I suppose that could explain some UFO sightings if you were near a giant superconducting magnet. Still cool.
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is an extraordinary technique pioneered by neuroscientists to explore the workings of the brain. The idea is to place a human in a rapidly changing magnetic field that is powerful enough to induce currents in neurons in the brain. Then sit back and see what happens.
Since TMS was invented in the 1980s, it has become a powerful way of investigating how the brain works. Because the fields can be tightly focused, it is possible to generate currents in very specific areas of the brain to see what they do.
Focus the field in the visual cortex, for example, and the induced eddys cause the subject to ’see’ lights that appear as discs and lines. Move the the field within the cortex and the subject sees the lights move too.
All that much is repeatable in the lab using giant superconducting magnets capable of creating fields of as much as 0.5 Tesla inside the brain.
But if this happens in the lab, then why not in the real world too, say Joseph Peer and Alexander Kendl at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. They calculate that the rapidly changing fields associated with repeated lightning strikes are powerful enough to cause a similar phenomenon in humans within 200 metres.
This post was written by
Lesley Gunter – who has written 62 posts on UFOMystic.
An experiencer and observer of strange phenomena, a believer in conspiracy and possibly a bit odd.
I have been interested in ufos and the paranormal since childhood. I write the weekly column Grey Matters for Binnall of America and the column Beyond the Dial for UFO Magazine
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May 11 2010 
