Schoolboy who got electric shock from lamppost claims he now has magnetic powers
Nikolai Kryaglyachenko, 12, had been walking home after school when he lent briefly against the lamppost that was live from a faulty wire, and was blasted across the pavement
A schoolboy almost killed by an electric shock from a street lamp now claims he has ‘magnetic superpowers’ like Magneto from X-Men.
Nikolai Kryaglyachenko, 12, had been walking home after school when he lent briefly against the lamppost that was live from a faulty wire, and was blasted across the pavement.
He says that since the accident he has been able to attract metal objects like coins and spoons towards his body, just like the famous Marvel villain.
Nikolai said: 'When I came round I felt groggy but managed to get home and told my mum what had happened. When I woke up the next day and got out of bed I found some coins that had been lying on the mattress had stuck to my body. Then when I was having breakfast and dropped my spoon, it stuck to my chest.'
He said he was a keen fan of comics and, believing that maybe he had developed some sort of super magnetic power to attract metal like Magneto, had decided to put it to the test.
He said: 'I can do things I couldn't do before but I don't have a lot of control over it. Even when I do not want to do it, I still attract things.’
Nikolai says he has now decided to become a superhero rather than a fireman when he is older, as he wants to do something that helps people (clearly fireman wasn’t helping people enough).
He has also found himself one of the most popular boys at school with many of his classmates asking him to demonstrate his superpowers.
Stories about 'living magnets' began to appear at least in the middle of the 19th century. In 2004, the story of a Russian factory worker Leonid Tenkaev and his family received extensive media coverage when he appeared to obtain the ability to attract objects after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Although people who have the ability to attract metal items are commonly referred to as 'magnets,' many of them can also hold plastic, glass, wood and paper items on their body.
Only some of them develop a 'preference' for a particular material. In 1990, as many as 300 'living magnets' gathered for a conference in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, after young woman Marinela Brankova demonstrated her amazing ability on TV. The woman could hold 7 kilos of metal on a vertical palm.
Scientists say however that rather than people being magnetic, it is probably nothing more than unusually sticky skin.
