Boy, 9, Lights Up LED Bulbs ‘In His Hand,’ Touch From Any Part Of ‘His Bare Skin’ Acts As Electrical Conductor

A 9-year-old boy can light up an LED light bulb with just the touch of his hand. The young boy recently showed off his “mysterious ability” on social media, according to a Wednesday article on Odditycentral that reports a touch from “any part of his body” provides enough electrical current to light up an LED bulb, seemingly “by itself.”

Abu Thahir, who resides in the South Indian state of Kerala, reportedly discovered his ability to light up LED bulbs “just by touching” them after his father, Nizar, who’s an electrician, handed a rechargeable LED bulb to Abu — who “just lit it up.” According to the Daily Mail, also on Wednesday, Nizar accused Abu of pulling “some prank” and actually scolded the boy.

However, Abu’s aunt was apparently so “impressed” by his ability to light up an LED bulb with just a touch that she filmed his “unusual” trick, which his father now says is a “gift given from God,” and shared the video on social media. Fox News reports that Abu, who’s typically a “shy boy,” is now in the spotlight after the two-minute video clip went viral.

Video footage of Abu touching the LED bulb to various parts of bare skin on his body, including his hands, feet, face, and ears, and lighting it up can be viewed on the video-sharing site YouTube. Critics of the boy’s ability to light up the LED light bulb claim that the bulb has been “tampered with,” however, Abu’s family is adamant that his “skill is genuine.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5_QKojonHs

Another young Indian boy is also shown in the video with Abu and touches the LED bulb’s electrical contacts, with obvious pressure, to the bare skin on the palm and several fingers of one hand. However, the LED bulb does not light up as it does when Abu touches it, leaving critics of his “bizarre” and “unexplained” ability somewhat baffled.

An article on Wonderful Engineering shares that one expert, Joshy Kuriakose, defends the “unusual phenomenon,” that has reportedly turned the Indian boy into a local celebrity. According to Kuriakose, Abu Thahir might have an unusually “high salt content” in his sweat that increases his skin’s ability to conduct electricity, which explains why the LED bulb only lights up when pressed against Abu’s body.

“If you connect the two leads of the rechargeable bulb with a wire, it will light up. Thahir’s body it will light up. Thahir’s body is conducting electricity like a wire.”

The article on Wonderful Engineering also reports that Abu can only light up rechargeable LED light bulbs by pressing on the two electrical contacts, located on the bottom of LED bulbs, and not “for a long time,” reportedly due to his body heating up. Critics, however, are still trying to debunk the boy’s ability to seemingly light up LED bulbs with just the touch of his skin by saying the video is “fake” or that a low electrical current is entering Abu’s body.

This Alappuzha boy can light up a bulb. He just have to hold it!…#Kerala Read more at: https://t.co/QlE1rFTpF9

— Onmanorama (@Onmanorama) March 19, 2018

Some speculate that the LED bulb could possibly be a battery-powered light bulb or even a push-button magic light bulb. A how-to video on WonderHowTo actually shows viewers how to make a prank magic light bulb, but the end result looks and works nothing like the LED bulb that Abu lights up in the aforementioned YouTube video.

The NDT Resource Center shares that “most metals” are good conductors of electricity, while Psychics Stack Exchange shares that the human body, which is usually considered an insulator of electricity, does, in fact, still have a “rather low” ability to conduct electricity, mainly due to the transport of various ions throughout the body.

The previously-mentioned article on the Daily Mail shares that Abu Thahir’s ability to light up an LED bulb “with his bare skin” has not yet been medically or scientifically explained, only adding that other similar cases have reportedly been documented in the past.