It Just Doesn't Make Any Sense

[mikelegs]

I was mulling over different types of fortean events, and the ones that I find truely exciting are the ones that make no sense. UFOs, MIB, Bigfoot, ghosts, OOBE, ESP, etc are all worthy and in need of serious investigation, but what about those things that leave you with the feeling that what you saw just wasn't real, and that it absolutely couldn't have just happened?

Suprisingly, some of the best ones I've read are straight out of the IHTM section here. And then there's Fort's famous talking, vaporizing dog. More recently, I find the 'Cables from the Sky' thread truely enigmatic. What's the most non-sensical thing that's ever happened to you? How to you investigate or solve such a mystery, let alone try to comprehend it? What does it all mean? A glitch in your brain, or in the fabric of the universe?

Do tell.

 

[JamesWhitehead]

Yes, Mike, I keep trying to put into words a thread like this. But I
can never quite get the question right.

I keep trying to approach it along the lines of "Are their things which
simply can't and don't happen?"

We tend on the Board to take a very broad view of Forteana - otherwise
we would fall very quiet. I guess we extend it to mean anything curious
or extreme or unusual.

Yet Fort himself seemed to boggle at singularities like the disappearing
dog.

I am fascinated by the number of times people who are not well read in
the supernatural recount events which fit stereotypes. For instance, there
are many hundreds of accounts of poltergeist phenomena where witnesses
report the objects falling slowly, being hot or materializing near the ceilings
of rooms.

These details have been recorded over and over. The witnesses regard them
as highly unusual whereas the collectors see them as part of a pattern.

Waves of similar phenomena are not, of course, evidence that they are
real. Far from it. But people in search of explanations may try to assimilate
their own chaotic experiences to fashionable ideas. I see a UFO, he sees a
fairy, she sees the BVM!

Yet some things just don't seem to happen at all. For instance UFOs don't
materialize in people's houses. They are not the size of moths. Likewise,
there is no Fortean strand in which people enter paintings, though it is a
simple literary sort of weird notion.

I suppose I am wondering what the boundaries of strange phenomena are?
Is anything possible or should we be willing to damn some data as just
too beserk for consideration?

 

[Anonymous]

I've said it before on this message board: I'm constantly amazed by the extra ordinary things which we take for granted:

Like when we run into someone we were just thinking about. Or - in my case - when I run into someone I thought I just saw but didn't. And they show up a few minutes after I thought I saw them but could not have because they were not there yet.

I don't mean in a small town where you would sooner or later come across that person - I mean in another city, maybe another country even. Even years apart. You suddenly think of that person and then you meet.

 

[Anonymous]

Taking it for granted

I think a lot of "Forteana" never gets commented on because it happens, you invalidate it as logic and reason do not support the occurance as "real" and if it never happens again, voila. You were right, it was your imagination...

Conversely, there are those things that you can't discount or explain, so you simply accept as part of the fabric of your existance. Repetitive phenomena generally fit in this category. Seeing friends you were just thinking of or thought you spotted is one example of this type of occurance. My sister Merry answers the phone before it rings. Yes, peculiar, but we all just shrug: "Merry does that"

Hmmm, while typing this, it has just become clear to me that the toughest types of Forteana to prove or disprove are the ones that are personal. Thinking of someone and seeing them shortly thereafter - how does one even demonstrate that it has happened....?

 

[TVgeek]

I agree... there seems to be an element of "unreality"
to some of the best stories. At least the ones I find
most intriguing.

One of the best I've seen came from one of
Whitley (Communion) Strieber's journal entries.

The entire article is on the long side, but about a third of the
way down, he quotes a letter he received that has
one of the best descriptions of the general public interacting
with something they just don't (can't) understand...

Its called "People in the Trees".

http://www.unknowncountry.com/journal/?id=67

FWIW
TVgeek

 

[chris_in_LA]

those things that leave you with the feeling that what you saw just wasn't real, and that it absolutely couldn't have just happened

A glitch in the Matrix- it means they've changed something...

Seriously, I've often wondered if we all have a blind spot for things happening all around us like this- something that if you happened to notice, just wouldn't compute. Maybe we've developed an evolutionary advantage of not noticing stuff that could be threatening, confusing, or just too damn weird! But maybe, sometimes for whatever reason, someone does notice- and tells other people about it.

 

[Anonymous]

Re: Re: It just doesn't make any sense

But maybe, sometimes for whatever reason, someone does notice- and tells other people about it.

and noone cares. My great aunt was famous for her second sight (ie. to the extent that she could tell who was coming to the door and when they would arive) but none of the family cared.

Well they didn't care as long as it remained in the relm of the mundain. When she fortold deaths in the family they tended to notice.

I supose family of weirdness this thread is discusing is just too ordinary to notice.

Oh the dog disapeared again...

 

[rynner2]

I was reading the Streiber page (link given by TV geek above), and it all seemed sensible, intelligent stuff - until I got to this:

Most specifically, a planet with a thick enough atmosphere to provide the energy that complex life forms need to exist, in the form of oxygen and other chemicals, must ALSO have a large moon that orbits the planet in such a way that the wind generated by the planet’s rotation is slowed enough to allow complex structures the freedom to grow without being immediately torn apart. For example, if there was no moon, earth’s wind would blow at something close to three hundred miles an hour all the time. Life would not have evolved beyond the level of lichens clinging to windswept stones.

Where the heck did he get that nutty idea? Winds are influenced by the Earth's rotation (Coriolis effect), but they are created by differentials in solar heating between the tropics and the poles.

I didn't bother to finish the article.

Right, back to the weird stuff, as opposed to the ill-informed.

 

[Beakmoo]

Isn't it probable though Rynner that the tides have influenced the development of life on land? Why crawl out of the sea, where you're doing very well, unless you get stranded out of it occasionally? I suppose you could say that where there's a niche it will eventually be filled, but I would think having tides would hasten developments.

 

[rynner2]

Tides..

(Another thread goes OT!)

It's only an assumption that tides would assist life move onto the land.

But even if this should prove to be true, the sun raises tides as well as the moon. Without the moon, tidal areas would have a reduced tidal range of about one third of what we have now. (In this part of the world, tides would decrease from an 18 foot range to a 6 foot range.) This would also decrease tidal streams, making the oceans a quieter place for the evolution of life.

 

[TVgeek]

Where the heck did he get that nutty idea? Winds are influenced by the Earth's rotation (Coriolis effect), but they are created by differentials in solar heating between the tropics and the poles.

I didn't bother to finish the article.

I'm not Strieber's press agent or anything, but that MAY
be from the research he and Art Bell (another warning flag?!)
did for the book "The Coming Global Superstorm".

He may have even quoted a source for that info, I don't
own a copy -- but if anyone does -- I'm curious, too!

Partially on-topic -- did you get to the letter about
the "People in the Trees"? It sounds like a
David Lynch film!

TVgeek

 

[Beakmoo]

Re: Tides..

But even if this should prove to be true, the sun raises tides as well as the moon.

That's so obvious! But it never occured to me! Thanks Rynner. Now back to topic.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... One of the best I've seen came from one of Whitley (Communion) Strieber's journal entries.

The entire article is on the long side, but about a third of the way down, he quotes a letter he received that has one of the best descriptions of the general public interacting with something they just don't (can't) understand...

Its called "People in the Trees".
http://www.unknowncountry.com/journal/?id=67

Strieber's website has gone through changes in the 16 years since this was posted. The URL is dead.

One of Strieber's journal entries, dated May 2001 and entitled 'The Fantasy of the Galactic Federation', seems to be the one mentioned:

http://www.unknowncountry.com/journal/fantasy-galactic-federation