The Weird Thread...

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TheGreenGoblin
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The Weird Thread...

#1 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Wed Oct 09, 2019 10:39 am

A place for stories or experiences or simply anecdotes that seem to defy natural laws e.g. logic, physics in all its guises , chemistry, biology, medicine, thermodynamics, astronomy, the arrow of time and the way we, rationally expect things to be and so on.

First in self defence, I must say that I am a rationalist, an agnostic and a sceptical human being who is not drawn in any sense to the irrational or the downright cranky and am no fan of stories about the supernatural and I abhor conspiracy theories. Nonetheless I am always interested when people, for whom I have some intellectual and moral respect, tell me something, in all sincerity, about something that is so wildly improbable that is should be put immediately into the hokum file but isn't because one hesitates on account of the credentials of the teller who seems to genuinely believe in what he/she is describing and who, to all intents and purposes, is a rational, sane human being!

So it was this morning when talking to a colleague who pointed me to this chap's supposed aviation related "miracles" during the latter years of the Second World in Italy. A story that my colleague clearly believes. Mass delusion, self delusion, hoax... etc. etc?
In Norman Lewis’ brilliant, astounding Naples ’44, the British writer has many curious and memorable passages from his diary of that year. However, this is one of Beach’s favourites.

At Pomigliano [north-east of Naples] we have a flying monk who also demonstrates the stigmata. The monk claims that on an occasion last year when an aerial dog-fight was in progress, he soared up to the sky to catch in his arms the pilot of a stricken Italian plane, and bring him safely to earth. Most of the Neapolitans I know – some of them educated men – are convinced of the truth of this story.
"Saints", gunfire and bombs...

I must say that flying monks appear, not so much as foo fighters to me, but as fooey although I thoroughly recommend Norman Lewis’ Naples ’44!

Naples 44
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"To be alive
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To go
Your destination remains
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Re: The Weird Thread...

#2 Post by OFSO » Wed Oct 09, 2019 12:41 pm

When my MIL was alive, in London, she'd phone us in Spain, allow a single ring, the phone there would display "mum" and my wife would phone her back. After she died we had the London phone disconnected since we only ever use the mobiles. And last year the land line in Spain was also disconnected. Only Spanish connection now is via the 4/5G box, house telephones still the same but plugged in to the ether, as it were.

Twice since she died, our phone has rung once and the display shown "mum". Tried calling back in case her number has been reallocated, number unobtainable.

No explanation.

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Re: The Weird Thread...

#3 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Wed Oct 09, 2019 1:55 pm

OFSO wrote:
Wed Oct 09, 2019 12:41 pm

Twice since she died, our phone has rung once and the display shown "mum". Tried calling back in case her number has been reallocated, number unobtainable.

No explanation.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy" as the eternal saw, that allows one to beg the question in arguments about "ghosts" and the "supernatural", goes.


I guess there can be no more fiendish, or beloved, "ghost" than that of a late departed mother-in-law, depending up one's relationship with her when she was in the quick. ;)))

I have always felt that it is strange that technologies such as the internet haven't attracted the sociological or psychological phenomena of true or, most probably, tall tales about ghosts in the machine. I mean, for all I know everybody on this site might be logging in from some other dimension beyond this mortal coil and I am the only living person here or vice versa! In fact it is very hard for us to know save for a whimsical internet address and the fact that people here must meet up occasionally! =))
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

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Re: The Weird Thread...

#4 Post by 1DC » Wed Oct 09, 2019 8:56 pm

A cousin got a reminder on his phone at 0700 on his birthday. It was from his deceased wife wishing him happy birthday and not to worry because she was watching over him and looking forward to seeing him again when he was ready to join her. Apparently when she realised she was terminal and and didn't have long to go she programmed the message into his phone without him knowing. Gave him a bit of a fright when it woke him up..

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Re: The Weird Thread...

#5 Post by Hydromet » Wed Oct 09, 2019 10:07 pm

I mean, for all I know everybody on this site might be logging in from some other dimension beyond this mortal coil and I am the only living person here or vice versa!
Time to go silent, everybody, he's on to us.

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Re: The Weird Thread...

#6 Post by Slasher » Thu Oct 10, 2019 5:56 am

My wife’s boobs didn’t shrink after our son’s birth 10 years ago (in fact they’ve remained the same larger size since) and they both haven’t drooped a poofteenth at all.

Now that is weird. Fantastic...but really weird. It shouldn’t occur at all with Asian women - especially Thais.

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Re: The Weird Thread...

#7 Post by OFSO » Thu Oct 10, 2019 6:53 am

Thanks Capt. S. Can always rely on you to pull us down to earth, even if gravity has abrogated it's responsibility regarding your wife's breasts.

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Re: The Weird Thread...

#8 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Thu Oct 10, 2019 9:06 am

Slasher wrote:
Thu Oct 10, 2019 5:56 am
My wife’s boobs didn’t shrink after our son’s birth 10 years ago (in fact they’ve remained the same larger size since) and they both haven’t drooped a poofteenth at all.

Now that is weird. Fantastic...but really weird. It shouldn’t occur at all with Asian women - especially Thais.
Gives a whole new meaning to supernatural! ;)))
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

Slasher

Re: The Weird Thread...

#9 Post by Slasher » Thu Oct 10, 2019 9:46 am

Well OFSO it is after all...me. :ymblushing:

Plus the Gob’s Weirdness envelope (as stated in his first post) meant that the wife’s strange unexplained titterocity doesn’t exclude it from discussion on the thread.

Gob that’s a good way of puttin’ it. ;)))

God help me and my knackery if the missus ever discovers this site and puts 2 n 2 together!! :-s

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Re: The Weird Thread...

#10 Post by OFSO » Wed Nov 20, 2019 2:03 pm

What follows is absolutely true and I cannot explain it.

On July 31st 2019 I awoke just after midnight to hear the faint sounds of someone playing the flute. No particular music, just a few notes on and on. I got out of bed and checked the whole house (radios TV, Google Home, phones, etc) but wherever I went the sound was the same quite volume, somewhere in the distance. Back to bed wondering who was playing the flute nearby. Next morning I found my battery-powered watch had stopped and the DCF clock by the bed was out two to three hours. Reset watch, it ran perfectly until today.

Last night, November 20th 2019, as I was in the bathroom getting ready for bed, around 23:00, I heard the same sound of a flute playing, again, very quietly and in the distance. Mrs OFSO was in the living room watching (i.e. dozing) some TV cookery program, she'd not heard it.
Checked the house as before, never got near to the sound. Unlike the previous incidence it's very cold, all windows were shut and no houses near us are occupied. And this morning found my watch had stopped at the time I'd heard the flute.

We are aware of the previous owners of this house, a German agronomist and his wife, who (the wife) didn't like the house and came rarely. They seem unlikely to be flute players. While building the house they had lived in Indonesia.

No more info.

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Re: The Weird Thread...

#11 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Wed Nov 20, 2019 2:41 pm

A flute playing spirit, if such it be, sounds like a placid soul anyway... imagine what the banshee wail of a badly played ghostly violin would sound like!
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

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Re: The Weird Thread...

#12 Post by OFSO » Wed Nov 20, 2019 3:13 pm

An addendum to what I wrote above. I've just been in and reset my watch, which stopped at 00:00.. It's now running perfectly.

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Re: The Weird Thread...

#13 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Wed Nov 20, 2019 3:22 pm

The Speke Ghost...

I guess that everybody here has heard of the old Speke Control Tower ghost, reputed to be the tormented soul of Tom Campbell Black who bit the big one in a collision with a Hawker Hart at the airfield back in the 30's. Now that the airfield has gone all Beatle as an airport and the tower has been demolished to make way for a soulless Great Western Motel (or something like that) on the new airport industrial estate, I guess that even poor Tom has given up his ghost and flown to the great wide space in the sky.

I visited the airfield just before all the changes came about and spoke to one of the ATC staff there who said that he and many others there had seen and heard things that made them believe in the ghost. He clearly was serious.

Ghosts? Who knows?
Though you remain
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"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

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Re: The Weird Thread...

#14 Post by ian16th » Wed Nov 20, 2019 3:50 pm

Cue for 'Billy Lindholme', and is my crew back yet?
Cynicism improves with age

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Re: The Weird Thread...

#15 Post by Pontius Navigator » Wed Nov 20, 2019 4:09 pm

Our digital kitchen clock used to have an alarm function, a waste of design as it was a walk clock and would have to be taken down to set it. It would occasionally default to a midnight alarm much as you suggest.

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Re: The Weird Thread...

#16 Post by boing » Sat Nov 23, 2019 3:49 pm

Two mild examples recently.

First, not unusually I lost my reading glasses early one morning. Searched all the usual places, my bedside cabinet, the bedroom in general, the bathroom, the kitchen, my office - no luck. I finally concluded that I needed to search under my bed since I had been subject to a vicious and unprovoked licking attack by the new puppy shortly after waking and said glasses may have been knocked onto the floor. The bed is one of those awkward height things with legs about 6 inches high so it is difficult to vacuum under it and you need to lie on the floor to see under it at all. So, I am lying on the floor trying to see into the dark recess between the head of the bed and the cabinet when I dimly make out a small, flat, red, object. I retrieve this and see it is a tiny LED flashlight that I had been given months ago and which had apparently suffered the same fate I suspected the glasses had experienced. Now that I had a conveniently supplied flashlight I had no trouble at all finding the glasses - but what are the odds on this happening?

Second. I had a fairly long dream about climbing a high snow-capped mountain to experience the spectacular view. On arising I unplugged my cell-phone from its charger which causes it to turn on and display a randomly selected graphic ------ in this case a high snow-capped mountain.


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Re: The Weird Thread...

#17 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Tue Nov 26, 2019 12:41 pm

Prompted by another rather sadder thread...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b066fqcr
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Your destination remains
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Re: The Weird Thread...

#18 Post by boing » Tue Nov 26, 2019 8:56 pm

GG,

I am guessing you mean the Mull accident. Yes, this is a nice mystery but the show raises far more mundane questions than it does mystical ones. It's a bit like a typical Agatha Christy murder story with the caste of potential miscreants sharing a remote hotel in a wild location on Christmas Eve.

You have got me going on this after I listened to the story. Probably all due to needing to compress the tale into the transmission window but why was there no mention of the police interviewing the lady? Surely if someone dies the police would be very interested to talk to the last person to see them alive. Then there is the suggestion that he and she were not alone at the airfield as they deployed the crude runway lights.

How long had they known each other? What was the deceased's mental condition? Had he been drinking? What did he say about his intentions to fly and land an aircraft at a non-night equipped airfield in the dark on a night that was mentioned to be misty? Did he and she have financial connections? Was she a beneficiary of insurance? How competent was the local plod to investigate the death? Was he in financial trouble?

The 14th?

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Re: The Weird Thread...

#19 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Tue Nov 26, 2019 10:49 pm

boing wrote:
Tue Nov 26, 2019 8:56 pm
GG,

I am guessing you mean the Mull accident. Yes, this is a nice mystery but the show raises far more mundane questions than it does mystical ones. It's a bit like a typical Agatha Christy murder story with the caste of potential miscreants sharing a remote hotel in a wild location on Christmas Eve.

You have got me going on this after I listened to the story. Probably all due to needing to compress the tale into the transmission window but why was there no mention of the police interviewing the lady? Surely if someone dies the police would be very interested to talk to the last person to see them alive. Then there is the suggestion that he and she were not alone at the airfield as they deployed the crude runway lights.

How long had they known each other? What was the deceased's mental condition? Had he been drinking? What did he say about his intentions to fly and land an aircraft at a non-night equipped airfield in the dark on a night that was mentioned to be misty? Did he and she have financial connections? Was she a beneficiary of insurance? How competent was the local plod to investigate the death? Was he in financial trouble?

The 14th?

.

boing you comments raise many good questions for sure and your Agatha Christie metaphor sums the whole story up very well (far better than Columbo after all).

I enjoy the historical chase and have done some small investigation and his younger ex-lecturer girlfriend confirmed that he had drunk but not heavily before he decided on a whim to take off. For all that he was probably well out of bottle to throttle whack and he was known as a maverick, albeit a very brave one, vide his war record as a Spitfire pilot. She insisted there was nobody with them when he took off!

My take on this is that as a typical fighter pilot type with, perhaps, too much romanticism in him (he was a very good musician after all) he decided to prove to himself that he could still do the whole navigation thing in the dark, at Christmas on his birthday, screwed it up, as most, if not all of us would do, on such an inclement night and landed short by about 300 yards in the sea! He then managed to make a good fist of the ditching and despite the cold made it to shore only to die from hypothermia after blundering across the road and up the hill. From experience I know how difficult it is to find a body in plain sight (another story, another time). A number months later his body was found and a weird mystery was born.
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Your destination remains
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Re: The Weird Thread...

#20 Post by boing » Tue Nov 26, 2019 11:58 pm

Your proposition fits the facts perfectly so it is proper to consider the mystery explained.

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