Kilner-Walter: Science Contrarian review (Step 2)

Reviewer role: Science Contrarian (judges by experimental evidence, builds the strongest honest case, examines how claims were rejected, and applies the same rigour to the inventor). Tags: [read] = from the project document or saved files; [web] = Internet source with URL; [memory] = recalled, with confidence.

Inputs read: facts.json, claims.md, the deep read (Appendix Cases 41-42; Chapter IV), the sites.md "Leads for review", all research/ notes, and in the extracted book text the passages on p.10-11, 91, 101-102, 109-110, 121 and 140 (PDF pages; printed page = PDF page minus 19) [read]. I did not read the saved 1920 edition, Boddington 1931 or the Annales volume in full; I rely on the Investigator's notes for them and say so where it matters.

Source gap: none for the 1911 book (OCR readable). The 1920 second edition, the Archives of the Roentgen Ray papers, the Annales 1912 article and Feerhow 1913 were read only by the Investigator (and in the browser, not saved). Where I cite them I cite the Investigator's notes. The BMJ review (6 Jan 1912, PMC2344221) has still not been read by anyone; my own fetch also failed (HTTP 403 from europepmc.org) [web: https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC2344221].

Corrections to Step 1

1. "Printed page = PDF page minus 19" and page tags. Step 1 uses PDF page numbers in claims.md ("p.20-27", etc.). That is consistent within Step 1 but readers holding the book will find the printed numbers 19 lower. Not an error, a convention to state. Kept as is.
2. Claim 5 is not supported "in cases texture does not explain" by the Appendix as claims.md implies. claims.md says the Appendix is Kilner's evidence for claim 5. Confirmed from the deep read: Experiments 5-6 tested location, using only the blue band, which on Kilner's own predictions (p.158-159) darkens for red and yellow alike. They therefore cannot show colour-specificity. Step 1 notes this in the "Notes" but claim 6 in claims.md says "the observer located the willed spot with the blue C.C. band" without saying that the subject announced when the spot was ready, and could see the aura herself. I add that below. [read: deep read, p.337-338]
3. "No blinding" is slightly overstated. facts.json says "no blinding of the diagnostic claims". For the Appendix, Experiments 5 and 6 did conceal the location from the observer [read: p.337-338]. What is missing is blinding of colour, of the subject's cueing, and any sham trials. Corrected wording used below.
4. facts.json claims "N-rays ... later judged not real after Wood's 1904 test" [memory, high]. This is correct as history (R. W. Wood, Nature, 1904, secretly removed the prism from Blondlot's apparatus; the observer still reported readings) [memory, high]. But Step 1 leaves out that Kilner's own account of his N-ray work is that he abandoned it because results were erratic and he explained the erratic needle deflections by invisible "rays" falling on the needle only at times [read: PDF p.120-121]. That is a post-hoc rescue (an unfalsifiable explanation of null results) and is relevant to how he reasons. Added to the review below.
5. The Investigator's "BMJ scientists replicated with negative results" lead is Wikipedia's sentence only. I could not read the review (403). Treat as unverified, not as a test on record. Step 1 did not mention it, so no correction is needed there.
6. Kilner did list limits of his own method: "enthusiasm and imagination are wont to lead experimenters astray ... so much depends on subjective vision" [read: PDF p.10-11, text lines 379-384]. Step 1 cites this. I add that he also admits the C.C. colours "are entirely subjective" [read: PDF p.140]. Both belong in the record.
7. Step 1 did not mention that Kilner reasons the aura lies outside the visible spectrum partly because "the Aura would necessarily have been recognized a long time ago" otherwise [read: PDF p.109-110, text lines ~2480-2490]. That is an argument from non-observation that also applies to a faint, dark-adaptation-dependent perceptual effect; it does not discriminate between "invisible band of light" and "perceptual artefact".
8. facts.json numbers in the Case lists and "about 40 cases" were not re-checked by me. Not verified.

What this review rests on (and its limits)

All primary evidence for the aura is one observer (Kilner) in one 1911 book, plus the 1911-12 follow-up trials found by the Investigator, and no instrument reading. Kilner's own photography of the aura failed in 1911 ("the results were negative, owing to the inordinate exposures necessary") [read: PDF p.110]. In 1920 he writes it has "occasionally" been photographed "to a slight extent" [web/read via Investigator's saved 1920 OCR: research/files/kilner-1920-human-atmosphere-2nd-ed_djvu.txt]. The 1911 NYT headline "The human aura has at last been photographed" (5 Feb 1911) conflicts with that; the article was not read [web: nytimes.com URL in research/2026-10-04-google.md]. Silence in other sources is not contradiction, but here there is simply no physical record at all.

Claim-by-claim

Claim 1. A faint structured haze surrounds every body and becomes visible to ordinary eyes after looking through a dicyanin screen

a. Mathematics. None in the claim. Internally the account is reasonable: Kilner states the preconditions (screen, daylight, dark background, a minute of preparation) and concedes some people fail. One inconsistency: the 1911 book says repeated use leaves the observer able to see it without a screen for a while, while the Investigator's A1 paper (Roentgen Ray v.16) proposes a mechanism (shift of the eye's chromatic focus toward violet) that Kilner says he cannot test. The measurements are small: a refocus of +1 to +6.5 thousandths of an inch on a 1/4-in objective microscope, which is within the plausible depth of focus of such an objective and the eye's accommodation noise [memory, medium: depth of field of a low-power objective is of order tenths of a millimetre; a physicist should compute it]. Kilner's own controls (repeat coarse-focusing to rule out accommodation) are mentioned but not quantified [read via Investigator: research/2026-10-04-hathitrust.md, A1].

b. Experimental consistency. Known: staring through a deep blue absorbing filter at a bright light for a minute produces strong colour adaptation; the retina, after a bright window, then views a dark-background body edge. Contrast edges, Mach bands, Troxler fading, afterimages and rod-dominated peripheral vision at low light are all well-documented and can produce hazy bands around dark objects against bright or dark backgrounds [memory, high; general reference e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afterimage, found by my search, not read in detail]. The "Etheric Double", a narrow dark band 1/8 to 3/16 in from the skin, is a candidate for a contrast (Mach/edge) band [memory, medium]. The 1912 US worker "H. C. S." (with Goodspeed) found the phenomenon "more pronounced with an inanimate hand-towel than with the human being" [web via Investigator: HathiTrust uc1.d0010345536 p.199-200]. That is the best single piece of evidence in the record on the "physical or perceptual" question, and it points to the haze being a property of the viewing method, not of the human. Kilner himself replied that he has "never seen a haze around any inanimate object, except a magnet or a radio-active substance" [web via Investigator, p.240]; that is his report against the towel result, one observer against two.

c. Testing. This is the claim with a real trial history, all in 1911-12: - Supportive: O'Donnell, Mercy Hospital, Chicago, reported (NY Herald 15 Jun 1911, via de Fontenay in Annales des Sciences Psychiques March 1912, and an encyclopedia entry citing Harry Price) to have repeated the experiments successfully before about twenty physicians. Documented in two secondary mentions so far; the original newspaper reports have not been read. The Rebman journal (Archives of the Roentgen Ray, publisher's own journal, an interested party) says "many of them are able to see a bluish haze" among medical men to whom Kilner demonstrated. Surya (Graz) published two observers who saw haze and rays, one with the naked eye afterwards, with about 50% of first-time viewers seeing nothing; Surya's own journal and Feerhow's book share a publisher (Altmann, an interested party) and the trials were unblinded [web via Investigator]. - Negative or qualifying: de Rochas, de Fontenay and Roux in Paris (1911-12) saw nothing matching Kilner's descriptions, though a clairvoyant subject said the screen helped. De Fontenay called it "a reservation, not a denial" [web via Investigator: research/2026-10-04-iapsop.md]. H. C. S. and Goodspeed found a physical effect but doubted it was linked to the human body. - Reading these fairly: nobody ran a controlled test in which the observer had to detect a person (or not) behind a screen, or distinguish a person from a towel. "Something is seen by some people" is replicated informally; "an aura of the human body" is not tested. - The review and test history is bounded by the sources I have. I cannot say the BMJ ran a trial.

d. What would have to change. If the haze were a real emission specific to living bodies that lies outside normal vision, mainstream physics would need a new body-specific radiation or a new eye response, and it would need to be measurable by instruments (it has not been; photography failed). If it is a perceptual effect of the screen method, nothing changes in physics, and vision science already contains the pieces.

Verdict: split. - Weak form ("some observers report a faint haze around bodies after the screen procedure"): Plausible, untested in a controlled way; informally reported by more than one group, failed for others. - Strong form ("an aura of the human body, visible only because the screen reveals something real and body-specific"): Never properly tested (no neutral blinded trial; the one independent test with a control object, the towel, goes against body-specificity). Not dismissed without testing: it was tried and discussed in 1911-12, but the trials were not controlled.

Claim 2. The aura is a force from the body acting on the ether (1 aF and 2 aF), outside the visible spectrum, with counterparts around magnets, uranium and galvanic circuits

a. Mathematics. No equations; the "1 aF / 2 aF" scheme is qualitative. The reasoning has a logical weakness: the force is made visible "by its action on the ether", yet the ether is posited to carry vibrations "outside the ordinary visible spectrum" that the dicyanin screen can bring into view. A screen that absorbs red light and passes blue and violet cannot make light outside the visible range visible; it can only alter what visible light reaches the eye [memory, medium: dicyanin is a cyanine dye with absorption in the orange-red; the Bureau of Standards papers in the Investigator's list document it as a red/infrared sensitiser for photographic plates]. Kilner's 1920 move to "an ultra-violet phenomenon" is an attempt to solve this, but the human lens absorbs most light below about 380-400 nm [memory, medium]; a physicist should check. The mechanism he proposes (action on visual purple, or lasting change in the observer's eye) is, if right, a statement about the eye, not the body.

b. Experiments. Magnets and static fields produce no visible haze in mainstream experience; radioactive uranium nitrate crystals do emit ionising radiation but a crystal's alpha/beta/gamma output is far too small to be seen as a haze at ordinary intensities [memory, medium; physicist to quantify]. Kilner reports seeing haze at these. These reports are the observer's own, single-source, and they are exactly what the perceptual explanation in claim 1 would also produce (a bright, high-contrast object seen after the same adaptation). His electrostatic result (1920 edition, Wimshurst machine 1915: aura vanished, then returned 3 in wider) is documented in his own later edition [web via Investigator; not read by me]. It is a testable claim, and no replication is on record.

c. Testing. No instrument measurement, no independent replication of the magnet, uranium or galvanic claims found. The Investigator found related contemporary work: Reichenbach's Od, N-rays, Werner and Caan on the "photo-activity" of human tissue (fogged plates, Annales 1912) [web via Investigator]. Werner/Caan is a different kind of claim (photographic fogging), reported but I cannot assess its quality; it is an anomaly worth tracing, not support for Kilner. The N-ray link is bad for Kilner: N-rays failed the 1904 Wood test [memory, high]. Kilner admits his needle-deflection work was erratic and explained the irregularity by the presence or absence of invisible rays hitting the needle [read: PDF p.120-121]. That explanation cannot lose.

d. What would have to change. A body-emitted "force" detectable only by this observer technique would need a new interaction or a new radiation band. The ether would need to be reinstated with new properties; the modern view is that a medium for light is not needed [memory, high]. None of this is forced by any measurement in the record.

Verdict: split. - "Aura is a force acting on the ether": Not testable as stated (ether and "aF" have no measurable consequences specified; superseded by the post-1905 view). - "Visible hazes around magnets, uranium, galvanic cells": Never properly tested (one observer; not repeated; Kilner himself is the only source). - "Outside the visible spectrum": Internally inconsistent as argued (a filter plus a visible-range detector cannot expose an out-of-range band), unless re-expressed as a statement about the eye's response.

Claim 3. Aura size, shape, texture and colour reflect sex, age, heredity, temperament and disease (hysteria, epilepsy, hemiplegia, local changes)

a. Mathematics. Kilner tabulates widths in inches for about 40 cases. No statistics, no estimate of measurement error, no stated criteria for where a hazy edge ends. The claim that a blue aura goes with higher intelligence and grey with dullness has no independent measure of intelligence given in the data I saw. Cases are numbered in more than one sequence (digest noted the "Case 88 / Case 21" oddity). Not resolved.

b. Experiments. No outside data exist to test aura width against sex, age and disease. An observer who knows the patient's diagnosis, sex and age when measuring a hazy boundary by eye will tend to see differences that fit expectation [memory, high: standard experimenter-expectancy effect]. Kilner admits that with the observer's choice of patients and knowledge of cases "so much depends on subjective vision" [read: PDF p.10-11]. The data are therefore not independent of the hypothesis.

c. Testing. None found beyond Kilner. The Rebman journal review explicitly declined to judge the disease claims: "If succeeding investigators should confirm his results ..." [web via Investigator]. I found no record of such confirmation by 1920. Absence here is an anomaly in the sense of the guidance: a physician in a London hospital published case-lists and diagnostic charts sold with screens, yet no clinical follow-up is on record. Competing explanations: wartime disruption (supported by Boddington 1931 on dye supply: one published, interested source), lack of a reproducible method, Kilner's death in 1920, professional scepticism (the 1912 BMJ review is reported by Wikipedia to have been dismissive; unread). The record that would decide: Lancet/BMJ coverage 1912-20, St Thomas's Hospital records, Rebman sales.

d. What would have to change. Nothing in physiology predicts a body-wide haze related to hysteria or epilepsy. If real, it would mean a body-wide emission correlated with nervous disease; testable by blinded rating of photographs or instrument records.

Verdict: Never properly tested. The case descriptions are reported by one unblinded observer; no neutral trial or confirmation is on record. Not "tested and failed". Whether it was dismissed without testing is unknown until the BMJ review is read.

Claim 4. A complementary-colour (C.C.) afterimage band turns lighter or darker over local disease, tenderness, impending menstruation, early pregnancy or a dead foetus, so it can diagnose

a. Mathematics/logic. The C.C. band is a negative afterimage in the observer's own visual system; Kilner says so himself: "the complementary colours are entirely subjective" [read: PDF p.140]. He lists four causes of lighter or darker patches (skin, aura thickness, aura texture, aura colour) and omits the observer's own retinal state, though he notes that eye movement changes afterimage colours enough to ruin his first gaslight method [read: deep read, PDF p.133-134]. Afterimage strength depends on fixation, adaptation, local retinal fatigue, the background and eye movements [memory, high]. A lighter or darker patch at a location on the patient is exactly what such effects produce over a non-uniform scene (skin tone, shadow, clothing, body-edge contrast). So his list of causes is incomplete, and the claim as stated cannot exclude the simpler one.

b. Experiments. There is no clinical outcome data checked against the C.C. method (for example, pregnancy diagnoses compared against later outcomes with counts). Kilner presents case descriptions and two summary tables (p.164-165, checked as page images in Step 1) but no sensitivity, specificity or false positive counts. Medical pregnancy diagnosis in 1911 was by clinical signs; the claim that the C.C. band can detect "a dead foetus" has no corroboration.

c. Testing. None independent. Tested only by Kilner on patients he examined with knowledge of their conditions.

d. What would have to change. If valid, a perceptual afterimage would need to be modulated by a body property that no instrument has yet detected. This is a diagnostic claim; the cheapest test is a blinded one: an observer who does not know the diagnosis rates patches, and results are compared with the clinical record. Ordinary physics and physiology need no change if the test fails.

Verdict: Never properly tested. The method is a high-risk subjective measure with an acknowledged subjective step and no blinded outcome study. Strong form (diagnostic accuracy): Never properly tested. A weak form, "afterimage bands look lighter or darker in places": Established as a perceptual fact (in general), not as evidence about disease.

Claim 5. Changes in the C.C. band come, in cases texture does not explain, from the aura's colour, which the naked eye cannot see

a. Mathematics/logic. Kilner's own footnote (p.156) makes the Appendix experiments the proof. The hypothesis of "aura colour" is introduced for the cases that his other three causes do not explain, so it fills a gap by elimination; it is not independently tested in the text before the Appendix. He calls it "problematic" yet also "certainly correct in many instances" [read: deep read]. Experiments 5-6 use only the blue band, which on his own table darkens for both red and yellow [read: deep read, p.158-159], so a darker spot there cannot distinguish a colour change from any other cause of a dark patch (thickness, texture, gap, retinal effect). The experiments therefore cannot establish claim 5's colour-specific part; the only colour-pattern evidence (Exps. 1 and 4) was gathered with the observer knowing both colour and site.

b. Experiments. No outside tests of the claim exist. Within the Appendix there are genuine controls worth crediting: the left-right comparison in Exp. 1 (the untargeted side stayed "exactly the same"), and the turn-round check for uneven illumination (the darker extension stayed on the willed side) [read: deep read, p.334-335]. These excluded an illumination asymmetry. They do not exclude observer expectation. Kilner also reports failures candidly: the willed colour never matched the cue book (Exp. 1) and the observer never saw a true yellow (Exp. 3) [read: deep read, p.333, 335].

c. Testing. n = 1 subject (an artist's model who could herself see auras, paid, "hysterical temperament"), one observer (Kilner), one session for the colour work, two hidden-site trials. A second observer saw only the vanishing in Exp. 1, at a different inspection, unnamed.

d. What would have to change. A visible-light colour of the aura invisible to the naked eye, yet affecting an afterimage, is internally awkward: if the aura has a colour that affects the eye's response in the C.C. test, it should also be visible to the same eye. Kilner resolves this by saying the effect is a "ray pointing straight at the observer", so it is invisible face-on but affects the band [read: deep read, p.336]. That is an extra hypothesis added to fit the observations.

Verdict: Never properly tested in its strong form. In the weak form (that a darker spot appeared where the subject said she was willing, in one session), it is reported as a hit and a near-miss by one observer without controls for cueing; Not testable as stated for the "aura colour" interpretation, because the experiment as run has no condition that differs between "aura colour" and "something else makes a dark spot".

Claim 6. The will can project rays from the Inner Aura and change the aura's colour; in two blind trials the observer located the willed spot (one exact centre, one 0.5 in off)

a. Mathematics. None, but the sum can be framed: with an assumed abdomen search area of about 8 x 8 in (64 sq in, my assumption; the text gives no dimensions) and a hit tolerance of a 0.5 in radius circle (area about 0.79 sq in), a single guess at random would land within tolerance about 1.2% of the time (0.79/64) [calculation, assumptions stated]. That does not make Exp. 5 a 1.2% event: the observer searched with a band that darkens at any patch, the subject announced when to look, and the finger placement was confirmed by the subject. The number only shows that a real hit would have been informative if the search and cueing were controlled; they were not. Exp. 6 was a near miss: a patch about 2 in wide, not well defined, with the finger 0.5 in from the stated centre. Kilner attributes the diffuseness to fatigue [read: deep read, p.338].

b. Experiments. Rays from the Inner Aura at will, e.g. from the nose tip or nipple, were observed in Case 41 with the observer choosing and the subject knowing the site. The subject first learned the technique with Kilner's demonstration at a fingertip, then "almost immediately succeeded" [read: deep read, p.327]. The experiment cannot separate "will projected a ray" from "the observer, who knows where to look, sees a brightening at the edge of a hazy boundary" or from the effect of the subject moving or tensing the muscle at the chosen site. Kilner partly sees this himself: concentrating on a distinct part may be easier at protuberances [read: deep read, p.329]. Her ability to see the aura herself, and to tell the observer "when to look", is a channel for cueing that the text does not exclude.

c. Testing. Only Kilner's 1910 sessions. The Investigator found later claims by Surya's observer of rays from fingertips and around the head (unblinded) and the 1915 electrical-charge experiment in the 1920 edition; none is an independent test. In the Surya trial one observer reported rays about 20 cm from the ears, weaker on the left, and Surya notes he hears worse on that ear; this shows the risk of the observer interpreting outcomes through what the experimenter knows [web via Investigator]. No replication of the willed-spot location trials exists in the record.

d. What would have to change. If a person's will could change a visible quantity at a distance from the body, a coupling from nervous activity to an external field would be required; none has been measured. The testable core is simple and inexpensive: an observer behind a screen, a subject choosing from a randomised list of sites by lot, many trials, and sham trials.

Verdict: split. - Rays at will, with observer-known sites: Never properly tested (reported in one source; the design admits expectation and cueing). - Colour by will, detected by the C.C. band: Never properly tested; not testable as stated for the colour part, because Exps. 5-6 only test location with a band that does not discriminate colour. - The two hidden-site trials: reported as one hit and one near-miss by one observer; no statistical conclusion is possible. Described, not dismissed.

The strongest honest case for Kilner

1. He was a careful, credentialed hospital electrician-physician with an established career, who published his data, named the dye (the Rebman journal praised his dropping the trade name "spectauranine" so the method was not a secret preparation) [web via Investigator], and listed methods in enough detail that others could try them.
2. He reported negative results (failed photography, N-ray inconsistency) and the limits of his method ("enthusiasm and imagination") [read].
3. Several independent groups in 1911-12 reported seeing something with his screens: H. C. S. and Goodspeed (US), Surya's two observers (Graz), the Chicago physicians (second-hand), and one of de Rochas's clairvoyant subjects. The H. C. S. letter says "there is no doubt but that a physical phenomenon is observable" [web via Investigator]. That is not nothing: it is evidence that the screens produce a reproducible visual impression in some people.
4. The Appendix has real, if limited, controls (the left-right comparison, the turn-round check, the hidden-site trials), and Kilner recorded a near-miss and mismatches instead of tidying them away.
5. A cheap blinded test exists and was never run by anyone on record: dicyanin screen, person-or-towel behind a curtain, observer rates presence of haze, many trials. A real signal there would be remarkable; a null would end the body-specific claim.

How the claims were rejected

• Dismissed without testing, or tested and failed? For the strong claims, neither exactly. The Paris trials (de Rochas, de Fontenay, Roux, 1911-12) failed informally and the investigators called their failure a reservation, not a denial. No controlled negative trial of the sort a physicist would run is on record. The BMJ review is the main mainstream response; Wikipedia says it concluded Kilner "failed to convince us that his 'aura' is more real than Macbeth's visionary dagger" and that BMJ scientists attempted replication with negative results [web: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_John_Kilner via Investigator]. I could not confirm either point; do not treat a BMJ replication as established.
• Criticism by modern sceptics (Nickell 1993: "pseudoscience"; Melton 2013: results seen as artefacts of the observer's optic process) are characterisations by commentators, reported as such; neither ran a test [web via Investigator].
• Interested parties: Rebman (publisher, sold the screens with the book at 30s.) and its journal; Boddington (sold Aurospecs goggles); Surya/Altmann. Their statements are marketing-adjacent descriptions. The Boddington claim that the compounding chemist asked for anonymity "lest his association with the uncanny thing injured his professional reputation" is a single published statement by a seller; nobody else corroborates it, and it is nonetheless evidence of perceived reputational pressure.
• Absence in the record after 1912. The book was reprinted in 1920 (Kegan Paul) with new chapters but no independent trials. Competing explanations for the silence, with the evidence: wartime loss of German-made dicyanin (Boddington, one 1970 secondary snippet; plausible and partly testable through dye catalogues); commercial failure (screens at 17s. 6d., modest); Kilner's age and death (1920 preface mentions infirmities); professional rejection (BMJ 1912, unread); the lack of a robust result when others tried (Paris). These are not mutually exclusive. I see no evidence of suppression beyond one anonymous reputational remark; I also see no evidence that funding or publication was blocked: he published in a trade journal and a book.

Bad data, unit slips and unfalsifiable moves in Kilner (same rigour as for the critics)

• The N-ray rescue: erratic needle deflections explained by invisible rays that appear only sometimes [read: PDF p.120-121].
• "The Aura would necessarily have been recognized long ago ... if within the visible spectrum": argument from non-observation that cannot separate hypotheses [read: PDF p.109-110].
• Claim 6's key sentence states the conclusion before the experiments: the Appendix "proves the truth of the theory previously advanced" [read: deep read, p.330-331].
• A subject who sees the aura, is paid, and signals when to look; no sham trials; no counts.
• "Every thing that has been stated ... as being a fact, is true" [read: PDF p.10, text lines 378-380] is a strong assertion of truth for subjective observations.
• The temporary myopia paper reports focus shifts in thousandths of an inch with no error estimates, and 12 observers "taken consecutively from thirty" are a selection from a larger group [web via Investigator]. Boddington later said dicyanin "cures short sight", the opposite direction of Kilner's report [web via Investigator].

Investigator leads: how they bear on this review (kept in the record)

• Kilner's chromatic-focus paper: the only quantitative multi-observer measurement; tied to claim 1/2; unverified calculation for the Physicist.
• 1920 edition (UV phenomenon, electrostatic experiment, "occasional" photography): tied to claims 2, 6; needs a digest and deep read.
• H. C. S./Goodspeed hand-towel letter; Paris negatives; Chicago O'Donnell; Surya trials; Rebman journal praise; Feerhow, Werner/Caan; NYT headline; Boddington's wartime and reputation statements; Wikipedia's BMJ replication statement: all kept above with their stakes.
• Still unread and worth reading: BMJ review PMC2344221; NY Herald 15 Jun 1911; Annales 1 Sep 1911 pp.264-268; Rebman 1912 booklet (hvd.hnxbgt); Feerhow ch. II and appendix.

Web verification

• Wood's 1904 N-ray test: [memory, high], not re-checked.
• Afterimage/Troxler background: [web: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afterimage and https://www.illusionsindex.org/i/negative-afterimages] general support only.
• BMJ 1912 review: check failed (403) [web: https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC2344221].
• Dicyanin absorption band and human lens UV cutoff: [memory, medium], not verified; the verdict on "outside the visible spectrum" rests on the logic of filters and should be checked by the Physicist.

Summary table