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The Strange Room

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Anonymous

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Mel Phillips

In about June 1995 I was going to work. I lived right next to where I worked at that time. A security badge was required to enter through the back door to the building where I worked. I went up the stairs to the second floor and turned right to enter a large work area I always entered, but to my shock, there was only a small room that had windows where a wall should have been.

http://217.206.205.129/happened/strangeroom.shtml

Link is dead. See post below for complete text.
 
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IHTM said:
Mel Phillips

In about June 1995 I was going to work. I lived right next to where I worked at that time. A security badge was required to enter through the back door to the building where I worked. I went up the stairs to the second floor and turned right to enter a large work area I always entered, but to my shock, there was only a small room that had windows where a wall should have been.

http://217.206.205.12/happened/strangeroom.shtml

The link in this article should actually read:-
http://217.206.205.129/happened/strangeroom.shtml

Not trying to be pedantic honest, just doing my helpful deed for the day for anyone who comes across this post and has any problems. :D

Cheers,

Carnacki
 
This reminds me of stories that I hear from time to time in the westcountry about people being 'pixie-led'. The story goes that the pixies confuse people into becoming lost or believing that their environment is different to what it actually is (i.e being in a normal field but unable to see any gate) even when they are in very familiar surroundings. The cure is said to be turning out your pockets and turning your coat inside out. Maybe the pixies have gone urban.......
 
This reminds me of the Wesleyan University (Nebraska) story
of the secretary who walked into the library, looked out the window, and saw the campus as it had been in the distant past.
Frightened, she ran back into the hallway, and all was back to normal. I have the whole account in a book somewhere... but I'm sure the complete story is only a Google search away!

It also reminds me of the scene in Moonraker where
007 drags M into the lab where the "nerve gas" (or whatever
it was) was being produced, and the villian has transformed the
room into a very posh and stately library... seemingly overnight.

Fascinating occurence!

TVgeek
 
That Nebraska campus story sounds more like a timeslip scenario to me......maybe looking into the history of this building would shed some light on what happened - like whether or not there was a small room there before it became the open plan office you describe? I guess that is logical in a way, whenever we think of timeslips we (or perhaps just me) tend to think of monks and cavaliers and the like, but if you believe that this can happen then it's just as likely you could see a room the way it was before as opposed to the way it is now.
 
This sounds like an experience I had at work a few months ago:

I work on the second floor of a large office bulding, and to get outside for a cigarette I have to walk down two flights of stairs, round the corner into a long corridor which leads past the canteen, and into the main lobby, which then leads outside. I never have any cause to visit the floor in-between.

On this particular morning I followed the usual route downstairs, but when I turned the corner I was surprised to see that I was in the wrong place. It was a corridor as it should have been, but all the exits off it seemed to be missing or in the wrong place. I felt rather silly, assuming that I had only gone down one flight of stairs instead of two, and walked back to the landing ... only to find out that I was on the ground floor already!

This whole disorientating experience lasted no longer than a couple of minutes, but looking back on it, I've realised something else - I didn't see any of my fellow employees during this time, which is unusual in itself.

Any thoughts?
 
Sthenno said:
This reminds me of stories that I hear from time to time in the westcountry about people being 'pixie-led'. The story goes that the pixies confuse people into becoming lost or believing that their environment is different to what it actually is (i.e being in a normal field but unable to see any gate) even when they are in very familiar surroundings. The cure is said to be turning out your pockets and turning your coat inside out. Maybe the pixies have gone urban.......

You won't find any pixies in your neck of the woods tho' - they were or forced to live east of the River Parett (Somerset) after losing a war with the fairies ;)
 
Are you talking about the great cheese war, after which the Gnomes siezed the Winchester treacle mines from the dog headed snail riders?
 
Once I accompanied my boyfriend to the airport. I was to drive his prized Mercedes home and then pick him up a week later. We parked one parking space over from the elevator on the 2nd floor of the airport parking garage. We took the elevator down to the ground level. I saw him off on the plane.

Then I returned to the elevator, and rode it up to the 2nd floor. I turned to my left, but the space was empty! No car! I double checked the floor--yes, it was the 2nd! I was in terror. How would I explain this? How would I get home? (I was 2 hrs away from home.)

Not knowing what else to do, but praying for a miracle, I rode the elevator back down to the ground floor. I rode back up to the 2nd floor. And there the car was.

I still have no explanation for this and a mistake was impossible. The airport is too small.
 
Pixie-led in a mediaeval castle.....

This happened at Conwy Castle in Wales when I was 11.
I was on holiday with my family and we kids were excitedly exploring, as kids do.

I became separated from my brothers and walked all around the top level (battlements) before returning to the tower I'd come up and descending to the lowest level, the basement or dungeon.

When I'd seen enough I tried to walk out at ground level, but couldn't find the door. I went up and down the tower a few times and along the battlement, from where I could see the door I'd been looking for. But no matter how I tried I could not reach ground level from that tower. I walked all round the battlements and up and down every other tower and in and out at ground level, until I reached the tower with the dungeon: no door.

Yet I could see the door from outside and people must have been using it, and I had entered through it in the first place. Mad.
 
This thread is fascinating!

I have a complaint though - Escargot and the_discordian, you didn't tell us how you "snapped out of it"...or do you not remember?
How did Escargot get down the tower in the end?
How did discordian finally find out where the right floor was?

Please tell!!!

pinkle
 
Questions

Mel - did you actually enter the smaller room?

It reminds me of those stories of people seen walking across a field who just vanish -- one must wonder if they saw a different landscape.

Had you entered the room, might you have vanished?

Were the hairs on your arms standing up or anything like that? Did it feel uncanny, or was it simply mind-boggling?

discordian - Is there any chance it was taken and returned in the interim? Some twerp joy-riding perhaps?

Also, was here a 12th floor?

Speaking of which, anyone here ever see the move THE 13TH FLOOR? Between that and BEING JOHN MALKOVITCH, I'd be careful out there, folks.
 
How I Left The Tower-

I decided that I wasn't going to get out by the way I'd come in so I headed for the top of the tower and went out out the battlements where I eventually met up with my family again. I felt great relief at finding them, yet they didn't seem to have missed me, even though I reckon I'd been out of sight for an hour!

All the time I was 'lost' there were people coming and going as normal. In fact, nothing was at all unusual except that dratted doorway going missing.

(May I add that I even tried methodically covering every inch of the up-down route by walking up & down the stairs with one hand on the wall- nothing.)

I have been back there several times over the years but never had any trouble.
 
Re: Questions

FraterLibre said:
Also, was here a 12th floor?

Speaking of which, anyone here ever see the move THE 13TH FLOOR? Between that and BEING JOHN MALKOVITCH, I'd be careful out there, folks.

Once again, many a true word...
I work on the 40th floor of a downtown building (I'm there, now!)
and occasionally I have to use the service elevator, which stops at all 50 floors (rather than the express, which only stops at floors 39 and above.)

One day, while travelling up in the service elevator, the
car stopped at the 13th floor. No one got on, and since I was the only one aboard, no one got off.

Not unheard of... just really, really creepy.
I'd heard that buildings of this era were purposely built WITHOUT a 13th floor... at least, numerically... there is no actual gap in the building! ;)
TVgeek
 
13th Floor

That your building has a numbered 13th floor, and that the elevator also numbers it, it unusual, from what I've heard. I must admit I have very little experience of high-rises, though.

And after 9/11 I'll continue having as little experience of them as possible, thanks.
 
It reminds me of those stories of people seen walking across a field who just vanish -- one must wonder if they saw a different landscape.


there are at least three short stories by ambrose bierce about this subject - one is titled "the unfinished race", the other "the difficulty of crossing a field" and the third one - well, it escapes me now...
 
Sweet Ambrose

Yes! Thanks for reminding me. Ambrose Bierce is a favorite of mine. How could I have forgotten?

In fact, I've often wondered if these Bierce stories weren't at least in part inspiration for Charles Fort.
 
A Bit Strange.......

When I saw the title of this thread, I immediatly thought of an old short story by Ambrose Bierce. Thought it might be something about that story ( a rehash, update,etc..). Then reading the thread which of course is unrelated, and finding Bierce squirmed into the thread anyway...Weird..

Note: the story was about two men in Kentucky who were caught in a rainstorm and found refuge in a decrepit old house. Searching the house, they entered a small room, and saw a group of dead men ,women,and children in various states of decay. As they turned to exit, the one man noticed that there was no handle on the inside of the door...and it was closing..He staggered towards the door being overwhelmed by some force and just managed to get through the door before it closed..He then passed out and woke up outside the house..His friend was never seen again and this guy was charged in the murder..He told his story but could not find the house again...(heavily edited and strictly by memory but you get the general idea..):eek!!!!:
 
Yes! Thanks for reminding me. Ambrose Bierce is a favorite of mine. How could I have forgotten? In fact, I've often wondered if these Bierce stories weren't at least in part inspiration for Charles Fort.

In Lo! Fort mentions Bierce as part of a series of reports of "mysterious" disappearances and reappearances.

Late in the year 1913, Ambrose Bierce disappeared. It was explained. He had gone to Mexico, to join Villa, and had been killed at the Battle of Torreon. New York Times, April 3, 1915 -- mystery of Bierce's disappearance solved -- he was upon Lord Kitchener's staff, in the recruiting service, in London. New York Times, April 7, 1915 -- no knowledge of Bierce, at the War Office, London. In March, 1920, newspapers published a dispatch from San Francisco, telling that Bierce had gone to Mexico, to fight against Villa, and had been shot. It would be a fitting climax to the life of this broad-minded writer to be widely at work in London, while in Mexico, and to be killed while fighting for and against Villa. But that is pretty active for one, who, as Joseph Lewis French points out, in Pearson's Magazine, 39-245, was incurably an invalid and was more than seventy years old. For the latest, at this writing, see the New York Times, Jan. 1, 1928. Here there is an understandable explanation of the disappearance. It is that Bierce had criticised Villa.... I wonder whether Ambrose Bierce ever experimented with self-teleportation. Three of his short stories are of "mysterious disappearances. He must have been uncommonly interested to repeat so.
 
Do you suppose the climatic changes are what's causing magic mushrooms season to be early do some of you live in places where its that time anyhow?
 
Do you suppose the climatic changes are what's causing magic mushrooms season to be early do some of you live in places where its that time anyhow?
It's remarkable how profuse magic mushrooms are on the route of ley lines. Perhaps it's just a coincidence. Or, perhaps they mark a proximity to ancient settlements.
 
there are at least three short stories by ambrose bierce about this subject - one is titled "the unfinished race", the other "the difficulty of crossing a field" and the third one - well, it escapes me now...
It's probably `Charles Ashmore's Trail.'
 
I can't recall if its title was Trail or not but I'm pretty sure it was by Bierce, though I can't deny Ambroses's contribution to literature. Waiting at the doctor's would drag so but for him.
 
Excellent Citaton

Tattoo Ted - Bravo, wonderful excerpt. Thanks!
 
The days when people were proud to join Villa are sadly long gone. I bet they wish they'd hung on to Paul Merson now.
 
A Strange Room.

The days when people were proud to join Villa are sadly long gone. I bet they wish they'd hung on to Paul Merson now.
I suspect that some people may think that this thread has gone astray. Probably, yes.

I lived for several months in an old pub in the East Anglia as a young man. The Pub was a 400 years old, brick and timber building, with some internal walls of lathe and horse hair plaster, some probably original.

I remember thinking some of the walls around the stair well leading to the attic were a bit thicker than was called for. I thought that it had something to do with the flu for the chimey, which was wide enough for a small person to climb up. Even so, didn't seem quite right somehow.

I soon left again, on my travels and it was years later, when someone still living in the area told me that one of the new owners of the pub had put in central heating, and in the process had discovered the entrance to a hidden, priest hole, which had been plastered over in the distant past.

I never experienced paranormal activity of any sort whilst I stayed there. Although, I always felt the Pub, itself, was an inherently happy place.
 
strange room

I got lost in a "rare thick fog "here in florida once while walking home after leaving a pub,,the pub was called "british pub, they served" traditional , "beverages-food-and what not. it was the first time I went .It was new and in walking distance..when I left..I crossed the street (main drag) and entered our sub-division..the fog was so thick you could not see two feet in front of you I kid you not, it was unbelievable! I wondered all over the housing tracks many streets ,twist and turns., and got so frustrated (I also had a little buzz going) that I could scream!-I was in a complete loss what to do.I was ready to just chuck it all and find a hidey hole and go to sleep...but, eventual after one more try and a wee bit more visiblity I was able to find my street and house.there has never been a fog like that again.
 
In a Fog

ruff - Those pea-soup fogs were common back in London during the industrial revolution, and are still common in many cities today where too much industry and no pollution control leads to smog and temperature inversions are common.

Los Angeles accomplishes smog alerts mostly with car exhaust. Peking and other Chinese cities are now experiencing "Longon" fogs.

I recall the opening of Bleak House by Charles Dickens, describing the fog permeating things. How right he was, especially metaphorically.
 
This thread reminded me of an incident that happened to me quite recently.

A couple of friends from out of town had come to visit for the day and we set off from my house walking into the town centre. At the end of my street there is a T-junction and on the opposite side of the junction there is a broad alleyway which I have frequently used as a shortcut, so I lead my friends to the junction, crossed the road and tried to go down the alleyway, only to discover that despite it being a bright sunny day, I couldn't see it.

My friends thought this was highly amusing of course, but as we walked up and down the very short stretch of road around the junction, none of us could see the alleyway which I insisted was there. After walking past where it should have been about four or five times, we gave up and I took my friends the long way into town.

I didn't let on to my friends, but the whole incident was very disturbing, I actually felt myself going cold and my skin started crawling. I went back that way the next day and there was the alleyway in plain view, completely unmissable. Weird.

:confused:
 
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