Grover Cleveland Backster Jr used to work for the CIA as an interrogation specialist. He was popular for the experiments that he performed with plants using a lie detector. He believed that plants have ESP (Extrasensory perception) and feel pain.
Cleveland Backster connected a galvanometer to a dracaena leaf. He found that when he imagined that the leaf was being set on fire, he could make it move the needle of the lie-detection machine, which also registered a surge of electric impulses.
This could have suggested several things, which included the plant being “telepathic” and “feeling” the image.
Backster also connected polygraph machines to several plants, which included onions, bananas, lettuces, and oranges. He believed that plants could react to the thoughts of humans, who were close to them.
He managed to publish his research work in the International Journal of Parapsychology, back in 1968.