Careful for the eye beams – energy rays going out by line of sight

I heard this fellow Colin A. Ross interviewed on radio last week. He patented a switch that, with a bit of training, can be activated by eye via a beam of energy. For example, let’s say you have your iPod set up to be an “eye” Ipod. Then you could just look at it to start up the music!

Here are some of the assertions I heard over the airwaves from Ross:
- eye beams explain how one feels a person staring at them
- via survival of the fittest, animals such as gazelles can sense when predators like lions focus on them
- military snipers learn not to look too intensely at their targets because they can get spooked
- eye beams are not energetic enough to cause any harm -- they are not like lasers
- a person can lock on to an eye beam aimed at them -- for example, while hunting for rabbits, Ross felt one staring at him and turned around to shoot it without having to search it out (he ate the rabbit for dinner that night).

Although this last assertion I heard from Ross goes a bit over the top, he sounds very scientific – a reflection of impressive credentials in psychiatry. So I asked my sister, an ophthalmologist who specializes in laser eye surgery, whether she considers Ross's claim to be credible. Here’s her comments: “I have never heard of him, but I found this report describing his eyebeam of energy on the web. Eye beams are not beyond theoretic possibility but I have never ever heard of anything like this (one would think with the opthamology literature I routinely survey that I would have come across some mention of energy emissions). I think it more likely that Dr. Ross has exceptional hearing, quick reflexes, and good spatial sense which allowed him to shoot and subsequently eat the rabbit, for example. Light is definitely reflected from the eye (hence the red-eye camera effect). However, it seems hard to imagine that even this energy would amount to much after a short distance.”

Dr. Ross hopes to be tested by scientific skeptic and former magician James Randi to achieve his One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge. For more details, see this press release put out by the Colin A. Ross Institute based in Richardson, Texas.

I am keeping my eyes open for definitive proof of eye-beams. Meanwhile I am trying to perfect a penetrating stare, while at the same time watching my back for apprentices of Ross who have mastered the ability to generate extramissions out of their eyeballs. However, I think that, after withstanding almost 34 years of looks from my rightly-irate wife, nothing short of a LaserCat can penetrate my battle-hardened skin.