Do Kenny & I have paranormal powers?

So both Kenny and I have a tendency to turn off street lights (most often those sodium & mercury lights). Yep. It happens often enough that we both comment on it. I have been doing this all my life and Kenny says he has too. It’s weird and we can’t explain it. We simply drive by a light or walk under one and it goes out for no reason. And it doesn’t get burned out – it just turns off. You can go by the same light the next day and it is on. Every now and then a light turns on but this happens much less often so I discount it as coincidence.

In college this happened on a regular basis when I walked around campus – and it wasn’t always the same lights. My friend thought it was purely coincidence and that there was nothing to it. Until he hung out with me a little longer… and saw how often it happened. He tried to see if it happened with him alone and it didn’t. He finally conceded it had to be me. LOL.

We’ve tried to come up with logical solutions – Kenny & I are very pragmatic people. We’ve considered the idea that our car headlights hit the light sensor of some of these lights but that doesn’t explain why it happens even when we just walk by. Plus, car headlights simply don’t shine high enough. If it were simply random bulbs burning out, then why are these lights working the next day (I seriously doubt they get replaced that quickly)? Often the lights that go out start to try to light up again (those sodium lights always take a while to turn completely back on and instead glow for a minute or two first).

The other idea is that we simply are more observant than the average person and that the lights may be going out all around us but not everyone notices. I think this *may* be the probable explanation but it is not as glamorous as the idea that we have some special electrical power…

Some research came across this wonderful Wikipedia entry and gave us a name for what we experience. We seem to be “SLIders”: Street Light Interference. Seems like no one can quite agree what it is either.

What do you think? Have you experienced this? Are we out whacked out crazy people? OK, wait, don’t answer that…

EDITED TO ADD: I know, I know – cycling of the lamps is probably the best explanation but I prefer to think I am just “special”. LOL. 🙂