The Fortean/paranormal/conspiracy thread

[Loki]

Were you in your 20s at the time, with short hair?

 

I'm just wondering, it could have been your own reflection bounced up onto the windscreen by a freak ray of light from a car or streetlamp, at just the right angle to throw the reflection up for a fraction of a second.

[Up Chuck]

If it was a reflection of anything inside the car, there's no way it would've suddenly flashed up in both you and your girlfriend's line of vision at the exact same time unless her head was right next to yours for some reason. A light source from outside catching the windscreen seems more likely to me, but god knows why it would look vividly like a person.

[Astro Hollywood]

That's exactly why I'll always love this stuff. As sceptical as I am, there are so many weird, unique little stories that completely defy explanation. First stop with a new issue of the Fortean Times is always the letters page/It Happened to Me section.

 

In fact, here are my two favourite ever reader's stories from the FT. Both are utterly terrifying to me.

 

THE APPLE HAG

 

Falling asleep one night, I had a hypnagogic vision of a hag. She leaned right up to my face and breathed:

Edited October 28, 2013 by Astro Hollywood

[Loki]

You'd think a multi-dimensional evil entity might have better things to do than take a walk around South London, but still...

 

Both those stories have one thing in common - the people involved were in near-sleep states. I reckon we've all had one of those waking-dream type things where you dream that you've woken up, or feel that you're awake but can't move or open your eyes. In that liminal area between awake and asleep, I suspect, lies the explanation for a lot of "unexplained phenomena". Sleep deprivation often leads to hallucination, as well.

 

A few months ago something bizarre happened to me and the missus. We both suddenly awoke in absolute terror in the middle of the night, screaming. Not a sort of half-asleep moan, but proper full-throated screaming. I've never heard her scream like that before, and my throat was sore afterwards. I actually leapt out of bed and got all the way to the lightswitch and got the lights on, while we were still screaming. Neither of us had any idea what set us off, though, but we were both absolutely terrified.

 

About 30 seconds later, someone let off the most incredible amount of fireworks. It sounded like a firework factory had exploded, but in the middle of our town. At one in the morning, an utterly cuntish and bizarre thing to do.

 

The coincidence of waking up like that, and then an enormous explosion, was proper unsettling.

[Arch Stanton]

Well it seems obvious that an initial firework going off woke you up with a fright.

 

The stick man story is proper weird. When just one person sees something, you put it down to a hallucination, but when two people see the same thing it gets fucking hard to explain.

Edited October 28, 2013 by Arch Stanton

[Astro Hollywood]

And nobody's hallucinating after staying up until 6am unless they're a right puff.

 

Well it seems obvious that an initial firework going off woke you up with a fright.

 

And whoever woke up first's screaming is what made the other one scream, like those prank videos where someone falls asleep in a van and everyone wakes them up by yelling like they're about to crash.

Edited October 29, 2013 by Astro Hollywood

[Surf Digby]

Sleep deprivation often leads to hallucination, as well.

Too right it fucking does. Back in 2008 I went for a day out in Blackpool, stayed far later than intended, and spent the drive home trying to avoid trees in the middle of the motorway and concrete walls with cats heads painted on them. I was fully aware that I was hallucinating, and it was because I was exhausted, but I was still changing lanes to avoid them.

 

A few months ago something bizarre happened to me and the missus. We both suddenly awoke in absolute terror in the middle of the night, screaming. Not a sort of half-asleep moan, but proper full-throated screaming. I've never heard her scream like that before, and my throat was sore afterwards. I actually leapt out of bed and got all the way to the lightswitch and got the lights on, while we were still screaming. Neither of us had any idea what set us off, though, but we were both absolutely terrified.

If you sit/lie next to a sleeping person and scream, more often than not they'll join in, and wake up in a state of panic. When you have no marker pen, it's the next best thing to do to a mate that falls asleep on a roadtrip.

Chances are one of you screamed as a result of a nightmare, and the other joined in as a reflex. You both sit up, see the other screaming and have no idea why.

 

There's two stories in my family. One about my great aunt having a premonition of her son's death, but this has been Chinese whispered to God knows what degree.

 

The other involved my cousin (who's actually adopted, if that makes any difference). He's a typical Mancunian mechanic, and the type that would previously have nodded and feigned interest in someone telling a ghost story, and then rolled his eyes afterwards.

During the early to mid-nineties there were quite a few deaths on that side of my family, including both of his parents (his mother is my Grandmother's sister). He'd inherited the house, and one evening when it was time to switch off the TV and go to bed and the dog (a fucking huge half-Alsatian, half-bear called - purely coincidentally - Digby) wouldn't come with him. Raymond was stood at the bottom of the stairs (typical 3-bed semi layout) doing the standard "Come on, you daft animal" stuff, and the dog wouldn't come into the hallway. After a couple of tries, he writes it off with a "Sod you then" and as he looked up there on the top step and walking onto the landing was our recently deceased Auntie Jeanie (the other sister of his mother and my Grandmother), wearing her trademark quilted dressing gown that she always brought down with her when she stayed with my Grandparents.

My cousin promptly legged it and spent the night at a friends.

[neil]

The other thing that happened to me that I find quite interesting/strange is when my grandfather died. I had just moved to the US at the time, and my grandfather was in the later stages of cancer. I knew he was in bad shape and was expected to die shortly. However, one night I woke up at 3:30 in the morning and felt a general sense of unease, like something was wrong. I immediately thought of my grandfather. I couldn't get back to sleep either. Quite unlike me as I am a heavy sleeper.

 

My Mum phoned me around 10am. I knew it was her as soon as the phone rang, and I knew what she was going to tell me. Sure enough she let me knew that my grandfather had died. The odd thing about this though, she said he died at 8:30am UK time. Boston is 5 hours behind....which would be 3:30am.

[Loki]

The stick man thing sounds a lot like an offshoot of the Slender Man stuff, i.e an internet urban myth. Having a dig around, that seems possible.

 

Love it though - shades of Mothman. That sort of stuff is scarier than ghosts, imo.

[quote the raven]

Lack of sleep can do shit things to you. I have woken my mrs up before claiming to be seeing ants on the ceiling a few times i was awake but not fully. So to maybe wake up and think you see ghosts wouldnt be a shock.

 

Adding to what neil said i had an uncle pass away last year. He had a dog that he took everywhere with him his son took care of the dog when he got sick.

 

By all accounts this dog would sit in its bed by his desk all day until it was time to go home. Until the day my uncle died, the dog stood up and wagged its tail before running full pelt down the stairs and trying to get out the gate. The timing was more or less the same as my uncles death.

 

I know that sounds like a facebook post but he swears its true.

[Loki]

And nobody's hallucinating after staying up until 6am unless they're a right puff.

 

Internet hardman!

Well it seems obvious that an initial firework going off woke you up with a fright.

 

And whoever woke up first's screaming is what made the other one scream, like those prank videos where someone falls asleep in a van and everyone wakes them up by yelling like they're about to crash.

 

Yeah, I think that's what happened. Freaky though. There's no terror quite like the night terror.

 

Arch, you might think that hallucinating is a solo activity, but it's not by a long shot. Mass hallucination is a fairly recognised thing - groups of people sharing an incident or hysterical physical symptoms. As people have said, particularly if you're very tired, your mind can certainly play tricks on you and that could be a shared phenomena.

 

As ever with Fortean stuff, I always think "what's more likely?" - interdimensional being in South London, or two people sharing a hallucination? Or it being a made-up story?

 

Thing is - what the human mind is capable of is in itself fascinating and scary. We've hardly touched the surface of it.

[Astro Hollywood]

The stick man thing sounds a lot like an offshoot of the Slender Man stuff, i.e an internet urban myth. Having a dig around, that seems possible.

 

I can sort of vouch for that story, and its predating Slender Man, because it first appeared on the FT message boards over a decade ago. The guy posted it under his real name, before they picked it up and used it in the magazine a couple of years later and it started doing the rounds online. He's a real person, at least, maintaining a normal online presence to this day (if you Google him like a weirdo), who just dropped his own weird experience in a thread like people are doing here, rather than BONERGUY420 doing a CreepyPasta story.

 

As ever with Fortean stuff, I always think "what's more likely?" - interdimensional being in South London, or two people sharing a hallucination? Or it being a made-up story?

 

Absolutely. Good old Occam's Razor. And you have to be super wary of subjective experiences, but like with lie detectors (for example), I wouldn't want to outright dismiss every single story, because there's always that 1% chance they're something else, something we don't understand, and not just 'oh, a lie' or 'this dummy imagined something'.

 

Thing is - what the human mind is capable of is in itself fascinating and scary. We've hardly touched the surface of it.

 

The brain-based explanation for what'd make two people simultaneously imagine a creepy stick man is almost as interesting to me as it being a Stick Beast from Dimension X.

Edited October 29, 2013 by Astro Hollywood

[Egg Shen]

has anyone had experiences of birds doing strange things after death?

 

Just recently my uncle passed and my auntie said on the morning of the funeral a small bird sat on the window sill outside and just stared at her through the window. She laughed it off and made reference to it being a bit of an old folk tale but she also said it was pretty comforting on what was a tough day.

 

Another one i have no personal experience of, but something that's freaked me out since i was younger is of reports of dying people doing strange things just before they die. Reports of bed ridden people suddenly sitting up and saying odd things, or talking to things that ain't there. Anyone got any tales of that?

[Loki]

The stick man thing sounds a lot like an offshoot of the Slender Man stuff, i.e an internet urban myth. Having a dig around, that seems possible.

 

I can sort of vouch for that story, and its predating Slender Man, because it first appeared on the FT message boards over a decade ago. The guy posted it under his real name, before they picked it up and used it in the magazine a couple of years later and it started doing the rounds online. He's a real person, at least, maintaining a normal online presence to this day (if you Google him like a weirdo), who just dropped his own weird experience in a thread like people are doing here, rather than BONERGUY420 doing a CreepyPasta story.

 

Yeah, I just found that thread, and it dates back to 2004 so you're spot on there. That one story then seems to have been repeated and edited across the internet for a decade.

[Maverick]

has anyone had experiences of birds doing strange things after death?

 

Just recently my uncle passed and my auntie said on the morning of the funeral a small bird sat on the window sill outside and just stared at her through the window. She laughed it off and made reference to it being a bit of an old folk tale but she also said it was pretty comforting on what was a tough day.

 

Another one i have no personal experience of, but something that's freaked me out since i was younger is of reports of dying people doing strange things just before they die. Reports of bed ridden people suddenly sitting up and saying odd things, or talking to things that ain't there. Anyone got any tales of that?

BOSCO!