http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23435334-details/'Electricity%20Woman%20with%20amazing%20powers'%20causes%20lights%20to%20flicker%20when%20she%20gets%20sexually%20aroused/article.do

'Electricity Woman with amazing powers' causes lights to flicker when she gets sexually aroused

Debbie Wolf has an unexplained ability to make lights go out when she is stressed

Street lamps flicker when she passes, TVs change channels when she walks into a room and she sends electronic clocks haywire.

Debbie Wolf claims she is one of Britain's growing army of "sliders" - people who believe their presence causes havoc with household appliances, radios and light bulbs.

Her bizarre abilities, dubbed by paranormal experts "Street Light Interference" syndrome or SLI, don't just make life a nuisance for Debbie, they have earned her international fame.

In Japan she has been likened to heroines from cult Manga comic strips. Others have made comparisons with the cult fantasy show Heroes - in which ordinary people develop superhero abilities.

Sceptics say SLI is purely wishful thinking and coincidence - and has yet to be demonstrated by Debbie or anyone else in a controlled laboratory experiment.

But if Debbie and her fellow "electric people" are proved right, scientists will have to re-write all the known rules of physics.

"It happens when I'm stressed or if I'm chewing something over in my mind but not if I'm annoyed," she said.

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Debbie claims she is one of Britain's growing army of 'sliders' - people who believe their presence causes havoc with household appliances, radios and light bulbs

"It has never been full on whammy all day but it happens frequently, such as when I'm excited."

Debbie, 38, says she once "blew" a series of street lamps while riding past on a motorbike and that she often sees repair men fixing the street lamp outside her home in Newhaven.

For a woman who believes she interferes with electrical equipment, she has chosen a risky job - working as a pathology support officer at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.

However, she insists that her powers have never interfered with her work.

Debbie's mother is also convinced that her daughter has unearthly abilities. As a teenager, she refused to take her in big electrical stores and refraining from touching her when she turned on a light.

"The light has been faulty outside all the homes I have lived in and I'm always draining the batteries in remote controls," she said.

"I often come back home to find a pool of water on the floor because the fridge-freezer has defrosted.

I have to use a wind-up alarm clock because my reaction waking up in the morning scrambles digital ones.

"My mum noticed it before me because I thought it was natural. My brother is deaf and she used to say 'I have one electric and one deaf child".

"It affects everything you can imagine. I don't really see the effects as anecdotes because for me it is an everyday reality."

Hilary Evans, an author of books about the paranormal and who invented the term "sliders", said Debbie had unusually strong effects.

"What happened to Debbie has happened to a great many other people, though her experience was more dramatic than most," he said.

"This is some as yet unidentified power of the mind, a power which perhaps we all possess but some - and Debbie is a prime example - possess it more strongly than the rest of us."

As global interest in the phenomenon grows, more and more people are claiming to be electric.

Prof Richard Wiseman - who studies paranormal phenomena at the University of Hertfordshire - said he is contacted by two new sliders each week.

He suspects that phenomenon is caused by "observer bias" - and the fact that aging sodium street lamps flick on and off for days or weeks before they day.

"There's nothing cranky about this - this are ordinary people who genuinely believe they have this effect," said Prof Wiseman.

"However, to my knowledge this effect has never been demonstrated in a controlled setting.

"I think it is most likely to be the result of selective attention. Street lamps are going on and off all the time because they are faulty or because their timers aren't set properly.

"People only have to walk under a couple of lamps going off to think that they might be the cause.

And once they think that, they start noticing every instance where a light goes off and ignore the times when they don't."

He added: "I was once sent a video where a man filmed himself walking under street lamps for three hours.

"At the end of three hours one went out and he was convinced he had caused it. But statistically, nothing special was going on."