Scientists 'create ghosts in a lab'

Swiss scientists claim to have created ghosts in a lab in a move to prove that ghosts are a figment of the imagination.

The study aimed to show that ghosts are created by the mind when it loses track of the body's location because of illness, exertion or stress.

Volunteers took part in an experiment which mixed up their movements and brain signals.

They saw up to four phantoms positioned around them and believed that ghosts were touching their backs with invisible fingers.

Professor Olaf Blanke, of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, said: "Our experiment induced the sensation of a foreign presence in the laboratory for the first time.

"It shows that it can arise under normal conditions, simply through conflicting sensory-motor signals.

"This confirms that it is caused by an altered perception of their own bodies in the brain."

The scientists set up a robot device that allowed volunteers to control the movements of a jointed mechanical arm with their index fingers.

The movements were relayed to another robot arm behind them which touched their backs but slightly out of synch with their finger movements.

Suddenly the volunteers felt as if they were being watched, and touched, by one or more ghostly presences.

Two of the 12 healthy participants were so disturbed by the experience that they asked the scientists to halt the experiment.