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It Happened To Us: IHTM Incidents With Multiple Witnesses

AngelAlice

AngelAlice

bemused & saddened observer
Joined
Apr 7, 2006
Messages
762
How many of us have had Fortean experiences that were also witnessed by one or more other people?

I've had two or three such things happen to me, starting with the weird thing I and a friend of mine saw in the cathedral some years ago (it's way down in the depths of IHTM somewhere). If I'd been the only one to see and hear it I would have instantly dismissed it as a trick of the light, but the fact my friend Madge also witnessed it means I can't easily do that. And that's what makes a shared experience different isn't it? Two people hallucinating the same thing from different perspectives is massively improbable. I'm not even sure what the mechanism for such a thing could be even in theory. I'm stuck with a puzzle I just can't solve. And that's why I turned up here in the first place.

Since then I've had two more such weird little moments, and I'll tell the most interesting one here.

Few years after the cathedral thing. I was sitting watching TV, and my sister's youngest son was draping across the am of my chair. He was about twelve at the time, just big enough for his sprawling to be a nuisance. The room was fairly dark, just the light from the TV and a dim table lamp in the corner.

Anyhow, as I was watching TV I seemed to see a movement just to the left f of the television , and my eyes turned to look just in time to see a momentary image of what looked like the lower part of a person doing some odd sort of dance.

Imagine the glare of the TV sort of obscuring everything but the lower right quarter of a person, so you can just see the bottom part of the right leg, and maybe just a hint of the left leg in the shadows. And the right leg you can most clearly see is sort of jerking or kicking.

Well, that is what I briefly seemed to see as I looked over. It was VERY brief, no more than a second or two, and, as with the previous experience, I was almost immediately dismissing it as a weird little eye/brain moment, when I happened to look at my nephew sprawling on the am of my chair. He was sitting bolt upright and looking at the same part of the room I'd seen the legs in, with a slightly startled disbelieving look on his face.

I asked him if he'd seen anything. He said yes he thought he'd just seen some weird dancing legs.

After that we compared notes - and what we'd both seen seemed to be as near as dammit identical. Same colors (muted olive-browns), same restricted view (just the lower right side of the 'person's' body).

It seems ridiculous - just a momentary glimpse of some guy with twitchy legs. But yet we both saw it. Whatever it was.

How common are these shared experiences? How do we explain them?
 
When I was (very) little, my friend and I saw a couple of UFOs in the sky. She thought there were witches, as that was her obsession at the time, while I thought they were flying saucers, because that was my interest. What we actually saw I'll never know. So multiple witnesses do happen, but how reliable they are may not be as clear cut.
 
5 of us saw "something" in a grave yard in Surrey back on 9 October 1985/6 - was a cloudy white spirally shape in front of a grave. Two braver individuals approached it, at which point it seemed to disappear. The brave boy checked the grave to see whose it was. We attributed it to leaf shadows, moonlight etc. but it was pretty creepy. Most interestingly, all of us were seeing the same thing, but it took a while for anyone to actually verbalize anything.

A couple of weeks later, talking to a friend at school, it turned out that he'd seen something similar in graveyard and when we compared notes it was at the same grave (the oldest one there).
 
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Sometime between autumn 1971 and spring 1972, I was among a group of 6 or 7 people who jointly observed a V-shaped formation of pale yellowish-green lights moving from south to north over Michigan State University.

We were on a late night hike in a forested area (looking for raccoons and other nocturnal wildlife), and were resting in a clearing with a limited but unobstructed view of most of the sky above. We were looking up at the overcast sky and bemoaning the fact we couldn't see the stars.

The V-shaped light formation came into view and passed overhead. The configuration of the lights was very symmetrical and remained fixed. None of the lights 'bobbed' or otherwise moved so as to insinuate it was a formation of geese. They were a yellow / green hue like a firefly's light (though it was cold weather, and no fireflies were about). There were no similarly-colored ground lights (street lights, etc.) that would have supported the idea the light was reflected from below.

Although the sky was overcast at the time, it was too dark to tell whether the lights were separate objects or all affixed onto something larger.

The formation slid smoothly and silently across the sky without turning or varying its heading.

After it had passed, we compared notes on what we'd seen. We all agreed on the details.
 
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Looking back, I suppose that most of the strange happenings I have had were shared with members of the family or various friends. I had thought that maybe it was " birds of a feather flock together" or some type of thought transference.
 
Isis177 said:
Looking back, I suppose that most of the strange happenings I have had were shared with members of the family or various friends. I had thought that maybe it was " birds of a feather flock together" or some type of thought transference.
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Thought-transference would be a possible explanation in some such cases - but you know to mainstream science that would be seem as keeerazee as anything else. :)

How many people have had the experience of witnessing a strange phenomenon from different perspectives? For example - two people see the same apparition walking down a path, but one sees it from a second storey window and another actually walks past it on the path?

I mean sightings like that - if they happen - take us in to very very weird territory don't they. So, I'd be fascinated to know of any examples.
 
I don't know if this example fits in with your idea Angelalice but one time I walked into the kitchen belonging to one of my friends and there was a banging on the ceiling. Her partner was in the lounge and he came out to see what the noise was. My friend was in the bathroom but she heard it as well.
Her partner climbed up and looked through the manhole as I suggested maybe it was a possum although it was daytime. He found nothing but later said they had heard bangings on the walls before. They were of the opinion that it was her deceased exhusband who had died not long before.
 
Very minor but here goes. Came home from Cambridge at about 1:30 a.m, when I watched an orange blob in the sky. Looked like a star. Pointed it out and asked what star that was [up until then it had more or less stood still], however suddenly it started moving straight up and up...to be honest, looking back there is no reason that it couldn't have been a Chinese lantern. It was orange and bright and it was slow. However it did stand still-ish for quite a while; oh I know it wasn't due to it coming towards me as it was ever so slightly going east before moving up suddenly, which could have been due to thermals?
Still, I thought I'd share it as it was definitively a minor strangeness.
 
I'd cite, again, the rather undramatic, but apparently inexplicable, aural experience that me and two workmates underwent in a workshop in Stratford, London a few years back.

Bottom of this page on the Eerie East London thread
 
Spookdaddy said:
I'd cite, again, the rather undramatic, but apparently inexplicable, aural experience that me and two workmates underwent in a workshop in Stratford, London a few years back.

Bottom of this page on the Eerie East London thread
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Wow, that is a Class A Multiple Witness event isn't it! As you describe it, there's no way any real person can have been close enough to say those words. :wow:
 
Spookdaddy said:
I'd cite, again, the rather undramatic, but apparently inexplicable, aural experience that me and two workmates underwent in a workshop in Stratford, London a few years back.

Bottom of this page on the Eerie East London thread
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What a strange thing. Thanks for giving us the link!
 
About 10 years ago I was walking with my dad and his dog at night by the M6 in Leyland when we both saw a red light in the sky. It moved incerdibly fast, made no noise and we couldn't see anything else. There were reports at the time that Stealth bombers were being tested up the M6 corridor at the time, so I assumed that is what it must have been. British Aerospace is nearby at Salmesbury.

Also, when I was about 10 or 11 I was walking with my cousin and his family in Bispham, near Blackpool. I have a very vivid memory of a man who looked in the 60's walk past who had no mouth. There as just skin where his mouth should have been. I have a vivid recollection of both me and my cousin looking agast at the man and then we both looked at each other and exclaimed "urgh!". We told his mum but she told us we were being silly. He doesn't recall it now, so perhaps that is a false memory.
 
My ex husband told me this but I have no reason to doubt him or his version of events.

About 20 years ago my ex and several of his friends went to the nearby woods (it was only a small wood but at the top of the hill there was a clearing).

My ex and 5 of his friends were drinking White Lightning and lager and about 5 of his friends were glue sniffing (yes, I know, but i wasnt there!). Anyway, the drinkers didnt sniff glue and the glue sniffers didnt drink any alcohol.

After about half an hour one of the glue sniffers jumped up and started running around in circles screaming "Get if off me, get it off me". Obviously there was nothing there and all the drinkers just laughed at him as he dropped to the ground and started rolling around. The glue sniffers were staring at him with their mouths wide open.

After a few minutes he stopped rolling around and sat up and looked shaken. He said that the devil came out of the ground and jumped on his back and started to punch through his body, hence why he was screaming and running around.

Obviously the drinkers didnt believe him and laughed at him, but the strange thing was, the other 4 glue sniffers all swore they saw the same thing, the devil coming out of the ground and jumping on his back.
 
Yes they did, they all said they saw the devil on his back.
 
coaly said:
Are UHU positive? I hope they Araldite now and they are PVAving themselves. Bostick to the path in future.
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It could have been pritstick for all i know!!
 
scoobygirl said:
Obviously the drinkers didnt believe him and laughed at him, but the strange thing was, the other 4 glue sniffers all swore they saw the same thing, the devil coming out of the ground and jumping on his back.
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Different groups seldom adhere to the same beliefs.
 
should we believe what a group of glue sniffers tell us? i haven't a glue.
 
titch said:
should we believe what a group of glue sniffers tell us?
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Potentially violent people; could give you a good pasting.
 
I know I'm a bit latex in joining this discussion, but there was a similar casein the school I went to, with goblins crawling out the ground. To cocoina phrase 'Just say no'. Glue sniffing is an epoxy way to get your kicks.
 
You guys are a riot :)

I love this topic and it's unfortunate that I do not have much else to contribute besides an IHTM I posted a while back ... can't be arsed ATM to post the link, but I'll make an edit later referencing it ... in brief, it was about the time I was in the water at tourist haven Waikiki beach and I saw a pitch black eel-like thing make a substantial vertical leap out of the water, twist multiple times mid-air and plunge back into the shallow water and wriggle into the reef.

While the additional witness didn't help in identifying the creature, he at least confirmed my sighting with a surprised "What the f**k was that?!"
 
My dad had an experience which involved several other witnesses...and a bus.

He is considerably older than my mum and served in WW2. Sometime in the early years of the war he was riding a bus to his home high up in the White Peak. It was late at night and pitch dark. There were less than half a dozen other passengers, and, of course, the driver.

At one point on their route the bus had to negotiate a steep hill with a hairpin bend which leads down into to a longish and very straight section of road. This area is notorious for accidents - which is probably due to the nature of the road - but also has a headless horseman tale associated with it.

Anyway, just as the bus levels out onto the straight section my dad and the rest of the passengers see a large, white, apparently solid object appear in front of the bus and brace themselves for a collision. There's a shout from the bus-driver and an almighty 'thump' as the object is struck by the bus.

The driver stops and everyone looks at my dad (a not always fortunate by-product of wearing a uniform is that people appear to think that you will know what to do in any given situation) who gets out of the bus followed by the other passengers and checks out the road and the verge. There's nothing there so they spread out and check the near edges of the fields. Still nothing.

At this point I should point out that my dad and the others riding the bus had no clear idea of what it is they had seen, but, on being questioned, the very shaken bus-driver said he thought it was a woman.

The following day police and locals searched the area and my dad thinks that a local army unit also helped, but nothing was ever found.

At the time the Peak was fairly hardscrabble farm country and those on the bus would have been, like him, pragmatic and sober highlanders, not at all prone to histrionics. It's probably also worth pointing out that my dad was a trained observer.

A couple of points: I'd initially thought that the 'thump' of the object hitting the bus might have been a misremembering of the jolt caused by the bus-driver hastily applying the brakes, however my dad is adamant that the two events were separate. Everyone on the bus - albeit there were very few - saw the object. Given the size of the thing seen by the passengers, if it was, as the driver stated, a woman, then she was several feet in the air before the bus hit her.

I should also point out that my dad is a sober and honest individual. He's got three ghost stories - which given that he's now in his ninetieth year doesn't seem unreasonable, or make him sound like he might be someone prone to excesses of imagination in that direction.
 
SHAYBARSABE said:
Spookdaddy said:
Given the size of the thing seen by the passengers, if it was, as the driver stated, a woman, then she was several feet in the air before the bus hit her.
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Rare, flying, white sheep?

Or, more seriously, a barn owl. Image here: http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR_viwtn7mieT8CCTiEyPKhx2LfkDHHxGDx2XqVhthXcBfMl-L-
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I can imagine a barn owl causing conniptions in those maybe not familiar with them, but the riders and the driver were all country people who would have been familiar with barn owls - there were more of them around back then.

Also, as he describes it, the shape my dad saw was a lot larger.
 
Oldrover: Hope the link works!! Please excuse the length and "flowery" language; I had simultaneously attempted to submit this (and another) IHTM post for credit as part of my college English writing curriculum, although the events which serve as the basis are most assuredly true. Can't say they helped my grades in either class any, though :?

https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/lets-play-top-this.30091/post-831029

Topic: "Let's play top this!"; Pg. 16 nearly 3/4 of the way down

Spookdaddy - Cool story! The fact that your father could actually distinguish between the "thud" of the impact and the lurch from the braking of the bus adds to the intrigue for me for some reason. Maybe because that would indicate it was actually a physical being, but that your father, a trained military observer, and the other witnesses, all apparently familiar with their local fauna, could not identify it as an animal and the lack of physical evidence turned up the search the following morning make for the exciting possibility of an encounter with something anomalous.
 
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