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What Was Your Entry To The World Of Weird?

she did a fantastic job!

I always read my sisters' copies.

I must have read some of your mother's stories, always liked Misty.

One of my favourite stories my mother did for Misty (and my summary that follows cannot do it justice) featured a couple of vaguely drawn characters - presumably the mum and dad, telling their child to clear away their toys, as it was time to return home. The child complained a bit, said they loved it here and wanted to stay a bit longer. Eventually though the family sets off on their journey home in (again) a vaguely drawn vehicle of sorts. Half-way home, the child then says "Oh no! I left my building blocks behind." The mum says they cannot possibly return for them now. The revelation in the final scene is that the family were ancient giants/aliens and the discarded building blocks were Stonehenge.
My mum always looked forward to reading my Fortean Times after me and had a profound interest in such material.
The Versailles time slip was a personal favourite of hers,.
 
An older man gave me his collection of 'Fate Magazines' when I was young, they are the American magazine first published in 1948 after Kenneth Arnold saw those 9 UFO's.
The magazine is still being published, and I think I have read every single issue.
I still have all those magazines, a huge collection!


1650200866900.png
 
The man who gave me his collection of 'Fate Magazines' from 1948 on, had served in the US Army in Korea.
He told me that he was stationed on the side of a mountain, the United States was on one side, the enemy on the other side of the mountain. One night he was on watchman's duty while the other men were sleeping.
He told me that a huge circular object came flying over the mountain, no sound. It stopped and then flew off in one direction, came back and then took off.
Upon telling his commander, it was just blown off as some type of enemy aircraft, but he was not convinced by this explanation, this was the early 1950's.
After a few years of being stationed in Korea he returned home, where he was astonished to find out that UFO reports were rampant. And then he realized exactly what he had seen.
 
One of my favourite stories my mother did for Misty (and my summary that follows cannot do it justice) featured a couple of vaguely drawn characters - presumably the mum and dad, telling their child to clear away their toys, as it was time to return home. The child complained a bit, said they loved it here and wanted to stay a bit longer. Eventually though the family sets off on their journey home in (again) a vaguely drawn vehicle of sorts. Half-way home, the child then says "Oh no! I left my building blocks behind." The mum says they cannot possibly return for them now. The revelation in the final scene is that the family were ancient giants/aliens and the discarded building blocks were Stonehenge.
My mum always looked forward to reading my Fortean Times after me and had a profound interest in such material.
The Versailles time slip was a personal favourite of hers,.
I had a huge collection of Misty comics which I kept in a box in number order, annuals, summer specials etc. I kept them for years.

I resisted my mother's urging to get rid of them for a long time....until the early 1990s. I think I gave them to someone I knew to try to find a home for them - they were setting up a one-off stall on a sunday market/boot sale. I don't know if they sold them, even for tuppence, then.

I do hope they found themselves in the hands of someone who knew they were worth keeping....

I knew they would/should be a collector's item. It was not great timing in the early 1990s. I suspect no-one really wanted them then....other than a niche audience. And this local market/boot sale type event was probably not the right place to try to sell them either....

As a child I used to think being a comic illustrator would be a fantastic job. I used to imagine I might do that. I drew my own comic and gave it to one of the dinner ladies. Sadly printed comics are not the mainstream thing they once were.....I think lots of magazines started doing photo strip stories and relying less on illustrators.

It would have been quite entertaining to see a Misty type comic with photo strip stories - how would they have created all the supernatural stuff? In this day and age it would be very simple now we have computers/cgi/digital image editing but in those days it would have been harder to get a good resulting image.

It is only in recent years when I have googled Misty and read about it that I could see there was a connection between Misty and 2000AD.

How amazing that your mother was involved in Misty @blessmycottonsocks
 
When I was in my teens in the 1990s, I would read books about the paranormal and Cryptids.
We all seem to have been attracted to this weirdness while quite young. Didn't anyone become involved in it in their twenties, thirties or forties, or are we just genetically programmed for oddities, or is there a limit to the age at which it can take hold? I've known loads of folk who consider all this to be utter nonsense.
 
I think it must have been the library, because I don't remember but I was taken there quite a lot as a kid. I was a rather voracious reader, when I didn't get into trouble for reading "junky" books... (apparently the stuff at the very start of the dewey decimal system doesn't count as weird! But Goosebumps was right out? idunno).
I do know that when I saw my first major weirdness-- weird bits of falling metal in the sky-- I was excited because of things I'd read, so.
 
An older man gave me his collection of 'Fate Magazines' when I was young, they are the American magazine first published in 1948 after Kenneth Arnold saw those 9 UFO's.
The magazine is still being published, and I think I have read every single issue.
I still have all those magazines, a huge collection!


View attachment 54436
I love old magazines and have a collection of some dating back to the 40's. Reading them makes you realise how much society has changed. I wish I had kept my collection of Popular Science magazines from the 60's which I used to get sent from the States every month.
 
Hello, First post. This seemed like a good place to start.
  • What are the top Fortean types of phenomena for you? Answer: Hauntings, not Horrors.
  • What was your worldview when your interest began? Answer: Optimistically sceptical. I don’t dismiss out of hand, but I need to be convinced.
  • What was the event or starting point for your interest in inexplicable weirdness? Answer: Being born. My Mum was a well of weirdness from which her Children drew…
  • How has your interpretation and acceptance (or not!) changed over time? Answer: More sceptical I think. Because, like Theology, the more you study, the more holes you find. But that doesn’t stop Religion as a human condition from being fascinating.
  • Is your current state of interpretation and acceptance stable? Answer: I’m always willing to be convinced of something I don’t understand. But that’s the key, convincing!
 
We all seem to have been attracted to this weirdness while quite young. Didn't anyone become involved in it in their twenties, thirties or forties, or are we just genetically programmed for oddities, or is there a limit to the age at which it can take hold? I've known loads of folk who consider all this to be utter nonsense.

Generation X certainly seems attuned to it, because there was so much of it about back when we were very young. Now I think you have to seek it out more, it's not quite ghetto-ised, but it is a bit "specialist".
 
Hello, First post. This seemed like a good place to start.
  • What are the top Fortean types of phenomena for you? Answer: Hauntings, not Horrors.
  • What was your worldview when your interest began? Answer: Optimistically sceptical. I don’t dismiss out of hand, but I need to be convinced.
  • What was the event or starting point for your interest in inexplicable weirdness? Answer: Being born. My Mum was a well of weirdness from which her Children drew…
  • How has your interpretation and acceptance (or not!) changed over time? Answer: More sceptical I think. Because, like Theology, the more you study, the more holes you find. But that doesn’t stop Religion as a human condition from being fascinating.
  • Is your current state of interpretation and acceptance stable? Answer: I’m always willing to be convinced of something I don’t understand. But that’s the key, convincing!

Hi Fenn Lost and welcome! What a great first post. If you wish, please tell us more about the well of weirdness which was your mother.
 
Hi Fenn Lost and welcome! What a great first post. If you wish, please tell us more about the well of weirdness which was your mother.
Thank you...As for my Mum, where to start? :D She thought she was psychic and 9 times out of 10, she wasn't. She dabbled with white witchcraft and paganism whilst still being a Catholic, she was known to cast the odd naughty spell when someone crossed her path with some success (but she said you pay for it and in many ways, she did).

She believed she was haunted all her life by a large dark presence. My sister made this worse by seeing and naming it when she was about two years old. Harpy was the 'imaginary friend' that terrorised Mum for years, pushing her round the house and throwing cutlery at her. One of my earliest memories was seeing an egg whisk fly into the living room when there was no one in the kitchen...this actually happened :)

Everything growing up was dipped in weirdness from the little pygmies on the stairs she saw (who smelled of peppermint) to the haunted mop bucket she pinched from a desecrated Church (which she made my Dad take back at 2 in the morning due to a terrible nightmare and the arrival of a large cawing bird that sat on the roof all night making a racket). I could go on forever about her.

Mum was a smart woman if a little gullible. There was plenty of unexplainable phenomena but also plenty of coincidence - she rarely saw the difference. Still, she told a great yarn, like the time she frightened my brother senseless by telling him he had a fourth shadow or that she won my Dad in a card game with the Devil - she had a wicked/odd sense of humour like that.

I guess my interest in Fortean matters stems from her!
 
Thank you...As for my Mum, where to start? :D She thought she was psychic and 9 times out of 10, she wasn't. She dabbled with white witchcraft and paganism whilst still being a Catholic, she was known to cast the odd naughty spell when someone crossed her path with some success (but she said you pay for it and in many ways, she did).

She believed she was haunted all her life by a large dark presence. My sister made this worse by seeing and naming it when she was about two years old. Harpy was the 'imaginary friend' that terrorised Mum for years, pushing her round the house and throwing cutlery at her. One of my earliest memories was seeing an egg whisk fly into the living room when there was no one in the kitchen...this actually happened :)

Everything growing up was dipped in weirdness from the little pygmies on the stairs she saw (who smelled of peppermint) to the haunted mop bucket she pinched from a desecrated Church (which she made my Dad take back at 2 in the morning due to a terrible nightmare and the arrival of a large cawing bird that sat on the roof all night making a racket). I could go on forever about her.

Mum was a smart woman if a little gullible. There was plenty of unexplainable phenomena but also plenty of coincidence - she rarely saw the difference. Still, she told a great yarn, like the time she frightened my brother senseless by telling him he had a fourth shadow or that she won my Dad in a card game with the Devil - she had a wicked/odd sense of humour like that.

I guess my interest in Fortean matters stems from her!

Welcome home :)
 
I love old magazines and have a collection of some dating back to the 40's. Reading them makes you realise how much society has changed. I wish I had kept my collection of Popular Science magazines from the 60's which I used to get sent from the States every month.
My Dad built up a huge collection of woodworking mags and Popular Science/Popular Mechanics all the way back to the year dot. My Mum still has them up in the loft. I really need to catalogue them and sell them, so Mum can have the space back.
 
Recently researching something historical and remembered where I had first come across it.

Going back some 40 years now, it was in the local library, where I found a 'Reader's Digest' compendium of 'strange events', or similar.

I remember being fascinated and so absorbed with this book.

Anyone else recall a comparative and perhaps inspirational publication from their youth? :)
 
Recently researching something historical and remembered where I had first come across it.

Going back some 40 years now, it was in the local library, where I found a 'Reader's Digest' compendium of 'strange events', or similar.

I remember being fascinated and so absorbed with this book.

Anyone else recall a comparative and perhaps inspirational publication from their youth? :)

Those big Usborne compendium type books were big influences for thousands of 1970s and 80s children, I imagine. They were for me.

As an 'entry point', though: I wasn't particularly taken with UFOs or ghosts or whatever when I was very young, but then happened to pick up the paperback below and a whole Fortean world opened out.

9780330027991-uk.jpg
 
There was plenty of unexplainable phenomena but also plenty of coincidence - she rarely saw the difference.
This sentence leapt out at me over breakfast (no disrespect to your Mum) as I was trying to recall my interest in the weird when young. The confident statement "there is no such thing as coincidence" said to me several times in a self-knowing and slightly conspiratorial tone would have initiated a conversation once. Nowadays it tends to have the opposite effect.
 
As well as always being interested in strange events the thing that resparked my interest as an adult was a strange dream that I had.
It was in a foreign land, a dry place , and there was a mountain erupting in the distance,
I was floating near a wall with large symbols on the blocks and I was focussed on the one in front of me which I thought was a letter of some old alphabet.
I started looking at old cultures and trying to find that symbol but never could find one just the same.
Anyway my daughter gave me an Ancient aliens disk for Mother's day and I was watching a part today and the Seal of Solomon came up and the central part was just the same.
 
We all seem to have been attracted to this weirdness while quite young. Didn't anyone become involved in it in their twenties, thirties or forties, or are we just genetically programmed for oddities, or is there a limit to the age at which it can take hold? I've known loads of folk who consider all this to be utter nonsense.
Interesting, isn't it? I was decidedly weird from a very early age and my parents probably encouraged it, if anything. My bro was much more straightlaced and conformist which made me even worse... Also lucky enough to have a teacher very early on, who spotted I was "different" and also gave me loads of leeway to develop, writing stories and plays, etc and just letting me wander off around the village or the school grounds when I should have been in school. Think having the right kind of adults round you, helps. But I had this really strong feeling around the age of 5, that there were things like spirit of place, for example, that other kids just didn't seem to get. Then my dad getting 'Man Myth and Magic', like so many of us here of the same generation, was hugely influential, because that hinted at a world beyond my backwater, where there were other people also into "weird" stuff. I had recurring dreams, saw a "ghost", had a very intriguing imaginary friend in a very specific part of our orchard (out of view of the house)later found to be metres from some very interesting archaeology... And my mum, when she knew she was dying, wrote me a couple of things in my 1970s' autograph book - telling me cryptically to "use your powers" lol which, given she was a Christian, does seem unaccountable now, but she had a huge store of folklore and ghost stories, herself, and I guess losing her so early in life also left me with a sense of... something.

Same for many of us. A weird nexus of life events, coincidence, but bottom line is... the way you're wired. Even as a very young child, I was seen as the "eccentric" one. And it took me right til adulthood to find my people - but that isolation as a child, also fuelled it, I guess.
 
You know I'm not completely sure...I had a full on 'panic' at a remote spot on the Akortiri peninsula in the 70’s, looked into dowsing in the early 80’s and then there were interesting (classic) Fortean books in the dusty book-shop across from The Antelope, and then it was Crazy Dave's (and his matchbox radio) that kicked it fully off and we spent along time kicking around Grave’s ‘Towards a Magical Technology’ and trying to meet up in the swamp and wondering about the veracity of SSOTBME. I guess I just liked a mystery to solve, especially if I'm a bit bored...
 
I was a very narrow minded skeptic until one day an experience thrust me an experience thrust me into the world of the paranormal and supernatural I looked into the sky one evening about 5 years ago and I saw a spotlight beaming down and what looked like a cloud of gas pouring out of the point of light then the light disappeared and the gas remained but it still seemed like light was blowing from the inside of the cloud it was as this this gaseous form had come out of another dimension it was almost like a portal so to speak since then I have had several unexplainable phenomena occur in my life that have all left me all together baffled and now I spend a great deal of my time trying to figure out what it is that I've seen a lot of the stuff I've experienced can be categorized as extremely high strangeness and Fringe. The weirdest things I've seen I have no point of reference for and I've never heard any other stories that relate to these events. to sum up what cannot easily be summed up I've witnessed invisible rats that had predator like cloaking devices and behaved almost as if they were remote controlled, I've witnessed one small humanoid that I would describe as a gnome very small wrinkly features wide set eyes big nose creepy grin etc but the most interesting aspect of that encounter was the fact that this gnome was moving at a different frame rate then we do. That is to say this gnome thing moved as if it were a stop-motion animation in real life if you can imagine something moving like a flipbook very jerky from picture to picture... I would be very interested in finding out if anyone else has ever witnessed anything move like that in their experiences because it's something that's really sent me down quite a rabbit hole... I've witnessed people that I know or think I know who have suddenly seemed to change temporarily in ways that seem sinister and have displayed the ability to sort of shapeshift or at least kind of morph and change color. I saw a guy's hair change from black to white and another guy asked me if he did a good job on his own haircut only to purposely show me his fingers sort of blend together making his hand a sort of fin thing just for a split second and when my jaw drops he smiled menacingly...
I've seen inanimate objects come to life mainly food in disgusting ways as I'm trying to eat. a form that sort of looks like a bug with antenna has appeared several times in ice cream from McDonald's and I've seen the same form rise out of the cream filling of a strawberry shortcake bar which I immediately spit out and the bite that was already in my mouth immediately went from tasting normal to tasting kind of rotten.
I see movement out of the corner of my eyes and the floaters that I've always had in my eyesight have recently become active and actually move around in my peripherals quite a bit as of late and this is usually a precursor to some rather uncomfortable physical side effects and I'm not sure how the two are related but it seems pretty clear that they are. I've seen many shadow people and I've had one sleep paralysis experience that was the textbook experience with the entity at the foot of my bed speaking in demonic gibberish. This shadowy entity also had what looked like the vague antenna or horns. Once I was making shadow puppets against a backdrop when suddenly the the shadow I was creating with my hands kept on moving wildly although my hands had stopped for several seconds this was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life probably because it was so unexpected and I'd never even considered that a possibility before. I get the feeling something demonic or at least extremely mischievous was getting a real kick out of my reaction to that and I suppose if I had those kind of powers to alter reality I would probably pull some hijinks like that just because I could.

On a very serious note I have also been enduring a a very nightmarish gang stalking situation that has been progressing now for several years and really it started right after all this paranormal weird s*** just came into my life alongside it and quite a bit of what I witness and go through every day can honestly count has paranormal as well because I sure can't even begin to explain any of it and I've been trying my hardest to figure it out since day one.
 
I was a very narrow minded skeptic until one day an experience thrust me an experience thrust me into the world of the paranormal and supernatural I looked into the sky one evening about 5 years ago and I saw a spotlight beaming down and what looked like a cloud of gas pouring out of the point of light then the light disappeared and the gas remained but it still seemed like light was blowing from the inside of the cloud it was as this this gaseous form had come out of another dimension it was almost like a portal so to speak since then I have had several unexplainable phenomena occur in my life that have all left me all together baffled and now I spend a great deal of my time trying to figure out what it is that I've seen a lot of the stuff I've experienced can be categorized as extremely high strangeness and Fringe. The weirdest things I've seen I have no point of reference for and I've never heard any other stories that relate to these events. to sum up what cannot easily be summed up I've witnessed invisible rats that had predator like cloaking devices and behaved almost as if they were remote controlled, I've witnessed one small humanoid that I would describe as a gnome very small wrinkly features wide set eyes big nose creepy grin etc but the most interesting aspect of that encounter was the fact that this gnome was moving at a different frame rate then we do. That is to say this gnome thing moved as if it were a stop-motion animation in real life if you can imagine something moving like a flipbook very jerky from picture to picture... I would be very interested in finding out if anyone else has ever witnessed anything move like that in their experiences because it's something that's really sent me down quite a rabbit hole... I've witnessed people that I know or think I know who have suddenly seemed to change temporarily in ways that seem sinister and have displayed the ability to sort of shapeshift or at least kind of morph and change color. I saw a guy's hair change from black to white and another guy asked me if he did a good job on his own haircut only to purposely show me his fingers sort of blend together making his hand a sort of fin thing just for a split second and when my jaw drops he smiled menacingly...
I've seen inanimate objects come to life mainly food in disgusting ways as I'm trying to eat. a form that sort of looks like a bug with antenna has appeared several times in ice cream from McDonald's and I've seen the same form rise out of the cream filling of a strawberry shortcake bar which I immediately spit out and the bite that was already in my mouth immediately went from tasting normal to tasting kind of rotten.
I see movement out of the corner of my eyes and the floaters that I've always had in my eyesight have recently become active and actually move around in my peripherals quite a bit as of late and this is usually a precursor to some rather uncomfortable physical side effects and I'm not sure how the two are related but it seems pretty clear that they are. I've seen many shadow people and I've had one sleep paralysis experience that was the textbook experience with the entity at the foot of my bed speaking in demonic gibberish. This shadowy entity also had what looked like the vague antenna or horns. Once I was making shadow puppets against a backdrop when suddenly the the shadow I was creating with my hands kept on moving wildly although my hands had stopped for several seconds this was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life probably because it was so unexpected and I'd never even considered that a possibility before. I get the feeling something demonic or at least extremely mischievous was getting a real kick out of my reaction to that and I suppose if I had those kind of powers to alter reality I would probably pull some hijinks like that just because I could.

On a very serious note I have also been enduring a a very nightmarish gang stalking situation that has been progressing now for several years and really it started right after all this paranormal weird s*** just came into my life alongside it and quite a bit of what I witness and go through every day can honestly count has paranormal as well because I sure can't even begin to explain any of it and I've been trying my hardest to figure it out since day one.
 
Mods please move to better spot if possible

Hi Fortean Fellow Travelers (FFT) - I wish to pose a question to you which I have been thinking about for a long time. Actually, it’s a few related questions. There are discussions on all these points scattered throughout the FMB, but it is so widespread and secondary to the main topics, that I can’t get a good feel for them. Please contribute – even if its just a single line. Remember, we are anonymous here (well most of us) :) Thanks.
  • What are the top Fortean types of phenomena for you? For example, parapsychology, UFOs, bigfoot, time slips, etc.
  • What was your worldview when your interest began? For example, devoutly religious, atheist, pragmatic, agnostic, not sure, skeptic (meaning inherently disbelieving and thinking people who do believe are deluded), etc.
  • What was the event or starting point for your interest in inexplicable weirdness? For example, book or magazine, popular electronic media (TV, movie, podcast, youtube, etc.), discussion with family or friends, personal experience, etc.
  • How has your interpretation and acceptance (or not!) changed over time?
  • Is your current state of interpretation and acceptance stable? This means that you have not changed your mind for several years and expect that you will not change your mind with more or different evidence.
Here are mine:
  • What are the top Fortean types of phenomena for you? Answer: parapsychology, reincarnation, bigfoot.
  • What was your worldview when your interest began? Answer: pragmatic, agnostic, not sure.
  • What was the event or starting point for your interest in inexplicable weirdness? Answer: personal experiences.
  • How has your interpretation and acceptance (or not!) changed over time? Answer: definite evolution over time. I went from pragmatic, agnostic, not sure, to extreme skeptic, to not sure, to sure that some aspects of parapsychology do have an external reality not dependent on persons.
  • Is your current state of interpretation and acceptance stable? Answer: I have not changed my mind for several years about the big stuff (existence, types of things) and expect that I will not change my mind with more or different evidence.
I think I was born into Froteana. The top types of phenomena for me are telepathy, astral travel, UAPs, poltergiest, knowing things I don't know.

When I was a small child (before 9) I believed that most adults were liars, they always pretended one thing and thought another. I used to wake up at night thinking someone was sitting in the chair by my bed and it would scare me. I would hide under the covers and fall asleep. I was afraid to look closer to see who it was. When I was 9 my father started hearing voices and I seemed to be the only one who noticed.

In 5th grade I remember a boy at school telling his friends (in my earshot) that if you dream you are falling and you hit the ground it means you are dead. I told him no, that is not true, I always land back on the bed when I dream I am falling. I had lots of dreams of falling and flying.

When I was in my 20's I started seeing weird lights in the sky, formations of what looked like stars zipping around in the sky in groups of 3 or multiples of 3. I thought they were UFOs for a long time but I have since come to think of them as non-physical events, even when there were a group of us that witnessed them we never had any real indication that they were physical, so they were either outside the atmosphere of earth or they were something else. I have not changed my mind about that in at least 20 years.

I am sure (I kinow, but have no proof for anyone else) that our consciousness does not reside in our brain, it is a part of us that resides outside the physical realm.
 
I'll never forget a woman I once knew, she had many brothers and sisters and they had all been separated and adopted into different homes.
She said that every night as she was falling asleep, she would feel someone physically sitting on the bed, she could feel the bed lower and the sensation of someone sitting down.
She believed it was her long-dead mother coming to see her.
 
I think I was born into Froteana. The top types of phenomena for me are telepathy, astral travel, UAPs, poltergiest, knowing things I don't know.

When I was a small child (before 9) I believed that most adults were liars, they always pretended one thing and thought another. I used to wake up at night thinking someone was sitting in the chair by my bed and it would scare me. I would hide under the covers and fall asleep. I was afraid to look closer to see who it was. When I was 9 my father started hearing voices and I seemed to be the only one who noticed.

In 5th grade I remember a boy at school telling his friends (in my earshot) that if you dream you are falling and you hit the ground it means you are dead. I told him no, that is not true, I always land back on the bed when I dream I am falling. I had lots of dreams of falling and flying.

When I was in my 20's I started seeing weird lights in the sky, formations of what looked like stars zipping around in the sky in groups of 3 or multiples of 3. I thought they were UFOs for a long time but I have since come to think of them as non-physical events, even when there were a group of us that witnessed them we never had any real indication that they were physical, so they were either outside the atmosphere of earth or they were something else. I have not changed my mind about that in at least 20 years.

I am sure (I kinow, but have no proof for anyone else) that our consciousness does not reside in our brain, it is a part of us that resides outside the physical realm.
You recently posted a link to the Marfa lights, iirc. Were these similar?
 
I was a very narrow minded skeptic until one day an experience thrust me an experience thrust me into the world of the paranormal and supernatural I looked into the sky one evening about 5 years ago and I saw a spotlight beaming down and what looked like a cloud of gas pouring out of the point of light then the light disappeared and the gas remained but it still seemed like light was blowing from the inside of the cloud it was as this this gaseous form had come out of another dimension it was almost like a portal so to speak since then I have had several unexplainable phenomena occur in my life that have all left me all together baffled and now I spend a great deal of my time trying to figure out what it is that I've seen a lot of the stuff I've experienced can be categorized as extremely high strangeness and Fringe. The weirdest things I've seen I have no point of reference for and I've never heard any other stories that relate to these events. to sum up what cannot easily be summed up I've witnessed invisible rats that had predator like cloaking devices and behaved almost as if they were remote controlled, I've witnessed one small humanoid that I would describe as a gnome very small wrinkly features wide set eyes big nose creepy grin etc but the most interesting aspect of that encounter was the fact that this gnome was moving at a different frame rate then we do. That is to say this gnome thing moved as if it were a stop-motion animation in real life if you can imagine something moving like a flipbook very jerky from picture to picture... I would be very interested in finding out if anyone else has ever witnessed anything move like that in their experiences because it's something that's really sent me down quite a rabbit hole... I've witnessed people that I know or think I know who have suddenly seemed to change temporarily in ways that seem sinister and have displayed the ability to sort of shapeshift or at least kind of morph and change color. I saw a guy's hair change from black to white and another guy asked me if he did a good job on his own haircut only to purposely show me his fingers sort of blend together making his hand a sort of fin thing just for a split second and when my jaw drops he smiled menacingly...
I've seen inanimate objects come to life mainly food in disgusting ways as I'm trying to eat. a form that sort of looks like a bug with antenna has appeared several times in ice cream from McDonald's and I've seen the same form rise out of the cream filling of a strawberry shortcake bar which I immediately spit out and the bite that was already in my mouth immediately went from tasting normal to tasting kind of rotten.
I see movement out of the corner of my eyes and the floaters that I've always had in my eyesight have recently become active and actually move around in my peripherals quite a bit as of late and this is usually a precursor to some rather uncomfortable physical side effects and I'm not sure how the two are related but it seems pretty clear that they are. I've seen many shadow people and I've had one sleep paralysis experience that was the textbook experience with the entity at the foot of my bed speaking in demonic gibberish. This shadowy entity also had what looked like the vague antenna or horns. Once I was making shadow puppets against a backdrop when suddenly the the shadow I was creating with my hands kept on moving wildly although my hands had stopped for several seconds this was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life probably because it was so unexpected and I'd never even considered that a possibility before. I get the feeling something demonic or at least extremely mischievous was getting a real kick out of my reaction to that and I suppose if I had those kind of powers to alter reality I would probably pull some hijinks like that just because I could.

On a very serious note I have also been enduring a a very nightmarish gang stalking situation that has been progressing now for several years and really it started right after all this paranormal weird s*** just came into my life alongside it and quite a bit of what I witness and go through every day can honestly count has paranormal as well because I sure can't even begin to explain any of it and I've been trying my hardest to figure it out since day one.
Have you seen Naked Lunch?
 
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Hi Fortean Fellow Travelers (FFT) - I wish to pose a question to you which I have been thinking about for a long time. Actually, it’s a few related questions. There are discussions on all these points scattered throughout the FMB, but it is so widespread and secondary to the main topics, that I can’t get a good feel for them. Please contribute – even if its just a single line. Remember, we are anonymous here (well most of us) :) Thanks.
  • What are the top Fortean types of phenomena for you? For example, parapsychology, UFOs, bigfoot, time slips, etc.
High strangeness, hauntings, time slips
  • What was your worldview when your interest began? For example, devoutly religious, atheist, pragmatic, agnostic, not sure, skeptic (meaning inherently disbelieving and thinking people who do believe are deluded), etc.
Raised Catholic, went to Catholic school for 12 years, but can’t remember ever being told by anyone that there was anything wrong with being interested in ghost stories, which I always was. (I’m no longer Catholic though.)
  • What was the event or starting point for your interest in inexplicable weirdness? For example, book or magazine, popular electronic media (TV, movie, podcast, youtube, etc.), discussion with family or friends, personal experience, etc.
  • How has your interpretation and acceptance (or not!) changed over time?
  • Is your current state of interpretation and acceptance stable? This means that you have not changed your mind for several years and expect that you will not change your mind with more or different evidence.
I can’t remember exactly when it started, but I was always fascinated by weird stuff. My parents would watch The Twilight Zone every week and I remember longing to watch it but they wouldn’t let me because it was on past my bedtime. They would tell my sister and me about some of the scarier episodes after they’d seen them, which only whetted my appetite more, and they did take us to see a movie that had a huge influence over my interest in ghosts, The Innocents.

The first really scary book I read as a child was The Haunting of Hill House. I don’t know why it didn’t dawn on me that there was a whole genre of “true” ghost, etc., type books out there but it really didn’t until college, then I read every one I could get my hands on.

I’m a lot more skeptical now than I was in my younger days, but I still believe in ghosts (I’ve never seen one but know too many credible people who have) and I still love reading about weird stuff.
 
Mods please move to better spot if possible

Hi Fortean Fellow Travelers (FFT) - I wish to pose a question to you which I have been thinking about for a long time. Actually, it’s a few related questions. There are discussions on all these points scattered throughout the FMB, but it is so widespread and secondary to the main topics, that I can’t get a good feel for them. Please contribute – even if its just a single line. Remember, we are anonymous here (well most of us) :) Thanks.
  • What are the top Fortean types of phenomena for you? For example, parapsychology, UFOs, bigfoot, time slips, etc.
  • What was your worldview when your interest began? For example, devoutly religious, atheist, pragmatic, agnostic, not sure, skeptic (meaning inherently disbelieving and thinking people who do believe are deluded), etc.
  • What was the event or starting point for your interest in inexplicable weirdness? For example, book or magazine, popular electronic media (TV, movie, podcast, youtube, etc.), discussion with family or friends, personal experience, etc.
  • How has your interpretation and acceptance (or not!) changed over time?
  • Is your current state of interpretation and acceptance stable? This means that you have not changed your mind for several years and expect that you will not change your mind with more or different evidence.
Here are mine:
  • What are the top Fortean types of phenomena for you? Answer: parapsychology, reincarnation, bigfoot.
  • What was your worldview when your interest began? Answer: pragmatic, agnostic, not sure.
  • What was the event or starting point for your interest in inexplicable weirdness? Answer: personal experiences.
  • How has your interpretation and acceptance (or not!) changed over time? Answer: definite evolution over time. I went from pragmatic, agnostic, not sure, to extreme skeptic, to not sure, to sure that some aspects of parapsychology do have an external reality not dependent on persons.
  • Is your current state of interpretation and acceptance stable? Answer: I have not changed my mind for several years about the big stuff (existence, types of things) and expect that I will not change my mind with more or different evidence.
well my parents had a number of books in their collection on occultism, it initially started as a few strange events, objects being dropped on their own, phantom music, an initial feeling of uneasiness, until around the age of 10 or 11 when my educator arrived, or at least revealed himself, there is still much I do not know, but much I've learned.
 
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