phenomenon with his own eyes. He had no luck. But before finally turning in, he heard a strange noise (the family was asleep then). It was so strange that he could not identify or explain it. He asserted, however, that neither Joasia nor her parents had made it. Takashi Tachibana also sensed that his hair was standing on end, not out of fear but because of the amazing electrification of the air that can sometimes be felt in Joasia's presence. You might call this a purely subjective phenomenon, for it has not yet been measured with instruments more credible than mere physical sensation. Yet it is a fact that once while we were filming Joasia, when we asked her to move her hand toward the head of one of the visitors (and Tachibena happened to be the person chosen), less than two minutes later his hair bristled. This observation, apart from its humorous side, confirmed that definite physical phenomena surely do occur in Joasia's vicinity. After the experiment was over, Tachibena stroked his scalp mistrustfully for a long time and was greatly intrigued with the whole matter: he was not, he claimed, subject to electrification and nothing like that had ever happened to him. But let's return to the acoustical effects. They occurred around six o'clock, immediately activating the camera and tape recorder. We felt a certain weariness, which was inevitable after several previous failed experiments. Then Joasia, who was sitting motionless on the floor, suddenly began to "crackle." Every few second we heard distinct "static" that sounded like electrical discharges. It was concentrated at first around the teenager's feet, then seemed to rise into the air in her immediate vicinity. Remembering from Dr. Gadula's and Dr. Franek's accounts that such sounds often (though not always) preceded kinetic phenomena, we anxiously waited to see what would happen next. In time the acoustical effects gradually abated and finally disappeared altogether. A moment later, however, something happened – something that undoubtedly bore all the characteristics of a definite, tangible physical phenomenon. For after changing places with Joasia (who had sat down in front of the camera again), the co-author of this book, Marek Rymuszko, felt a sharp pain in his temples, as though his head had suddenly been squeezed in a vise. Immediately afterwards the energy that had caused this began to move down to his feet. There could be no question of mental suggestion here; the feeling was all too real, leading Dr. Gadula to intervene. At the same time two members of the Japanese TV crew began to complain of severe headaches. But that was not the only "adventure." Almost from the beginning of the Japanese telejournalists' stay in Czeladz the sound engineer, Yoichi Hirai (one of whose duties was to monitor all the technical gear), had been worried about the peculiar functioning of the equipment. The glitches began with a lamp designed for 350 volts. In order to plug it into 220 volt outlets, it was necessary to use a transformer. Nonetheless, when we were filming experiments with Joasia in the Gajewskis' apartment, the transformer would not crank out more than 314315 volts. In other places (Joasia's classroom, the engineering school, while shooting interviews with eyewitnesses to the phenomena), such a problem did not arise. Yoichi Hirai, who had studied electronics, was very upset about this and kept checking all the gear, but found no signs of damage. He could not come up with a logical explanation for the considerable intermittent decrease in voltage. Such phenomena as the sudden failure of electric devices (radios, tape recorders) in Joasia's presence had occurred before, as had the discharge of a battery in a digital watch. We should also recall the breakdown of an EKG apparatus during an examination of the girl in April 1983. Let us add – as if all this were not enough – that during the final stage of filming the program on Joasia a large radio microphone the Japanese had brought with them started malfunctioning. Nobody was able to discover the reason for this either. In exchange for film documentation of earlier experiments (particularly Dr. Andrzej Franek's biophysical experiments and Joasia's spoonbending at the Institute of Metallography and Welding Technology at the Silesian School of Engineering) provided to the Fuji Television crew by the research team studying the girl, the Japanese journalists agreed shortly before their return to Tokyo to leave a camera along with a VCR and large supply of cassettes in the Gajewskis' apartment for a week. Unfortunately, the apparatus failed to operate because of an unexpected event. At 6 a.m. on December 27, 1983, four days after the departure of the Japanese, all hell broke loose in the Gajewskis' apartment. Light and heavy objects alike began to hurtle through the air. One of them, a living-room lamp, hit Joasia in the face. At first it was thought her nose might be broken; fortunately this proved not to be true, but she was badly bruised and cut by flying glass. None of these kinetic effects showed up on tape: during the several minutes' "earthquake" the VCR fell to the floor and its cord was yanked from the socket. (The camera, being fastened to the wall, remained intact.) When telephoning this information to the Japanese Radio correspondent in Poland, Teruo Matsumoto (who had interpreted for the Fuji Television crew during its stay in Sosnowiec), Joasia's mother was nearly hysterical. She was afraid that she and her husband would have to pay for repairs on the expensive equipment. Luckily the damage did not prove serious, but the parents both agreed it would be too risky to keep the equipment in the apartment any longer. It was therefore disassembled and sent back to Tokyo via Warsaw. The program on Joasia Gajewski and other sensitives (including the Japanese psychokinetics Matsuaki Kyota and Hiroto Yamata, whose powers are described in the chapter "Above All, Be Calm") was broadcast in Tokyo on February 3, 1984. According to information we received from Japan, it was seen by some forty million viewers. Stress 2 by Kim In Sook©1997
Volume 2, Issue 5
43