Determining the beam frequency & EM-component that is emitted from the human eye (supposedly)

Question

I am interested of determining how much truth there is in a persons claims that our eyes emit a beam that can be detected by a device that he has built and patented.

The person who invented the device is Colin A Ross (MD), a doctor specialized in trauma and its treatments.

In a nutshell the doctor says that the feeling that we sometimes get, when someone is looking at us, comes from the fact that our brain emits an EM field through the eyes.

The patent for the device that he has built has the patent number US 7806527 B2. A document describing the patent can be found here: http://www.rossenergysystems.com/Downloads/Patent_7806527-Electromagnetic-Beam-Detection-System.pdf

A demonstration of the device is shown in the video at the bottom of this article: http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2008/08/colin_ross_has_an_eyebeam_of_e.php

The question I wanted to ask is: is it possible to determine from the patent what frequency the beam is and what EM-component the device reacts to?

For example, whether the beam detector reacts to the magnetic component or the electric component?

But the purported frequency is more of interest.

Best regards,

JJ

Edit: thank you all who have responded so far. I agree with stevenh on the fishyness of the demonstration video and the confirmation bias that likely is the reason for the belief in the eye beam (we may in fact often feel that we are being looked at even when nobody is around us, but some people may forget these occurences).

Thank you "Fake Name" for your interesting clarification on this issue.

Answer 1

that our eyes emit a beam that can be detected

Humbug, bogus and nonsense.

It's been proven in numerous tests that you can't feel that a person is looking at you. It's easy: person A is with her back to person B. On a time cue they both have to press a button, person A whether she feels B is looking at her, person B whether she's looking at A at that moment. We have the following situations:

1) 0 0 : Not feeling, not looking
2) 0 1 : Not feeling, looking
3) 1 0 : Feeling, not looking
4) 1 1 : Feeling, looking

If this obstinate claim were true 4) should have a much higher occurrence than 3). Which it doesn't. In none of the tests the deviation from 50/50 was statistically relevant.

Baloney, tosh, bunk.

(10 minutes later)
I watched the video. Tip: watch it first with the sound off, so you won't be distracted by snake-oil talk. Watch it later with sound. Without sound it struck me that Ross (is he really a doctor?) spends 2 minutes of this 5 minute video playing with some wires. That's called impression management, but in fact it's irrelevant. Then he puts in his earplugs and puts on his goggles. Then bends his forefinger a couple of times. And that, my dear man, was the demo. That was all!. He's doing something on his laptop (which we're not allowed to see), and that's probably in the impression management realm as well.

I'm sure Randi's million is going to be safe for a long while still.

(I often wonder who of those psychics are just frauds, and who actually believe their own story. Both of them exist)

Further reading
Confirmation bias

Answer 2

What this "doctor" has done is basically re-invent an EOG (electro oculogram).

His apparatus is just measuring the electrical activity of the muscles around the eye.

The Skeptics Guide did a discussion of this on their podcast, including the details of the James Randi Educational Foundation's investigation into this guy.

First, he's actually using off-the-shelf biofeedback equipment. Second, it turns out he's actually blinking when the "detector" reacts to the "eye-beam".

Now, it turns out there is actually a very well understood EOG response from blinking called a "Blink-Artifact or "Blink Response", which causes a very large (proportionately) electrical artifact compared to normal EOG levels. (Here is a informative pub-med search on the blink response. I can't find much about the blink response in textbook format, but a lot of people seem interested in trying to eliminate blink-artifacts from normal EOG recordings).

So, basically, the guy is a delusional crank, who has accidentally recreated a crude EOG. He has completely failed to demonstrate the whole "beam from the eye" aspect of the hypothesis. All the video actually demonstrates is that he can hook a commercial EEG/biofeedback system to his head, and move his eye in such a way that it triggers a response from the biofeedback software.

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Furthermore, he later actually admitted that the effect shown in the video above was caused by an eye-blink artifact. He's still holding on to his delusional "I can shoot LAZORS WITH MY EYEZ" thing, but he admitted that everything in the original claim was just a EOG artifact.