Kilner-Walter: Investigator sites log

Run 1: 2026-10-04 (first run, standard 10-minute cap). Browsing ran from epoch 1791156518 to about 1791156890 (about 6 minutes of wall-clock time, by the session clock). Browsing stopped there so the many pages already found could be written up. Chrome was used for all browsing; curl was used only for public JSON APIs and file downloads (archive.org, Europe PMC, IAPSOP). One new tab was opened and then closed.

Keywords tried

• "Walter J. Kilner" obituary 1920 BMJ "Human Aura" (Google)
• "Kilner" "Human Atmosphere" 1912 British Medical Journal "Macbeth's" OR "Lancet" aura review (Google)
• dicyanin dye absorption spectrum history "Meister Lucius" OR Hoechst Kilner screen (Google)
• "Kilner" aura "Annales des sciences psychiques" 1912 Rochas Fontenay écrans (Google)
• "O'Donnell" Kilner screens aura Chicago Mercy Hospital dicyanin 1930s (Google)
• kilner aura (archive.org)
• (bagnall aura) OR (dicyanin) OR (kilner screens) OR (creator:kilner AND date:[1870 TO 1925]) (archive.org)
• AUTH:"Kilner WJ" OR AUTH:"Kilner W" OR ("human atmosphere" AND PUB_YEAR:[1911 TO 1921]) OR (kilner AND aura) (Europe PMC)
• "Kilner" "dicyanin" (HathiTrust full text); Kilner (inside Archives of the Roentgen Ray v.16)

Keywords for next runs (not yet tried): "spectauranine"; "Kilner screens"; "auroscopy"; "Patrick S. O'Donnell" aura; "Mercy Hospital" aura 1911; "Rebman" aura 1911; "Goodspeed" aura; "Kilner" "chromatic focus"; "Kilner" Lancet 1911; "Kilner" "St. Thomas's" electrician; "menschliche Aura" Kilner; "Surya" Kilnerschirme; "Kilnerschirm"; "aura humaine" Kilner; "Aurospecs" patent; "Drysdale Anderson" aura; "dicyanine" Meister Lucius Brüning; "pinacyanol" Bagnall; "Kilner" "Wimshurst" aura; "W. J. Kilner" probate 1920; "Charles Scott Kilner".

Leads for review

1. The inventor's own work

• Kilner, "The Shifting of the Chromatic Focus of the Eye by the Use of a Dicyanin Screen", Archives of the Roentgen Ray v.16 (1911-12), pp.344-352 [web: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.d0010345536&seq=360]. A microscope refocusing test on 12 observers (from 30; 10 medical men) before and after viewing light through dicyanin. He reports a shift of the eye's "chromatic focus" toward violet (+1 to +6.5 thousandths of an inch of refocus in white light; largest in a clairvoyant, smallest in observers over 60), temporary myopia, and proposes it as a screening test for aura-seeing. Bears on claims 1 and 2 (the screen's mechanism; the aura beyond violet). It is the only quantitative, multi-observer measurement by Kilner found so far, and the Physicist and Mathematician can check it against the eye's known chromatic aberration and the microscope's depth of focus.
• 1920 second edition, The Human Atmosphere (The Aura) (OCR saved). Preface: "an ultra-violet phenomenon"; women can change aura colours at will; aura influenced by electricity and chemical action; aura "occasionally ... photographed to a slight extent". New chapter on the effects of forces; 1915 Wimshurst static-charging experiments (aura vanishes, then returns 3 in wider). Bears on claims 2 and 6; needs a digest and deep read (it should be added to the project as a new document).
• Kilner's letter, Archives of the Roentgen Ray v.16 p.240: he has never seen haze around an inanimate object except a magnet or radioactive substance (reply to H. C. S.). Bears on claim 2.

2. Supporting information by others (and contrary trials, kept together)

• O'Donnell, Mercy Hospital, Chicago, 1911: reported (New York Herald 15 Jun 1911, via de Fontenay 1912) to have repeated Kilner's experiments successfully before about twenty physicians; an encyclopedia entry says he "controlled and confirmed" them, citing Harry Price. Documented second-hand in two sources so far; the primary newspaper reports have not been read. Bears on claim 1.
• H. C. S. and Dr Goodspeed (US), letter, Archives of the Roentgen Ray v.16 pp.199-200: they produced "some of the effects"; "no doubt ... a physical phenomenon is observable", but questionable whether connected to the human; stronger around "an inanimate hand-towel". Bears on claim 1 (yes, something is seen) and against its human-specific part.
• Rebman's journal review, p.156: Kilner demonstrated to "a number of medical men" and "many of them are able to see a bluish haze". The source is the publisher's own journal (interested party) and gives no names or counts. Bears on claim 1.
• G. W. Surya, Graz, Zentralblatt für Okkultismus Feb 1912, via Feerhow 1913 ch. III: about 50% see nothing on first use; two detailed observer reports of haze and rays, one seeing it with the naked eye afterwards. Bears on claims 1 and 6. Both the journal and the book come from the same publisher (Altmann).
• Contrary: de Rochas, de Fontenay, J.-C. Roux, Paris 1911-12 (Annales des Sciences Psychiques March 1912 pp.74-84): saw nothing matching Kilner's descriptions; one clairvoyant subject said the screen helped. De Fontenay treats the failure as "a reservation, not a denial". Bears on claim 1.
• Contrary (to verify): BMJ review 6 Jan 1912 (PMC2344221): Wikipedia says BMJ scientists tried to replicate the experiments with negative results. Not yet read (blocked).

3. Closely related work

• Feerhow, Die menschliche Aura (1913) and N-Strahlen und Od: places Kilner with Reichenbach's Od, N-rays and the "radioactivity of man"; Werner and Caan (Heidelberg) on photo-activity of human tissue (Annales 1912 p.189). Bears on claim 2.
• Boddington's "Aurospecs" goggles (1931) and Bagnall's pinacyanol screens (1937): later continuations of the screen method. Both makers had a stake in their devices.
• De Fontenay's ordinary-physics "auras" (heat radiation, water vapour) next to the skin, raised in 1912 as possibly visible under some conditions. Bears on claim 1 (a candidate physical explanation for the reviewers to weigh).
• US Bureau of Standards dicyanin papers (1918-1919): the dye as a red and infrared photographic sensitiser. Bears on Kilner's account of choosing the dye.

4. Historical record

• Why the record goes quiet after 1920. Boddington (1931) says "the war put an end to his labours" and that dicyanin, made in Germany, was hard to get and was later "superseded by cheaper substitutes". He also says the chemist who compounded Kilner's dicyanin asked to stay anonymous to protect his "professional reputation". A 1970 secondary source (Scribd snippet) also names Meister, Lucius & Brüning and the 1914-18 cut-off. The competing explanations to test are wartime supply loss (supported by these two sources), commercial failure (screens sold at 17s. 6d.), Kilner's age and death in 1920 (supported by the 1920 preface on "age with its attendant infirmities"), and professional rejection (the 1912 BMJ review). Records that would decide: Hoechst dye catalogues from 1910-1920, Rebman's sales, and the BMJ, Lancet and Archives coverage after 1912.
• NYT 5 Feb 1911, "The human aura has at last been photographed": the headline conflicts with the book's report that photography failed. The full article is needed.
• Obituary: Suffolk and Essex Free Press, 30 Jun 1920, p.6. Place of death (Isle of Wight per Wikipedia) conflicts with the 1920 preface address (Hatter Street, Bury St Edmunds).
• Rebman's 1912 booklet and the Mattoon Daily Journal-Gazette (19 Aug 1911) item on Rebman promoting the work in America.