It seems like every time we turn around, there is another superhero movie coming out. I really shouldn't complain, because I have enjoyed most of the ones that I have seen. I think that most of us would have to say that the most recent Batman and Ironman movies was quite good. These two particular heroes do not have super powers however and theoretically, anyone with their equipment that was in good physical shape could do the same things, that is if they were real. I though that it might be interesting to look for people with special abilities, abilities that are far above any that we normal people have. They would be something like some of the X-men are supposed to have, which is a wider variety of different abilities. Before I start, I want you all to know that I don't necessarily believe people have these powers, but there are many who do.

The first ability that comes to mind is the ability to know what animals are thinking and talk to them. There are certain people who claim to have this power. Some have even started businesses as a sort of animal psychiatrist They say that the animals reach out to them and tell them their problems. First of all you should know that over 15,000 pets in Britain alone were referred to animal psychiatrists, but don't confuse these people with those that claim they can hear the thoughts of animals and communicate with them. I am talking about people like Marty Meyer who claims to be a telepathic animal communicator. She is an educated woman with a degree in Marine Biology and claims that she honed her animal communication skills by taking classes given by several famous animal communicators. She claims that she doesn't have to be at the actual site where the animal is located, but can do her work long distance and receives calls from all over the world. That makes it very convenient for her.

I just have to mention those people who claim to be remote viewers. Years ago the US government, along with several other world governments, started a program called Remote Viewing. Special people were selected for the program that seemed to be telepathic. They were trained for many years and supposedly they gained the ability to sit in an empty room and when questioned, could draw answers to the questions. The questions were the type where they would be asked the location of a certain person or thing and somehow they were said to be able to draw the location. They were told to draw the first thing that came into their minds. The government was said to have located the Americans that were being held hostage in Iran using this method. As time went on the program was discontinued by the government, but it is still available in the private sector and can be found on the Internet.

A very few people have incredible physical strength. One of the strongest men that ever lived is Bill Kazmaier. The man looks like a monster, with a body rippling with huge muscles and believe me, it is not all show. Mr. Kazmaier won the World's Strongest Man contest in 1982. Some of his feats of strength were pulling a huge 16 wheeler, faster than any human ever had. Kazmaier was doing it while he was down on all fours. He pressed a 355 pound tree over his head, He actually picked up weights of 975 pounds that were connected to a bar and he did it more than once. To see the video of him in action, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkwQIjqKqIE. Kazmaier is truly a super human.

There is a school in Japan that is teaching students how to perform incredible mathematically feats mentally. I have a hard enough time just doing them with a calculator. The students practice the technique over and over for years, until they become proficient. Before you can take this class you have to know how to use an abacus. An Abacus is an early calculating device that operates by moving beads that represent different sums, along a rail. There are different sections that represent multiple amounts, or single amounts. The school teaches the children to imagine an abacus in their mind and to use it. This way they only have to memorize the bead positions and convert them back to numbers when the problem is finished. This technique gives all the students super math powers. Beyond this, there are a very few people on earth that can do the most complex math problems in their heads. Most are autistic and it is said that even the few that don't think that they are, really are, they just don't show signs of it. One man claims that when he is given a math problem, he sees the answer in numbers jump into his brain without even thinking about it. Apparently his brain is performing the calculations automatically. He says that the numbers come out of flashing colors. Science is still at a loss to figure this out.

The same can be said of super memory. Many people that possess it are also autistic. The most famous person with a truly photographic memory is Kim Peek, he is autistic. Mr Peek is capable of reading a phone book and remembering every name, address and telephone number for his entire life. He truly has a super memory, but because of his condition it came at a cost. There is another type of photographic memory and that is where a document or photo is shown to someone and then taken away and yet they can still see it in their mind for a period of time. Other mind feats were performed by different people. Akira Haraguchi recited pi's first 83,431 decimal places from memory and then did the same thing later with 100,000 decimal places.

Lastly I would like to talk about people that claim to be able to see past events and those that also claim to see future ones. There are a group of people out there that routinely help the police solve crimes, these are the psychics that either give or rent their service to different police agencies all over the world. Dorothy Allison, a psychic who helped the police solve cases and who is deceased now, was said to be a person who's predictions were difficult to verify and this statement was made by a police captain. He then went on to say however, that when a case was over her predictions were retrofitted to the case. This is not exactly a tribute to her so called abilities. John J. Oliver is a physic who states on his website, “...he has utilized his psychic skills to assist law enforcement in a wide variety of investigations. “ While I can't comment on his successes, since all this is so controversial, I will say that there are many people out there that claim to have Psychic ability and the Amazing Randi, a magician that has been offering a million dollar prize for over 30 years for proof of this stuff, has never had to pay out one cent.

Are there people out there with super powers? We really can't be sure, except for some of the ones I outlined above. We don't know what scientists might be doing in some of the labs all over the world. It could be that the military is engaged in trying to increase the powers of the ordinary human. For now let's say that we don't know, but there might be.