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Stone Throws

Donna Black

Junior Acolyte
Joined
Feb 1, 2020
Messages
37
Mods, feel free to move this ancient case appropriately.

Back when we moved to a new build on the outskirts of Tewkesbury (we've moved house a lot but this was the first place my folks bought in 1980 or so) and I had my alien abduction experience age 13 and had loads of poltergeist activity. This is a brand new house.

In the fields behind the estate my two brothers and their pals had made a den in the hedgerow. So eventually the diggers moved in and those fields became a building site and thus a playground for my brothers, but the hedgerow was saved.

Every evening my Belfast mother would shout our 4 names to call us in for dinner. Invariably one would be missing. Being the eldest I was sent to look for the wayward offspring and, of course, would usually find him at the den.

One evening something was bizarre on the building site though. I can't tell you what year specifically (early 80s) but could find out maybe. My mother had called our names and one brother had not responded. She told me, as the oldest, to go find him.

I knew where he'd be - on the building site in his den. So I went there. But as soon as I walked onto the building site everything went dead silent, like the whole world stopped, and suddenly I felt these sharp painful "pings!" on my shins. I looked down and saw the gravel pinging up against my legs.

I literally saw and felt these stones or gravel move by themselves and flick themselves at my legs.

So I ran home and forgot about my younger brothers, thinking they were horrid for this prank, but they were already home and one said they'd heard my mother calling them.

In the midst of this silence on a building site the gravel was pinging against my legs. I was 12 I guess? The alien abduction experience was around then too.
 
Did you literally see it coming up off the ground and hitting your legs?
 
Truly wierd. No other stuff happening to you like a feeling of static on your hair or anything.
Just the silence!
 
Is it possible that the "gravel" was really something like polystyrene, used as a mulch on the site? In which case, static electricity could cause it to adhere to your legs. Such a material would not do much stinging but if you believed it to be gravel, the imagination might click in.

Just a guess. :thought:
 
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I hate to be cynical (no I don't actually, it's one of my natural conditions) but polystyrene as a mulch? Is that actually a thing?
And if it is a thing (perhaps someone can confirm, as I don't spend much time on building sites) - if it could fly up so easily, wouldn't it be light enough to be kickable and blowing all over the place? Besides, Donna reports that it was painfully pinging at her legs, and I can't imagine any painful pinging from some polystyrene clinging to you? It was the pain that drew her attention to it, according to the way she describes the experience.

(Incidentally, I think it's a noted thing, is it not, that people who report being abducted, often have a history of Weird Experiences? And the noted silence does remind me of Jenny Randles' 'Oz Factor' idea).
 
Was that in use in the 80s?

Not sure. I do know that mischievious games with small stones and gravel are often the opening act in poltergeist events, though often the source of the stones is unclear.

There was one memorable case from Colonial times, when a house in the jungle was attacked daily by phantom stone-throwers. It could be interpreted as the country, the location or the workers rejecting their overseers, though the logistics of arranging an army of stone-hurlers, arming them with stones and keeping up the bombardments without detection over several months was never explained. I must look up the details of that case . . .

Meanwhile, here is a more recent one from Bhutan.
 
Sorry James, are you saying that polystyrene was in use on building sites in the 1980s? Maybe I'm misunderstanding. I certainly looked up 'polystyrene mulch building sites' on google before I posted, and couldn't see anything (which is why I disputed the theory). Are you saying you knew already, or that you think there is evidence on the internet, or are you just saying I should have looked before posting (but actually you didn't, so your comment was just defensiveness)? You're a strange creature.
 
Is it possible that the "gravel" was really something like polystyrene, used as a mulch on the site? In which case, static electricity could cause it to adhere to your legs. Such a material would not do much stinging but if you believed it to be gravel, the imagination might click in.

Just a guess. :thought:
Needn't have been a mulch either. Polystyrene has been around for a long time and used for decades (in fact invented in the mid Victorian era if irc) . Used in the building trade for all sorts of things. If you've ever lived near the construction of a new housing development site you'll have had the stuff blowing into your garden in abundance. Such an environmental hazard that I think I've read it's been banned by some states in the US.
 
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