Experimental Tests for Telephone Telepathy
✅ Has replications📌 Appears in:
Plain English Summary
Ever had the feeling you knew who was calling before you picked up the phone? This large-scale experiment with 63 participants across 571 trials put that common experience under scientific scrutiny. Each participant had to guess which of four possible people was calling — before the caller said a word. By pure chance, you'd expect about 25% correct guesses. The actual hit rate? A remarkable 40%, with the odds against this being a coincidence sitting at roughly one in 250,000. But here's where it gets really fascinating: when the caller was someone emotionally close — a good friend or family member — the success rate soared to 53%, while unfamiliar callers scored right at chance (25%). That gap is enormous and statistically rock-solid. Perhaps most surprising of all, distance didn't seem to matter. Callers phoning from overseas (up to 11,000 miles away) actually scored the highest at 65%, suggesting that emotional closeness trumps physical proximity. The researchers carefully ruled out alternative explanations like selective memory, unconscious timing patterns, and lucky guessing. A companion study using videotaped sessions addressed potential cheating concerns. This paper became a cornerstone reference in the field, frequently appearing in later analyses of similar research.
Research Notes
Foundational experimental paper with largest telephone telepathy trial count. Establishes emotional familiarity as critical moderator and demonstrates no distance decay. Companion videotaped study (Sheldrake & Smart 2003 JP 67:187-206) addresses cheating/information leakage concerns. Frequently cited in meta-analyses and telephone telepathy research.
Experimental investigation of telephone telepathy with 63 participants in 571 trials. Participants identified callers from four possibilities before the caller spoke. Overall success rate was 40% (95% CI: 36-45%), significantly above chance (25%, p = 4 × 10⁻⁶). Familiar callers yielded 53% correct (p = 1 × 10⁻¹⁶) vs 25% for unfamiliar callers (chance level), difference p = 3 × 10⁻⁷. Overseas callers (1,000-11,000 miles) showed 65% success (p = 3 × 10⁻⁸), suggesting emotional closeness matters more than physical distance. No difference between random-time and fixed-time calls. Results rule out chance coincidence, selective memory, and unconscious expectation hypotheses.
Related Papers
Replicated By
Meta Analyzed By
Cited By
- A Rapid Online Telepathy Test — Sheldrake, Rupert (2009)
- Rethinking Communication and Consciousness: Lessons from The Telepathy Tapes Podcast — Weiler, Marina (2025)
- Videotaped Experiments on Telephone Telepathy — Sheldrake, Rupert (2003)
- Using Neuroimaging to Resolve the Psi Debate — Moulton, Samuel T (2008)
- An Automated Online Telepathy Test — Sheldrake, Rupert (2007)
Extended By
Cites
- The Anticipation of Telephone Calls: A Survey in California — Brown, David Jay (2001)
- Telepathic Telephone Calls: Two Surveys — Sheldrake, Rupert (2000)
- A Dog That Seems to Know When His Owner is Returning: Preliminary Investigations — Sheldrake, Rupert (1998)
- A Dog That Seems to Know When His Owner Is Coming Home: Videotaped Experiments and Observations — Sheldrake, Rupert (2000)
- Testing a Return-Anticipating Dog, Kane — Sheldrake, Rupert (2000)
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📋 Cite this paper
Sheldrake, Rupert, Smart, Pamela (2003). Experimental Tests for Telephone Telepathy. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research.
@article{sheldrake_smart_2003_experimental_tests_telephone,
title = {Experimental Tests for Telephone Telepathy},
author = {Sheldrake, Rupert and Smart, Pamela},
year = {2003},
journal = {Journal of the Society for Psychical Research},
}