'X-ray vision' girl takes on fractures

Jan 28, 2004

The Russian teen alleged to have "x-ray eyes" has been flown to London to be checked out by staff of the British newspaper The Sun.

Following a story published two weeks ago in the Russian newspaper Pravda, 17-year-old Natasha Demkina was asked to examine Sun reporter Briony Warden at her North London home. Warden, who is recovering from a hit-and-run accident last October that left her with multiple injuries, removed a leg brace and hid all clues before Demkina arrived, reporter Lucy Hagen wrote in this week's Sun article.

"Her pupils dilated and she seemed to go into a trance for a couple of minutes," Warden told the newspaper. "Straight away she began identifying a pain site at the base of my spine which she called a ‘blockage’. "In fact I have four healing spinal fractures and some nerve damage."

Demkina then examined Warden's jaw and noted a 'hard, alien part' at the precise location where a titanium plate holds it together. But Demkina's diagnostic powers were even more astonishing in her examination of Warden's clothed left leg, according to the article.

"I was amazed as she identified the two separate breaks and told me I had problems bending my knee joint," Warden said. "Both the tibia and fibula bones -- the two below the knee -- are broken."

Then the girl saw "traces of several metal pins and screws" that had left their mark on the bone, Warden told the newspaper. "She could not possibly know, without seeing the scars, that until two weeks ago my leg was held together by half-a-dozen pins and screws."

Demkina's mother was the first to notice the girl's extraordinary powers. At the age of 10, the girl told her mother that she could see "two beans," "a tomato," and a "vacuum cleaner" inside her, corresponding to the woman's kidneys, heart, and intestines, which her child could not name at the time.

The girl has said she is willing to undergo rigorous scientific scrutiny of her abilities, but only observational experiments have been performed to date.

"I want to become a doctor who helps people. It is psychologically very hard telling people there is something wrong with them," Demkina told The Sun, speaking through a translator. "I want to become a doctor so that I can help to cure them."

By AuntMinnie.com staff writers
January 29, 2004