere". Yes, there are many reports of people with such abilities, and in my aerlier post Magnetic Personality? No, Really Magnetic People there are several examples listed. What that post also mentioned is the claim of the scientists that "magnetic people" actually have sticky sweat so the skin creates a sort of suction cup effect and objects really stick to their sweat.

I consider myself a healthy skeptic towards both sides. I don't take paranormal claims for granted but I don't take "earthly explanations" for granted either. This "glue / suction cup" theory is definitely something to think about even though it does leave some space for head scratching. Ok, lizards do have that "suction cup effect" working for them when they climb vertical surfaces, but the bottom of their feet looks nothing like human skin. As for "some sort of natural glue in sweat" interpretation - Tan Kok Thai, for example, was able to lift two bicycles tied to a meat cleaver sticking to his chest with nothing but his attraction force holding the whole weight. Liew Thow Lin did the same with an iron and three bricks with no visible sweat on his body (picture available in above mentioned article). With such a strong glue in their sweat working even in microscopic quantities - why don't their clothes stick to them? And why don't they end up completely glued up after a week or so from such a sweat + dust+clothes fibers? Did you ever try to get some glue off your fingers? And how strong was that glue? Could it hold two bicycles?

This is what makes Miroslaw Magola so interesting. He decided to debunk the debunker's sweat/suction cup theory. So, they say it is just sticky sweat / suction cup? In the following video we can see him rub his hands in talcum (yes, that powder that athletes put on their hands to prevent sweating / bind the sweat) before "sticking" objects to himslef.

And in following video he sticks his hand to an object while wearing a glove.

and here is the glove again: