What's the wierdest thing that's ever happened to you?

[Lord Spong]

Something you just can't explain.  Something that's left you dumbfounded and thinking 'what the fuck...'.  Here's mine:

I was on holiday in Australia a few years ago.  I was walking from the restaurant one night back to the apartment I was staying in.  It was dark and I was on my own.  I saw a big UFO in the sky, and when I say UFO I don't mean a strange fuzzy light in the sky a few miles away.  I mean a big fucking ship flying right over my head.  It was black, there were no lights coming off it at all.  It was completely silent.  The only reason I spotted it was because it was blotting out the stars in the sky as it went by.   It was shaped a bit like a boomerang, except with angular corners and was about the size of a large passenger plane.  It flew right over my head, across a golf course and out to sea.  I was dumbstruck, I even started to follow it over the golf course but I could never have kept up with it.  

To this day I have no idea what it was.  It was definitely a 'craft' of some kind.  I've never seen a plane that looks anything like it.  The only thing I can possibly think of is that it was some kind of top secret experimental plane, but would 'they' be testing that sort of thing right over the top of Australian tourist resorts? Wouldn't a plane, any sort of plane, make some kind of noise as it passes overhead, it was only a few hundred feet up.  

I felt like Richard Dreyfuss in 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'.  I'm not saying it was aliens, but it certainly wasn't anything I could identify, so who knows?

I love a mystery, so give me your weird experiences.  Doesn't have to be UFO or supernatural based, just so long as it's left you thinking 'huh!'...

[Vermschneid Mehearties]

When i was around 5, I remember being woken up and carried downstairs. We then proceeded to get in the car, and drive off. I live right near the Humber Bridge, and I vividly remember going on this really well lit road, which I have never ever been able to find since. What rubbed the salt in the wound was that the local photographers have a framed picture on their wall of the exact same road.

I discovered only last year that it was a stretch of Clive Sullivan Way on the Hull bank, and I had only been confused because I though we were on the South Bank.

[fanny splendid]

Lord Spong, whereabouts in Australia was it?

[Des Nilsen]

At age 5-6 I had a habit of twisting my hair in my fingers when I was bored; I did it at school, on the bus, and lying in bed at night before I went to sleep.
At this age I slept with the door of my room wide open and the landing light was on, so I could see clearly the comings and goings up and down stairs and also could see my whole room so there could be nobody in there without me knowing.
My old bed had a blue aluminium bedhead that wasn't attached so had to be trapped between the head of the bed and the wall, I would hold my wrist against this while twirling my hair while looking about letting my eyes see the water flowing on their surface (it makes a wall look as if it has a huge moving sheet of metal in it's place, like a piston going up and down).

While twirling my hair one night I felt an adult male hand shove past mine and grab my hair and pull it hard, making my head hit the bedhead and make it clank.
I sat up and turned around - nobody there, though if there were they'd have had to have been right above me or coming through the wall. There was no way anybody could have been there.
It's easy to put it down to a momentary dream but I was wide awake the whole time, and could feel the callusses on this chunky man's hand. It pulled my hair with some force and I had a bruise on my scalp the rest of that week.
I dismissed this at the time weirdly enough and it haunts me now because it's so scary in retrospect.

-

[Lord Spong]

Lord Spong, whereabouts in Australia was it?

It was Palm Cove, which is just north of Cairns, in Queensland.  It was in May 1999.

[The Bejesus]

On holiday in South of France with my family (aged about 12), I awoke one nigtht sat in my pj's on a bench in the middle of this enormous campsite and I had no idea where I was or how I'd got there.  It must have been about 3am and I absolutely lost it and start running back in the direction I thought the caravan was.  After about 10 mins of running round in big circles I eventually found my way home and freaked my entire family out with my panicked state.

I know what you're thinking.....

.....caravan holidays?!  What a scrubber.

[fanny splendid]

Lord Spong, whereabouts in Australia was it?

It was Palm Cove, which is just north of Cairns, in Queensland.  It was in May 1999.

There are USAF bases in Oz where, if you believe the rumours, things are being tested. I'll have to have a dig around.

[fum]

It was black, there were no lights coming off it at all.  It was completely silent.  The only reason I spotted it was because it was blotting out the stars in the sky as it went by.   It was shaped a bit like a boomerang, except with angular corners and was about the size of a large passenger plane.  

Wouldn't a plane, any sort of plane, make some kind of noise as it passes overhead, it was only a few hundred feet up.

Could it have been one of those stealth bomber jobbies? They fly low, are silent and boomerang shaped, all something to do with avoiding being detected by radar.

Anyway wierd thing that happened to me.
Davey and I went to the site where borley rectory was and the site where the red barn murder took place (think it was in suffolk or thereabouts).

We got out of the car to have a look around, heard a strange oooo noise, got back in the car and promptly legged it. There was noone around.

Also I have dreamt things and then they've actually happened.

[fanny splendid]

It was black, there were no lights coming off it at all.  It was completely silent.  The only reason I spotted it was because it was blotting out the stars in the sky as it went by.   It was shaped a bit like a boomerang, except with angular corners and was about the size of a large passenger plane.  

Wouldn't a plane, any sort of plane, make some kind of noise as it passes overhead, it was only a few hundred feet up.

Could it have been one of those stealth bomber jobbies? They fly low, are silent and boomerang shaped, all something to do with avoiding being detected by radar.

Stealth bombers are very noisy. Although, there is another unsubstantiated rumour that they use normal propulsion systems for take off and landing but because of their shape, this makes them unstable (hence all of the crashes). So they use recovered alien technology to power them...

[glitch]

Also I have dreamt things and then they've actually happened.

I've had that. Minor trivial things, mainly conversations, a sense of "more than deja vu." The only one that really sticks out in my mind is...

When I was 12 I had a dream where I was in a wooded area with other members of my school. Everyone was standing around, listening to some teacher-type person talking about dead and live turtles, while pointing at the ground. In the dream, I felt dettached from the scene and was confused as he was clearly pointing at helmets.

6 months later I was on a school trip to Wales, on an Outward Bound course. At one point, while being prepped for the zip-wire, we were all standing around listening to an instructor talk about dead and live turtles, referencing the correct way to leave a helmet while not wearing it.

Odd.

When I was 13, I read up lots on the Nicholas Ingrams case as it was happening. I strangely got really emotive about the entire story, a first look at international politics/extradition etc. and the injustice of the American judicial system. I remember waking up with a start on the night of his execution at 4:00am, unable to get back to sleep.

The next morning the paper arrived and it boldly declared that he had been granted a stay of execution at the last hour.

I knew this to be false. The TV news confirmed it... and working out the time difference to when he was executed?

4 in the morning.

I don't claim to be psychic or anything. Just some odd events that I wish I could explain...

[smoker]

this is a bit weird, don't know how accurate it is:

Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.
John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.

Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.
John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.

Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
Both wives lost a child while living in the White House.

Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.
Both Presidents were shot in the head.

Now it gets really weird.

Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy.
Kennedy's Secretary was named Lincoln.

Both were assassinated by Southerners.
Both were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson.

Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.

John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839 Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939.

Both assassins were known by their three names.
Both names are composed of fifteen letters.

Now hang on to your seat

Lincoln was shot at the theatre named "Ford."
Kennedy was shot in a car called "Lincoln" made by "Ford."

Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.

And here's the "kicker":

A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland.
A week before Kennedy was shot, he was with Marilyn Monroe.

and Lincoln was shot in a theatre and the assassin ran to a warehouse. Kennedy was shot from a warehouse and the assassin ran to a theatre.

[Vermschneid Mehearties]

Now guess which ones are coincidences and which ones are connected.

[smoker]

ha well as i understand it wilkes booth was killed by a trigger happy soldier but i could be wrong. and i know hoover was pissed off by kennedy's civil rights stance but i don't know about lincoln's reforms or how they were received.

so, probably no connections?

[Frinky]

When I was about 9 or 10 I remember I was in London(ish) with a mate and his Dad, who was a delivery driver... We were parked up somewhere, I stayed in the van, not sure why. Anyway, I know my mind is "patching" up the original memory - the image is of this being behind some trees but it must have been further away - again, no idea where I was - concievably near an aiport, why not? - I saw what looked like a fairly average passenger plane - one of the smaller "shuttle" types, Easyjet sort of things - lift off vertically. I have no idea what happened after I saw it, ie, flew off/leveled up, and I don't know why I didn't see it - probably becuase I didn't want to get out of the van and it moved out of a range I could see - but it definately took off totally upright, and appeared to look just like a passenger plane to a kid my age.

I think I mentioned this on the old old board, and got a patial explination, I'd like to hear that again. I'd love to re-see that memory correctly, too.

[Jet Set Willy]

If it was flying directly towards you then it would look like it was flying vertically.

[smoker]

If it was flying directly towards you then it would look like it was flying vertically.

if one was above it. otherwise you'd think it was travelling horizontally.

once on holiday i was convinced i'd seen a king cobra under a bush. i worried about it all through dinner because we had to go back that way to get to the hotel. on closer inspection it was revealed to be a leaf. unsurprisingly.

[Frinky]

If it was flying directly towards you then it would look like it was flying vertically.

Nope - this was a profile, 3/4 angle view - hence me thinking that it was your everyday passenger plane - becuase I could see all the paneling and stuff. I recall it being white and blue. And while it wasn't as close as memory recalls, it was certianly close enough to discount any kind of mix up like that.

[hencole]

I think you can discount all the accounts when people where pre-teenagers as children have very vivid imaginations, plus they aren't always aware of strange optical illusions that they know about when they are older. When I was about 9 I thought I saw a crashed spaceship in a field, but looking back at it now it was probably just me lookijng at a cattle shed in the right/wrong light.
The strangest things that have happened to me were my sleep paralysis incidents last year, but I've already spoken about those before.

[Mr Flunchy]

In my first year of uni in Manchester, I sort of awoke (but I wasn't really sleeping) sitting on a bench in Market Street with my pockets stuffed full of money.  I hadn't seen Donnie Darko then, but in retrospect that's exactly what it was like.  The weird thing was, I wasn't asleep, I just sort of popped back into control of my body.  It turned out I'd got the money from my account, I still have no idea how I got there.

Oh yeah, and I have memories that I'm not sure I dreamt or actually happened.

[hencole]

You'd were blitzed on drugs and had been pimping your body all night. Last punter kicked you out of the back of their car and you crawled to the bench. Next.

[Mr Flunchy]

You'd were blitzed on drugs and had been pimping your body all night. Last punter kicked you out of the back of their car and you crawled to the bench. Next.

eh.. seems to fit.

[Sherringford Hovis]

Weirdest thing that happens to me is déjà vu - all the damn time.

Averaging out at about four to six times a week, I get the intense and scary feeling that I've been somewhere before, met a particular person (or spoken about a particular subject before), or - most commonly - I get the creepy feeling that something (not necessarily bad) is about to happen, and then it does: anything from a car having a minor prang in the street nearby to getting a surprise gift from a relative through the post. Most of the time, it's more than a sneaking suspicion - I actually feel completely sure that it is the second time that I am experiencing a particular moment. It's not just significant or quantifiable events that I can get déjà vu about though - it's just that they tend to be more memorable later on. It can be the most mundane thing: like a particular sentence used (even on the TV) or the exact position of a cup on a table in a café where I've not been before that day.

As well as the 'intense scary feeling' at the time of the déjà vu event, I can suffer from varying levels of mental disorientation and confusion sometimes up to three or four minutes before a 'big' déjà vu episode; and the physical symptoms I can experience before, and/or during and/or after (and not necessarily all at once) include:
Dry mouth
Clammy hands
Difficulty in swallowing
Loosening of the bowels (mostly mild, very occasionally serious)
Mild dizziness (feels like getting up from a chair suddenly)
Hair prickling on the back neck, or sometimes all over body (and goose-bumps)

Before you go claiming that I'm suffering from quite a rare but well-understood mental illness: in my adult life, I've approached doctors (under a false name - my trust has to be carefully won) several times trying to get some sort of handle on what's up with me. I've had MRI scans and every sort of head-prodding and cerebrum-poking that Western medicine has to offer, but always done a runner pretty sharpish when it becomes patently obvious that after just a couple of visits they're all booking me a one-way express ticket to a room with rubber walls and/or recommending a lifetime of trussing my intellect in an ill-fitting chemical straight-jacket. If I refuse medication (a fast-diminishing right these days), can you imagine trying to claim disability benefits for my condition?

With a frequency of about four or five times a year, I can acutely visualise (or hear) exactly what is about to occur, and as soon as my brain interprets this information to be one of my 'premonitions', the physical symptoms and confusion rapidly diminishes. On at least four occasions in the last decade, I've stunned companions by being able to 'predict' little things happening, à la Bill Murray in Groundhog Day predicting that the diner waitress will drop her tray. If caught unawares by an episode of déjà vu, it can lead to a slight loss of physical co-ordination that makes me clumsy, or lapse of composure can make me weep for no apparent external reason.

It's been happening since I was about 13-14. Prior to the onset of puberty, I used to get severe headaches that the doctor attributed to short-sightedness, but being sent to the optician for some fetching National Health specs didn't make the problem go away. Various further tentative diagnoses of migraines or dietary deficiencies and their attendant 'cures' made no difference either. The onset of zits, body hair and a breaking voice seemed to occur at the same rate that the headaches diminished.

I've tried to keep a diary of déjà vu events several times over the last sixteen years or so, but it just kept creeping me out, or became such an obsessive project that took over my whole life to the point where I was not sure whether I was getting 'false' déjà vu feelings because I was expecting them, or over-analysing my feelings. My first encounter of email and the Internet in was a direct result of me trying to find out more about the déjà vu phenomenon from medical and academic institutions across the world: suffice to say that I was either treated like a crank or nutter myself, or had the shifting unease that those who were actually interested in my case were the very weirdos from whom the former group were seeking to disassociate themselves.

I can't say that I've gotten used to my 'gift' over the years - I've just had to learn to cope as best I can.

So there it is - it appears that maybe I can unselectively see a few seconds or minutes into the future, but have no idea how to apply it to anything useful like saving the world, winning the lottery, or giving Neil  forewarning that the CaB site was about to go fucky.




I'd be very interested in your take on this, but please do bear in mind that I've had sixteen or so years of pondering about it already. PM me if you don't want to air your déjà vu thoughts/experiences in public - if you think the topic of déjà vu is worth its own thread, let's do that.

[hencole]

Regarding the symptons you describe. Do you feel a slight detatchment from reality when these occur? Also I have to ask do you ever here voices, not coherent voices that you can pick out what they are saying, but the feeling of something being said?

[Sherringford Hovis]

Regarding the symptons you describe. Do you feel a slight detatchment from reality when these occur?

Not at all - in the case of the less significant ones, it's just a vague idea like the nagging feeling you get on the way to the bus stop that you might have left a tap running in the bathroom in your hurry to get to work. Hyper-reality would probably be the best way to describe what I feel when I'm having major déjà vu that's linked to either a notable event or a particularly visual precognition.

Also I have to ask do you ever here voices, not coherent voices that you can pick out what they are saying, but the feeling of something being said?

This is usually one of the first things that a doctor asks - it's very difficult to describe without a lot of hand-waving and badly used similies. I'm not hearing voices or noises per se; to put it in its simplest terms, its more like a forgotten memory being awoken in a way that anyone that is familiar with Proust's madeleine might recognise.

[Vermschneid Mehearties]

if you think the topic of déjà vu is worth its own thread, let's do that.

Yeah, I think it really is. I would post my own deja vu stuff but here isn't quite the appropriate topic.*

*I even had a feeling of Deja vu about VW's once. That just made me slightly depressed more than anything.

[Martian Martian]

On at least four occasions in the last decade, I've stunned companions by being able to 'predict' little things happening

This could be co-incidental. I'm sure we could all have a similar success rate given the random nature of chance. I know this is stating the bleedin' obvious, but isn't the deja-vu sensation not triggered by a chemical reaction in the brain? And perhaps your brain is just firing all the time?

It would be easier to accept that you are beyond the fringes of medical science, rather than existing in some metaphysical twilight zone.

Dead interesting though - I hope medicine catches up with you soon, and can help you.

[Huzzie]

Finding a Chupacabra in Puerto Rico for me!:-)



NAh, this is a top thread, I was going to start one about UFO's/Aliens.  Just seeing what y'all reckon.

Anyway, shuttit now and let me read this thread!

[Sherringford Hovis]

Moving DEJA VU topic to a new thread to give other people's weirdness proper breathing space.

[Cerys]

this is a bit weird, don't know how accurate it is:

<morass of coincidence snipped>

Agh!  My brain's going all wibbly!

The strangest thing for me, I think, is the incident that happened a couple of years back (I've already mentioned it, on the old board), wherein I was bitching about a friend of ours who had something of an obsession with SNG, and wound up the bitching session by wailing, 'oh why can't she just die?!'

... Two weeks later she did.

[terrorist]

just remembered whilst reading the Story thread that I used to hear, not speak, with a lisp after clubbing.  After being out all night when I got back to someone's house and the party continued everyone would apear to be talking with a lisp, most disconcerting I can tell you especially when you're a bit warped and can quite get your head round it.  I suspect the reason was prolonged exposure to high volume sound causing my ears (or brain) to react by de-sensitising itself to the high frequencies.  I know this can be used as a temporary treatment for tinitus so there must be some science to it.  Anyway it was very wierd at the time.