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Weird IHTM Tales From Reddit & Other Sites

Now I've starting pondering the whole thing - did Home Guard have access to telephones? Was there a designated 'phone operator' who would monitor the lines during enemy activity to ensure that calls from HQ were answered? I'd have thought this would be a fairly 'junior' person, or someone with reduced mobility, rather than the Captain. And where were the phones located? Most homes didn't have a phone during WW2, so would it be a business?

More to the point, numbers in the 1940s and numbers in 1974 were likely very different as lots of people had lines installed by the latter date. "Old" phone numbers I've seen are often very short by modern standards. Given that the catalyst for this seems to have been Alma getting a couple of numbers wrong - not sure why that would connect you to 1941, but let's go with it anyway - you most probably wouldn't be dialling anything like a 1940s number if you did.

But like I said, this also supposes the 'wrong number' was what connected you to 1941, which in itself is pretty absurd.

What I would say is that 1974 was at the height of Dad's Army's popularity. And everything about this account, from the premise to the clunky exposition ("you're talking to Lieutenant-Colonel Roberts, the commanding officer of the Wirral battalion of the Home Guard") smacks of fiction.

My suspicion (if there's any element of truth here) is that someone (maybe even "George") was playing a joke on Alma with the aid of a recording of bomber noises. The "Captain Hamilton" version was probably the original, with Roberts' name added later to provide the illusion of veracity.
 
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It's a minor point but if "George" was the sister's brother-in-law, wouldn't he also be Alma's brother-in-law?
 
Now I've starting pondering the whole thing - did Home Guard have access to telephones? Was there a designated 'phone operator' who would monitor the lines during enemy activity to ensure that calls from HQ were answered? I'd have thought this would be a fairly 'junior' person, or someone with reduced mobility, rather than the Captain. And where were the phones located? Most homes didn't have a phone during WW2, so would it be a business?
There was a telephone in the church hall office, which the Captain would take charge of. I know this from the ‘documentary’ Dad’s Army lol. To be fair though, those who wrote and acted in DA did actually have knowledge/were in the Home Guard. I could definitely see Mainwaring saying this.
 
In fairness to Mr Slemen - because I haven't been altogether fair, thus far - could it be that the accounts are genuine and the 'writerly' touch is merely stylistic finesse added to make those accounts more compelling to the reader? Is the hackneyed style perhaps just 'giving the readers what they want/expect'?
 
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In fairness to Mr Slemen - because I haven't been, thus far - could it be that the accounts are genuine and the 'writerly' touch is merely stylistic finesse added to make those accounts more compelling to the reader? Is the hackneyed style perhaps just 'giving the readers what they want/expect'?
Having read one of his books he undoubtedly incorporates local myths, legends and claims of paranormal goings-on. That for me is why there is still hope the Frank Bold Street time-slip originated from elsewhere.
 
In fairness to Mr Slemen - because I haven't been altogether fair, thus far - could it be that the accounts are genuine and the 'writerly' touch is merely stylistic finesse added to make those accounts more compelling to the reader? Is the hackneyed style perhaps just 'giving the readers what they want/expect'?

Undoubtedly, but I think more of an issue is that he doesn't really seem to check his stories before people relay them to him: ie if someone says they experienced x then they definitely experienced x and not y under unusual circumstances. In some cases the story seems to already be second-hand and he's simply retelling it.

Lots of Fortean writing is "writerly", even in the fairly dry field of ufology (people like Fuller and Keel were skilled, entertaining writers) but what makes a difference is whether stuff can be checked with names, dates, accurate reported speech, other details. Slemen's stories are often a bit vague on detail and the quotes feel dubious.
 
Undoubtedly, but I think more of an issue is that he doesn't really seem to check his stories before people relay them to him: ie if someone says they experienced x then they definitely experienced x and not y under unusual circumstances. In some cases the story seems to already be second-hand and he's simply retelling it.

Lots of Fortean writing is "writerly", even in the fairly dry field of ufology (people like Fuller and Keel were skilled, entertaining writers) but what makes a difference is whether stuff can be checked with names, dates, accurate reported speech, other details. Slemen's stories are often a bit vague on detail and the quotes feel dubious.
Not only that, there are accusations that he has lifted accounts from other places and relocated them to Liverpool.
 
‘Ghost or timeslip? Ten momentary glimpses of the past from Mumsnet

**Here are ten brief encounters that don't quite fit the mould on a current Mumsnet post discussing ghost sightings:**

**LifesTooShortToLearnPolish** *05/03/2024 20:22*

...I did have a visual experience of my own in my bedroom of my student flat, about 35 years ago. It was a weird old place. In a dim corner I saw a man with a blazer and hat standing in the corner. He looked annoyed. I ran out to get my flatmate but no one was there when we went back in. Felt a bit stupid.

.

**Londongirl78** *05/03/2024 20:34*

We have a large Jacobean mansion near us - it's used as a library, social events, weddings etc. It's also set within a park. During lockdown it was closed to the public and all staff were furloughed - completely closed up. Myself and one of my DDs was walking our dogs within the grounds. We heard lovely music coming from the house - we looked through [a] window and there was a female figure playing the piano. She looked up at us and smiled. She was wearing old fashion[ed] clothes, and was definitely a spirit as she was quite clearly semi-transparent. We ran! Spoke to a landscaper the next day and he confirmed the house was shut. When I told him he wasn't shocked and said she is one of many spirit residents.

.

**NotNowNorman** *05/03/2024 21:13*

I grew up by the seaside in a big old house which had originally been an Edwardian boarding house. When my parents bought it in the 60s as a young couple, it came with a (living!) lodger in the top floor flat; she was a lovely retired lady who used to babysit me and my sisters. She moved out as we grew up, and as a teenager I had her old flat to myself: bedroom, bathroom, kitchenette and a spare room with a big bed opposite the old fireplace.

Years later, Mum and I were discussing moving the furniture around in that spare room, and I suggested moving the bed to face the window, instead of where it was. I reminded her that the bed had once faced the sea because I distinctly remembered, as a child, popping in to say hello to our lodger's guests who'd been staying there. I had a vivid memory of a nice older couple sitting up in bed, having a cigarette and a cup of tea (this would have been the late 70s, so not entirely unusual). The lady's hair was piled on her head, in a high bun. Mum went white and said that not only had our lodger *never* had anyone to stay, but in the entire time she'd lived in the house, the bed had *never* been in any other position.

It's literally only dawned on me now that it was a bit odd that our lodger chose to sleep in the small bedroom when she could have had this big room instead. Hmm.

.

**CatamaranViper** *05/03/2024 21:26*

I worked in a bar that used to be part of an old bank from the early 1800s. There was a section that had a wall that used to be a walkway between sections of the bank so was now the wall that separated two different bars.

I was bringing a group into the section and someone asked why "that couple" was in Victorian fancy dress. I had no idea what she was talking about, then she asked where the door led to and again I was confused. I showed her it was a solid wall and she went white as a sheet. She saw a couple walk through what she assumed was a door, in fancy dress. There was no couple. There was no door.

.

**Aposterhasnoname** *05/03/2024 22:19*

DH and I were wandering around the churchyard of an old church in the centre of Leeds. We'd stopped to look at something and a young lad walked past us towards some steps that lead to the gate out. He looked perfectly normal - jeans, a backpack, headphones. We followed him to the steps but when we reached the top he was nowhere to be seen and the gate was closed. We thought it was odd as he'd not really had time to go out and close the gate after him, and there was nowhere else he could have gone. But when we got to the gate it had a huge rusty old chain and padlock on it, clearly hadn't been opened in years.

.

**shockthemonkey** *06/03/2024 12:41*

From my second floor bedroom in boarding school saw a young girl running down the road past my window. She was too young to be a schoolgirl (secondary school), and more to the point she was not wearing uniform. In fact what she was wearing was totally wrong for the season: light summer dress in mid-winter.

Then I realised she seemed a little bit see-through, then I saw her put her foot right through the speed bump. She was carrying her sandals in her hand, too.

Then she kind of dissolved just as she was about to go out of view. The road snakes back into view a few yards further down, but she didn't reappear and there was nowhere else she could have gone unless she had inexplicably decided to hang out behind a wall.

I spent ages trying to explain it all away, as I liked to think of myself as a no-nonsense evidence-based scientific type.

I did also check with others and didn't find anyone else who'd seen similar.

.

**Laiste** *06/03/2024 16:33*

...Late 1980s. I saw a woman on her hands and knees scrubbing the steps of a building in London at 2am. As I drove by I saw one of those cloth turbans round her head with the tie at the front. I saw her side on, I saw the silver bucket on the steps next to her and I saw her pinny tied at the back. I could see her rocking back and forward scrubbing.

I was so confused I turned the car around as soon as i could (1/2 minutes max) and drove back past and there was no one there. Steps were dry.

...A couple in navy blue waterproofs walking straight towards us across a huge flat field, 10 meters away apx. I felt they had seen us and I was going to greet them when they got nearer, like you do.

They disappeared into nowhere. DH had seen them clearly too.

.

**ScaredSceptic** *07/03/2024 00:17*

...I'd been at a friend's house for the evening. I left at around 1am to drive the five minutes home. She lived on a modern housing estate off the main road of a village. I left her estate and turned on to the main road, which was well lit (it was about 20 years ago, before they started switching the street lights off at night).

As I drove along the main road I saw, sitting on the kerb facing the road, a young boy with a border collie dog. I'd guess the boy was around 8 years old. He had short dark scruffy hair and was dressed in grey formal shorts, a striped woollen tank top with a short sleeved shirt underneath (I realised afterwards that they were old-fashioned clothes, what I would describe as 1940s era clothes) and he appeared quite unkempt.

I was so shocked to see a child sitting by the road at that time and I slowed down and looked right at him as I drove past, and he looked back straight into my eyes, his head moving from right to left as he kept watching my car pass. He looked unhappy.

I immediately turned the car around and drove back (a matter of seconds), and there was nothing there.

I know it was late, and maybe it was a trick of the (street)light or something but I was certain I saw that boy and dog.

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**Northernsouloldies** *Yesterday 02:42*

20-odd years ago, York Castle Museum. ...It was a regular visit. I looked through the spy-hole of the padded cell: a figure appeared with straggly hair, cloth shirt with lace ties. I jumped backed, told my sister to look - she said, "Nothing there."

...This visit was long before projected images like there is now.

.

**zingally** *Today 11:19*

...My dad, who never believed in ghosts, was walking past a churchyard one day, when he saw this man come out of the churchyard gate and start walking ahead of him. He was dressed kind-of old fashioned, and carrying a scythe over his shoulder.

A noise behind Dad made him turn, for less than a second, and when he looked back, the man with the scythe was gone. There was literally nowhere he could have gone in less than a second.

**...And some observations upon the common points in many of these encounters:**

**cunningartificer** *06/03/2024 06:30*

When people say that modern ghosts aren't seen, as they sometimes do, I think it's interesting to read some of the encounters here with modern-seeming people where no one would think anything of it if they hasn't disappeared while being watched/ walked through walls etc.

I wonder how many ghosts we might pass every day on the tube or in a crowded street without realising?

I suppose in the past people would immediately recognise someone out of place and now perhaps less so, hence more ghost stories from earlier days...

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**HashBrownandBeans** *06/03/2024 18:11*

I have a theory that you can tell a real ghost sighting by the person recounting the story mentioning the clothes in great detail. I think the energy finds it easier to manifest the clothes and we as humans "see" them more easily. Just a scroll through this thread and so many people can recall the exact clothing. I find it quite fascinating.

**Source:** https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5022305-have-you-or-anyone-you-know-ever-actually-seen-a-ghost

*(minor edits for clarity)*’

https://www.reddit.com/r/timeslip/s/MSi3GkKwZ5
 
Regarding categories, rationalists are fond of telling everyone the map is not the territory. I recently drove past a "road" that was closed off by barriers and had a sign which said "dry weather only". It was completely covered in grass and had sheep grazing on it. Was this "road" really a road, or was it a field? Which is more true? Does the idea that a road is not a physical category need some form of "road soul" or "field soul" to describe it?

A comment on ACX
 
As a cost cutting measure, some councils shut off street lights along sparsely populated side roads after midnight. Others switch alternating lights off. Most street lights are being changed to high-intensity LED lights.
Back in the 1980s our village only left a few strategic street lights on after 01.00, was fantastic as teenagers to roam the village in near darkness (we were allowed to go camping in the fields by the river but not to roam the streets)
 
20240324_134609.jpg
 
The 1970s? Our friends the silver-suited humanoids on a weekend away from West Wales perhaps...!? But seriously I love these high-strangeness humanoid cases

Yes, they're great and very much of their time too. Also, how do you classify them? Filed under ufology, as a 'road ghost' or an old fashioned 'boggart'?

I don't recall ever hearing this story elsewhere. I wonder how many odd, one-off experiences of this kind are out there that never got told, or never got into the hands of a ufologist and were never investigated.
 
More to the point, numbers in the 1940s and numbers in 1974 were likely very different as lots of people had lines installed by the latter date. "Old" phone numbers I've seen are often very short by modern standards. Given that the catalyst for this seems to have been Alma getting a couple of numbers wrong - not sure why that would connect you to 1941, but let's go with it anyway - you most probably wouldn't be dialling anything like a 1940s number if you did.

But like I said, this also supposes the 'wrong number' was what connected you to 1941, which in itself is pretty absurd.

What I would say is that 1974 was at the height of Dad's Army's popularity. And everything about this account, from the premise to the clunky exposition ("you're talking to Lieutenant-Colonel Roberts, the commanding officer of the Wirral battalion of the Home Guard") smacks of fiction.

My suspicion (if there's any element of truth here) is that someone (maybe even "George") was playing a joke on Alma with the aid of a recording of bomber noises. The "Captain Hamilton" version was probably the original, with Roberts' name added later to provide the illusion of veracity.
In the 1940's the numbers only referred to the local exchange, lets say Warmington-on-sea had under a thousand subscribers, the numbers wouldn't exceed three digits. To get to another exchange you would have to contact the operator (dial 0 IIRC), ask for a trunk call, know the name of the exchange you were trying to reach, and tell the operator, e.g. Anytown 873.

There was a special method introduced in the 1920's for dealing with 999 calls.

Exchanges didn't have to be geographic, Scotland Yard for example had its own exchange. And the famous Whitehall 1212

This all changed in the 1960's when STD came in and you could dal the exchange with numbers, and now of course we can dial the country in the same way.
 
Not an "IHTM" tale exactly, but this was recently posted on Steve Feltham's Loch Ness Monster Facebook group:

View attachment 75052
I may have a possible answer for this one (even though I would rather it remain a mystery):

http://www.rollerski.co.uk/buy.html

These are skis with wheels that allow you to ski on dry land as opposed to snow. The guy was dressed into his white skiing gear and moving as skiers move across country but a lot faster than walking as he had the wheels under his feet. Did these exist in the 1970s? No idea but skateboards did and these may have been homemade.

Anyway, its a theory.
 
I may have a possible answer for this one (even though I would rather it remain a mystery):

http://www.rollerski.co.uk/buy.html

These are skis with wheels that allow you to ski on dry land as opposed to snow. The guy was dressed into his white skiing gear and moving as skiers move across country but a lot faster than walking as he had the wheels under his feet. Did these exist in the 1970s? No idea but skateboards did and these may have been homemade.

Anyway, its a theory.
Should add to the above that Loch Ness is not s far from the Scottish ski slopes.
 
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I may have a possible answer for this one (even though I would rather it remain a mystery):

http://www.rollerski.co.uk/buy.html

These are skis with wheels that allow you to ski on dry land as opposed to snow. The guy was dressed into his white skiing gear and moving as skiers move across country but a lot faster than walking as he had the wheels under his feet. Did these exist in the 1970s? No idea but skateboards did and these may have been homemade.

Anyway, its a theory.
I think it's a good theory, I could see a canny scot bodging up something like these old contraptions and making something akin to skiing, rather like a lot of people did in the 80s and 90s with inline skates

https://onlinebicyclemuseum.co.uk/1896-ritter-road-skates/
 
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