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Minor Strangeness (IHTM)

I have experienced similar weirdness, but I put it down to being a bit absent-minded (like a mad professor).
One morning, I came downstairs to find the lounge light left on. On another occasion, the light in the downstairs loo.
One day, I came back from work to find the back door leading into the garage wide open (I am normally zealous about locking up).
The other day, I climbed into bed and just got comfortable when I heard a sound on the landing. I thought 'what the hell was that?' and turned on the light to investigate. For several weeks, I have had a ladder propped up at an angle - leaning against the wall to the small bedroom and also against the banister overlooking the stairs. When I looked at it, it was no longer leaning at a sideways angle - it was just leaning on the banister. Maybe my earlier moving about had vibrated it so it started moving? It was weird because it had been leaning over for weeks...why would it suddenly decide to right itself?
Nobody else in the house.
 
I just came in from the back garden and noted on my way past that Myssuseaux1 was watching one of those border security documentary series things. The customs types had found what they suspected to be steroids. I got upstairs with my cuppa and looked on here. I was about to post about creepy light-switches when a person on the telly behind me made a dramatic reference to steroids. I kept reading while something nagged in the back of my mind which eventually struck me - she was watching 'live' TV downstairs, upstairs I've only got Amazon/Netflix etc. We were watching completely different things. As I thought to myself "that's a coincidence", the lady on TV said "probably just a coincidence"! I thought it worthy of posting in Minor Strangeness, only to look back at the computer and remember I was already here. Of course there was then a loud noise from downstairs which the Mrs told me was a bottle of aftershave leaping from a shelf and which I noted had activated the packed away motion-sensitive Halloween skull-bulbs. I can take no more and still haven't made the post I intended to.
 
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For several years I've been hearing a woman walking in the apartment on the floor above mine. I know it because of the sound of the high heeled shoes. Usually I can hear it after 23:00, sometimes after 02:00 AM. Not every day, but 3-4 times a week. The walking can be heard for 5-10 seconds each time. I think I've heard the sound for the last 6-7 years. The apartment has changed tenants 3-4 times in that period.
 
I've just looked at my phone to double check what day of the week it is to be told it's "Sundayay", the first letter Y overlapping the letter A. I'm on an old fashioned 'Star Trek communicator' flip phone on the Virgin network so it's not exactly a flash phone but I've never seen that before on any mobile phone. I've just pressed what passes for the refresh button and it's returned to the correct spelling. Weird. Maybe it's going to make me a Kelly Le Brock next?

 
I was going to post this in Optical Illusions, but Search can't find the thread! :rolleyes:

This evening, about 1715, I was returning from town on a bus. Night was fast falling, so the bus lights were on, and the bus destination board is always lit anyway. As we passed a bus shelter (no passengers waiting) I saw a reflection of the bus's number and destination, but the image was not a mirror image...

How did that happen, I wondered. Eventually I figured it out. It was actually a double reflection. The first was in the glass at the end of the shelter, facing the oncoming traffic. That was then reflected in the glass at the back of the shelter. This not only showed the image 'the right way round', but directed it back towards the bus, where I and anyone else could see it.

(This is a simplified example of what happens with Cat's Eyes in the road, or with radar reflectors, both of which return e/m radiation towards the direction it came from.
See:-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat's_eye_(road)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corner_reflector )

So far, so good! But one thing still niggled. I've been riding that route for years, and never noticed this effect before. Why not? Well, eventually the answer came to me. That bus shelter is new this year, replacing one of a different design with no reflecting surface facing the traffic. And a contributory factor is that my local bus does not run very late, so only in the winter months would I pass that place in the dark anyway.

Time for another drink! :drink:
 
You debunker, you! :clap:
 
This morning, around 2:30am (Central Time), I had a song stuck in my head for no apparent reason. I hadn't heard it in years, but "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" was front and center in my brain as I fell asleep.

Today I find out that it's the anniversary of the wreck. I know I didn't see anything yesterday that brought that up. I'll call it a coincidence, but I'm not so sure....
 
MercuryCrest said:
This morning, around 2:30am (Central Time), I had a song stuck in my head for no apparent reason. I hadn't heard it in years, but "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" was front and center in my brain as I fell asleep.

Today I find out that it's the anniversary of the wreck. I know I didn't see anything yesterday that brought that up. I'll call it a coincidence, but I'm not so sure....
Click to expand...
I didn't even know there was such a song until I looked on Wiki.
And yes, today is the anniversary of the ship sinking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Edmund_Fitzgerald.

You may have psychic powers, MC!

As for the song,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wreck_of_the_Edmund_Fitzgerald
 
MercuryCrest said:
This morning, around 2:30am (Central Time), I had a song stuck in my head for no apparent reason. I hadn't heard it in years, but "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" was front and center in my brain as I fell asleep.

Today I find out that it's the anniversary of the wreck. I know I didn't see anything yesterday that brought that up. I'll call it a coincidence, but I'm not so sure....
Click to expand...

You were looking for ghost ships of the Great Lakes not too long ago, weren't you? Not that the Edmund Fitzgerald is a ghost ship, but perhaps you ran across the story while searching and you remembered the date unconsciously?

Also, how's the weather been lately? The song is nothing if not evocative of gloomy November. Heck, gloomy November weather makes me think of the song, and I'm nowhere near a Great Lake!

Of course, it may just be that you're psychic after all. :)

rynner2 said:
I didn't even know there was such a song until I looked on Wiki.
And yes, today is the anniversary of the ship sinking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Edmund_Fitzgerald.

You may have psychic powers, MC!

As for the song,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wreck_of_the_Edmund_Fitzgerald
Click to expand...

If you haven't heard the song (which surprises me, you being a sailor and all!) then you probably haven't seen this rather unsettling program about the shipwreck, either. It gave me nightmares when I saw it years ago, but it's still worth a watch.

 
Thanks for posting this excellent doc. I knew the song but not the full story. Being out in an monstrous storm like that has got be one of the most terrifying experiences. When you hear the description by the crew of other ships in the area...

Spooky it should come to MC on the exact 40th anniversary..
 
The Fitzgerald wasn't part of the ghost ship research I was doing at the time. It's very well known around here (Great Lakes and all that), but I haven't seen reference to it in ages (apart from that next day).

As for the weather, tonight we had probably the last thunderstorm of the season, so I quite enjoyed that. No snow yet, although apparently last year at this time, there was a full-on blizzard raging.
 
Police looking to return loose horses
By wbchris | Posted: November 11

POLICE officers were called to deal with three loose horses in Camborne in the early hours of this morning.
Officers received the call at 2:30am following reports of the animals running free on Rosewarne Road.
The horses have not been chipped and local enquiries have been unable to locate the owners.

The horses have been removed from the area and are currently being looked after locally.
Local officers would ask horse owners in the area to check to see if any of their animals have escaped overnight.

Anybody with information can call 101 quoting log 67 10/11/15

http://www.westbriton.co.uk/Police-looking-return-loose-horses/story-28154692-detail/story.html

This is odd. It's in the middle of town, with just streets and car parks nearby. My guess is they were teleported there, maybe from west Wales, by aliens... :evil:
 
Hi all, I've been away for a while struggling with my health but back again now with two little oddities for you.

Yesterday I was alone at home, sat on the sofa and it was about 2.30 in the afternoon. The tv was off and I was just checking my mobile phone when I heard a loud "splosh" noise a few feet away from me, in the middle of my living room. I was loud enough to make me "jump". No idea where that noise came from.

Then a few hours later I was having a soak in the bath, I lay back and closed my eyes for a few seconds when i felt something touch my knee, I sat bolt upright and opened my eyes - no one there.

Today however no oddness - sadly:evil:
 
Hope you're on the road to recovery, CB, the touch on the knee could be a little twitch of a nerve, but the splosh is odd, might it be a noise from the phone? I don't have one, but they are always making weird sounds it seems to me.
 
GNC said:
Hope you're on the road to recovery, CB, the touch on the knee could be a little twitch of a nerve, but the splosh is odd, might it be a noise from the phone? I don't have one, but they are always making weird sounds it seems to me.
Click to expand...

My wife's does drives me nuts.
 
I saw someone had thrown a plastic cup into the branches of the metro-station tree.
I thought: "I wonder how long it will stay there ..."

When it was still there two weeks later, I took a closer look:

cup03.jpg
 
uair01 said:
I saw someone had thrown a plastic cup into the branches of the metro-station tree.
I thought: "I wonder how long it will stay there ..."

When it was still there two weeks later, I took a closer look:

View attachment 1508
Click to expand...
It may be an insect trap that someone has rigged up to obtain samples.
 
Ummm, has he put both items in the right bins, cause someone might be doing a bit of passive aggressive stuff there, eco warrier ;)
 
Shady said:
Ummm, has he put both items in the right bins, cause someone might be doing a bit of passive aggressive stuff there, eco warrier ;)
Click to expand...
That's what it could be - I agree.
 
If there are many cups that look alike then he wont know if it was his
 
A conversation with my mother at the weekend reminded me of the following bit of everyday oddness which doesn't belong in IHTM, as it didn't exactly.

A few years ago I was at my parents' house when my Dad told me he'd like my opinion on something. He fetched a circular plastic tray from the kitchen - the kind of large tea tray you'd use when taking an evening meal in front of the telly - and asked if I wouldn't mind taking a close look at it. So I did, not having any idea what I was supposed to be looking for. Dad explained that something puzzling had happened and asked me to look again and see if I thought it seemed cracked or broken in any way. It didn't, but I examined it more closely, running my fingers over both surfaces and peering at it under various light sources. The tray was completely intact.

He explained that a few days ago my mum had brought the dining accessory in question from the kitchen saying something like 'oh, that's a shame...when did that happen?' and showed him the tray, which had a very visible crack about two thirds of the way across (it featured an attractive pattern in autumnal colours printed on a heavy black plastic substrate so the crack showed up dark where the base material had shifted slightly along the fracture). Dad denied all knowledge saying it was fine when he had last wiped it and put it away. Oh well: strange, but not the end of the world...

The broken tray was exchanged for another and replaced on the shelf to be subsequently removed to the spare room or garage or somewhere with other stuff to be taken to the municipal dump.

The next day, one of my parents (I forget which) goes to remove the tray to the junk pile - and there's nothing wrong with it. Under minute and painstaking inspection by both of them no trace of a crack can be found and the tray is returned to active service.

And that's how I ended up checking it for damage to reassure my parents they weren't going mad.

The whole thing was soon forgotten until a week or so later when some accident or other befell the tray (I think something fell on it), the result being a jagged black crack in the plastic exactly as my parents had briefly seen and then not seen.

A mundane story, but interesting to me anyway as these kind of events seem so common in the world as to be unremarkable.
 
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