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Pendulum Irony

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Anonymous

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This is the strangest thing that I've ever experienced for which I have a remnant physical artifact. Probably 1985, failed enterprise and slow economy had me back home at the parents and taking some electronics classes.

Video rental stores were sparse in those days. I rented the horror movie "The Hunger" from a Jansen Beach Mall video store, in Portland, Oregon, USA. I had the house to myself and had some repetitive work to do, soldering test cables for my class. I set up a card table to work and watch the movie. I was also interested in a book, "Your Electro-Vibratory Body," that I had purchased the day before....

http://www.forteantimes.com/happened/pendulum.shtml

Link is dead. See post below (#34) for complete text.
 
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Just a thought, but have you checked the small object inside the 'amulet' for radioactivity?
 
If it is a dowsing pendulum then the little pencil lead bit might be the "witness" - a sample of what the person who used it was dowsing for.
I have a dowsing pendulum but it has a much more defined point (a conical shape pointing down) for identifying places more "accurately" on a map apparently. (I've never used it.)
Pendulums are also used for spirit communication in evocation etc.

If the film (not seen it I'm afraid) has similar pendulum/amulets in it then maybe the last person who rented it thought "ooh I've got one of them knocking about somewhere ... I'll bung it in the tape - that'll freak someone out someday ....".
 
very interesting story! The coincidence between the dowsing book and the find make the interest, as lizard pointed out it 's possible the previous renter stuck the thing in there.
I was taught how to dowse, but I've never been successful with a pendulum though I have one made of wood with a pointed end as yours is.
 
pendula

Mystery things within mystery things. Really interesting.

I've had several aquaintances with dowsing and am sure it works.
I bought an amazing book by Tom Lethbridge who realised that just as a 'yes' response may differ by degrees of the circle to a 'no' - then further answers could be gained by gauging the sublety of the direction of the pendulum swing. He called it the 'Frequency'. Amongst other results he found that a woman will have the same frequency as gold and that objects such as stones cast in anger changed frequencies after the act.
He also found rare truffles and more importantly lost archeological sites using the method.

However, I have to say the best dowsing moment occured when an ITV programme in Britain challenged various psychics (spirit artists, clairvoyants, etc) to prove the veracity of their powers.
The dowsers came off best and what's even better is that the judge was James Randi!!!

If you're looking for his million dollars, that's the way to go.
 
Ah yes. Had this challenge on a dowsing thread before. J.R. is not offering his mill because he's satisfied dowsing for water works!
 
Hmm, maybe a silly question, but, could the item have been a piece of the video recorders machinery?
 
It could be a piece of jewellry, maybe the previous tape renter was poking it in the hole for the same reason you were poking a pencil in and it got wedged in and they hastily returned the video.

The thing inside could be a weight. (?) You can also by Goth jewellry that unscrews like this, it is based on antique jewellry that was used for hiding poisons.
 
Thanks for the comments!

1) Yes I think I checked for radioactivity. My wife was in hospital, for thyroid cancer and had to take a radioactive pill. The nurses had a meter to see how close they could get to her and would put tape on the floor. (Here, take this pill I'm handing to you with four foot long tongs, and don't worry, we'll be back here, behind this line.) Anyway, I happened to have the thing and asked the nurse to point the meter at me -- no rads. (Yes, spouse fine now). And no not caused by 'the thing' -- thyroid cancer takes decades to develop and she got it through infant radiation treatments they thought, at the time, might insure agains SIDS. So traditional medicine both tried to kill her and then cured her so the net effect is zero. I don't think the brass case would have blocked any radiation so I think it is not radioactive.

2) D'OH!!! NO it is not part of a VHS casette! Yes it is a pendulum. Go look at the picture again. :)

3) If a 'witness,' and yes I get the concept, what would it be? That ties in to #1 above and my concern was that it was something used for dousing uranium. Decades back, and I'm not sure if this is true now, finding a unanium deposit was like finding gold.

4) Yes, someone who last rented the tape was the culpret. The Video store did not retain a record. This was the early days of rental and their computer just wrote over the entry for the current tape holder. They just used a simple spreadsheet -- one line, date-checked out, renter.

5) Reasons? Yes maybe a joke, but rather I'm leaning towards someone freaking about the movie and wanting to rid themselves of an 'occult' item.

6) Goths were not about then but people like a little kinky dabling (notable historic French stories should come to mind), but this is not a dark looking or flashy scary thing like some Skull ring.

Thanks all! Please keep sending ideas!!! Even bad ones! I know I knocked one of them but, buck up, it's only text.
 
Re: Thanks for the comments!

whippsa said:
4) Yes, someone who last rented the tape was the culpret.
Click to expand...
...but maybe it was teleported there by said cosmic joker, just in time?
 
Re: Re: Thanks for the comments!

Faggus said:
...but maybe it was teleported there by said cosmic joker, just in time?
Click to expand...

Yes! That is just what it seemed like!

But, I don't know if that is possible in the same sense that I know that simple human intervention is possible. I didn't mean to sound so positive about my idea, however.

If I say that teleportation (an aport) is possible, then is not anything outside my experience is possible -- why limit an explanation to 'teleportation?'

Perhaps an invisible 'house elf' levitated it in an invisible state accross the room and stuck it in when I wasn't looking. Perhaps it is not a real object but simply a thought construct, but one that can be photographed! I can keep going. :)

Why would 'teleportation by a cosmic joker' be selected from an infinate list of explanations, as most possible? However, I can tell you why 'the last renter stuck it there' is the lead horse in the race.

I'm a pragmatist and accept that I'm fishing in murky waters. As a human I may not even have the physical comprehention equipment needed to find real sense of anything. (like W. James' analogy of a dog in a library) What I'm hoping to find out is the nature of the black thing inside. I'm hoping someone seeing the story will know something about it and write.
 
You could get someone to do a chemical analysis to find out what it is?
 
I hate to take away from the mysticism of this object. However it looks exactly like the pill bottles I keep on my key chain(could be worn around the neck as well) . I keep my medication in a couple of them and the other is used for keeping flint for my trusty zippo lighter. Looks awfully mundane and familiar to me!
The flints are not the red type, as I scavenge the unused pieces from disposable lighters(they are much longer than you would ever need during the normal use of the lighter) . Yes the tiny brass bottles were once chromed but it wears off with a little time.
Sorry to be a party pooper.
 
eccentric said:
I hate to take away from the mysticism of this object. However it looks exactly like the pill bottles I keep on my key chain(could be worn around the neck as well) . I keep my medication in a couple of them and the other is used for keeping flint for my trusty zippo lighter. Looks awfully mundane and familiar to me!
The flints are not the red type, as I scavenge the unused pieces from disposable lighters(they are much longer than you would ever need during the normal use of the lighter) . Yes the tiny brass bottles were once chromed but it wears off with a little time.
Sorry to be a party pooper.
Click to expand...

You could hardly be a 'party pooper' because no mundane explaination of the thing or how it got there will ever count against the wacky coincidence of having a book open about pendulums, when I found it. Remember, this is no ordinary 'find' as if I found it on a sidewalk or in a public clothes laundry machine.

Thanks. Exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for. I'd go for 'pill bottle' but the chamber is really small. The outside is hardly the width of a disposible pen. The inside, since the walls are thick, is small. It would not hold an asprin.

I like the 'flint' suggestion. It is not a used flint but it is hard and seems metalic. It is not worn so it is not a used peice, if it is a flint.

I'll put up measurements.

I hate to do it but I really doubt that you have a pill bottle that looks like that. You may convince me if you describe it further and give dimensions.
 
Hate to be another party pooper but when i read the posts i immediately thought of my kid who used to post some of my most precious and favourite little bits of jewelery, contact lenses, crystals, etc. in the most unlikely places and most children i've ever known have a fascination for video-players, and videos, televisions, cassette-tapes, etc because you can 'post things' inside of them. Most of the time no one in the family knows where on earth their favourite bits and pieces have gone to! The fact that the tape wouldn't play properly isn't strange, and the fact that you fiddled with it even less strange so really we only have one co-incidence here, that you happened to be reading the book, and that's not too bizarre. I am fascinated by the object itself however which i would give my right arm to own! P.s. I hate to drag this into the realms of the truly bizarre but by 'co-incidence' i happened to have just read a strange account of a woman claiming alien abduction who said her physician had removed an implant from behind her ear that looked like 'a bullet' and which had something inside it. It was on a different message board so i don't know if its true or not.
 
Better than me describing the pill bottle, go to the local drug store and as to see thier nitroglycirin pill fob bottles. The pills are very tiny and the bottle is as well. The only pills that will fit in them are the nitro pills. Smaller than a baby asperin. They are stacked in the container. There are some larger ones but they are for larger pills. The small ones are sometimes pointed on the end as mine are, the larger ones are flat on the bottom. All of them are chrome plated ,but it rubs off pretty fast if you carry them with you, thats what they are made for. as for the rubber seal in the top, this keeps them from getting damp since they are made to disslove under the tounge and would crumble if they got moist.
You will also see them in catalogs for old folks medical supplies.
As to how it ended up where it did , that is a mystery.
 
Chant said:
I am fascinated by the object itself however which i would give my right arm to own!
Click to expand...

No need for an amputation -- just be the first to send me $1,000,000, and it's yours!

The other reasoning in your reply, I'm sorry, I could not follow all the way from premiss to conclusion, even though the distance between the two was very short.
 
eccentric said:
Better than me describing the pill bottle, go to the local drug store and as to see thier nitroglycirin pill fob bottles. The pills are very tiny and the bottle is as well. . . . The small ones are sometimes pointed on the end as mine are, the larger ones are flat on the bottom. ...
Click to expand...

Very good! (solved though ??? -- read on!) I looked on the internet. Several good pics here. Some are even very similar.
http://www.911medalert.com/catalog.asp?action=showitem&id=1481&cat=54
or here: http://www.medids.com/PILL-MATE.html

Mine is not sealed and is threaded on the cap rather than the body. That's not a big difference and there may have been a o-ring on the threaded cap at one time.

Now let's check the dimensions! The inner diameter of the official pill bottle is "THE INSIDE MEASURES 1 1/4" x 5/16"." Assuming that is the required size for NG tabs.

Mine is: 7/16" x 3/16" for the inside measurement. Is that too small for a nitroglycerin pill?
BTW the outside of my "pendulum" is: 1/4" wide and just over 3/4" long. (get your minds out of the gutter!)

So, how big is a nitroglycerin tablet? I do not know. (tip: don't bother doing an internet search on the words 'nitroglycerin' and 'size' unless you want details concerning your 'manhood.')

If the pill is 3/16" wide or SMALLER, then my "pendulum" could have originally been made to be a nitroglycerin pill bottle.

BTW: This does not solve the problem of why there is a small black thing inside. Sure, it could be a flint for all I know. It is not used or worn down on either end.
I'll give the dimensions:
A hard black cylindrical shape: 5/64" wide x 2/16" long.

This is fun. Please write more.
 
Question:

Mine is: 7/16" deep x 3/16" wide, for the inside measurement. Is 3/16" too small for a nitroglycerin pill?

What are the dimensions of a nitroglycerin pill?
 
the best way to find the dimensions of a nitro pill would be to take the bottle to a pharmacy and show it to the pharmacist , ask him to see if the pills would fit and get his professional opinion as to what the object is.
 
I have a 'plumb bob' that looks very similar. In case anyone dont know what that is, it is a weight used with a long piece of string (yes just like a dowser ) used to find a straight or perpendicular line when doing things like hanging wallpaper or in building work.
 
zardoz said:
I have a 'plumb bob' that looks very similar. In case anyone dont know what that is, it is a weight used with a long piece of string (yes just like a dowser ) used to find a straight or perpendicular line when doing things like hanging wallpaper or in building work.
Click to expand...

That's an interesting unintentional juxtaposition there, Zardoz. So people use dowsing with arcane apparatus in order to find vertical lines? :D
 
I shall forever regret not putting a pen, ruler, or other common object next to the pictures. This is a very small item. Plumb bobs are more massive things. They need to hang steady in the wind. The outside of my "pendulum" is: 1/4" wide and just over 3/4" long.

The idea that boored surveyers may have got the idea of dowsing with pendulums is GREAT! It fits. They are out surveying property.
 
The container could be one of those ID tag containers for pets collers or people with epilepsy etc.

As for the contents, could it be an illegal substance, usualy carried by the previous renter of the video and perhaps hidden for some reason and forgotten about.
 
mah said:
The container could be one of those ID tag containers for pets collers or people with epilepsy etc.

As for the contents, could it be an illegal substance, usualy carried by the previous renter of the video and perhaps hidden for some reason and forgotten about.
Click to expand...

ID tag from 1985, or before, that would fit in that tiny space?

A small black solid cylinder, as noted that looks like it could be perhaps a lighter's flint? What sort of illegal substance could that be?

Best, IMHO is the nytro pill container idea. But until someone shows me info on a nytro pill that is small enough to fit the inside, we can't claim that it's original function part of they mystery is "solved."

Hate to find flaws in people's ideas, I'm not trying to be an obnoxious skeptic, but facts and reason, not wishful thinking, must prevail.
 
I remember my dad's dog having a very similar id tag. You could only get a very tightly rolled peice of paper in it and when rolled out it had just enough space to write a name and phone number on it.

As for the contents, why not have a word with a local university. see if they can identify it.
 
I've been enjoying reading this thread for a while now.
The object sure is interesting. As for whats inside, you suggest a flint. Maybe you should try striking it against some sand paper to see if it sparks if you don't mind scratching it.

Nitroglycerin pills taken under the tongue go from 0.3-0.6mg.
Assume pills are pure nitroglycerin (I'm sure there are fillers with it because nitroglycerin is oily but talc has less density than oil).
Nitroglycerin has a density of 1.6g/ml @STP

1.6 x 0.3x10^-3 = 0.00048ml of nitroglycerin
=0.48x10^-6 Liters.
1 Liter = 2929.19 Cubic inches
2929.19 x 0.48x10^-6 = 1.4x10^-3 cubic inches

The cube root of 1.4x10^-3 is 0.1118688942081397
...
so a 0.3mg nitroglycerin pill would measure 1/9 inch in 3 dimensions.
Hope this might be helpful.
I included the calculations because math isn't my strongest point.
Please correct me if I'm wrong!
I also assumed a 0.3mg nitroglycerin pill actually weighs 0.3mg with fillers. I guess it could just contain 0.3mg of nitroglycerin and weigh a half gram or something. Either way though I can't be far off if my calculations are correct.
 
Here is my conclusion:

It is a nitroglycerine pill bottle that someone decided to use for a pendulum. The pill bottle had once belonged to his father, now sadly deceased. This person, unknown, an avid pipe smoker, was down to his last unused flint. He knew that he had just bought a supply of flints but could not recall where the hell he'd stowed them.

He tried to dowse for his lost flints by putting his last flint, in the pendulum as a 'witness.' After several hours wasted, with no success, his wife came home and said, "Oh, those? Remember dear you put them in your humidor with your tobacco."

Thereupon he became so frustrated after spending so many hours wasted, and having no pets (otherwise he could have attached it to a pet collar with a tiny rolled up note inside, including name of dog and his phone and address, instead of the normal metal "dog tag.") he conspired to toss the damn thing away. So, he detached the string from the pendulum and stuck it in a VHS tape he was returning to the Video rental store.

I think I've covered everything.

:) ;) :)
 
er-hem, I know this is an old thread, but I couldn't beleive it when I read it. I've got the same 'pendulum' which I use diving purposes. Mine was from a childs toy carpentry kit, it's a mini plumb bob, the 'flint' is lead weight. Why all the mystery??? oh yeah that's irony for you, tut should have got that being a true brit!!

:gaga:
 
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