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Minor Strangeness (IHTM)

I'm posting this under "Minor Strangeness", since I'm sure there's a perfectly ordinary explanation for what happened, I just can't think what it is. Perhaps the collective mind of the board can help.

This happened on a Saturday night. I had been out with two friends, and we were sitting in my apartment, watching a bit of TV, laughing at the late-night commercials. Some alcoholic beverages had been consumed, but certainly not to the point of imagining things.

At about 3.30 pm, a very loud, very low-frequency noise started. It sounded like a large motor, for example of a truck, suddenly starting. It wasn't prefaced with the typical sounds of a motor starting, though.
At the exact same time, all lights in the apartment started flickering and burning low. The TV seemed unaffected.

This lasted for about 30 seconds, while we were looking at each other bewildered. After that, the lights returned to normal, and the sound ceased.
Me and one of my friends ran outside to see what had been causing this, but of course, there was nothing to be seen.

I've been turning this over in my mind, but have been unable to come up with something that could cause both phenomena - the noise and the lights - simultaneously. Any ideas?
 
Could it have been an electric motor on the same circuit as your lights, like say a washing machine?
 
I don't think so, because my apartment has its own circuit (actually two) with its own breakers. And also, the noise was much louder and of a much lower frequency than any washing machine (or other household appliance) than I've heard.

I suppose that if sufficiently heavy machinery was switched on, it could affect the power on whole sections of the city power grid, but I can't think what that would be, especially since the noise was so loud that it sounded like it was in or just outside my building.
 
Had it been raining a lot? I was also thinking that it might have been a sump pump coming on that isn't used that much in your building.
 
It hadn't been raining, but that is an interesting idea; some machinery that's in the building, but is only rarely switched on... I'll have to ask the homeowners' association, I suppose.
 
Regarding Kmossel's light dimming experience. I'm wondering if what you experienced was an extreme neighborhood wide (or apartment complex) brownout.

As an adult and child, I lived in areas of the country where 'brownouts' (llowering of the power company voltage during load problems) occured with some regularity.

Sometimes the transformer nearby would make a loud humming booming noise during those times. The lights would dim and oddly the TV would not be affected. However on older (Tube era) TV sets, the picture display would shrink. Modern TV sets (Pre HDTV) do have circuitry to compensate for lower voltages (up to a limit).

I recall in that neighborhood, brief power outages under summer loads would make the transformers boom even louder on resumption of normal service. Transformer magnetic cores starting under heavy load may saturate. Causing heavy magnetising currents in the core for several AC cycles till the core more or less is unbiased.

And what a neat magentostriction sound that makes.
 
Once again, PERL strangeness

Once again, a PERL script that I wrote to help me assemble some text files has produced rather strange results.

Somehow, the script produced all the February files correctly, but when I started working on the March files, I got January output. When I checked the script, I found it had never been updated to February, much less to March. So how did it know to where the February files resided?

I was up against a 4-hour deadline when I ran the script on 31 January (to produce February files). Hate to think that my computer knows what I need by telepathy. Eeeee.

:shock:
 
During the same expedition to Duisburg, while trying to infiltrate a steel factory terrain we found this object in the bushes. No ... I did not try to unwrap it! And neither did I commit a trespass - I just took a quick snapshot. It simply didn't feel like the risk of being caught would we worth the extra photo opportunities when we could make great pictures from the outside.

Bushes:

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e182/uair01/bushes01.jpg

Factory terrain at top of path:

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e182/uair01/bushes04.jpg

Object - full view and close up:

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e182/uair01/bushes02.jpg
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e182/uair01/bushes03.jpg

Legal factory view = Gotham city:

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e182/uair01/duisburg_legal_view01.jpg
 
HenryFort said:
Fairly sure I have read about snakes being found inside of PC units.
Click to expand...


I have, a small california king snake of mine escaped, and I only found it cos I heard it rattling it's tail in warning (it never was a friendly snake) inside the tower
 
Hello!! *waves*

I thought I'd post this here as I'm not sure it warrants it's own thread :)


Some odd things that have happened ...

going to sit on a seat at the front of a bus and then changing my mind and sitting at the back at which point the bus crashes and the glass shatters all over the seat wher I originally sat.

Whilst lying down in my bed trying to get to sleep I was thinking about the day in general so I was still awake and suddenly was aware that I could no longer feel the bed under me, I felt myself float upwards and then I managed ot open my eyes and suddeny I felt the bed again. ( I do suffer from sleep paralysis so this is an obvious explanation but odd none the less)

Another time I was drifting off to sleep I felt my legs being pulled by something towards my bedroom door then I just snapped back to my original position. ( could be SP again but I always feel awake, usually my SP experiences are in the middle of the night not when I'm awake lying in bed)
 
It is a rhetorical question I know, but why has my microwave, toaster, kettle and hoover all gone belly up in the last month, and I've managed to (unintentionally) set fire to my kitchen 3 times in the last 10 days?

I know electrical breakdowns tend to go in runs, but I've only set fire to a kitchen twice before in my life. Is 5 times too much for lifetime? Too little? Who knows?

Anyway, all I do know is I've just opened the door to let out the smoke and washed it out of my hair, and it feels positively routine :?
 
Hi Elana,
Power surge maybe? Have any of your neighbours' equipment burned out?
 
markbellis said:
Hi Elana,
Power surge maybe? Have any of your neighbours' equipment burned out?
Click to expand...

Almost certainly.

I moved house about 6 months ago and I've never lived anywhere that's had as many flickering electrics, blackouts and power cuts - the neighbours as well, it's the area, not the house. No doubt surges are part of whatever is wrong.

I need to invest in a set of circuit breakers......
 
There is one thing that puzzles me in my home. Sometimes I come across gravel chippings on the floor. (Just one at a time, not a little pile!)

Now there are no gravel drives or the like around here that I regularly walk over, so I don't think I'm bringing the things home in the soles of my shoes. (Especially as I usually take my shoes off as soon as I get in.)

Also, I often only notice these things when I seem to kick them, often long after returning home. Or could it be that they have just dropped out of nowhere, as I often seem to hear them before sensing them any other way?

Some people get really interesting apports - me, I just get chips of gravel! :(

From now on, I shall collect these little samples, and maybe make a note of the time - perhaps there's a pattern to it.... :?
 
... like Sherlock Holmes you'll have to learn all the sorts of gravel that live in your surroundings.
 
I'm writing a software program and I thought I had written this comment:

i'm searching for this bug
Click to expand...

But later I saw I had written this instead:

i'm searching fort his bug
Click to expand...

How striking :D
 
I was walking through Huddersfield town centre today and I nearly bumped into a blue lady. Well, actually I watched as someone else did, and kinda thought something was askew, when I realised the lady had a distinct bluey green tinge to her skin, but otherwise completely normal looking. It was a busy street at about half five outside a Supermarket on a sunny day.

The lady was smilling politely as the other person nearly barged her and I was empathising with her polite way of dealing with the bustling masses when I noticed the colouring.

It definately wasn't make-up or a single uniform shade, and didn't look fake or anything other than natural (if blue/green) skin.

Any possible explanations?
 
raven1013 said:
Mr_Seaweedski, interesting. Sometimes bits of people go blue...

Could it be this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanosis
Click to expand...

Thanks, had a quick google of pics about that condition.

I don't think it was that unless it was a really bad case, much darker all over her head, seeming to be darkest blue/green round the ears and neck, though I could see hints of natural skin colour too.
 
Took a bus from Falmouth to Truro today. Four different people sat next to me for a while, until they got off or moved to a more roomy seat (which is a minor strangeness in itself - normally on that journey I'd expect to share a seat with two people at most).

One of these was a woman in a maroon jacket. She was fairly smartly dressed, so I took her for a businesswoman or council worker, as she seemed to be doing some paperwork en route. She got off before Truro.

I'd intended travelling east, but in the end decided to play the bus lottery and catch the first one going somewhere different from usual, which turned out to be to Feock. Back out in the country, the bus passed Ms Maroon Jacket walking. Now she wasn't dressed for rambling, and there's not much public transport thereabouts, so this seemed a bit odd.

The bus went via Trellisick Gardens, where it turned around before continuing to Feock. And as we left TG, I saw Ms MJ again, getting out of a van which had obviously just given her a lift.

So many questions, so few answers! She seemed like an organised person, so why hadn't she planned her journey better?

And it added a little spice that I wouldn't have known anything about her later movements if it hadn't been for a random choice of buses in Truro!
 
St Ives

I am sitting in Costa, it is around 16:00. I glance up see very slim young woman walking past my table towards the toilets. She is pale with long dark hair drawn back in a loose pony tail, she is pale with a slightly wide mouth with crimson lips. She is wearing a short gold mackintosh, from under which the hem of s red floral skirt can be glimpsed. She is wearing black footless tight and red ballet shoes.

She looks directly at me and smiles enigmatically…I’m surprised.

A few minutes later I’m beginning to wonder if I dreamed her when she reappears and smiles at me again. This time there is definitely something unearthly about her and I feel slight chill. I look away and then glance back to her walking slowly through the shop, she seems to be almost drifting. I get the impression that no one else has noticed her. She half turns and smiles again then walks out the door. Someone else has opened it to come in and they don’t seem to notice her as she passes them. I lose sight of her as she goes out of the coffee shop.

The atmosphere is now decidedly unreal and I gather my belongings and leave. I can’t see her anywhere in the street or nearby shops. I make my way back to the car and set off for Huntingdon. There is nothing behind me until I stop at the Hill Rise traffic lights when a large black saloon car draws up behind me – I think it’s a Mercedes S-class. I can’t see the driver or front seat passenger clearly, they’re in shadow, but I get the impression that the passenger is the young woman that I saw earlier. I expect the car to overtake me on the road to Huntingdon, or on the ring road (A141), large powerful vehicles usually do. However, it follows me at a steady distance until, as I approach the Ermine Street roundabout towards Alconbury, it starts to get closer. I take my eyes off the rear-view mirror for a couple of seconds and when I glance back the car's vanished. The only road it can have turned off down is one that shares my surname, which leads into the trading estate.

Odd coincidence or an encounter with something that wasn’t quite there?
 
sounds like love to me!

vehicles do have a habit of disappearing from the rear view mirror in the instant you look away... this happens all the time to me an i dont cover an awful lot of miles although i do drive most days...

by the way i (as threadstarter!) have a huge backlog of minor stangenesses and aural simulacra (tm) to log at some point seeing as how im back on the fortean scene after a period in the wasteland ... i reckon in a couple a weeks i ll open the floodgates ... yep.
 
The minor coincidence was that after following me the only road it could have gone down was the one that shares my surname...

And the yound woman had a definite touch of the unearthly, or perhaps it's too much caffeine...
 
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