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Mystery 'Lost' Items

Anyone lost a football?

Because one has been sitting on the edge of the lawn, just outside my bedroom window, for several days now. Now the gardens here are not closed off, so if a kid had accidentally kicked it in here from the road, it would be easy enough to come in and retrieve it. If a visiting kid had been playing in the garden, why leave the ball there?

Written on the ball with a marker pen is Denbigh School. This school, I find, is in Milton Keynes, hundreds of miles from here...

I have a vision of a game on the school football pitch - a last ditch clearance boots the ball into the long grass, but despite much searching the players cannot find it...

...because it has teleported itself down here!


Well, there's probably a more mundane explanation, but the teleportation idea keeps me amused! :D
 
Well after mentioning the spoon problem here yesterday a curious thing has happened, I now have more spoons than I know what to do with. I was down to one, now there's plenty, not just in the drawer but also the sink and the dish drain. If only all the money I've lost over the years could learn from those mischevious spoons.
 
Comes to finding things, I was the opposite of the person above. As a kid I could never find anything. I hated it when my Mom asked me to look for something, since I was sure to not find it. Then she or my sister would look and find it in a few seconds, and say I hadn't really tried. But I had.

I think there are real cognitive differences between people in terms (say) of ability to distinguish objects from the background, look at the whole area instead of a narrow space etc. Nowadays I've learned to force myself to look at a whole room instead of zeroing in on where I think something "should be". Beyond that I've never had any reason to believe that something might be hiding things and then bringing them back -- no boggarts in my neck of the woods...
 
nshippen said:
Comes to finding things, I was the opposite of the person above. As a kid I could never find anything. I hated it when my Mom asked me to look for something, since I was sure to not find it. Then she or my sister would look and find it in a few seconds, and say I hadn't really tried. But I had.

I think there are real cognitive differences between people in terms (say) of ability to distinguish objects from the background, look at the whole area instead of a narrow space etc. Nowadays I've learned to force myself to look at a whole room instead of zeroing in on where I think something "should be". Beyond that I've never had any reason to believe that something might be hiding things and then bringing them back -- no boggarts in my neck of the woods...

To some extent that may explain why I am so good at finding things – especially the stuff that is sat in plain view. I used to go shooting quite a bit (mainly rabbits) and I know from this that I have very good eyesight and am able to pick out rabbits from similar colour backgrounds that my mates cannot see. So perhaps that explains why I find some objects easily. However, there are other occasions that cannot be explained this way – such as looking in draws/under tables/in cupboards etc. for something that has not reason to be in there as soon as I start looking for something.
 
Let's hope this post doesn't have to be moved to Strange Crimes...

Owner of mystery fingertip sought

Detectives are looking for the owner of a fingertip discovered by a dog walker in Greater Manchester.
The digit was found by a woman on the floor of her neighbour's property in Farnworth, Bolton, on Friday evening, after she went in to walk her dog.

The fingertip has been forensically examined and fingerprint tests are being conducted, police said.

Police dogs are searching areas where the dog has previously been walked for any other clues.

A spokeswoman for Greater Manchester Police said officers were keen to establish where the fingertip had come from.

They are asking anyone who has been involved in an accident and lost their fingertip in the last few days to call Bolton CID, she added.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manc ... 931376.stm

(Curiously enough, I'm currently reading a whodunnit about a serial murderer who cuts the fingertips off his victims... :shock: )
 
Greetings all, my first reply to a post. :?
My flat has a mysterious vortex into which torches keep disappearing. I have so far lost two enormous maglites and a headtorch. No way have they been stolen, and there really is no sign of them at all. Nothing else goes missing. only torches... maybe a spook who is afraid of the dark? :lol:
 
elprincipeoso said:
Greetings all, my first reply to a post. :?
My flat has a mysterious vortex into which torches keep disappearing. I have so far lost two enormous maglites and a headtorch. No way have they been stolen, and there really is no sign of them at all. Nothing else goes missing. only torches... maybe a spook who is afraid of the dark? :lol:

Or maybe a spook who loves the dark and wants to make sure you're in the dark too when it turns out the lights?
 
I've always had problems locating things in obvious places, usually seeing them in the place I've searched three times already. Very annoying!

I'm currently searching for my new digital camera, it has become transparent somewhere in my parents house. Last seen a few weeks ago, I only realised it was gone by picking up the case to use it (right here still, by the computer) and finding it was empty.
Please could the Boggarts return it as I'd like to get a few decent photos of my rats playing.
 
:lol:

I asked the gremlins who live in the wall cavity if they'd seen my torches. They said they'd had similar things going missing, but that they would be happy to sell me a torch if I was interested. Nice chaps...
 
The strangest thing I have ever had disappear on me was my packet of tobacco. One morning I got my son out to school and went to have a fag. Could not find tobacco anywhere...looked in living room, kitchen bedroom etc..nowhere to be seen. Actually took cushions off the sofa, blankets off bed, it was not there. Was getting v.p**ed off at this stage! Walked back into my room and there it was....just sitting there in the middle of my bed on top of the blankets I had just fixed and smoothed out :shock: . There was no-one else in the house apart from me. I have not got a clue how it got there, it had not been there 30 seconds earlier.....I was actually scared when it happened. I looked around as if someone was going to jump out and say got ya! WTF.......the fairies must enjoy a fag now and then..... :smokin:
 
Came a cross a instance of this at the weekend an a potential explanation for some of these cases... my little daughter often wears a red headband to keep her unruly locks from her eyes... this had disappeared when she had got changed sunday morning and refused to turn up anywhere...

a couple of hours later we were playing in the garden when her grandfather wandered past and at that moment the headband miraculously appeared on the ground beside us. old gramps was adamant that he hadnt planted it, an since hes my father i knew he was being straight with us...

the only explanation that came to mind was that the headband had got stuck inside the little ones dress and had been there for a few hours, only coming loose as we were playing in the garden...

so i thought for those cases where people search high an low and turn over entire rooms only for the article to subsequently appear mockingly on top of the carnage, perhaps its somehow lodged on their person, and hence immune to searching, and is later disengaged..?
 
Maybe we don't see what we are looking for sometimes because we are tense and it interferes with our seeing it?
This morning a ring fell off my hand as I was about to drive my daughter to the station. I didn't have time to search for it then but expected to see it easily under the seat when I returned home
No sight of it from all angles or from feeling. Nothing when I moved the mat.
I thought "Oh well. I'll have to vacuum and maybe that will find it,it's not that big a deal" I reached under without looking for one last time and it fell onto the end of my finger.
 
My Certificate of Car Insurance has gone AWOL, when I need it to renew an expired Residents' parking badge.

I know I had it in February, when I needed it to renew the car tax. It should have been in the plastic wallet with the MOT, V5 and the
Post Office receipt for the tax. Why would I have taken it out?

I spotted the fuzz sniffing around my vehicle this afternoon. "Visitors" are on a time-limit and the expired disc renders me a visitor in my own street. The last time I tried to renew the thing, having gathered all the bumf, they ignored me! The bizzies are on a spite-mission at the moment. I am complaining about the ticket I got last week but don't expect much joy with that!

Fortunately, a new Certificate is due this week but the timing could not be more horrid.

Yes, I have tried the fairies and they deny all knowledge! :frust:
 
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My Certificate of Car Insurance has gone AWOL, when I need it to renew an expired Residents' parking badge.

I know I had it in February, when I needed it to renew the car tax. It should have been in the plastic wallet with the MOT, V5 and the
Post Office receipt for the tax. Why would I have taken it out?

I spotted the fuzz sniffing around my vehicle this afternoon. Fortunately, a new Certificate is due this week but the timing is horrid.

Yes, I have tried the fairies and they deny all knowledge! :frust:
In your wallet with the driving licence? That's where I keep mine on the offchance that I get pulled over (which has happened only twice in 20-odd years).
 
The licence was in the bureau.
We all knew it was going to be in the bureau, if it wasn't in your wallet. And everyone just presumed you'd already checked behind the clock.

I keep mine under the foot of an elephant in the corner of The Room. Yes, I know this sounds as if I have a one-roomed house.

But no.....I have an Elephant Room, in my house.

Within which to usefully-store elephants, insurance certificates, corners & controversial topics.

ps I strongly-suspect that physical possession of a paper insurance certificate is no longer required, in this newer world of onlinedness. Similarlywise apropos paper MoTs. And if I'm wrong about all that, I shall just tell the Arresting Officer that I'm from some vague time in the future (about four years, when politics has stopped making even the tiniest bit of sense, and both Trump & BoJo have been replaced with giant Venus flytrap plants....think of Little Shop of Horrors mixed with Yes Minister & The West Wing)
 
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I always keep a small freezer type bottle of water in my handbag.
A few weeks ago it disappeared and after searching, gave up and got another from the cupboard to use.
Yesterday in the middle of the carpet, I noticed a plastic bottle with some water in it, and I wondered how it could have fallen out of the bag without me noticing. I opened my bag and there was the one I am currently using.
So where had it been? I have dusted and vacuumed many times since I lost it.
 
My Certificate of Car Insurance has gone AWOL, when I need it to renew an expired Residents' parking badge.

I know I had it in February, when I needed it to renew the car tax. It should have been in the plastic wallet with the MOT, V5 and the
Post Office receipt for the tax. Why would I have taken it out?

I spotted the fuzz sniffing around my vehicle this afternoon. "Visitors" are on a time-limit and the expired disc renders me a visitor in my own street. The last time I tried to renew the thing, having gathered all the bumf, they ignored me! The bizzies are on a spite-mission at the moment. I am complaining about the ticket I got last week but don't expect much joy with that!

Fortunately, a new Certificate is due this week but the timing could not be more horrid.

Yes, I have tried the fairies and they deny all knowledge! :frust:

Don't you just get a letter from your insurance co stating insured from....to....

Or is that what you're talking about? I'm not sure you get a Certificate these days.

Where I am, to renew you just do it online - the council sends a reminder letter with a code to enter. Nothing else required if it's the same car as previously. Whether they have the facility to check insurance & mot are in place I don't know. I somehow doubt it, otherwise there'd probably be a few less cars on the roads.
 
No reminder letters. Which is how they blitzed the street with tickets a couple of years back. This for a scheme we voted for!

To renew, you need a recent utility bill, V5 and Insurance Certificate. I certainly did have the Certificate in February! :actw:

Bastards. I'd try complaining vociferously & get any neighbours similarly affected to do so as well. That's what happened here - when the permit scheme started, they didn't send out a reminder on the 2nd year & a lot of people got ticketed, me included. I had 2 on consecutive days. The council had so many complaints they cancelled the tickets & agreed to send reminders from then on. It's not too much to ask for them to issue reminders is it?..

I voted against the permit scheme when it was proposed. We got it anyway.
 
We all knew it was going to be in the bureau, if it wasn't in your wallet. And everyone just presumed you'd already checked behind the clock.

I keep mine under the foot of an elephant in the corner of The Room. Yes, I know this sounds as if I have a one-roomed house.

But no.....I have an Elephant Room, in my house.

Within which to usefully-store elephants, insurance certificates, corners & controversial topics.

ps I strongly-suspect that physical possession of a paper insurance certificate is no longer required, in this newer world of onlinedness. Similarlywise apropos paper MoTs. And if I'm wrong about all that, I shall just tell the Arresting Officer that I'm from some vague time in the future (about four years, when politics has stopped making even the tiniest bit of sense, and both Trump & BoJo have been replaced with giant Venus flytrap plants....think of Little Shop of Horrors mixed with Yes Minister & The West Wing)
I, for one, welcome our new Venus Fly Trap overlords.
 
I have dusted and vacuumed many times since I lost it.
Could it (in all seriousness) have become wedged into the underside of your vacuum cleaner? (irrespective of whether it's a wheeled-body with flexitrunk, or a unified upright). Then they (the objet etrangé) become dislodged due to a bump or bash and 'magically' deposited into the home (I posit that this revelatory vexing vector is much-implicated in the apparition of improbable coins and othersuch small ideoventive paraphernalia)

Thus remaining previously hidden in (almost) plain sight, but unseen.....a bit like Matilda, limpeted underneath the table, when she's nearly found by The Trunchable....
 
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Ermintruder I have dismantled it a couple of times since I lost the bottle, to clean out the drum, and there was nothing stuck there.
Maybe I live on a ley line or something as there have been a few things disappear and reappear some time afterwards.
Still waiting for a red pendant with a dragon design to come back as I rather liked it.
 
Yes, I have tried the fairies and they deny all knowledge! :frust:

Ah but did you get through to the fairy responsible for insurance certificates or simply get fobbed off by their call centre?

I don't think the Police rely on the production of insurance certificates when stopped now anyway. Lowlifes apparently buy insurance, get the certificate, then cancel the insurance , get their money back and retain the certificate to produce when they are stopped.
 
No reminder letters. Which is how they blitzed the street with tickets a couple of years back. This for a scheme we voted for!

To renew, you need a recent utility bill, V5 and Insurance Certificate. I certainly did have the Certificate in February! :actw:
I guarantee you have already found the certificate but didn't recognise it.

Maybe you remember it as white when it's actually green or it's in an envelope with something else that's slightly connected to it like a garage receipt.

This is how I lose and find crucial documents. I'll be the first to admit it's not the best way of doing things.
 
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