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Weird IHTM Tales From Reddit & Other Sites

Impybat said:
It's this one, Escargot!

https://www.reddit.com/r/Glitch_in_the_Matrix/comments/60rtm5

So creepy and fascinating!
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That one's so good I think I need a cigarette afterwards. And I don't even smoke.

I wonder how common that experience is and whether we all experience it but perceive it differently? I can distinctly remember going to London with my parents when I was 9 or 10 and walking to look at something whilst they sat down on a bench. (ETA: Trafalgar Square). Then I realised I'd lost them - couldn't see them at all, and panicked. And this woman came up and was talking to me, I forget what she said or even what I thought of her - whether I was scared or not - just that there was this woman. Then something happened, seconds later, and I saw my parents again and ran to them. (There may have been a man and a woman, I forget). And the whole rest of my childhood I kept having this thought that what if that was some sort of break in the continuum and I was now having a different life to the one I might have been having, before. Very hard to explain. I promise I wasn't mentally ill! Well no moreso than any kid.
 
Ghost In The Machine said:
That one's so good I think I need a cigarette afterwards. And I don't even smoke.

I wonder how common that experience is and whether we all experience it but perceive it differently? I can distinctly remember going to London with my parents when I was 9 or 10 and walking to look at something whilst they sat down on a bench. (ETA: Trafalgar Square). Then I realised I'd lost them - couldn't see them at all, and panicked. And this woman came up and was talking to me, I forget what she said or even what I thought of her - whether I was scared or not - just that there was this woman. Then something happened, seconds later, and I saw my parents again and ran to them. (There may have been a man and a woman, I forget). And the whole rest of my childhood I kept having this thought that what if that was some sort of break in the continuum and I was now having a different life to the one I might have been having, before. Very hard to explain. I promise I wasn't mentally ill! Well no moreso than any kid.
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That's very much the kind of idea that often surfaces in the Reddit thread -- interesting that you had the same notion so young. Usually the timeline change happens after a near brush with death, as though in order to survive you have to be switched to a slightly different dimension/universe.
 
Carl Grove said:
That's very much the kind of idea that often surfaces in the Reddit thread -- interesting that you had the same notion so young. Usually the timeline change happens after a near brush with death, as though in order to survive you have to be switched to a slightly different dimension/universe.
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Yes as an adult I realised maybe I was about to be abducted! As a kid I didn’t realise that possibility so much.
 
Would you want to be helped by a skeleton in a sheet, though? In fact, any major ghostly intervention is geared to freak out the beneficiary. At least Reddit will feel a benefit too, I suppose.
 
GNC said:
Would you want to be helped by a skeleton in a sheet, though? In fact, any major ghostly intervention is geared to freak out the beneficiary. At least Reddit will feel a benefit too, I suppose.
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:)

I posted in one of the time travel conversations that I'd like to travel back to solve certain unexplained railway accidents - Salisbury, Grantham, Shrewsbury, Harrow, etc from the steam era. Moorgate would be a more recent one.

And then it occurred to me that the sudden appearance of a time traveller next to the driver might have been the cause ...
 
escargot said:
Had similar a few times myself, the blood runs cold dunnit!
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Yes it's really hard to explain why it freaked me out as I didn't really understand about abduction although I've just realised it was maybe 4 or 5 years after Brady and Hindley had been caught so maybe it was just something kids grew up with then, hearing about in the background but not really understanding? But I remember thinking what if those people (I think it was a man and a woman but I only remember the woman speaking to me), had been my actual parents and by chosing to return to the parents on the park bench, I had a different life, kinda thing? Even though of course I knew my real parents had always been my real parents. It's hard to explain but I think it was the first time I sort of almost grasped the idea of parallel universes, kind of thing.

For some people, it's a big sideways disk. For others... a creepy couple in a strange place.
 
Ghost In The Machine said:
Yes it's really hard to explain why it freaked me out as I didn't really understand about abduction although I've just realised it was maybe 4 or 5 years after Brady and Hindley had been caught so maybe it was just something kids grew up with then, hearing about in the background but not really understanding? But I remember thinking what if those people (I think it was a man and a woman but I only remember the woman speaking to me), had been my actual parents and by chosing to return to the parents on the park bench, I had a different life, kinda thing? Even though of course I knew my real parents had always been my real parents. It's hard to explain but I think it was the first time I sort of almost grasped the idea of parallel universes, kind of thing.

For some people, it's a big sideways disk. For others... a creepy couple in a strange place.
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A bloke I sometimes work with reckons he was nearly abducted by the moors murderers as a young child. He loves to tell the story and I love to hear it!
 
escargot said:
A bloke I sometimes work with reckons he was nearly abducted by the moors murderers as a young child. He loves to tell the story and I love to hear it!
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I went to an interview in 1979 at Liverpool uni and got chatted up by this creepy middle aged man at the station. He was trying to buy me a coffee or something. Happened all the time with lads my age and I wouldn’t have been creeped out but he looked to be in his 40s. Everything about him was screaming Yorkshire Ripper!

A year or so later when Ripper was arrested he looked nothing like this man! I was so relieved.

The last victim was killed very close to a place I’d not long before walked alone at night. Only years later I realised I’d been out with my boyfriend on my bday also very near that a short time earlier and one of the attacked but survived victims was attacked that night again not far away...

Those are my murder near misses.
 
Ghost In The Machine said:
I went to an interview in 1979 at Liverpool uni and got chatted up by this creepy middle aged man at the station. He was trying to buy me a coffee or something. Happened all the time with lads my age and I wouldn’t have been creeped out but he looked to be in his 40s. Everything about him was screaming Yorkshire Ripper!

A year or so later when Ripper was arrested he looked nothing like this man! I was so relieved.

The last victim was killed very close to a place I’d not long before walked alone at night. Only years later I realised I’d been out with my boyfriend on my bday also very near that a short time earlier and one of the attacked but survived victims was attacked that night again not far away...

Those are my murder near misses.
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The attacked but survived person, is it the lady Olive Smelt, in Boothtown , Halifax ? My friend is married to her nephew.
 
GerdaWordyer said:
Yikes to all these close calls!
While hiking in North TX, my husband and his then partner were pursued by rednecks, that on their reflection, might have been Henry Lee Lucas and friends.
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Sounds like 'Deliverance'.
 
escargot said:
A bloke I sometimes work with reckons he was nearly abducted by the moors murderers as a young child. He loves to tell the story and I love to hear it!
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I had not heard of the Moor Murderers so I read the Wikipedia on them...what a couple of ghouls! I would love to hear your co-worker's account.
 
Impybat said:
I had not heard of the Moor Murderers so I read the Wikipedia on them...what a couple of ghouls! I would love to hear your co-worker's account.
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The murderers lived in the Manchester suburbs, 20-odd miles from where I grew up. They were arrested in Hyde, which was then part of the county of Cheshire, and were tried at Chester Castle. Techy and I often cycle near the Castle and I always think of those poor children.
 
escargot said:
The murderers lived in the Manchester suburbs, 20-odd miles from where I grew up. They were arrested in Hyde, which was then part of the county of Cheshire, and were tried at Chester Castle. Techy and I often cycle near the Castle and I always think of those poor children.
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The Wiki entry was chilling! Creepy to think they were so nearby.
 
Impybat said:
The Wiki entry was chilling! Creepy to think they were so nearby.
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Yup, I remember as a kid being warned about not talking to strangers etc because children were going missing.
The trial was a massive news story and I followed it on TV, and was old enough to read about it in my parents' Daily Mirror. Fascinating!
 
Ghost In The Machine said:
No. The lady was a dr, I forget her name.
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Thanks for the reply, interesting , I shall look up the doctor as I thought Olive Smelt was the only survivor of the ripper. She was the "Halifax housewife" who was attacked with a hammer on the way home from the chip shop at the bottom of her street. She actually died 2 years ago, but had lived to a good age and was very lucky to have survived the ripper.
 
FunkyTT said:
Thanks for the reply, interesting , I shall look up the doctor as I thought Olive Smelt was the only survivor of the ripper. She was the "Halifax housewife" who was attacked with a hammer on the way home from the chip shop at the bottom of her street. She actually died 2 years ago, but had lived to a good age and was very lucky to have survived the ripper.
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There are other women who may be 'Ripper survivors', and even other murders. His first known assault victim refused to press charges.
One early confirmed victim who survived, Tracy Brown, was able to describe him perfectly and provide a Photofit. Her memory was spot-on.
There was another witness who described a man of Sutcliffe's appearance loitering at the time and even identified his car.

If the police had stuck with searching for Ms Brown's attacker instead of dropping it to switch resources to the Ripper enquiry which started soon afterwards, and if they'd listened to her and her mother when they insisted the attacker strongly resembled the Ripper Photofits, lives might have been saved.

Sutcliffe eventually admitted to the assault on Ms Brown. The police had not believed Ms Brown was a Ripper victim because they were told he only attacked prostitutes. (I'm sure at some point she'd have been asked 'Are you saying you're a working girl, love?')
She was right and they were wrong.

Anyway... did you know that the man who found the body of one of the victims went on to be a Coronation Street star?
 
FunkyTT said:
Thanks for the reply, interesting , I shall look up the doctor as I thought Olive Smelt was the only survivor of the ripper. She was the "Halifax housewife" who was attacked with a hammer on the way home from the chip shop at the bottom of her street. She actually died 2 years ago, but had lived to a good age and was very lucky to have survived the ripper.
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I remember the photos of Olive at the time. But am not sure I heard about this lady at the time, as a victim. Only read about her after and knew for sure I'd been close by where she was attacked that very night as it happened to be my last ever birthday in Leeds.
 
escargot said:
There are other women who may be 'Ripper survivors', and even other murders. His first known assault victim refused to press charges.
One early confirmed victim who survived, Tracy Brown, was able to describe him perfectly and provide a Photofit. Her memory was spot-on.
There was another witness who described a man of Sutcliffe's appearance loitering at the time and even identified his car.

If the police had stuck with searching for Ms Brown's attacker instead of dropping it to switch resources to the Ripper enquiry which started soon afterwards, and if they'd listened to her and her mother when they insisted the attacker strongly resembled the Ripper Photofits, lives might have been saved.

Sutcliffe eventually admitted to the assault on Ms Brown. The police had not believed Ms Brown was a Ripper victim because they were told he only attacked prostitutes. (I'm sure at some point she'd have been asked 'Are you saying you're a working girl, love?')
She was right and they were wrong.

Anyway... did you know that the man who found the body of one of the victims went on to be a Coronation Street star?
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Yes, Les Battersby! And that was probably one of the grimmest ones to find as Sutcliffe went back and messed around with the body...

The lady attacked the night I was not far away was Uphadya Bandara. I was in Headingley that very night, although not alone on that occasion - and I know the date because I went away to university the next day! I don;t recall reading about this at the time but then again I was no longer in Yorkshire.

The final victim was killed nearby a place I had walked in the dark, and alone. I just checked online and she was killed 7 weeks after Dr Bandara was attacked. I would have been walking around there maybe 8-10 weeks before that, now I check the dates. My then boyfriend lived very close to Leeds Uni.

IIRC from a documentary I saw ages ago, there are quite a number of attack survivors the police would never admit were Sutcliffe victims. Including one who gave one of the most accurate descriptions, as it turned out - but even after he was arrested and she recognised him as her attacker, the police still denied it vigorously, for some reason. She was from a place very close to where I grew up and was almost exactly my age.

Anyone in Leeds knew he was no longer trying to kill "prostitutes" by the time he was striking in Headingley. It was all pretty well student area round there. Is why I never believed the hearing voices defence for one minute.
 
GerdaWordyer said:
Yikes to all these close calls!
While hiking in North TX, my husband and his then partner were pursued by rednecks, that on their reflection, might have been Henry Lee Lucas and friends.
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Gerda I just listened to a podcast about him. He was creepy as hell - and prolific!
 
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