The Unbelievably Cool Fake Psychic Trick

Working with BBC three we have created the world’s most unbelievably awesome interactive web viral that YOU can actually perform yourself. It’s the best trick ever! You’ll be able to con your friends, family and work colleges into believing that they possess genuine psychic powers!

Filming as members of  the mysterious “Board of New Science” we created a strange video which claims to test for ESP. However, hidden within this video is some secret technology that can totally distort someone’s perception of reality.

All you need to know is how to click the play button in the right way. Every time the video pauses the play button appears in the centre of the screen. This innocent looking play button is split into 5 sections which correspond to the 5 different shapes like this:

Special ESP Button

When your friend says one of the shapes all you need to do is click the play button in the right place. For example, if they say cross it’s top right or if they say star it’s right on or in the arrow in the middle. We’ve made this as simple as possible for you to perform all you have to do is remember where to click.

To see this trick in action and to help you further we’ve filmed this video:

Finally, here’s a few interesting bonus tips for performing the trick:

1. The small play/pause button in the lower left hand corner is mapped out in the same way as the large button. So if your aim is good enough you can use the small play button or even switch between using the large and small play buttons to throw your friend off the scent.

2. Sometimes people will think that your computer microphone is on and knows what shape has been said through some ‘speech recognition’ software. To combat this you can ask your friend to whisper the shape into your ear or even draw it on a piece of paper.

3. This trick is online it so it will work on ANY computer. You will always get a better reaction if you show it to your friend on their computer because they know there’s nothing rigged about their machine. Just be sure to remember the URL www.bbc.co.uk/esptest

4. The best part about doing this trick is seeing the look on your friends face when you explain that it was all a scam and that it was you that was tricking them all along.

17 Comments

  1. Jennifer
    Posted 31 March, 2009 at 3:05 pm | Permalink

    I love this idea, already used it on a friend & it worked a treat. I haven’t told them it was a scam yet, might drag it out for a little longer.
    Just in time for April Fool’s day, perfect!

  2. Aoife
    Posted 31 March, 2009 at 6:02 pm | Permalink

    It was lolsome. My dad was pissing himself at it, having scorned it at the beginning.
    Also, very Dharma-esque. Was fun! xD

  3. Hanna
    Posted 31 March, 2009 at 8:50 pm | Permalink

    That’s so great!

  4. Jade
    Posted 31 March, 2009 at 9:08 pm | Permalink

    I’ve got to find someone to do this to because it’s brilliant!

  5. Dan
    Posted 31 March, 2009 at 9:38 pm | Permalink

    Fantastic. Genius as always.

  6. Jim
    Posted 4 April, 2009 at 2:55 pm | Permalink

    Thank you for this! You guys are GREAT!

  7. Hanna
    Posted 5 April, 2009 at 4:55 pm | Permalink

    I’m really happy to see your pretty faces again! I missed you so much!

  8. Posted 12 April, 2009 at 7:15 pm | Permalink

    I love this but neither my dad (too up on stuff like this – damn him!) or my cousin (who was attempting to work it out whilst watching and isn’t the scaredy type!) weren’t taken in/scared but loved the explanation video especially the girl who was fooled – where did you get her?!?!?!

  9. Cathy
    Posted 6 December, 2009 at 2:21 pm | Permalink

    Awesome, I freaked both my mum and my dad out!
    Barry and Stuart, you guys RULE XD
    x

  10. Ben
    Posted 20 February, 2010 at 12:09 am | Permalink

    The link always just takes me to BBC three videohub homepage. Even when I look it up on BBC three and click the link it still just takes me to the homepage. Is there something wrong with the site?

  11. Bob H
    Posted 24 February, 2010 at 8:35 pm | Permalink

    The link doesn’t work anymore! :-(

    Bring back the ESP test!

  12. Posted 4 March, 2010 at 10:31 pm | Permalink

    Hey guys can you get that video over here in the States? I really had a lot of fun with it over the holidays. Sent the kids crazy.

  13. mind illusion
    Posted 6 March, 2010 at 12:46 pm | Permalink

    where it removed? the links was removed

  14. stuart
    Posted 8 March, 2010 at 7:45 pm | Permalink

    The psychic trick video at the URL http://www.bbc.co.uk/esptest will be back with you + a whole batch of incredible new on-line tricks in a few short weeks.

    S

  15. Nick
    Posted 17 March, 2010 at 6:32 pm | Permalink

    BBC gives a warning that this video is not available in my area. Is there a mirror or some other site to use the trick from?

  16. Antonio
    Posted 5 May, 2010 at 10:37 pm | Permalink

    I totally got my mom with this. She was bragging to me about how she was phsycic and she can “feel things”, and then I was like, Bam! Sorry your not phsycic at all lol

  17. Madhav Subedi
    Posted 30 May, 2010 at 1:31 am | Permalink

    This trick is awesome. I wish let Barry and Stuart create more tricks which will help us to get rid from from boring days.Thanks to barry and Stuart.

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