Well, I don’t encounter combs, rubber bands, gloves, socks, bottles of curdling milk or grape Fruitopia.
I do see the occasional brick, shoe, and discarded mattress, and there is a local spot where a great number of shoes dangle from the telephone wires.
What I mostly see in great abundance everywhere I go is discarded plastic drink containers, fast food wrappers, empty plastic bags, cigarette butts, hub caps, and random articles of clothing. I have always just interpreted these patterns of observation as evidence of the slovenliness of my fellow Americans who can’t be bothered to find a trash can. But perhaps my interpretation has been overly simplistic and wedded to the predominant rational-reductionist paradigm? Revealing yet again the subtle yet pernicious power of one's cultural conditioning to constrain the mind and the thought process!
Given that there is indeed a Fortean phenomenon at work here, then one is confronted with the puzzle that although certain patterns of found objects do seem to generally recur, they also display a strange, almost perverse variation from one observer to another. With further study, it may well emerge that the pattern of objects encountered varies as a function of the observer’s geographic location and corresponding dominant cultural milieu, which some authors assert is also true of UFOs. An exhaustive literature search might also reveal whether these patterns change over time. But of course, the skeptics will debunk it all and no mainstream university or research institution will ever display the courage or intellectual integrity to give such research the funding it deserves. Another lost opportunity to deepen man’s understanding of the mysterious cosmos we inhabit.