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Strange Girl In The Pound Shop

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musthaunted

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Oct 2, 2011
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I was in the Pound Shop in Edinburgh's St James Centre around a year ago when I noticed a girl around the age of 17 or 18 looking quite disorientated and confused as to her surroundings. I would never usually focus on someone for more than a few seconds (as you do) when out shopping, but I couldn't take my gaze off her as there was something a bit 'strange' about her....
She was studying the bags of sweets hanging on the display rack, and I then watched her very timidly ask one of the store assistants for help. She said she was looking for a specific type of sweet, and I've forgotten exactly which type she named, but I remember it was something 'old fashioned' and traditional like 'boilings' or a name not associated with a brand. I thought it odd at the time that a teenage girl would be looking for this type of sweet, and secondly, specifically in a pound shop.
The shop assistant was being as helpful and kind as possible and seemed quite concerned about the girl. The conversation between the two went on for a good 5 minutes, and I had trouble hearing what was said, but it was all very intense and mainly concerned the type of sweet and that the girl was okay (her well being)
The assistant recommended to the customer that she try Thorntons which was a short walk along to the end of the precinct, and would seem like the obvious choice for a specialist sweet of that type.

I should point out, the girl wasn't partially blind (with stick etc), or disabled in any way, and had seemingly got to the shop on her own. But I remember her asking the assistant for help or guidance OUT of the shopping centre before even enquiring as to how to get to Thorntons.
The other thing that I noticed was her clothing - very 'matronly' for a teenager (old fashioned). She spoke English but I couldn't decipher the accent.

The reason I've typed this story is that I have recently read a book called 'UFO Scotland' which tells of two strange people, about 5 ft tall, with American accents walk into an Edinburgh Pizza shop. They each raised their right hands and with their palms facing the counter, they announced 'Hi, we're Americans'.
The female had lopsided shoulders and the male was looking around the shop in amazement as if he'd never seen a pizza parlour before.
They asked the assistant 'What do you make?' When they were told 'Pizza' they asked ''What are pizzas''?, and seemed completely unfamiliar with this type of food. They pointed at a pepper (in the cabinet of ingredients) and asked what it was. 'Does it taste nice?' they asked. After ordering, they waited while the Pizza was being made, and stood absolutely still, not uttering a word to each other.
After being given the Pizza, they left the shop. The assistant noticed they each took a bite out of the Pizza and threw the rest in the bin outside.
Alien life forms masquerading as humans, and not doing a very good job of it - that's the theory with this story, and it reminded me of the strange girl in the pound shop, so thought I'd post it here!
 
I've heard of this 'American aliens' story before. Always fascinating.
 
Very interesting story! Can you explain in a little more detail how she was acting caused the shopkeeper to be so obviously concerned for her well being?

Also, does anyone have links to that story about Americans in Scotland or similar tales? I love this subject and cannot find anything properly with the keywords I am using . Thanks!
 
made me think of a "timeslip" story more than out of place aliens - except usually in timeslip stories it's the narrator that's out of place (time), whereas here the narrator is the witness of somebody else's timeslip
 
locussolus said:
Also, does anyone have links to that story about Americans in Scotland or similar tales? I love this subject and cannot find anything properly with the keywords I am using . Thanks!
Click to expand...

The book is by Ron Halliday and the gentleman who told the story was called Brian Wilson.

The Cosmic Jokers Site

Classification (Hynek): CE3.
Witness: Brian Wilson.
Time & Place: 1990; NewTown, Edinburgh.
Entity Type (Lawson): Human.
Craft: None seen.
Summary: Two strange beings visit a takeaway.

Most witnesses encounter aliens in isolated lonely places, miles from civilisation. Brian Wilson is an unusual exception to this rule. He had his close encounter at work. In a busy takeaway. In the middle of Edinburgh.

Brian was working the late shift one night when a pair of "rather small" and "lopsided" adults approached the counter, raised their right hands, and announced: "Hi. We're Americans!"

"What would you like?" Brian asked, to which they countered "What do you make?"
"Pizzas," replied Brian.
"What are pizzas?" asked the Americans.

The couple ordered two cheese and tomato pizzas. They watched Brian intently as he prepared them. The male "kept looking around the shop like he'd never been in a pizza parlour before", while the female pointed at a bowl of green peppers and asked what they were.

By now, Brian's colleague Doug had also noticed there was something odd about the couple. The chefs exchanged glances of disbelief as Brian told the woman what a pepper was. "Do they taste nice?" she asked.

As the pair waited in silence for their pizzas (complete with peppers) to cook, other customers came in and out of the takeaway as usual. Once their order was ready, the extraordinary Americans settled their bill and turned to leave. Each took a single bite out of their pizza, then threw the remainder into the bin outside the shop!

Brian suspected that the strange couple may have literally been from another planet. "I had read stories on the subject of aliens masquerading as human beings," he told investigators. "These two individuals came across as acting as humans, but not doing a very good job of it!"

While Brian thought the couple were extraterrestrials, another possibility is that they were time tourists from the distant future.

For a more prosaic explanation, it would be interesting to know whether the incident coincided with the annual Edinburgh Festival. The festival is renowned for its thriving fringe, which attracts an eclectic mix of comedians and performers. Perhaps the chef fell victim to a mischievous piece of performance art, which may well have been repeated at other restaurants in the area.

Unfortunately, no one seems to have pursued this line of enquiry, and the trail has long since gone cold.
Click to expand...

All it adds is a location and year though the Festival angle is interesting. Most of the other net sources more or less quote the story as above which is taken directly from the book.
 
Thank you Mooksta!

It is rather improbable for Americans to be unaware of pizza!

If they were from the future, I guess we have being tiny and crooked to look forward to?
 
In suppose they might just be from some isolated, (in bred?) Amish type community where modern transport and TV etc were forbidden, in which case they might not have heard of pizza. But in that case, how come they were able to travel to the UK?
 
Recycled1 said:
But in that case, how come they were able to travel to the UK?
Click to expand...

Religious trip? Might not have been Amish but another religious sect.

Wiki sez....
There are also around 15,000 each of Baptists, Episcopalians and conservative Presbyterians, with smaller numbers of Quakers, Pentecostal, Gospel Hall.
Click to expand...

EDIT
So why buy a pizza? Unable to find their normal diet in a foreign country with no shops open at that hour after arriving, hence "Hi we're Americans"?
 
Moooksta said:
Recycled1 said:
But in that case, how come they were able to travel to the UK?
Click to expand...

Religious trip? Might not have been Amish but another religious sect.

Wiki sez....
There are also around 15,000 each of Baptists, Episcopalians and conservative Presbyterians, with smaller numbers of Quakers, Pentecostal, Gospel Hall.
Click to expand...

EDIT
So why buy a pizza? Unable to find their normal diet in a foreign country with no shops open at that hour after arriving, hence "Hi we're Americans"?
Click to expand...

Only 15,000 each of those religious groups? I'm sure there are more.

Re your edit: That's a very good point. In most parts of the USA, there are usually stores open 24/7 - over here in the UK (not so long ago) we had fairly restricted opening hours for stores, making it difficult to buy food at odd hours.
 
locussolus said:
If they were from the future, I guess we have being tiny and crooked to look forward to?
Click to expand...

Most likely, if we let the world's population grow to the point where food is in short supply.
 
Back on thread...

"Boilings" as a name for sweets isn't that unusual. Maynards still do them (and they call them "old-fashioned" sweets.

Within six feet from where I type is my half finished jar of "Soor Plooms".:D An old fashioned sweet.

"musthaunted" you mentioned that the girl had an English accent. Could her confusion have stemmed from being in a Scottish Poundshop which may differ from the usual pound shop that she was used to?

Is the St. James Centre difficult to navigate if you were a tourist?

I was also wondering "musthaunted" if you'd googled the outfit the girl was wearing and had come across anything similar? Could you post a link so we could a wee look see and better picture her?
 
I've just started reading John Keel's Mothman book and there's a bit about a strange bloke going into Max's Kansas City and not really knowing what he's doing. He asks the waitress for 'food', he doesn't appear to know what he's doing so she suggests steak. When she brings it to him she has to show him how to use the knife and fork and how to eat.

Alien or as suggested a performance artist who is aware of accounts such as these?
 
These people may just be people who don't get out much, and are a bit disorientated by the sights and sounds.
I must admit this has happened to me once or twice, when I've found myself in unfamiliar surroundings.

Sorry to be 'mundane'...
 
drbates said:
Mooks,

So you're actually saying that this thread SHOULD be 'Perfectly ordinary girl in strange poundshop'?

Perhaps musthaunted has accidentally made his was from the other side of the mirror, so to speak ;)
Click to expand...

IMO all Poundshops are strange.
 
I've always liked the idea of other creatures living among humans that aren't actually human -- whether alien or indigenous life-form. "Strange People" and "Strange People II" in The Human Condition tell of some "persons" that seemed to be imitators of human beings. So does IHTM's "Man in Human Suit":

http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=21110&highlight=human+suit

And, being as I'm in reality a six-foot cockroach dressed as a human being, I have to ask: What's a Pound Shop?[/url]
 
If I can take a guess, it's like a dollar store in America.......a bargain shop were everything is priced at around a dollar or a pound?
 
Could she have been on drugs? I saw some people in tesco the other night who were on something or other, they spent about half an hour awkwardly negotiating the buying of sushi, then dropped it on the pavement outside. They then spent ages picking it all up and putting everything back in its right place, before bearing the whole packet off triumphantly.

The point is, the usual social interactions of eg. shopping were quite laboured and obviously needing some thinking about, to the end that they both were acting really weirdly.
 
That might explain the pizza thing too, not so much not knowing what one was, but if someone had an E for the first time they wouldn;t know that food is like cardboard afterwards.
 
Moooksta said:
drbates said:
Mooks,

So you're actually saying that this thread SHOULD be 'Perfectly ordinary girl in strange poundshop'?

Perhaps musthaunted has accidentally made his was from the other side of the mirror, so to speak ;)
Click to expand...

IMO all Poundshops are strange.
Click to expand...

People who loot them are even stranger. Maybe they were aliens.
 
I like the idea of 'time tourists'.

Imagine being able to go back in time and visit a favourite era for a few hours/days. Trying to dress up in appropriate time dress (and not be even 10/20 years out - look how old fashioned 80s / 90s clothes are in the 201x-s, never mind 60s/70s clothes!)

Perhaps in the future, a future where humankind has been driven underground after some surface cataclysm, old sweet catalogues tell of boiled sweets. No-one has seen a fresh pepper or eaten a pizza in centuries.

Unfortunately though, Occam's razor prefers the mundane, be it performance artists at the fringe, or plain substance abuse.
 
I just read The Mothman Prophecies, Spudrick68, and it made me think of the same thing!

Tell you what else all of this reminds me of, when I used to go shopping late on a Saturday night in the large Tescos in the city centre. There used to be real oddballs walking around, women and men, dressed really weirdly and acting strange. One time I asked my brother who used the same store if he saw the oddballs too. He had to gently take me to one side and tell me the women were prostitutes and the men were cruising! :oops:
 
May I say that I live in Edinburgh, and there are a number of shops where you can buy a type of sweet - actually a mixture of various different boiled sweets - specifically called "Old Fashioned". So all this girl was really doing was asking for a bag of sweeties in a sweet-shop which didn't happen to sell that particular kind - most sweet shops don't, though off-hand I can think of at least four that do. She probably wanted them for an elderly relative and wasn't very sure where to buy such things. But she wasn't asking for "old fashioned" merchandise in a weird time-traveller way, she was using a specific brand-name for sweets in a sweet shop. And if her clothes were a bit retro, I can think of several shops in Edinburgh that sell retro clothes mostly to young people who like that sort of thing. By the way, I bought a bag of "Old Fashioned" once. Some of them taste so weird that it's not entirely implausible that buying them on purpose more than once proves you're an alien.
 
Scribbles said:
One time I asked my brother who used the same store if he saw the oddballs too. He had to gently take me to one side and tell me the women were prostitutes and the men were cruising! :oops:
Click to expand...

streetwalkers plying their trade in tescos? :lol: what nonsense! I think your brother may have been winding you up. what did you perceive to be odd about them anyway?
 
I don't know that they were plying their trade Tony, I think it was more trying to see what they could nick! They'd use the make-up and sprays and stuff! And their dress was just off-key. I can't really remember exact examples now, but think puffa jackets and thigh high boots in the height of summer type stuff. Overly dolled-up, but looking wretched all the same.

The men however were fine examples of the male species, tight t-shirts over well-toned bodies sort of stuff, smelling nice, and walking around using their peripheral vision excessively, clocking who'd noticed them. I have a vague memory of one guy, tall, blonde, impossibly handsome, always carrying an umbrella no matter the weather.

All this was *gulp* must be going on twenty years ago now, and I was new to this city then (my brother wasn't). Maybe the store is clear of all of that sort of stuff now. I don't shop there anymore. There were never enough baskets/trolleys and the queues were always bad.
 
The blokes could have been prostitutes too....
 
Recycled1 said:
In suppose they might just be from some isolated, (in bred?) Amish type community where modern transport and TV etc were forbidden, in which case they might not have heard of pizza. But in that case, how come they were able to travel to the UK?
Click to expand...

Many if not most of the Amish and other similar groups in the US are familiar with most aspects of modern life, they just choose to live their particular lifestyle. They are often in/near cities with other groups of people and interact with them.
 
Regarding the original post I'm wondering perhaps that the girl had Mental Health Issues?

Not to stereotype people but pound shops are not uncommon places for people with Mental Illness due to lack of money if they are not working.

It may even explain the "matronly", (odd/frumpy), type clothing, this again can be fairly typical of say people with Schizophrenia, who's either illness symptoms or medication side effects can cause extreme lethargy and a marked lack of interest about what they wear and how they look. Also again the older clothing may be the result of living on a benefit.

The illness itself causes introspection, with people appearing deeply preoccupied, troubled or anxious. The illness can also cause marked social skills impairment, dissociation, emotional detachment, depressed mood and disorientation.

My theory would be that a young lady with schizophrenia, who comes from a small town or at least not a resident of Edinburgh is out with family of maybe out on an organised day trip and for whatever reason has been given the task of getting some sweets. It would explain her confusion about her surroundings.

My other theory It may even been part of some Cognitive Behavioural Therapy work with someone who has a fear of shops or some other social phobia. Usually you give a person a structured task to perform. So after working up to it, going into town, you both agree to go to a certain shop and buy something, can or can't be specific and then leave. This would explain her struggling with the situation as she would be in a high state of anxiety which again would explain her confusion.

The shop assistant would be helpful as she had a better view and understanding of the situation and also I'm guessing has meet a lot of strange people working in a pound shop.

So I don't think and alien just unfortunately an alienated young lady marginalised by society that has very little interest in mental illness. :(
 
Wanted to make a quick note.........I am watching an episode of the Twilight Zone titled "Hocus Pocus and Mr.Frisby", based on an untitled story by Frederic Louis Fox, written for the small screen by Rod Serling. It seems to be an early example of MIB characters mixed with Human Imposters.

See if you can get your eyes on the episode......don't look up the Wiki Site as it has spoilers!

Just though it was interesting as this comes from so long ago.
 
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