Written by Emily Reynolds for WIRED
A US researcher has put forward evidence suggesting humans can subconsciously sense the Earth’s magnetic fields, possibly indicating a sixth sense.
Joe Kirschvink, a scientist at the California Institute of Technology, asserts that his experiment is both “repeatable and verifiable”—a milestone that previous magnetoreception studies have not achieved.
The trial, which included only 24 participants and has yet to undergo peer review, builds on a 2016 investigation that indicated other mammals—such as dogs, foxes, and primates—possess “magnetic sensors” within their eyes.
That earlier research, conducted by the Max Planck Institute and published in Nature Scientific Reports, discovered that animals including “dogs, wolves, bears, foxes, badgers, orangutans and macaques” carry the molecule cryptochrome 1a in their retinas, which is believed to detect magnetic fields.
However, the precise mechanism remains debated. Some scientists argue that cryptochrome enables this sense, while others propose that magnetite receptor cells function like tiny compass needles. Kirschvink’s work supports the latter theory. In his study, participants sat in total darkness inside a Faraday cage—a structure designed to block “electromagnetic background noise” using wire coils. Once inside, they were exposed exclusively to “a pure magnetic field.”
Using an EEG, Kirschvink tracked whether participants’ brains reacted to shifts in magnetic strength. When the magnetic field rotated counterclockwise, “there [was] a drop in alpha waves,” indicating that participants’ brains were activating “in response to the magnetic field.”
Kirschvink plans to continue his research, with a peer-reviewed paper expected in the coming months.
