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Minor Strangeness (IHTM)

Schrodinger's Zebra said:
Oh, and I've found the link I promised, to the story that first came to mind when I first read your post. I know it's not really similar but it is about someone who had a strange walk, amongst other things, and well... enjoy. With the light on. In daylight. In the company of others. Dunno about anyone else, but this sort of thing is the stuff of nightmares to me...

https://www.reddit.com/r/LetsNotMeet/comments/rvzaq/the_smiling_man/

:eek::eek::eek::eek:
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LOL!
It's entirely possible that the nutter went back home and told his missus that he'd given somebody a fright by behaving oddly. Then the two of them probably laughed all night!
 
Schrodinger's Zebra said:
Hmm.. many thanks for your detailed reply. Now let's see.. yes there is the possibility it was just someone playing around, but unless I'm reading too much into this, the hood still bothers me.

First of all - I've just re-read my previous reply to you and I'm wondering why on earth I used the term blank head when what I was trying to say was no head there at all. Sorry for my ambiguity there.
So, if you could see the inside of the hood I'm guessing it looked something along these lines? :
View attachment 9671

... like the invisible man was wearing the jacket? If so, I'm creeped out slightly because if the hood was up but you couldn't see a face (or head of any kind), then: what was holding the hood up ? :eek:

Could you see hands at the end of the sleeves, do you remember?

The description of the person's gait sounds like how someone might walk when going backwards... carefully exaggerated steps to make sure they don't trip. When they turned and started walking forwards, presumably that was a more normal gait then?

I still like your story, as it is ambiguous enough to not allow for an immediate explanation.


Oh, and I've found the link I promised, to the story that first came to mind when I first read your post. I know it's not really similar but it is about someone who had a strange walk, amongst other things, and well... enjoy. With the light on. In daylight. In the company of others. Dunno about anyone else, but this sort of thing is the stuff of nightmares to me...

https://www.reddit.com/r/LetsNotMeet/comments/rvzaq/the_smiling_man/

:eek::eek::eek::eek:
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Yes, like that except the inside of the hood was dark but I felt I could see the (convex) back of it. Still fairly sure it was someone titting around but very creepy.
 
Mythopoeika said:
LOL!
It's entirely possible that the nutter went back home and told his missus that he'd given somebody a fright by behaving oddly. Then the two of them probably laughed all night!
Click to expand...

OK, that's what I shall tell myself.

It was all a joke.
It was all a joke.
There was no super-freaky guy with a grin and a strange dance and... aww heck, I've thought about it again.
 
Mythopoeika said:
LOL!
It's entirely possible that the nutter went back home and told his missus that he'd given somebody a fright by behaving oddly. Then the two of them probably laughed all night!
Click to expand...
Although oddly it didn't seem to bother my husband at all and he's the one who nearly died of fright when I took a wrong turn and accidentally drove past Sudely Castle, maybe 20 years after he'd seen the 'faceless woman' in the grounds, there! When they say people go absolutely white with fear - I thought that was an exaggeration, til I did that wrong turn! I think the fact they turned back round and walked 'as normal' when they probably thought we were out of sight, was enough to make me think it wasn't anything untoward... But then reading the other post upthread again I'm starting to wonder!
 
Schrodinger's Zebra said:
then: what was holding the hood up ?
Click to expand...
I don't know about civilian cold weather parkas (especially not fashion copies thereof), but most military hooded garments/smocks &c are wired with a self-sustaining hoop of internal plasticised...wire.

Presumably at least some civilian expedition-style hooded parkas/coats are similarly-enabled.

These can definitely give an oddly unoccupied effect, especially when accompanied by a tall/mandarin collar (and worn by a smaller person).
Ghost In The Machine said:
the inside of the hood was dark but I felt I could see the (convex) back of it
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Also, don't discount the weird effect that results from someone wearing a black shemagh/buff/balaclava, in low light conditions, under a hood. The witness tries to visually make sense of what they're seeing, and the absence of a complete facial set of features causes brain-flip.


On a related basis (again from military field settings): faces are always best camouflaged in an asymmetric style...dark bands or an apparently-missing chunk of head render a face undetectable, whereas a multicoloured head is still, reactively, a head. Darkening a caucasian/asian face, from a black watchcap downwards, at a ragged slant (and keeping the neck almost uncamouflaged) results in a simple-and-useable missing head.

EDIT
Schrodinger's Zebra said:
Can I have peanut butter and jam instead?
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Sadly no, because such a combination breaches a number of intergalactic protocols. You could have a peanut butter sandwich, and a jam sandwich, seperately. But to have them, covalent on a shared stratum, could result in a reconvocation of the Masque of Mandragora. Which, clearly, we don't have updated Risk Assessments for.
 
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Ermintruder said:
I don't know about civilian cold weather parkas (especially not fashion copies thereof), but most military hooded garments/smocks &c are wired with a self-sustaining hoop of internal plasticised...wire.
Click to expand...

Ah, good point I didn't know that.


Ermintruder said:
Sadly no, because such a combination breaches a number of intergalactic protocols. You could have a peanut butter sandwich, and a jam sandwich, seperately. But to have them, covalent on a shared stratum, could result in a reconvention of the Masque of Mandragora. Which, clearly, we don't have updated Risk Assessments for.
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You know, I thought that was probably the case. Damn risk assessments. But it didn't hurt to try :D
Just peanut butter then, if you please. Ta very much.
 
Iris said:
Try honey and cheese, it's really nice.
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You savage, you are dead to me now.

Re: Walking backwards to protect your night vision. That would be madness! I've walked many a country lane, and you just stand still and close your eyes while the car passes.

Six people doing that (we were walking home from a party where, I will admit, some 'interesting' mushrooms had been eaten) at three in the morning, on the back lanes of Cornwall, must have given more than one car driver a bit of head spin :D
 
Honey and cheese? Together, in the same meal? No I think I'll pass, thanks. :)

Anyway, I've just figured out that if I take up Ermintruder's offer of one peanut butter sandwich and one jam sandwich, then I could... while no one's looking, of course... swap one half of each, thus gaining 2 peanut-butter-and-jam sandwiches! And nobody would ever need to know.

:joyf:
 
A long time ago, when I was twelve or thirteen years old, I had just crossed a road on the way walking home from school and I noticed an oldish man on a bicycle coming up the road towards me. The road was slightly uphill, and he was moving slowly.
The pavement I was walking along was quite wide and was very much like a boulevard. The road, a footpath with some trees on the edge away from the road, and a further fifteen foot or so of 'hard standing' outside houses where people parked their cars.

Anyway. the man suddenly stopped peddling and sat there on his bike looking at some point on the footpath not far from me.
There was a laud bang and a cast iron inspection cover flew a few feet into the air and landed on the road more or less where he would have been if he had carried on peddling.

It was almost as if he knew it was going to happen. He then started along his way and rode off.

The bang was an electric main junction box failing.

INT21
 
Two bit's on minor strangeness in the last two days,
On my bike and a blood biker passes me going the other way,
now this caught my eye as I have never seen one actually being
ridden before bike and rider looked immaculate noticeably clean,
why was it a bit strange? well a blood biker died in a accident
on that road in that area only a few days ago, was it him compleating
his job or one of his mates doing a ride by to pay his respects? looked
in the mirror with a thought of turning round to see were he was going
but he had gone.

The other, in the car a bit windy as I approached a line of trees I noticed
a section very clearly defined of about 30/40ft in the middle were the
trees had a grey mist round them, could not stop as traffic was heavy
but my passenger said "are my eyes playing me up?" so they could
see it to, there was no smell or sign of a fire or any other activity
suspect it was pollen but I have never seen anything like it before.
 
RaM said:
Two bit's on minor strangeness in the last two days,
On my bike and a blood biker passes me going the other way,
now this caught my eye as I have never seen one actually being
ridden before bike and rider looked immaculate noticeably clean,
why was it a bit strange? well a blood biker died in a accident
on that road in that area only a few days ago, was it him compleating
his job or one of his mates doing a ride by to pay his respects? looked
in the mirror with a thought of turning round to see were he was going
but he had gone.

The other, in the car a bit windy as I approached a line of trees I noticed
a section very clearly defined of about 30/40ft in the middle were the
trees had a grey mist round them, could not stop as traffic was heavy
but my passenger said "are my eyes playing me up?" so they could
see it to, there was no smell or sign of a fire or any other activity
suspect it was pollen but I have never seen anything like it before.
Click to expand...

First one is strange, especially as you looked in the mirror and the biker was gone. I'm unfamiliar with the term blood biker though - I'm guessing he is carrying blood donations, is that right?

Second one - only thought is some localised mist perhaps from the trees being damp somehow? Was it early morning? But with it being windy I'm not sure about that. Very strange anyway.

:)
 
Blood bikers are a voluntary group that carry emergency supplies for the hospitals.
Afternoon and dry for the trees just had another though that I suppose it could
have been insects of some kind but still think pollen must likely though be no means
certain.
 
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Walked down the stairs at the train station and saw this piece of litter. That's not strange because there is a Turkish snack shop nearby. But on the back of this cardboard container someone had written: "Manneken Pis". Now why would anyone do that? I looked under it and there was nothing there, also no writing on the other side.
litter.jpg
BTW: This is Manneken Pis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manneken_Pis
 
uair01 said:
Walked down the stairs at the train station and saw this piece of litter. That's not strange because there is a Turkish snack shop nearby. But on the back of this cardboard container someone had written: "Manneken Pis". Now why would anyone do that? I looked under it and there was nothing there, also no writing on the other side.
View attachment 9731
BTW: This is Manneken Pis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manneken_Pis
Click to expand...
Where did you find this? In the Netherlands?
 
RaM said:
Two bit's on minor strangeness in the last two days,
On my bike and a blood biker passes me going the other way,
now this caught my eye as I have never seen one actually being
ridden before bike and rider looked immaculate noticeably clean,
why was it a bit strange? well a blood biker died in a accident
on that road in that area only a few days ago, was it him compleating
his job or one of his mates doing a ride by to pay his respects? looked
in the mirror with a thought of turning round to see were he was going
but he had gone.

The other, in the car a bit windy as I approached a line of trees I noticed
a section very clearly defined of about 30/40ft in the middle were the
trees had a grey mist round them, could not stop as traffic was heavy
but my passenger said "are my eyes playing me up?" so they could
see it to, there was no smell or sign of a fire or any other activity
suspect it was pollen but I have never seen anything like it before.
Click to expand...
Ram, what do you do with the formatting on your posts? It makes them almost impossible to read, which is a shame, because you've posted a lot of interesting stuff.
 
Peripart said:
Ram, what do you do with the formatting on your posts? It makes them almost impossible to read, which is a shame, because you've posted a lot of interesting stuff.
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He's probably posting with a phone and doing a carriage return at the end of each line.
 
A relatively minor strangeness, but one that ties a couple of things together.

A couple of hours a go my wife and I were shopping in Aldi, Keighley. Walking around more or less in sync with us was a slightly oddly dressed woman. I noticed something about her (I'll say what in a minute) and when she came to the check-out she removed all the inner linings of from the cereal boxes she had bought. Also she complained to the checkout girl that she didn't like the way the re-modeled store was laid out and would probably go somewhere else in future.
So far, so mildly unusual. But my wife said to me 'did you see she had no shoes on ?'

A confirmed that I had noticed that, then asked her if she had noticed that in the trolly she had both slip on shoes and riding boots. Worn ones, not newly purchased.

Anyway, when she got outside, some Eastern European looking guy sidled up to her and struck up a conversation. She had her purse in her hand and this guy looked like one of the beggars that are hanging around supermarkets trying it on with people as they come out.

I also noticed a couple of bikers who were clearly watching him as well. I got the impression they were ready to step in if he tried anything funny.

This ties in with the reference on another thread about people who you instantly feel are 'dodgy'.

INT21
 
We haven't got a shed thread so .. the worlds fastest shed record was broken the other day, 101mph :thrash:

Owner Kevin Nicks said it was "marvellous" to hit 101mph (160 km/h) in what he said was the only road legal motorised shed in the world.

"It couldn't have gone better, I'm so happy," said the 53-year-old gardener.

ashed.jpg


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-44054814
 
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I'm a little surprised he didn't put a 'Bol-L-Gol Gardening' sign on the side for a laugh.
i005702.jpg
 
Been passed the place were the trees looked strange today, and this time I was on the bike so stopped, the section that looked strange are younger trees with less foliage, what I now think it was is that the sun was shining through that section and the heavy traffic was raising dust from the road giveing the strange effect.
 
RaM said:
..a blood biker died in a accident
on that road in that area only a few days ago, was it him compleating
his job or one of his mates doing a ride by to pay his respects?..
Click to expand...

Which raises the question- how can we tell if we're seeing ghosts if they look completely solid?
Perhaps we all see ghosts every day when we're out and about, but we don't know it because they don't look like ghosts are supposed to look, i.e. translucent or whatever..:)
 
Waymarker said:
Which raises the question- how can we tell if we're seeing ghosts if they look completely solid?
Perhaps we all see ghosts every day when we're out and about, but we don't know it because they don't look like ghosts are supposed to look, i.e. translucent or whatever..:)
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I absolutely agree, I have seen 3 over the years that at first I thought were real people and it was only after mentioning it to other people that I realised they were in fact ghosts.
 
An interesting example of ghosts looking completely solid is when Jesus rose from the tomb and Mary Magdalene went to give him a big hug but he said "No, don't touch me, I haven't yet ascended to God".
Perhaps he knew she'd freak out with shock if her arms went through him.
Later after he returned to earth in a brandnew body he was touchable and let people feel him to make sure.
Here comes one of my theories- Perhaps our bodies are "spacesuits" that we need to wear in order to get around on this planet?
Oops sorry was I rambling?..;)
 
RaM said:
I absolutely agree, I have seen 3 over the years that at first I thought were real people and it was only after mentioning it to other people that I realised they were in fact ghosts.
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Interesting, that must have been jarring when you found out.

This is one of those areas where I often think that time slips might be the explanation. When we see people who are no longer alive it's not that they're haunting us per se, more that we're seeing them when they were still alive. Like a recording, if you will - but a 'slip' that allows us to temporarily see them.

Things like this I like to ponder because I like to think that there is one overarching explanation that accounts for most unexplained phenomena, which to me makes more sense than there being lots of different types of unexplained phenomena. :)
 
Speaking of "time-slips" I had one myself 35 years ago, I never saw anything but I was up in my room and I HEARD the family arrive back from a shopping trip in town, but when I went down to greet them there was nobody there!
I later found out from paranormal books that it's a fairly common phenomenon called "False Arrival".
 
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