what the hell was THAT ?

[pigfarmer]

Alright, I am not one to consider every bump in the night to be a ghost - or any for that matter. That said, I had one odd experience regarding a pair of eyeglasses that disappeared and reappeared rather magically a couple of years ago that absolutely flummoxed my wife and I. I am quite open to about anything really, I never slam the door on a notion unless I have a good reason to.

Flummoxed. You don't get to trot that one out every day .....

I've been in my house for twenty seven years. Like Scotty aboard the Enterprise I know every noise and groan and quirk of this beat up old raised ranch. If a new one pops up I need to know what it is asap. In one case many years ago during an extended blizzard an odd noise turned out to be my hydronic baseboard system freezing and splitting and being destroyed - it all started with an odd sounding plink.

In the past few days we've been at one end of the house in the living room and we'll hear movement of some sort, a small thump or series of them. We all hear it - my wife, me, the cats, the dog. Naturally I get up and check it out. It isn't a mouse in the attic, a bird or anything else. Most likely its perfectly explainable but I'll be glad to know what it is because I sure can't identify the source.

What bothers me is that it actually terrified my dog for a solid hour the other night, she got all weird and was staring down the hallway as if Old Scratch hisself was about to appear. What the hell is that ?

 

[pigfarmer]

We were just talking about this.

Sometimes it sounds like a knock on the front door, several times I got up expecting a package. Nope, not only is nothing there but there weren't even footprints in the snow. I don't shovel it out in the winter, we don't generally use that door to come and go. It also has two cameras covering the whole front of the house and I have yet to have one of the motion detectors spot anything like when delivery drivers actually drop a package there. Sometimes they go to that door rather than the ones I do shovel for reasons of their own.

 

[Todd Feinman]

Interesting! You'll have to keep listening and see what happens. Let us know.

 

[pigfarmer]

..... okay ...... turns out there is something that just inexplicably went missing but it sounds so goddamned ludicrous I hesitate to speak of it aloud. Put it this way, I feel silly typing about it here I definitely won't be mentioning it to anyone else. This is for-real, I'm not making this up or pulling anyone's leg. If I wanted to I could come up with something way more interesting.

My pants. My goddamned pants vanished. Not right off my backside - that would be quite the pickle - but another personal item just went away.

I just bought four pair of black jeans for work and one is totally MIA. It's just us, I just spent a half hour turning the place inside and out looking for them. It's just my wife and I in here, nobody else and we do our laundry right here at home. No, I didn't throw them away and they aren't under or in anything, this place isn't that big.

Absurd.

 

[nivek]

Do you by chance have a stowaway?...An illegal migrant sneaking in and living in your attic maybe?...

...

 

[pigfarmer]

Do you by chance have a stowaway?...An illegal migrant sneaking in and living in your attic maybe?...

...

Gas grass or ass - nobody rides for free! I find somebody up there wearing my pants they get put to work

Awfully cold up there (but I did look)

 

[J Randall Murphy]

In the past few days we've been at one end of the house in the living room and we'll hear movement of some sort, a small thump or series of them . . . What the hell is that ?

My initial thoughts are ( for the noises ):

A: Temperature expansion/contraction in the floor and/or walls. My forced air system started doing that recently.
Your hydronic system combined with wind and weather may be culprit again.

B: Animals in the walls or attic?

Do you by chance have a stowaway?...An illegal migrant sneaking in and living in your attic maybe?...

Not as wild a suggestion as one might think. An interview comes to mind where investigators into similar cases caught neighbors on camera sneaking in and causing similar consternation.
They said it's far more common than people think — as are stowaways.

 

[pigfarmer]

This thread is for any weird inexplicable stuff, not just my paranormal haberdashery issues.

To say you lost your pants automatically implies there's a joke in there somewhere but another way to say it is 'this is the second time a personal item of mine has gone missing with no explanation'. IDK what that's about but that really happened. I'm not thinking poltergeist more glitch in the space time continuum. The Devil's always in the details and I suspect things like this happen and we fail to notice them for being so mundane - we only notice dog men smoking cigarettes.

I can get more pants.

Lately we've all heard some odd noises that have even spooked our pets. I was wide awake at 0345 this morning sitting on the edge of my bed because frankly my goddamned shoulder throbs so much sometimes it wakes me up. I distinctly heard the inner garage door close. It's a steel fire door that we keep locked from the inside and I was down the stairs like a shot with my beat-you-to-death Maglite only to find everyone asleep and the door locked. Wasn't asleep, quite the opposite especially after every adrenal gland my body has let loose.

Add that to the weird little shit list I seem to have going. Not appreciating this.

 

[pigfarmer]

My initial thoughts are ( for the noises ):

A: Temperature expansion/contraction in the floor and/or walls. My forced air system started doing that recently.
Your hydronic system combined with wind and weather may be culprit again.

B: Animals in the walls or attic?



Not as wild a suggestion as one might think. An interview comes to mind where investigators into similar cases caught neighbors on camera sneaking in and causing similar consternation.
They said it's far more common than people think — as are stowaways.

All valid thoughts and exactly what I would say if I heard this from someone else. Common sense practical solutions that are probably the answer in 99.99% of these sorts of things. But I am writing about them here because I feel they do not fit in those categories, at least not easily. I have been here since 1997 and done extensive work throughout the house and am familiar with all the usual suspects as well as the host of creaks and groans this place already makes. There isn't a square inch of this old raised ranch - a big rectangle - that I am not already familiar with. Animals or visitors are things my dog would alert on instantly - she's an excellent watch dog.

John B Alexander sort of makes my point in Reality Denied although in his case the incidents were more concrete. Missing personal objects seem pretty concrete to me, noises not so much but what happened this morning was certainly an attention getter. Point is - even if boringly mundane what is the mechanism at work, how did something like that actually happen? JBA brings that up describing a hard shove he received in a allegedly haunted house - what exactly touched him and how did it generate that force?

In that vein - if I happen to already be in my basement at that hour what would I have seen or heard? Nothing ? The dog never twitched. Then what generated the noise, my imagination? Could be but ..... WTF ? I was already wide awake courtesy of a painful shoulder.

 

[Todd Feinman]

Interesting occurences! You two will have to wait and see what happens next.
I hope your shoulder gets better Pigfarmer, I know that can be very uncomfortable.

 

[J Randall Murphy]

All valid thoughts and exactly what I would say if I heard this from someone else. Common sense practical solutions that are probably the answer in 99.99% of these sorts of things. But I am writing about them here because I feel they do not fit in those categories, at least not easily. I have been here since 1997 and done extensive work throughout the house and am familiar with all the usual suspects as well as the host of creaks and groans this place already makes. There isn't a square inch of this old raised ranch - a big rectangle - that I am not already familiar with. Animals or visitors are things my dog would alert on instantly - she's an excellent watch dog.

John B Alexander sort of makes my point in Reality Denied although in his case the incidents were more concrete. Missing personal objects seem pretty concrete to me, noises not so much but what happened this morning was certainly an attention getter. Point is - even if boringly mundane what is the mechanism at work, how did something like that actually happen? JBA brings that up describing a hard shove he received in a allegedly haunted house - what exactly touched him and how did it generate that force?

In that vein - if I happen to already be in my basement at that hour what would I have seen or heard? Nothing ? The dog never twitched. Then what generated the noise, my imagination? Could be but ..... WTF ? I was already wide awake courtesy of a painful shoulder.

Yes — You seem to me to be the kind of person who isn't prone to jumping to outlandish conclusions. Just the fact that you're asking questions rather than making proclamations is proof of that. So if you're convinced it couldn't possibly be the things I mentioned, then I'm sure that you have good reasons. That said, I consider myself to much in the same category, and I too have lived in the same house for decades. It has not remained the same the whole time. New noises started to happen as it aged. So all the stuff you're used to may not apply to these new sounds you describe. There's one noise in particular at my place that I've been trying to pinpoint for months.

Currently I'm convinced that in my case, the sound has something to do with the heating system, or possibly the underground high voltage vault in the street out front — but so far, the only thing I've confirmed is that the foundation for my house cracked in one spot, and over time the structure has shifted, putting just enough stress on the sheet metal heating ducts, so that when they expand and contract, or a person walks across the floor over them at just the right time, they will suddenly sound like someone giving them a mild thump that echoes through the whole house.

The mystery noise is not the same. It might be the furnace itself. It's gas fired, and it sounds as if a small amount of gas builds-up in the burner chamber, and suddenly ignites creating a small burst. Other times it sounds like it's coming from outside — like someone set-off a small underground charge. There is some construction going on across the road.

One theory I have yet to cross-off the list is that the high voltage vaults they buried under the road in front of my house slowly build-up hydrogen gas from the water seeping in and interacting with the electric fields around the cables. When it gets concentrated enough, a spark ignites it, causing the heavy metal covers over the vault to jump and thud back into place — or maybe it's a stowaway ( ).

 

[pigfarmer]

Here I am awake for about the same reason hours later and have automatically categorized the small noises in a quiet house. If my dog didn't hear that door slam then all I can think of is that it was just in my head. I've had auditory and visual hallucinations before but only when seriously sleep deprived and that wasn't the case this morning. The ones she has heard have had my wife and I a little puzzled.

Just for the sake of discussion suppose a baby monitor caught that noise, or better yet the camera out in the garage caught the door opening and slamming. Well, I'd run around the room flapping my arms repeatedly, that would freak me right out but I wouldn't automatically think 'discarnate entity'. The idea that young girls can somehow generate poltergeist activity isn't new but the idea is appealing. Same for mediums. The one reading I had that really surprised me was so detailed I wondered if she were reading me like some sort of remote viewer. In both cases that would represent a remarkable ability that might be more understandable than other explanations.

 

[pigfarmer]

I hope your shoulder gets better Pigfarmer

Thanks but the answer is shoulder replacement, probably some time next year. I wore part of my skeleton out.

 

[Todd Feinman]

Thanks but the answer is shoulder replacement, probably some time next year. I wore part of my skeleton out.

Well, those seem to go well, along with knee replacements and hip rep!acements. I've met lots of folks who have had them. Hopefully you can get it done soon.

 

[J Randall Murphy]

Thanks but the answer is shoulder replacement, probably some time next year. I wore part of my skeleton out.

In the meantime — if you haven't tried a joint supplements with Glucosamine, Chondroitin, and MSM, it might help more than you think.

 

[pigfarmer]

In the meantime — if you haven't tried a joint supplements with Glucosamine, Chondroitin, and MSM, it might help more than you think.

Yes, I used that very successfully with my old dog with joint problems. Forgot about it, thanks, it might help with the rest of the arthritis I seem to be gifted with. The shoulder though, that's done and in need of a mechanical repair - its really obvious on an x-ray, bone on bone. The cortisone shots temporarily replace the missing cartilage and provide excellent relief but I still have to be careful, it's not 100% by any means. I'll probably have at least a couple more of these and then some PT to jump through insurance hoops.

 

[J Randall Murphy]

Hey maybe something in this thread:

Footsteps, Voices, Sounds (continued)

I'm continuing this from my previous thread on AU/AH. I'm an American living in Japan, and where I work is likely one of the most haunted places I've ever been, and my workrooms are, in my opinion, probably the second-most haunted part of the facility. Let me give you some background. My...

alienexpanse.com

BTW: Around 4:00 AM I was making a cup of warm milk to help me sleep, when the fridge ( or something ) started to make the oddest animal sound, like some sort of tiny dinosaur you might imagine in Jurassic Park.
It was really bizarre.

 

[pigfarmer]

Go ahead and call me a dog faced pony soldier, or just call me pisher.

The ****ing missing pants magically reappeared in my closet and neither of us know how. Just hanging there next to another near identical pair. I patched a small hole in these so I know its the exact pair that's been gone a while.

OK, not a dog man puffing on a cigarette but I have no explanation. Its just the two of us here, my wife has no idea how that happened. I have looked, we are paying attention, we are not confused or doing anything the other doesn't know about. Yesterday there was one pair, today there are two. What the hell was THAT somebody please tell me.

 

[Todd Feinman]

So somewhere along the way, skeptic Ian Ridpath started his own website.

Ian Ridpath: astronomy writer, broadcaster, lecturer

Ian Ridpath: amateur astronomy, constellation lore, astrophilately, UFO skepticism

ianridpath.com

His UFO Skeptic's page starts off with a misuse and self-serving redefinition of the word "UFO". To quote:

"THERE is no doubt UFOs exist in the sense that people genuinely see things in the sky that they cannot identify. But the real question is: what do these things turn out to be on investigation? Not all reported UFOs can be extraterrestrial spacecraft, and no one pretends they are. Even UFO believers agree that at least nine reports out of every ten are readily explicable in known terms."

The above sounds innocent and sensible enough at first glance — but should read as follows:

People genuinely see things in the sky that they cannot identify. But the real question is: what do these things turn out to be on investigation? Not all UFO reports involve extraterrestrial spacecraft, and no one pretends they do. Ufologists tend to agree that most of the reported objects are explicable in known terms.

See the difference ? It seems inconsequential, but on closer examination is far from it. Skeptics tend to frame the subject in a manner that allows them to marginalize the subject and muddy the waters. Whether this is by design or intention I cannot say, but it's contributed to the notion that because the "U" in UFO stands for "Unidentified", UFOs could be virtually anything at all — including people's imaginations.

Go ahead and call me a dog faced pony soldier, or just call me pisher.

The ****ing missing pants magically reappeared in my closet and neither of us know how. Just hanging there next to another near identical pair. I patched a small hole in these so I know its the exact pair that's been gone a while.

OK, not a dog man puffing on a cigarette but I have no explanation. Its just the two of us here, my wife has no idea how that happened. I have looked, we are paying attention, we are not confused or doing anything the other doesn't know about. Yesterday there was one pair, today there are two. What the hell was THAT somebody please tell me.

Alright! Now you gotta put $100 bills in the pockets of the pants --on the new mokn , send them off, and see what appears in the pockets when they return! No, but weird things do happen. Let us know about any other strangeness

 

[pigfarmer]

Alright! Now you gotta put $100 bills in the pockets of the pants --on the new mokn , send them off, and see what appears in the pockets when they return! No, but weird things do happen. Let us know about any other strangeness

you asked.

I got up about 0415 - not even an hour ago from my current p.o.v. Fed the critters, took Pie out for her business and was standing in the kitchen making a sandwich waiting for my coffee to be done. I percolate it, old school, you could float an iron splitting maul in it.

Heard some motion and the bathroom door slam. Pie heard it, she was right next to me. This is ten or twelve feet away around a corner. I expected to see the door shut and the bathroom light on. Nope, Mrs.Pf is sound asleep snoring like a lumber mill. Benign things, but the dog heard it. What would I have seen if I were looking down the hall just then? Where the **** did a stupid pair of pants go and then come back ?

This is a small house, its just the two of us, my wife isn't playing games and I am reporting this exactly as occurred. A skeptic would conclude the weak link in the chain is me and I'd agree, but what about Pie?