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Minor Strangeness (IHTM)

What would he be doing with a metal detector in the street, and dressed like that? I'd certainly have asked him. :lol:
 
escargot1 said:
What would he be doing with a metal detector in the street, and dressed like that? I'd certainly have asked him. :lol:
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I'd just left the computer shop because I have an intermittent problem with my system. (They were too busy to talk to me at the time however.)

Luckily the problem cleared itself again later this evening, or I'd have never bothered uploading these images!


James, gas leak sounds possible, but the areas I saw him searching (along busy roadways) seem unlikely places for people to have noticed (and reported) a whiff of gas. But I guess the gas company has other means of detecting leaks.

This whole road system was rebuilt a few years ago - whether that makes gas leaks more or less likely I don't know!
 
Rynner, your only excuse can be that the bloke's white suit had no lapels to grab. :lol:
 
They may have tested the pressure on that section of the pipeline and found it was down. They would therefore need to pin-point the place to dig up the road. We have had a lot of fractured gas-mains in this area, probably related to all our collapsing sewers. :shock:
 
I've never been able to figure this out, even though it was a few years ago.

The carpet in my bedroom is a short, but very soft pile with the property that if you stand in one place for more than a couple of minutes, you leave 'footprints' in it which hang around for a while until the pile settles itself and springs up into place again.

I once came into the room and noticed a pair of bare feet footprints, with the outline of the toes clearly visible, as they are if you stand on the carpet with no socks on, which was nothing new. I was puzzled though, about where they were - close up against the wall, in the corner beside a cupboard.

Not only had I no recollection of standing anywhere near there anyway, but when I tried to stand 'in' the prints with my feet in exactly the same position, I could barely manage it. The position you had to be in was incredibly awkward - literally with your face pressed tightly against the wall and squashed up against the cupboard (and behind the inward-opening door, to boot). Nobody would have had any possible reason to do it. And certainly not for the length of time it takes to make a print.

:?: :?:

Basically, it was like a ghost had been naughty and been told to go stand in the nearest corner and face the wall.
 
If you hadn't said that the toes were clearly visible, I'd have suggested that you might have put a pair of shoes there the night before and they'd left an imprint when you moved them.

Is it an old house? Could there have been a window there once, that your ghost might have been looking out of?

Otherwise - no idea! The carpet sounds lovely, though.
 
Fizz32 said:
If you hadn't said that the toes were clearly visible, I'd have suggested that you might have put a pair of shoes there the night before and they'd left an imprint when you moved them.
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No danger of that! I'm germ-o-phobic (diagnosed with OCD) and shoes being brought into a bedroom would have me something close to foaming at the mouth. :)

It's a new-ish house, built somewhere around the late sixties as far as I know. No walls have ever been altered.
 
reaching up onto the top to get something down, putting weight on your toes during the reach..?
 
HenryFort said:
reaching up onto the top to get something down, putting weight on your toes during the reach..?
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Nothing to reach for. Cupboard in question is only chest-height; no shelves or anything on that wall. In a nutshell, absolutely no reason for anyone to stand there.
 
Lol, thats not a metal detector guy! HAHA! ITs an air pressure jet, he's removing chewing gum from the pavement! I used to see guys like this in Birmingham all the town, the council pays this guy to pressure wash gum off the pavement, makes it look nice for about 5 minutes until the next lot of gum is hocked onto it.
 
My one is just annoying.

I have a small bin in my bathroom. I always try to keep the lid closed to stop errant and disgusting smells drifting out. It's a manual lid, so I have to lift it and close it manually.

Lately, the past couple of days, I go in there and the bin is open. I close it again, and I thought it was just me being absent minded and away with the fairies (not literally, unfortunately) But I have made an actual conscious effort to close the bin, and be aware I have closed the bin the last few times I have visited the bathroom - and lo and behold, when I go in again, it's open!

I'm one of those people who believe in asking the spirit of the house to return things (and if he/she could find the tenner I lost yesterday, I'd be grateful) so last time it happened, I said out loud 'Keep it closed! There's smells!' (Not grammatically correct, I know) so I'll have to see if it stays closed from now on.

It's odd, but little things like this always happen around the time just before I get my Fortean Times.
 
rynner said:
Today in town I saw a guy in white overalls. He seemed to be using a metal-detector.

Later I was able to grab some distant pics of him. The device he's holding lacks the disc of a metal detector, and he was checking all around the bases of street furniture and kerbs.

I guessed he might be using some sort of gas chromatograph, but why?
Was he checking for Radon? Traffic pollution? Dog piss?

[http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/rynner/IMG_1064.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2 ... G_1066.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/ ... G_1068.jpg

Any ideas?
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He's spraying the weeds in the stones - it's a very fine, clear spray (and yes, environmentally friendly) so you can't see it.

Used to work with street cleaners and saw this equipment and outfit.
 
rynner said:
Today in town I saw a guy in white overalls. He seemed to be using a metal-detector.

Later I was able to grab some distant pics of him. The device he's holding lacks the disc of a metal detector, and he was checking all around the bases of street furniture and kerbs.

I guessed he might be using some sort of gas chromatograph, but why?
Was he checking for Radon? Traffic pollution? Dog piss?

[http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/rynner/IMG_1064.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2 ... G_1066.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/ ... G_1068.jpg

Any ideas?
Click to expand...

He's spraying the weeds in the stones - it's a very fine, clear spray (and yes, environmentally friendly) so you can't see it.

Used to work with street cleaners and saw this equipment and outfit.
 
michelleeb1970 said:
He's spraying the weeds in the stones - it's a very fine, clear spray (and yes, environmentally friendly) so you can't see it.

Used to work with street cleaners and saw this equipment and outfit.
Click to expand...
I don't think so. The only mobile sprayers I've seen at work had much bigger reservoir tanks on their back.

And he was moving too quickly for the chewing gum idea idea to work.

Interesting that people come up with so many different ideas!

I think James and his gas leak seems most likely at present.
 
Merriemoles said:
I've never been able to figure this out, even though it was a few years ago.

The carpet in my bedroom is a short, but very soft pile with the property that if you stand in one place for more than a couple of minutes, you leave 'footprints' in it which hang around for a while until the pile settles itself and springs up into place again.

I once came into the room and noticed a pair of bare feet footprints, with the outline of the toes clearly visible, as they are if you stand on the carpet with no socks on, which was nothing new. I was puzzled though, about where they were - close up against the wall, in the corner beside a cupboard.

Not only had I no recollection of standing anywhere near there anyway, but when I tried to stand 'in' the prints with my feet in exactly the same position, I could barely manage it. The position you had to be in was incredibly awkward - literally with your face pressed tightly against the wall and squashed up against the cupboard (and behind the inward-opening door, to boot). Nobody would have had any possible reason to do it. And certainly not for the length of time it takes to make a print.

:?: :?:

Basically, it was like a ghost had been naughty and been told to go stand in the nearest corner and face the wall.
Click to expand...



That really scared me and not much does! Thankx :yeay:
 
Merriemoles said:
Basically, it was like a ghost had been naughty and been told to go stand in the nearest corner and face the wall.
Click to expand...

That's strange, all right. Any roommates in the house having you on?
 
were the footprints somewhere behind the room's door? because i'm thinking of something which is only halfway serious. bear with me.

a burglar breaks into the room. he's not wearing shoes, because he doesn't want to make any noise (and he doesn't know there's carpet in the room)

you walk in, he hears you and hides behind the door. he's now facing the wall in that odd uncomfortable position you described

you do whatever you had to do in the room, then you walk out

the scared would-be-burglar walks out too from wherever he had come in

you come back into the room and finally see the footprints

what do you think?

(feel free to call me sherlock)
 
After a gap of many years, I'm starting to get back into home wine making. Today I racked off a recent batch of marrow rum, and then I washed out the gallon jar with cold water.

Not having any plain bungs, I sealed the jar with a bored bung plus air lock.
I expected a few bubbles as I inserted the bung, but to my surprise it kept on bubbling away! It was odd watching a 'phantom fermentation' in a completely empty jar! :shock:

I assume this was a simple thermal effect, with the air in the jar expanding as it warmed up, but I was surprised how quickly it started (glass is not a good conductor of heat), and how long it went on.


Perhaps I will experience stranger things when I sample the brew...! ;)
 
My 'minor' IHTM is that I dream words and small images that pop up the next day.

For example, one dream I had involved a 5th year child saying to me 'he's got a good rapport but he missed off the t!' out of the blue in a dream about something else. I woke up with this phrase running around my head.

The next day, I was handed a write-up for an assessment on a trainee teacher. It was a rough draft by a maths teacher and they asked me to check the spellings:
-the teacher observed was teaching a 5th year class;
-he was praised for his rapport with the group;
-the assessor had written 'rappor' in error, which I corrected.

Very odd! I had no idea that I would be asked to read that document, that the word 'rapport' would be used (usually they use a stock phrase such as 'builds a good relationship with students'), nor that it would have the t missing. How strange!
 
Actually it is the "Minor" strangeness reports that fascinate me the most. Anybody can make up a whopper to get attention, but rarely do people make up the small stuff. As such I tend to be fascinated by the minor deviations from the normal, since they are sometimes the most telling.
 
Last night I dreamt I was in the pedestrian entrance of one of our tunnels. A man was coming towards me and since I didn't see hem coming I was startled. I said:

> You have a question for me?

And he replied:

> Yes but I won't tell ...

:?
 
I was sitting in church, waiting for the service to start, and I overheard this conversation:

A: Did you call him?
B: Yes I did.
A: But did you call him by telephone? (literally: "telephonically)

This can set me thinking for a long time.
 
uair01 said:
I was sitting in church, waiting for the service to start, and I overheard this conversation:

A: Did you call him?
B: Yes I did.
A: But did you call him by telephone? (literally: "telephonically)

This can set me thinking for a long time.
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Maybe B was in shouting distance of "him".
 
I've had some minor strangeness lately in the form of a sort of recurring dream theme. My dad passed away 4 years ago as of just a few days ago, but for the past 5 or 6 months, once every two weeks or so I'll have a dream in which I'm just going about my everyday tasks, but my dad never died. I remember vividly the first dream, in which it turned out everything was a mistake, & that he had been alive all along, because it was very in depth, even going so far as to recover property that had been given away with the estate and such.

As time has gone by the story of the dreams sort of progresses along with my life, with the basic background events of the dreams always being things that are going on with me now. For example, the most recent one was of coming home from a meeting with my band, and having a long phone conversation with my dad in which he congratulated me on our performing our first paying gig, and asked me how my job search was going (I lost my job just before Christmas).

The strange bit is they always leave me with this odd lingering effect after I wake up, where for about a half an hour I can't remember which is the dream and which is the reality. I've actually taken to keeping his old watch in the drawer of my nightstand, so that when I have the dreams I can take it out and remind myself what is real. They're never sad dreams, and even once I've been reminded, I always feel a little better about everything going on, and like there's some kind of connection there still.

Sorry about rambling on, this just seemed like the ideal place to share :)
 
something happened to me last night, I was sitting on my bed, playing guitar, and I had put my phone on the widnow sill behind me, I had been playing for half an hourish when bam, I feel something smack me on the back of my head, just behind my ear, with a lot of force, after an inventful stream of swearing, I turn round to see my phone on my bed, it had somehow travelled 3-4 feet and nailed me behind my left ear with enough force to leave a lump
 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/uair01/3236273002/

I have always wondered ... those policemen that are always loitering in front of the American embassy in The Hague ... if I get hit by a car ... will they come to investigate ... or will they continue their watch and ignore me?

Now I know the answer.

This was an eerily funny situation. With no traffic in sight, this lady driver had steered her car right over the traffic sign. I have no idea what went wrong there.

Unfortunately, taking pictures in haste is no good. It was a gloomy day and it should have been sharper.
 
disgruntledgoth said:
...I turn round to see my phone on my bed, it had somehow travelled 3-4 feet and nailed me behind my left ear with enough force to leave a lump
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Sat on the cord?
 
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