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What Is The Best Way Of Finding Lost Objects?

This subject has featured entertainingly on the MB and in the magazine too.

I lost a newspaper the other day. I knew I'd left it in the kitchen when I went upstairs to change my clothes but the BF said he'd seen me carrying it then. I searched everywhere, including the bathroom where I'd changed, and there was the paper under a pile of towels which had been put away a week ago.
 
My favourite (or least favourite) example of this was a couple of months ago. I was staying in a posh Mayfair hotel, awaiting the arrival of a busty young lady (cos that's the kind of life I lead), when I went back to my room for a moment. When it was time to go out again, I reached for the room key, because the door locks you out if you don't have your key. Could I bloody find it?
I looked absolutely everywhere - it was a complete and utter mystery. I needed the key to get into the room, so it couldn't have been anywhere else. It had simply vanished.
I then had to put up with the indignity of calling Reception and explaining to them that even though I was in my own room, I'd managed to lose the key. :rolleyes:

Anyway, that was just the beginning of my troubles that evening...
 
Oooh, have you read "Needful Things" by Stephen King. I think thats the one that where people loose things before they um....(it IS just a story!! and I'm only kidding!;) )

Have you tried asking for it back? That sometimes works. Just remember to say thanks when it's replaced! Honest!
 
Aw...jeez. So I just notice there are several ancient and ongoing threads on this subject. Sue me already. And now I'm talking to myself.
 
Thank goodness it's not just me.

I have had the experience of dropping a small (usually vital) item, (nail, screw, etc) and hearing it bounce off the tile. But only once. It never comes back down, it's just gone.

Moved to a new home 5 years ago and since then articles of my clothing go missing.I don't have very many to begin with, and I mean larger items like pairs of jeans, sweaters/sweatshirts-pants etc. The house is small and the other two occupants do not fit into my clothes, & the cats don't have anyplace to hid them. So after tearing the place apart I ask out loud for my item of clothing to be returned and go on to something else. A few minutes later I find the jeans or whatever draped over the top of something in an open and obvious place. I always say thanks, not wishing to find out what would happen if I didn't. :eek:
 
Bump! Three similar threads merged. (Thanks, Sally!)
 
Tyger Lily said:
Oooh, have you read "Needful Things" by Stephen King. I think thats the one that where people loose things before they um....(it IS just a story!! and I'm only kidding!;) )
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Isn't that story called "Insomnia"? Unless I'm thinking of a different one. :confused:

I couldn't find a particular ash-tray the other day. Its one that only comes out for guests, so I knew it couldn't have been me that mislaid it. I eventually found it on its side down the back of the settee cushion, complete with discarded cigarettes. :cross eye

EDIT: I started off in General Forteana and end up in Notes and Queries - all in the time it takes to type out a reply! Damn clever these moderators - and I never felt a thing!
 
Inhabitant said:
Aw...jeez. So I just notice there are several ancient and ongoing threads on this subject. Sue me already. And now I'm talking to myself.
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No your not mate, join the club, it's been happening to me on a regular basis lately.
 
escargot said:
My family have various people to ask. I always ask Walter, who was a distant relation by marriage of ours and haunts his old home, where my parents now live!

On Thursday I needed my copy of the 'Malleus Maleficarum' and after turning my bedroom upside down admitted defeat and asked out loud, 'Walter, can I have my book, please?'- and there it was, spine-up, down the side of my bed, right in front of my eyes. I did of course thank him.
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We always had minor disappearances too. Scissors, ball of twine, glue bottle etc.-every time you start a project you had to go through the "hunt" first. And then after not finding the item and abandoning the project- the pesky thing would be right in plain sight a couple of days later! Maddening... until my Dad passed, now we just ask him. When he was alive he had been put through many a wild goose chase trying to complete simple tasks and I think he's making sure his heirs have a better time of it! If we are at an impasse because of missing things we just wait a few minutes, and after clearing our mind of all pressing thought we let ourselves wander-stopping in front of the place where the "lost" item will be. It's how we found the Will!

Thanks Dad. (image of gremlin in headlock!)
 
Can definatley recomend the asking out loud method of finding lost items. Its worked for me on several occasions. Just be very polite and thank nicely when you find it. I'm usually a cynical fucker and a bit on the unbeliving side of being fortean but I wont fault what has proven to me to work.
Oh, as midnight metioned above, if the thing youre looking for it something like a nail or a washer and you need it NOW, it wont work, trust me "they" seem to eat them at my work. The boggarts that be seem to like a bit of a time delay.
 
Here's a technique I don't think I mentioned last time I was on this thread. It's amazingly effective.

Go around accusing everyone who may have had access to the item of stealing it. The motive isn't important, just go round pissing everyone off with your paranoia and suspicion.

I guarantee you will find it in plain view, where it has obviously been sitting the whole time. Never fails.
 
There's more threads than most people have linked to here! I posted a while back about two mobile phones and five CDs full of mp3s, and I can't find it!

One of the mobile phones turned up a while back and I made a tidy profit selling it on EBay! I'd asked politely for them back, but nothing ever turned up, and last summer I had a new carpet fitted in the living room, and had to clear it, which meant taking books out of bookshelves, etc etc, and one of the missing phones turned up on the bookshelf just after Christmas.

I did say thank you for the phone, but the other phone and CDs are still missing, and recently one of those gadgets to stick labels on CDs has walked.
 
Asking for it back...

As a lot of other people have done I find asking 'them' for things back works quite well.

It's perhaps not a good idea to recommend the technique to other people as now any unusual idea that comes up in conversation at work now gets the response from one of my colleagues 'Is that another one from Fortean Times'? I alway's say, yes.

And as for things reappearing, my spare keys turned up on the kitchen floor one morning 18 months after I'd lost then and turned the place over looking for them.
 
anome said:
Here's a technique I don't think I mentioned last time I was on this thread. It's amazingly effective.

Go around accusing everyone who may have had access to the item of stealing it. The motive isn't important, just go round pissing everyone off with your paranoia and suspicion.

I guarantee you will find it in plain view, where it has obviously been sitting the whole time. Never fails.
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Way to go! That's how to make Karma work FOR you-:D
 
Instant Karma's gonna get you,
Gonna knock you off your feet.
 
Scary thought, Inhabitant - perhaps somebody else has another set of keys (or can pick locks), and regularly has a poke round your flat?
If it was me, I'd have all the locks changed.
 
That did occur to me, but it's got both another lock and two doorbolts that can only be opened from inside.
 
Sounds silly, but try and talk to the house, or whatever you suspect may be in the house. Usually acknowledging it resolves the issue, it can also make it worse, but then at least you will know it is not friendly and can take steps to get rid of it.

Have different yet similar problems at home with things falling over/off walls and bits and pieces being moved around. So far have continued to ignore it as am curious to see how far it will go, bit if you are not happy with goings on, a confrontation will be necessary at some point.
 
I managed to lose a bright red folder last week, yesterday whilst looking for my keys and looked on the floor and there the folder was.

I'm a student so my room in halls is quite small, and I don't think anyone would borrow an empty folder
 
Bosbaba said:
Sounds silly, but try and talk to the house, or whatever you suspect may be in the house. Usually acknowledging it resolves the issue, it can also make it worse, but then at least you will know it is not friendly and can take steps to get rid of it.
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Thanks. I'll have a go - I'll let you know how I get on.
 
A thought...

I've never had such a string of experiences, but I would suggest letting it know that certain things are "off limits." I had a couple strange tricks played with my guitars, until I let it know that my guitars, house keys, and computer were all off-limits. I basically said that other things were ok to play with, just not those important things. Say it in a clear and friendly tone, but make sure it knows that you mean business. You might even suggest some things that are okay, coffee mugs, a stuffed animal, etc. Since you did find your belt after you left for work, I'd say it just didn't know that it was that important to you. After realizing that it was important, it returned it for you so you could use it after the fact. It's probably just having fun. Just be friendly but firm. Good luck!
 
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missing objects

My entire life I have always been prone to losing things. Sometimes I know that it is my own fault, but ther are times when I put things where they belong only for them to disappear. I had a pair of earrings that were missing for over a year I looked for them everywhere went through my jewelry piece by piece only one day to open the box and have them sitting there. I had a watch that I couldn't find for months and then one day it was in a box that had been packed away in the basement of a house. Mind you the box was put there the day I moved in and never touched until that day I was cleaning and I had worn the watch for a year or so everyday after I had moved into the house. These are the most two memorable times that this has happened but no the only times this has happened. Remotes, clothes, books almost anything that you can think of. Have these little things happened to anyone else?
 
Do objects tend to only get 'lost' when you are at home?

There's a mischievious presence at my parent's home. Small things will dissapear; keys, wallets, pens etc. (for some reason; scissors seem to be it's favourite) then you can spend a couple of hours looking for the missing object (it's a big old house); only for it to turn up in a spot where you already looked several times.

As I grew up; I found it often helped objects to return if I actually said what I was looking for, and expressed how important it was to find it. I know that sounds crazy (not as crazy as it LOOKS when you're in the house alone) but it did deffinitely seem to help; whether it's just chance or not. Once the 'joker' realises how exasperated and upset you have become, the goods are usually returned promptly - it's almost like dealing with a child.

Over and above the more obvious, in-your-face signs of a haunting that my family and myself have experienced over the course of the last 30 years or so - this 'stealing spirit' has convinced me in the existence of ghosts.
 
This is a very common phenomenon. Fate Magazine has dubbed suhc items "jottles."

I have a real problem with losing things, primarily because I tend to lay things down where I happen to be because I need the hand, and then forget about it, so books tend to wind up on top of the washing machine etc. Retracing my path through the house from the last time I remember having the item usually works. When it doesn't, I ask my husband, who walks straight to whatever I lost. (He hardly ever loses anything!) When *that* doesn't work, I stand in the middle of the room and say sternly: "Fairies, give it back!" And it generally reappears someplace I haven't been.

My most impressive incident is a library book which I was reading on the couch in the game room. I left it open, face up, on a cushion. When I came back, it was gone, though I remembered where I'd left it. It wasn't on the floor or under the couch. So I retraced my steps, because obviously my memory was faulty. Nowhere to be found, not even on top of the washing machine or the back of the commode. I *knew* I'd left it on the couch, so back I went to look under the cushion. Nothing. Another round of the house, going everywhere, including places I hadn't been. Back to the couch. Nothing. Look outside, on the picnic table, on the balcony, asked the fairies to give it back, and returned to the couch. Still no book. So - time to call in the big guns, fetched my husband. He walked up to the game room as I was explaining how often I'd looked, and -

There it was, open, face up, on the couch cushion.

Stupid fairies, wasting my time, thinking it's funny...
 
No this phenomenon has followed me my whole life. At both homes of my parents, and I have lived in two different apartments, and three different houses since being married. I will say the incidences were most prononounced at the house where the watch and earrings were lost it seemed to happen monthly but every other place I have lived it has happened. It happened this weekend with a book I was reading and I was not home. I was staying at a friends out of town and I got up before everyone and made coffee and was sitting in the den when everyone else got up I left the book open on the couch and joined them in the Kitchen in the table to chat. I went to look for the book when I started packing my things and it was gone only to be found later closed and on the table.
 
Peni said:
Stupid fairies, wasting my time, thinking it's funny...
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Peni, you might want to try calling on St. Anthony. He always helped me when I had lost something and he never made me wait. It doesn't work for me anymore because I no longer believe in such things (darn it! :mad: ).

Here's the prayer:

Please, St. Anthony
come around,
for something is lost,
and cannot be found.
 
I know everyone talks about losing keys that suddenly reappear so there isn't anything unusual about it. But when it happens to you and leaves you with that vague unsettled feeling it seems unusual.

I always carry two sets of keys, one in use and one in the bottom of my purse. The one I use has a HUGE metal ring attatched. One time recently I fished in my purse for it and it wasn't there. I knew
I'd put it in there so I used the other set. This went on for several days. Somehow I wasn't worried about it. I cleaned out my purse at the bank while filling deposit slips, as I usually do. Still not worried but beginning to wonder. A day or two later I reached into my purse and there it was. Now I couldn't swear that it hadn't been in there all the time hidden somehow in the bottom
but it seems very unlikely. The experience leaves me puzzled.

I've said before that fortean events don't happen to me. This makes me wonder if,perhaps, there are things happening about me all the time and I am wandering through life totally unaware.
 
It's weird, when I lose small objects that shouldn't be lost, I always picture small goblin type creatures running away with it and giggling. In my mind I can see where they hide it, and go search there. Nine times out of ten that's where it is. My mother, who studied phycology, just tells me that it's my subconsious telling me where I saw it last. Maybe that is the case.
 
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