4. Hypno Robbery
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHp6gclr8Vo The video above shows a bizarre incident in which a shopkeeper in north London appears to have been hypnotised and then robbed. The thief performs a series of touches and squeezes whilst appearing to keep up a gentle patter in a vaguely Derren Brown-esque routine. During this, he rifles through the shopkeeper's pockets seemingly unchallenged. The victim remains motionless and later reported that he became momentarily unaware of what was happening to him, only snapping out of the state once the thief leaves. The touches and taps that the thief performs appear to be a technique known as "anchoring". This is a feature of a psychological technique known as Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) which, whilst regarded with a healthy amount of skepticism by the scientific community, can be used to confuse a mark and make them temporarily suggestible to a certain extent. This isn't full blown "hypnosis" in the traditional sense, more of a parlour trick gone very sour.