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The Case of the Teleporting Giant Spiders

Urvogel

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Dec 23, 2012
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163
Not the sort of thread you should read if you’re arachnophobic!

These are just three odd incidents that happened to me. By themselves they’re nothing spectacular, but since it’s happened multiple times...well, you know what they say, once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, thrice is a conspiracy. I’m not too sure of the dates, but based on where I was living and my job at the time I’d say they happened between 2002-2005.

The first incident happened late one evening. My family had gone to bed but I was stopping up late to watch a movie. The adverts came on and I decided to head to the kitchen and make myself a cup of tea.

Our kitchen was very small, about 4m x 2m. If you imagine you were looking at it from above the doorframe to the living room was on the bottom right and the door to the outside on the left wall. Cabinets were along the top, bottom and right wall, so the space to walk formed an L shape that connected the two entrances. A light hung from the ceiling in the middle and the kettle was by the outside door.

I turned on the kitchen light and heard a THUMP. It was so loud I thought something had fallen off the shelves, but nothing was out of place. Puzzled at what had made the noise I looked down.

In the middle of the kitchen floor was the largest spider I have seen in my life.

Now I know most people say that when confronted with big spiders, but this one was seriously enormous. It was a monstrous thing with thick legs that curled up high around it like buttresses and its whole body was an evil brown colour. If stretched out the legs would have easily been 3 inches long.

And it was between me and the kettle.

As much as I dislike spiders I don’t really like killing them, instead catching them and letting them go outside, so I slowly edged round this monster to reach a cup (if it had ran for me I probably would have wet myself!). I got the cup, only to discover it was too big to fit in! After ramming it in I weighed the cup down with a saucer and left a note on it since I wasn’t going to shift that thing :oops:

This is only a minor thing, not exactly spooky or paranormal, but how did that spider get there? It was a small house, there’s no way a spider the size of a tarantula would have escaped detection for so long. Also the THUMP must have come from it, perhaps it fell off the light when I turned it on, but why would a spider just fall like that? And would falling from a height of 7 feet really make that much noise? I honestly thought a jar had fallen it was so loud.

Which ties into the second incident. I used to work in a Wacky Warehouse type place (absolutely horrendous job, btw). It was a large concrete warehouse, the roof about 30ft above. I was in the seating area for the parents when suddenly my gaze was pulled towards a nondescript part of the carpet. There was nothing odd or unusual, it was just a bit of carpet. Then WHOMPF, from out of nowhere, a giant spider literally appeared from out of thin air on the carpet right before my eyes. It didn’t fall, it didn’t scuttle over, it just popped into existence. It was black with a white pattern on its abdomen. After a moment of puzzlement I caught it in a glass and it went berserk, rearing up and hissing at me. I chucked it outside.

Perhaps this spider had fallen from the ceiling, but surely I would have seen it fall? It literally just blinked into existence right in front of me. One second it wasn’t there, the next it was. There was also the fact I was compelled to look at that empty patch of carpet right before it happened.

Now on to my final incident. This is the best one.

My brother and I were downstairs in the living room, our mother upstairs asleep. He was watching TV, I was on the computer. Something moved in front of my vision and I realised it was a big spider dangling by a thread. I squeaked and jerked away, which my brother found hilarious until it descended to the floor and ran towards him (my brother is extremely arachnophobic). I caught the spider in an opaque cup, and we decided to wash it down the bathroom sink. I slid a piece of thin card under the cup so I could pick it up and keep the spider inside. Because big sisters are mean my brother was convinced I’d let the spider go/throw it at him, so watched me like a hawk as I picked up the cup and went upstairs. I had no intention of letting a spider run all over me so kept the card securely pressed again the cup so it couldn’t escape. We got to the bathroom and turned on the tap. I would yank the card free so the spider would fall into the water and be swept away. On the count of three. One two three-

Nothing.

I looked inside the cup and on the card. Nothing. No spider. It had vanished.

There was no way the spider could have escaped the cup. If it had I would have felt it run on my arms, and I was keeping the card securely in place to stop that happening. My brother was watching the cup constantly and would have screamed blue murder if it had escaped. So where did this spider go?

Three random events, not too impressive, but the fact this thing has happened multiple times, all involving colossal arachnids...do we have teleporting giant spiders where I live? :shock:
 
:eek!!!!: :cross eye :splat:

I'm very arachnophobic but had to read those stories! Do you like spiders in general? You are so brave dealing with them, I'd be stood on a chair, screaming!
 
Hello Urvogel and welcome to the forum. Two questions...

The first spider - did you mean that one of its legs would be about three inches long, giving it an overall legspan in the region of 6+ inches?

The second spider - did anyone else see it apart from you?
 
These sound like huge spiders indeed for this country.
Fascinating stories!
 
That disappearing spider thing is very weird. But as strange as it is, the worst thing is never knowing when it will show up again. I am extremely phobic about spiders too, and once I had a similar situation with a gigantic spider, completely black, as big around as a saucer and almost crab shaped appearing suddenly in the middle of my living room floor. (I live near Washington, DC, and have never seen anything remotely similar here.) Like you, I use the cup/cardboard method for ushering spiders outside when I can; but this time I grabbed a thick telephone book and dropped it directly on top of the spider. I have no memory as to how I disposed of the corpse.
 
Mythopoeika said:
These sound like huge spiders indeed for this country.
Fascinating stories!

The brown spider sounds like a Huntsman to me - quite common here and nasty looking, but essentially harmless.

I had a huge one crawling out of the air vent in my car last year - they startle you but as I said - they really can't do you any harm.
 
I had a similar incident with a giant wasp once. In few into my room whilst I was playing computer games with my friend. No idea where it came from becausethe windows was closed (it came from the direction of the window) and it really was massive! We tried to kill it but were too scared to get too close so we closed the door & fetched my mom to deal with it (I was about 15 at the time I guess).
When she came to the room a few seconds later there was no sign of it. We ripped the room apart for half a day looking for it (even got the carpets up) but no sign so we gave up.
About 6 months later I was lying in bed and suddenly the same huge wasp appeared from nowhere - one second nothing - the next loud buzzing & its flying in the middle of the room. It wouldnt have got there without buzzing over there & attracting attention doing so.
This time I had the courage to flatten it when it headbutted the window.
 
Oh great, now spiders and wasps can teleport. What's next, time-travelling rattlesnakes?
 
Zilch5 said:
The brown spider sounds like a Huntsman to me - quite common here and nasty looking, but essentially harmless.

I had a huge one crawling out of the air vent in my car last year - they startle you but as I said - they really can't do you any harm.

The original poster seems to be in England, though, and you don't get huntsman spiders there as far as I know. I've noticed flies can do a vanishing act, but the news that spiders do the same is of no comfort.
 
gncxx said:
Zilch5 said:
The brown spider sounds like a Huntsman to me - quite common here and nasty looking, but essentially harmless.

I had a huge one crawling out of the air vent in my car last year - they startle you but as I said - they really can't do you any harm.

The original poster seems to be in England, though, and you don't get huntsman spiders there as far as I know. I've noticed flies can do a vanishing act, but the news that spiders do the same is of no comfort.

No Hutsman spiders in England? What sort of a critter was it then?
 
If it was a huntsman (or some other non-native species) could someone (perhaps one of the neighbors?) have been keeping it as a curiosity or a pet and it escaped...err teleported out of its cage? Some people keep tarantulas as pets so it's not unheard of.

OP, in the second case, could the spider have been on the carpet all along and it took your brain a moment to process what you were seeing, kind of like one of those magic eye pictures, the way they seem to suddenly pop into view?
 
We got a huntsman in a box of bananas at work several months ago. It was caught in a tupperware container for the someone to pick up and do whatever they do with themIt may be a Tegenaria duellica. Apparently they are native to UK and can go up to 5 inches acrross (including leg span).

The following linky shows pictures of them, for any arachnophobes. That includes me BTW.

http://www.uksafari.com/housespiders.htm
 
OP, in the second case, could the spider have been on the carpet all along and it took your brain a moment to process what you were seeing, kind of like one of those magic eye pictures, the way they seem to suddenly pop into view?

What a nice surprise that would have been.

As for the first brown spider could it have been one of those huge reddish brown ones, that seem to be a bit cryptidy, as you can't find any reference to them in any native species lists. I've seen one of these bastards, a huge thing about the same leg span with, as the op says, thick legs and enormous fangs. They are capable of giving a painful bite.

Perhaps the ones I'm thinking of are similar to these;

http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=7
 
Thanks for the replies everyone!

cherrybomb said:
Do you like spiders in general? You are so brave dealing with them, I'd be stood on a chair, screaming!

I'm not a huge fan let's say! Little money spiders I don't mind, I'll happily catch them and toss them out. Garden spiders I wouldn't touch but they don't scare me. Ruddy big spiders with massive legs though...no chance :shock:

davidplankton said:
The first spider - did you mean that one of its legs would be about three inches long, giving it an overall legspan in the region of 6+ inches?

The second spider - did anyone else see it apart from you?

1) Yes, each leg was approx 3 inches long. It was sitting with its legs bent though, not splayed out. So if you were looking at it head on it would look like /\O/\

2) Nobody else saw it appear but other people saw it. I caught it in a glass and people took a look at it since it was rearing up and hissing.

bunnymousekitt said:
OP, in the second case, could the spider have been on the carpet all along and it took your brain a moment to process what you were seeing, kind of like one of those magic eye pictures, the way they seem to suddenly pop into view?

I don't think so. The carpet was green and the spider black and white, plus the spider was in clear relief from the carpet. Plus I worked there for two years and never saw anything else pop into view from the carpet.

Spudrick68 said:

This is the bastard from the first story! If you look at the picture of the spider on the person's arm the one I saw was a little bit bigger than that. Reading it and finding out that these thing readily attack humans with no provocation...I'm surprised it didn't go for me when I edged round it :shock:
 
I was reading about it and found out that we also have a native spider called the Hobo spider. Thankfully they live mostly outside because of competition from house spiders. They are aggressive partly due to poor eyesight. They are possibly the only U.K. spider who's bite can be 'medically significant'. It is described as being necrotic!
 
Spudrick68 said:
They are possibly the only U.K. spider who's bite can be 'medically significant'. It is described as being necrotic!

Their bite is, and I have the evidence on my left leg to prove it. I lost a great deal of supporting tissue, and now my leg bulges out about four inches to the right (that is towards my other leg).
 
The bit about the spider rearing up and hissing doesn't sound like our native spiders to me (mind you when one appears I've never around long enough to find out!).

I found this on Wikipedia
Before biting, tarantulas may signal their intention to attack by rearing up into a "threat posture", which may involve raising their prosoma and lifting their front legs into the air, spreading and extending their fangs, and (in certain species) making a loud hissing by stridulating

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarantula
 
I am pretty phobic about spiders; unfortunately so is the b/f, so to spare his horror I tend to be the one that catches them and chucks them out (with a pint glass).
While I have never (thank goodness) seen any monstrosities appear from nowhere, I have seen some truly enormous house spiders - the largest in an old place of work.

Not long ago I found a page called 'Spider Myths', and after reading it, didn't feel quite so bad about them, though reading this thread has set me back a bit.

It's here: http://www.burkemuseum.org/spidermyth/

It is pretty interesting, although the bloke's advice about not putting house spiders outside as they've evolved to live within doors, (and may not survive long) and just 'wave as they go by,' because they're 'harmless and beneficial'... I am not at that stage yet. :?

E.T.A.
The article says that house spiders don't come into the house during the autumn. I always believed they did, and got very 'spider-conscious' in September, especially if it got cool or rainy, when I would close all the windows and doors. A few years back, the b/f's parents came to watch a film, and it was pouring with rain. The b/f's father mentioned that he was hot, so b/f obligingly opened the back door. I came downstairs, saw it open, and shut it. This went on for about two hours, with the door being opened and my shutting it to keep out the droves of spiders that would obviously make a beeline for the door and the promise of a nice dry house.
When I told b/f why I was closing the door, he said he hadn't known, but again I came down to find the door open, and a tarantula on the door-mat.

B/f has a large, realistic plastic tarantula which he'd positioned in that raised hissing position on the mat. If I'd had my glasses on, I would have known it wasn't real, and seriously logic should have dictated that it was not a wandering tarantula in the south of England. But I wasn't wearing my glasses, things were a bit blurry, I was nervous and annoyed.
I let out such a scream before running at it with a very heavy book.

I didn't really forgive the b/f, because he also had a smaller plastic house spider, (still very big) and when I turned the bed covers back later, he'd put it on the under sheet. :roll:
 
That's really disturbing SHAYBARSABE, I hope you cope OK. Perhaps I have some grounds for my phobia after all.
 
I've known really large house spiders to make a noise when threatened, a sort of hissy squeak.
A girl I worked with told me this story- her and her hubby were bothered one night by the sound of dripping water, worried about a leak they checked all the pipes but couldn't find anything. They eventually discovered a huge house spider walking along a wall - the noise was the sound of its feet as it walked!
I've heard this too, I lived in an ancient cottage and they always have the biggest spiders, me and my sister could hear a tapping noise, turned the light on to discover a huge spider on the wall. We were slightly relieved as we had thought at first it was a ghost.
Weirdest thing happened in the same room - I had a scary dream that a huge spider was hanging on a thread just above my face. I was so scared when I woke up I turned the bedside light on and there over my head was a spider hanging on a thread! I wouldn't have been able to see it as it was totally dark with no street lighting.
I'm sure some of the House spiders I have seen in cottages are larger than the maximum size listed for the species.
 
I quite like spiders, and find them fascinating - although I hate the sensation of getting mixed up with a web. I actually keep seven tarantulas (and three whip spiders :) ) as pets, and I find it interesting that you chose the word "teleporting", as that is exactly the word people in the hobby use to describe the way some of the faster species (i.e. most of them) can move so fast they really do appear to be doing just that!

As I say, I like spiders. But it can be a bit disconcerting to remove the lid from a container and find you suddenly have a spider the size of a respectable mouse perched on your arm, looking just as confused as you are about how it got there...!
 
monops said:
I actually keep seven tarantulas (and three whip spiders :) ) as pets

If you have tarantulas there's a fun prank you can play on the people you live with. Works best with housemates. Keep a tarantula is a very conspicuous place, like in a jar in the living room. Keep it there for several days, then remove the spider but keep the jar there.

When anybody asks where the tarantula is, say "Oh don't worry, it's around here somewhere."

Don't do this if you live with Fanari though :lol:
 
Thanks for that - it might come in handy!!

Tarantulas moult regularly as they grow, and a good moult comes off in one piece. They're very fragile, but they really do look like the spider they came from. I got revenge on Mr Monops once (don't worry - he deserved it!) by moistening a particularly large and colourful moult (they're very brittle when they're dry) and positioning it in a lifelike pose in our bath, then waiting for Mr P to go for a pee...

I could tell the exact moment he spotted it from the crash and the shout of "Holy F**K!" :D
 
Not a giant spider, but last weekend when the weather was at its coldest I noticed one arachnid had spun a web on one of my bookshelves. It must have done it pretty quickly, too. It was very sleepy when I fetched the regulation glass and postcard so I wondered where it found the energy, the heating hadn't been on for hours.

Also, later that day I found a housefly buzzing around the kitchen. Both of these in the dead of winter!
 
Giant wasp explained

The previous post about the giant wasp was probably about a queen wasp that was looking for a place to hibernate. I had several do this in my lounge in Pinner, North West London. My lounge was warm, bright and near food sources in central Pinner. Months later, when the queens thought that Spring had arrived, i.e. when it was warm and bright in the lounge, they emerged and buzzed around me. It was pretty scary because they were fairly big by UK standards and I have been somewhat phobic toward buzzing insects. I either let them out through the windows or killed them with a newspaper.
 
I had another incident earlier!

The other night I went upstairs to bed and spotted a giant patterned spider on the corner of the ceiling. It was above the stairwell so the farthest it could be from the floor. I called Mr. Urvogel who couldn't reach it. In the end I squibbed some air freshener at it from a distance and it dropped like a stone onto the stairs. We caught it and let it go outside.

The next night I go to bed, and the spider's back! I say it was the same spider as it was the same size, the same species and in the exact same spot! I squib the air freshener again...and exactly like before it drops like a stone. I caught it and this time let it go at the bottom of the street.

Either this spider has a homing instinct or it's stuck in some kind of timeloop...
 
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