The subject is things we cannot explain, such as extrasensory perception (ESP) and paranormal events. Such matters have been studied at a Princeton laboratory since 1979, but the laboratory will close at the end of February.

Robert G. Jahn, 76, who founded Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR), has his own explanation of why the laboratory is being closed:

“For 28 years we have done what we wanted to do,” Jahn told the New York Times. “If people don’t believe us after all the results we’ve produced, they never will.”

At a meeting of Princeton’s Old Guard some years ago, I watched Jahn demonstrate things studied at PEAR. He brought a contraption with a pendulum that could swing left or right, back and forth. He said his staff had proved that purely by focusing their minds they could exert slight but measurable impact on how the pendulum would swing. He also told of people in Europe seeking mentally to convey messages to people in America, again with some degree of success.

Jahn’s personal history is as interesting as the subjects he has studied. A deeply respected scientist and expert in jet propulsion, he was dean of Princeton University’s engineering school when, as another of the school’s faculty later told me, he “went off the deep end.”

The deep end into which Jahn dived contained riddles that have intrigued man throughout history. Can messages be transmitted by mind alone? Can faith really move mountains? Can dancing Indians induce rain to fall?

Such questions tend to make scientists nervous, and Princeton University has in general chose to ignore, rather than support, PEAR. When Jahn submitted an article for publication by a scientific journal, the editor said it would be considered if it were transmitted by ESP. Unfazed by doubters, Jahn kept the laboratory operating with more than $10 million from private donors.

I found Dr. Jahn’s work fascinating because like many people, I have had experiences I could not explain. There was, for example, a visit to Pakistan, which in 1958 was part of my newly assigned territory as Associated Press bureau chief for South Asia. On an introductory tour of the Foreign Ministry, I shook hands with a Mr. Kazmi, who unexpectedly clung to my hand and studied my palm.

“Ahh,” said Mr. Kazmi. “When you were 23 years old, something happened that entirely changed your life. Now isn’t that so?”

It was true. After enlisting in the Navy out of high school — at 23 — I was sent from submarine service to college for officer training. No other year had so greatly changed my life. But how could this be revealed to a man I had never met in a country I had never visited?

There were to be other strange experiences during my four years in India, one of which involved Harry Robinson, a professor on leave from Stanford University. Harry and I lived in the same hotel and occasionally dined together. On a visit to the Banares, hundreds of miles from our hotel, he entered a temple and was greeted by a Hindu holy man who said, “Harry, we’ve been waiting for you.”

Robinson, startled as Princeton University may have been when Jahn went off the deep end, replied, “You haven’t been waiting for me,” and fled.

Still shaken in telling me about the incident, Prof. Robinson admitted that he sometimes looks over his shoulder and wonders what was there.

The PEAR laboratory at Princeton was one place he might, or might not, have found the answer.

Watson Sims lives in Asheville.

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