Jonsson, Olof (1918-)

Famous Swedish-born psychic who took part in telepathic experiments with Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell during Mitchell's flight to the moon. Jonsson trained as an engineer in Sweden, qualifying in 1941. He worked with various companies and in 1946 was appointed to be a design engineer at the Monarch motorcycle factory in Varberg. At this time his psychic gifts (which had been evident in childhood) became more widely manifested and he became known as "the psychic engineer" through his demonstrations of clairvoyance, telepathy, and psychokinesis.

He was tested by parapsychologists in Sweden and Denmark. He visited South America, Canada, China, Japan, and Australia, studying paranormal phenomena among primitive peoples. In 1953 J. B. Rhine of Duke University invited Jonsson to the United States, where he was tested by parapsychologists in such areas as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, psychometry, and psychokinesis. His successful card guessing led to his being chosen to participate in the Apollo 14 tests of ESP with Edgar Mitchell during the three days before and after the moon landing. The tests are described in detail by Mitchell in the Journal of Parapsychology (June 1971). The results indicated scoring significantly above chance expectation. However, for a more skeptical view of claimed success, see the chapter "ESP in Outer Space" in Mediums, Mystics, and the Occult, by Milbourne Christopher (1975).

Among other psychic achievements, Jonsson is said to have elucidated 13 murder cases after visiting the scenes of the crimes and to have located three missing women. He was also supposed to have predicted accurately the time and place of death of Nasser and De Gaulle.

Sources:

Steiger, Brad. The Psychic Feats of Olof Jonsson. New York: Popular Library, 1971.