Animals That Use The Force - Part 1: Force Sense

Many of us are familiar with Star Wars' iconic Jedi Knights. Crusaders of peace and justice, part scholars, part knights, they roamed the galaxy seeking out evil and injustice, rooting out oppression and upholding the law of the Republic. What was really cool about them (besides lightsabers, of course!) was their ability to use the Force - the mystical energy field, created by all life, that gave Jedi the Star Wars equivalent of superpowers. And to be honest, what's more badass than sweeping away a battalion of battle droids with a gesture, telekinetically freeing your starfighter from a swampy trap, jumping great heights at no danger to yourself or influencing the minds of Stormtroopers?

As a kid, I wanted to be Jedi. In fact, I'll be honest - I still want to be a Jedi, and wield the awesome power of the Force. It would be so cool to move things around with your mind - I'd often picture moving that pesky TV remote from the table directly intro my hands, or mind-tricking a pesky school teacher into forgetting about my homework. I'd run around making women take their clothes off, or getting free meals at fast food restaurants, or getting tons of free stuff. 

You *want* to take your clothes off!

Sure, that means I'd most likely end up using the Force for the most menial and trivial day-to-day issues, but there aren't any Sith around to fight now are there? Nevertheless, it would still be pretty freaking amazing to sense the unseen, have super-human reflexes, trick other people's minds and live forever.

Oh, by the way - there are animals out there who've beaten me to it. Right now there are creatures on this Earth tapping the potential of the Force (ok, that's a figure of speech, but bear with me ok?)!

Force Sensing

One of the most iconic powers of Jedi such as Obi-Wan or Yoda was their superhuman sensing powers, and their ability to detect the presence of others by circumventing the way we normally perceive things. In many similar ways, animals have developed pretty amazing, Force-like levels of sensing their surroundings.

Just picture this guy in a black cape going: "I sense a presence, something I've not felt since..."

The humble mosquitoes have the innate ability to sense the presence of other creatures around them. Through a complicated combination of smell, sight and heat detection, mosquitoes are able to pinpoint your exact location from over 30 meters away - and if that doesn't sound impressive, think about the fact that mosquitoes are a few centimeters long. Their senses are so attuned ( ... Anakin ;) ) that they can even sense the different blood types of their victims.

If you had this superpower, you could sense people from about 1.5km away, and could probably tell who you're sensing if you knew their blood type beforehand.

Echolocation

Many animals use echolocation as a means to perceive their environment: bats, whales and dolphins have all developed a version of this bio-radar. It works because objects in the environments create acoustic echos: animals send out pulses of sound (most of it inaudible to humans) that bounce of surrounding objects, giving the animal a 3D mental picture of their environment, and allowing it to avoid collisions, detect predators or prey or simply navigate in total darkness.

If you had this superpower, you would be unhindered by being blindfolded, or have no problems navigating crowded rooms in total darkness. Swimming in murky waters would not be troublesome, and you could tell if there are people waiting to ambush you in the next room, before you turned on the light.   You could sense the shape of people's bodies through their clothes (..ladies:) ), tell if someone is carrying a concealed weapon and even dodge moving obstacles in pitch black darkness. Freaking awesome!

Electroreception

Say hello to Jedi Master Platy Puss.

Electroreception is another Force power animals use to their advantage. Aquatic animals such as sharks have special organs that detect the electrical fields given off by prey, and they can also use this power to navigate their surroundings and monitor their proximity. It's literally sensing the energy fields given off by living creatures - nothing can come closer to sensing with the Force than that! Sharks can even pick up the signals given off by electric devices or rusting metals, which has lead scientists to suggest that that's the reason sharks often attack boats. Even Jedi had difficulty detecting non-living objects such as droids. Interesting fact: the humble and much-ridiculed Platypus is also the proud owner of such a super sense.

If you had this superpower, you could literally tell that someone is around you just by the electrical field they'd give off. You could "see" the fields generated by people around you, as well as detect working appliances and electronics, even detect rust in metal objects before the damage becomes visible!

Thermal Vision

By the flushing in your upper body I can see this is your first time with an elderly man.

Many snakes hunt using thermal vision. They use special sensory organs that detect the infrared radiation given off by living creatures, of wavelengths between 5 and 30 μm, to such a degree of accuracy that they sense individual body parts of their prey.

If you had this superpower, you could sense another person's presence simply by the heat given off by their body, and even follow a "heat trail" to find a person or creature, sometimes hours after they've left it.

Magnetoreception

Hmm. That direction, boobies are.

Many animals use magnetism and electromagnetism as super-senses - this is called Magnetoreception. The greater mouse-eared bat utilizes the position of the sun at sunset to "attune" itself to its magnetic field, then they use the freaking Sun as gigantic compass, allowing them to always find their way even when placed in completely unfamiliar surroundings. Material evidence suggests that birds use ferromagnetic deposits in their beaks to navigate the Globe utilizing Earth's own magnetic field as a guide. It has also been observed in bacteria (yes, even though they are blind, deaf and unable to smell, bacteria know exactly how to get to you!), lobsters, turtles, sharks, fruit flies, mice, mole rats and stingrays.

If you had this superpower, you could literally never be lost again. Even if someone managed to ambush and kidnap you despite your other super-senses, even if they took you to the other side of the Globe, you'd still know exactly which way your home is.

To sum everything up: if you had the power of the Force at your disposal and the ability to detect your surroundings with all these techniques, you'd be a pretty hard man to surprise. You couldn't be ambushed or startled ever again. Pitch black darkness wouldn't be a problem; you could sense your friends waiting for you in the dark, hoping to give you a surprise birthday party. Paintball would be trivial. You could sense pregnant women's embryos -that's creepy but I thought about it and couldn't help myself. You could have the craziest drunk nights out and  find your way home even if you woke up in another country. You could figure out if someone has been in your room for the past hour, and follow their heat trail to discover the perpetrator. You wouldn't need to turn on the lights in any room to navigate it, and if you misplaced your phone in your room you could always sense its electrical field to locate it.

Yep. That's all pretty cool in my book. What other benefits of having all these powers do you see? Let me know in the comments down below.