BS: An odd unexplained incident

Subject: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Mar 14 - 11:58 PM

A married couple of our friends came to lunch with us on Saturday. During the afternoon, we went into our study, a big light room, where we chatted and did some things online as one does these days. Then the female guest found a book about Versailles that interested her, so she put her glasses on and sat reading it while the rest of us talked of this and that. When she had read enough, she put the book away, took her glasses off, and looked for the case. She couldn't find it. Just an ordinary flat brown plastic spectacles-case, she said. We all searched the study high and low. Nowhere to be seen. So I found her a spare case, which she said would do just as well, and eventually they went home.

Later that night, after Match Of The Day, Emma stayed up a bit at her desktop while I went to bed. When this happens, she will generally sleep in the spare room to avoid disturbing me. I was up first on Sunday morning. There, in full view on a green stool in the study where it certainly hadn't been the night before, lay the spectacle-case. Presently Emma came in. "Oh, I see you found Hilary's spectacle-case," she said immediately. "No, " I replied; "I assumed you had found it before you went to bed last night, and left it there for me to see this morning."

We stared at one another. No explanation has since occurred to us. The surface in the middle of the room on which we found it had definitely been empty on Saturday night, and the case nowhere to be seen. Yet there it was on Sunday morning.

I am making none of this up. I do not believe in the supernatural. Has anyone any serious idea of what might have happened?

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 12:21 AM

Gremlins.

Aren't they wonderful?

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 12:22 AM

Could be any one of a number of things.

Emma might have found and put it there "absentmindedly"....without registering consciously. I've certainly done things like that before. I remember a while back a guitar capo appearing in the kitchen. I never play guitar in the kitchen and would have absolutely no reason to have one there, nor did I have any recollection of taking one in.

But my younger daughter, who was visiting, said "yeah you did, dad. When you came down about an hour ago you were twirling it in your hand, put it on the table when you got the milk out of the fridge then ambled back off upstairs without it".

I had no recollection of doing any of that, but I must have". Either that or the capo appeared out of thin air and my daughter was delusional in seeing me do it.....in fact, I felt so strongly that I hadn't that my first instinct was to accuse my daughter of seeing things. But that would have left the capo as a mystery :-)

Or, it might havr been adhering or covered by something that was in the room, been moved and the case fallen off/ out onto the stool.

It's odd how people, when something like this happens, often turn straight to s "supernatural" explanation, if only to say " I don't believe in the supernatural so how can this have happened?"

There'll (almost certainly) be a prosaic explanation....you just haven't thought of it (and possibly never will).

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: Joe Offer
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 01:25 AM

Most of us here have experienced the same thing, Mike.

We call it "old age."

Beats the hell out of the alternative.

Cheers!

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 01:31 AM

To see it there was perhaps quite a spectacle!

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 01:32 AM

Up to a point, Lord Robber. But after all the hassle of search, this putative absent-minded picking up & putting down you postulate on Emma's part is an absolute no-no.

Still,, thanks for trying. I am sure you meant well, and am endeavouring not to find your 'often turn straight to s "supernatural" explanation, if only to say " I don't believe in the supernatural so how can this have happened?"' quite as offensive at I did at first reading.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 01:34 AM

I put most such things that happen these days down to old-age, Joe. But, tho I am old, Emma isn't...

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: Ebbie
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 01:44 AM

MiketheGM, I know of an almost identical happening.

I was the resident caretaker/docent in a house museum for more than 12 years. Every year I had one or more volunteers come from all over the country to help for a month or two.

One year it was Mary. Now Mary had a habit of staying with her laundry on wash day from insert to take out. The laundry was in the basement; my apartment was on the fourth story.

One day she called to me in the living room to help her look for her red socks because she was doing laundry. I went into her bedroom and searched high and low with her; they were not to be found. Incidentally, the bedspread was a totally white chenille (anyone remember those?).

She finally decided the socks could wait until the next wash day and disappeared down the stairs. I went back to my computer in the living room.

A couple of hours later she trudged back up. "Oh, I see you found them?!"

I said, "What?

There in the middle of the white bedspread were her red socks.

I could tell you of a lot more incidents in that house- but there are people who are not aware of that kind of thing. :)

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 03:45 AM

Alcomahol?

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 04:01 AM

Nice try. But I don't drink these days: haven't drunk a single drop of alcohol for 12 years!

Actually, that's not quite true. We got a bottle of Bailey's for Xmas 3 years ago, & I tried one sip to see if it still tasted nice; & proceeded, such was my intolerance after the 9-year gap, to get quite pie-eyed. But even that didn't last till yesterday, I promise!

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 04:09 AM

Old age and cooking sherry.

When you have eliminated the.... Etc.

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 04:44 AM

A flat brown thing on a green stool may be conspicuous in the morning but perfectly camouflaged in the evening, in artificial light.

Such things even happen to youngsters like me (now in my 50s, but more of a scatterbrain in earlier decades).

Supernatural: no good "case" for it here. Still, surprisingly many superstitions are concerned with finding lost objects - the problem seems to be as old as human accommodation.

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 05:11 AM

It was artificial light at 5 in the morning when I found it there, Grishka. But NOT when it went AWOL. A brown object 6"x3½"x1" can be seen on a 20"square green surface raised 12" above the floor by any available light (& this was clear daylight, first day of Summertime at about 1630 hrs), by at least one of 4 people purposefully looking for it, even if 2 of them might have had a glass or 2 of Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon 3 hours before.

Musket, why don't you listen? There wasn't any bloody sherry of any quality.

So why all be so silly, eh? Even Holmes wasn't infallible. You can't always eliminate the...

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 06:15 AM

Any animals around the place? Someone I know had socks go missing regularly, and it turned out to be one of the neighbours' cats - they even started to find other people's socks appearing in their house overnight.

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 06:18 AM

We did wonder about the cat. But where would she have hidden it overnite? & how replaced it? & she was out overnite anyhow!

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 06:31 AM

Holmes managed to. Every time.

Come on, the last time I had a joke at your expense regarding cooking sherry you were indignant about being dry. Now it turns out the odd Baileys is on the list.

Only a short journey between the two, Sherlock..... ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 06:42 AM

In our home the incident would have a quite simple explanation. Since there are few horizontal surfaces that aren't "holding things," she quite probably laid the case down right where you found it, but in our place somewone inevitably would have laid something else on top of it.

Unless the search included the "dig and stir" method we use, the case would be unlikely to be found. All our piles look much the same, so it's not likely anyone could tell which one had been changed.

Someone later picked up the "thing on top" without seeing that the case was the next thing in the pile, and it was "miraculoursly" visible to the next person who recognized the "lost item."

YMMV. We do it a lot.

John

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 06:46 AM

"Odd Bailey's"? One sip [literally] on Xmas Day 2010. The remainder of the bottle is still standing on the sideboard. We might have dispensed one or two glasses to guests since then, & Emma might have had one glass [she prefers her toffee vodka stuff, but hasn't had much of that either]. But I wouldn't say that really qualifies as "the odd", would you? Honest now. & I certainly didn't partake of the Cabernet on Sunday. About ¾ of the bottle remains. Shall probably give it to neighbours or something.

But as explanation of any sort for the incident, alcohol is genuinely not even a starter. Four people, only 2 of whom had drunk any & then not more than a glass or two, searching diligently in broad daylight... & zilch. Till next morning!

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: Teribus
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 06:51 AM

Where did she remember putting the case when she put on her glasses to read? I assume that she did not touch the case again until she finished reading.

Was anything moved round in the study by anyone apart from the lady reading? If so what did they move, where did they set it down, and did anyone replace what it was that was moved. Could the spectacle case have been inadvertently lifted by someone moving something else, and left behind when whatever it was that was moved was replaced?

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 06:51 AM

No, John. It is a stool for sitting on, not a surface on which things ever get piled. It was clear then. It is clear now - it is right beside me. All that gets piled on it are bottoms, but nobody happened to sit on it on Saturday. If it had been one of our desks or tables, your explanation would have some merit; but not in re this particular surface.

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 06:58 AM

Teribus: Her recollection was to have taken the case out of her handbag, put on the glasses, & put the case back in the bag - her usual habit, she assured us. When it wasn't there after she finished reading, she thought she must after all have put it down somewhere [she had turned out the bag to be sure it wasn't in there: & we know it wasn't, or it would have gone home with her & not still be here; it is right in front of me now]. So that was when we searched with no success. Till 0500 hrs on Sunday morning!

Many thanks for all these suggestions; but none so far meets the facts of the case [or, to avoid inadvertent pun, the facts of the matter!].

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: GUEST,mayomick
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 07:25 AM

Perhaps it has something to do with the light in the study changing. The spectacle case was brown, what colour was the chair ?

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 08:04 AM

Green, as I said above. Case completely visible on it. No hint of any sort of mimesis. 4 people hunting a sizeable and instantly identifiable object by daylight + some artificial lighting, switched on to make sure all corners could be searched, are not going to miss it lying prominently on an open surface in the middle of the room, which was exactly how I found it in the morning, when it was still dark.

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 09:05 AM

I tend to the ideas that it was plonked there by one of the people present and then forgotten; or, wasn't visible in the artificial light. At any rate, a perfectly reasonable, prosaic explanation (as many above have suggested) But you seem a bit 'prickly' about these ideas Michael, although you reject any 'supernatural' force being at work. I always smile when somebody attributes these little puzzles to the supernatural. Imagine a ghost or some kind of being saying to itself, "Ah! I can do anything, go anywhere! I'm invisible and have super powers! What shall I do? I know, I'll move this little object and place it on a stool!" It's similar to those seances, where one pays £10 (or more) and a medium says, "Auntie Jean from the Realms says, 'Tell Julie her false teeth are at the back of the kitchen drawer!'" Now if I were a spirit dwelling in the Realms, I wouldn't busy myself with anyone's false teeth, slippers or glasses' case!

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 09:58 AM

Unfortunately, Eliza, a bit too prosaic. The stool happens to be one of those with a button top which divides its surface into 16 clearly defined convex sections. Anything over 4 inches in length, even if identically coloured, would be instantly visible on it, as it would lie across the segments. & this was not self-, but contrasting, colour. It was not by artificial light: the spotlights were lit for the corners of the room; but this stool is not in a corner, but on open floor. I repeat, it was mid-afternoon after the clocks had gone forward.

Not "prickly", exactly; but not over the moon at being told that I can't distinguish a clear surface from one with an easily identifiable object lying on it in broad daylight. Whatever the explanation, I do not warm to the one that states that it must be that I, my wife, and two of our friends, are all so bloody stupid, & of such grossly defective vision, that we can't see what is manifestly before our eyes in the middle of the room at 4 o'clock on a fine Spring afternoon.

Would you be?

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 10:10 AM

I am the ghost haunting MGM
I move things round -now and agemm
in one less spectacular leger de main
I dematerialised a spec case
But it came back again.

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 10:20 AM

Ah, Al. Welcome; in that, alone among all reading this thread, you have been in my study, & know it to be a well lit room with a large clear-glass picture window; within 2 metres of which the stool in question is located. So you can confirm that defective eyesight on the part of not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 [count them ~~ FOUR!] adult people, all in reasonable possession of all their faculties, is scarcely a likelihood.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 10:28 AM

BTW

Al
|
|
|
☠☠☠☠☠☠☠~~~whoowhoowhoo~~~☠☠☠☠☠☠☠

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 10:40 AM

Well, I'm not exactly stupid, and I see quite well for an ancient old crone, but I'm always mislaying things, in spite of being a very tidy and well-organised person. I have two pairs of specs, one for driving (a bit strong) and one for the house (unfashionable, but easy-on-the-eyes) If it isn't one of these it's the other, turning up in all sorts of mad places. My husband threatens to get me a neck chain to tie them on permanently. Maybe we're harbouring the ghost of my old Auntie Lil. Maybe she delights in whipping them out of my handbag and stuffing them down the sofa during the night? I wouldn't for the world suggest you or your friends are daft Michael. But there must be a simple explanation surely?

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: Ebbie
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 10:40 AM

At the afore-mentioned house museum, things disappeared and reappeared on a regular basis. I fairly frequently resorted to silently requesting assistance from the long-departed home owner. I don't think it ever failed.

Mind you, I am open to the exhortation that my (sub)conscious had a part in it.

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 10:55 AM

Last try: someone had it in her pocket; exhausted from the tedious search, she threw herself on the stool in despair, whence it slipped out ...

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 10:58 AM

My first, late, mother-in-law reported similar goings-on soon after the death of her second husband, my first wife Valerie's stepfather. She told a friend, who said, "Oh, that's just Edward playing tricks. It happened after my husband died. Soon stops, though." But the last death in this house was of Valerie herself ~~ 7 years ago. She's left it a bit late, eh?

Only kidding, of course. I genuinely do not believe in such goings on, for all Al's deathless verses!

OTOH, on the Sherlock Holmes principle, already cited, about having excluded the impossible then whatever remains, however unlikely... Trouble there in this instance, tho, is that such a postulation would surely rank as one of the impossibilities that have to be eliminated; so, back to ▢-1, what does remain?

So, yes Eliza: I would luv to identify this 'simple explanation' that there must surely be. However...

BTW, it is in nature for ladies to lose their glasses. Has anyone ever known one who didn't? Adding the occasions end-to-end, I must have spent a total of, at a conservative estimate, at least 6 months locating Valerie's spectacles during our nearly ½-C together!
So please assure that lovely husband of yours of my sincere fellow-feelings in this particular!

~M~
whoowhoowhoowhoo................

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: meself
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 11:03 AM

To quote a Canadian comedian: "I've got one thing to say to the dead: Get an afterlife!!"

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: gnu
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 11:17 AM

Great thread!

On 2009.12.21, I picked up a new pickup truck and a spare key for it. I changed out the spare key for my old truck, which I kept in a pocket in my wallet. The pocket, which closes with a snap, also contained a house key. A couple of months ago, I replaced the rear door keyed entry set. I opened the snap of my wallet to change out the house door key. No problem. However, my spare truck key is gone. Obviously, I must have left it with the garage during servicing. No. I must have put it in the cupboard with the other spare keys. No. I must have put it in the cupboard at Mum's but why?). I must have hidden it in the truck (darn that's a BIG truck). No. No, no, no....

AL YOU SOB! Gimmie my key back!!!

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 11:48 AM

I did something similar with an entire automobile. Or maybe it was a boat. I'll get back to you.

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 11:56 AM

That's it. Eureka!

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: gnu
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 11:59 AM

Good one, Grishka. Now, what did Al do with my truck key? >;-)

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 12:02 PM

Sorry MGM ,I didn't notice the bit about the chair being green . Bang goes my camouflage theory.

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 12:27 PM

Michael. I just told my husband about your commiserations re constantly searching for my glasses, and (he's very honest) he says he's always losing his favourite baseball cap, which I seem to be able to locate in odd places. (I hate this old cap, but he's v. attached to it.) We're seriously tidy and put things away religiously, but still stuff goes walking. But then, I can never remember where I left the car in Tesco's car park, whether I've paid the window cleaner, if we need cooking oil when we're in the supermarket, why I didn't bring my list out with me, and a million other things. I suppose life these days is over-complicated and we can only get so much into our heads before overload kicks in. I'm not saying this is the case with you, but it certainly is with me!

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 12:47 PM

But don't forget that it was not me who lost the spec-case; it was our friend Hilary. She is not the sort to go turning somersaults over strange stools in other people's studies, G.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 12:55 PM

... &, Eliza, don't mean to boast: but if there is one talent I possess, it's shopping lists. Emma & I will compile the list on the breakfast bar as items become necessary. Then, just before we set out for the supmkt, I will copy it up into a master-list, with all the items shown in the order in which they appear at Tesco or Waitrose. Then it's just a matter of trolleying about to each aisle in order. And I have never forgotten the list! Ever!

But none of this explains where in the ether or the ewigkeit that case spent the night, and at what stage its molecules were reconstituted by who- or what- ever on top of the green stool!

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 01:05 PM

Well, Stage 1, I make jolly good lists. But Stage 2, taking them out with me ...NO. :) And I sit there in church sniffing my head off because the nice embroidered hanky I put out on the table in our hall it still sitting there.
Could you perform an experiment Michael, and deliberately leave an object in a certain place, and see if it vanishes & reappears elsewhere? Might be interesting.

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 01:30 PM

Oh, I don't think any self-respecting gremlin or poltergeist would co-operate in such a stratagem, do you, Eliza? And how would you communicate to it that this particular gold ballpoint was the one that was to be the object of the experiment, and not that copy of the Yellow Pages that BT delivered last week? I honestly can't quite see how one would set it up, bearing in mind how many things one puts in how many places in the course of any day.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: GUEST,highlandman at work
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 01:48 PM

In the Holmesian spirit, M, I notice you haven't said, nor has anyone asked... by any chance are there more than one of these green-topped stools in the house? -Glenn

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: Musket
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 02:11 PM

I lost a whole day once.

Like Michael, I have a study in which I have been known to lose myself...

Not too keen Baileys though....

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 02:18 PM

Sometimes Borrowers change their minds and put things back. They returned a hot water bottle the other day. I suppose they couldn't think of a use they could put it to.

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 02:26 PM

I am not a magician (and, to be honest, find their determination to amaze me a bit annoying) but I know that they say that the key to a trick is distraction.

If this had been a magic trick, the magician would have focussed our whole attention on one spot while covertly placing the object in another (One of our human frailties is that we tend to believe that something remains in the last place that we saw at it) After leaving us to poke about in bewilderment for a while, the magician directs us to the other spot, where we swear it could not have possibly been because we never saw it there, and we are left to marvel in amazement at the sheer wizardry of it all (unless we've seen it done a hundred times before).

I, of course, was not in your study, and cannot know for certain what happened that night. Indeed, none of us can.

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 02:31 PM

For some reason, this calls to mind a neighbor of my Grandmother's, a certain Widow R---
who called her family together one day and claimed that one of them had stolen her wedding ring. In the fullness of time, the ring was found stuck in a corner with a wad of chewing gum.

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 04:32 PM

An incident like this seems to happen to me about every five years or so, and in different houses.
Either there are a lot of mischievous spirits about or I have one as a stalker!

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 05:19 PM

highlandman -- just the one. Why?

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: Bill D
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 06:34 PM

50 years ago, my ex-wife & my parents were following a new recipe for cooking a turkey. It had a number of spices & herbs to go in the dressing... including Mace. We set all the containers out on the table and began to mix in things in order--- until we got to Mace. No one could find it. We all took turns picking up each little bottle - to no avail. We spent maybe 10 minutes at this, and had about decided to just do without Mace. We started putting away the bottles when someone (I forget who) said "Oh..look here!" and held up the small bottle which said very clearly, **Mace**.

Now, the obvious answer is that 4 adults just missed it each time they looked. *I* prefer to believe the Mace went temporarily into the 7th dimension and would not come out until the space-time warp was reconfigured as we moved other spices off the table. Makes a better story than just pure carelessness, nicht wahr?

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 08:49 PM

Lighting conditions can trick the eye however Quantum variations can occur in our space as well as on the subatomic scale.

People are not ready to accept that although rare, our world will trick us from time to time. Current Physics is still unwilling to accept that time lives in a number of dimensions and not just in a one dimensional arrow that only moves forward.

It is hard to humanly imagine that time has many faces and places. According to our senses, time is uniform and only our neurology changes the perception of time as shrinking or expanding depending on directing attention toward it or away from it.

I have learned that Time has tricks up its sleeve that include the multi dimensional aspects of time on a quantum scale that progressively decreases its number of dimensions as the scale it exists in enlarges.

Until we make a measurement there are only potentials and possibilities for something to be somewhere and somewhen. See split photon beam experiment.

I kid you not and can prove it. We have even proven that the future effects the present although its effects are less pronounced than the past.

Going one step further;

This is but one reason that cosmology knowledge is fundamentally critical and that current methods of our nuclear weapon technology delivery systems must be overhauled. So far, only the human operators, willing to disobey orders, have saved our lives.

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: Amos
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 08:53 PM

Do you by any chance keep a house cat?

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 09:08 PM

Often the process is that you look hurriedly in the place it should be, miss it, panic and start searching in all the other places. When my wife does that I generally start by looking in the obvious place, and preen myself when I find it. She does the same for me.

But of course that's no good when a Borrower has been at work.

St Anthony is pretty handy too.

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 02:07 AM

Amos ~~ Yes, but the impossibility of her input is dealt with above. She was out all night, with no way of getting back into the study.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 02:43 AM

There are accounts of poltergeist activity that are hard to explain.
Often there is a connection with a troubled adolescent.
It has been suggested that there may exist something like involuntary psychokinesis, though no scientific explanation yet exists for it.

Who knows?
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. "

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: gnu
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 08:33 AM

Nobody has considered a poultrygeist. After all, it seems a fowl ruse from a parallel coop, no?

Forgive me. The power was out from 20:30 to 2:40 due to rain, sleet, snow and wind so having little bunk time has left me a tad more 'off' than usual.

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: Will Fly
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 11:14 AM

Michael - you have a choice:

(a) You didn't notice it when it was there all the time
(b) You have a poultergeist who moved it just for the hell of it

Only you can make this choice - I don't think any explanation that any of us may come up with will influence your choice in any way, :-)

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: Musket
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 12:26 PM

Now you have found the glasses case, you should keep your marbles in it. The odds of losing things twice? Higher than any object you haven't lost.

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: GUEST,someone from the spirit world.
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 01:31 PM

A poltergeist? perhaps somebody from your past is letting you know they are about and happy.

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 05:34 PM

What was that about always smuggle a bomb on board a plane with you as the chances of there being two bombs on board a plane.....

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 06:49 PM

I like John in Kansas' answer, but I still vote for a gremlin. Have any old friends died recently, and did you discuss them during that visit?

Just wondering.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 01 Apr 14 - 10:46 PM

MtheGM Up to a point, Lord Robber. But after all the hassle of search, this putative absent-minded picking up & putting down you postulate on Emma's part is an absolute no-no.

Still,, thanks for trying. I am sure you meant well, and am endeavouring not to find your 'often turn straight to s "supernatural" explanation, if only to say " I don't believe in the supernatural so how can this have happened?"' quite as offensive at I did at first reading.

Firstly, apologies if you found my comment offensive. It wasn't meant to be. I was just noting how, when something "strange" happens, that kind of comment often appears in the reporting of the event...just an observation.

However, with regard to an explanation such as Emma finding and placing the case there subconsciously being an "absolute no-no", I think you're perhaps not considering sufficiently just how easily the human mind plays tricks on itself.

My own example of the capo and me being so certain that I hadn't had it that my first reaction was to dismiss my daughter as delusional is just one of many things to have happened in my life where my perception of what went on was way off base.

I'm not suffering from any condition, nor any more forgetful or mentally unstable than the average person, IMO, but there have been many times, even when I was young, when I've done or said things that afterwards I had either no recollection of doing or saying, or recollected in a different way from those about me. I've witnessed or been involved in a number of incidents where different people have "seen" or recalled what's happened in entirely different ways, even to disagreeing on major details.

So the idea that it's "impossible" for one of the scenarios I (or others) have mentioned to have happened just doesn't sit right with what I've seen of how the human mind works over the last several decades.

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 02 Apr 14 - 12:36 AM

Still not convinced that your capo a parallel case, Rob - (and sorry if I was [as Eliza justly commented] a bit 'prickly'). Your daughter suggested a possibility which you rejected, then found she was right after all. It was your original misplacing of the capo in the kitchen, not your subsequent discovery of it, that was 'absent-minded' ~~ that's right, isn't it? You weren't even aware that your capo had been misplaced till you found it in an anomalous location. In our case, after all the energy that had gone into looking for it when it first it went AWOL, I can't think of Emma as being absent-minded about the eventual discovery subsequent to all that.

Re John in Kansas's answer, urged just above: wrong sort of surface involved, as I think I have already pointed out.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Apr 14 - 12:56 AM

I have a parallel case, but I've described it before, so this is the short version.

I was the executor of my father's estate, and it took us a few months to get the house sorted, emptied, and finally cleaned out to sell. In February, after I'd packed all of the books from his bookshelves, dusted, washed windows, moved out not-quite-built-in furniture that we thought no one would want, I was standing in his house and felt an overwhelming sadness. I spoke out loud to the room, asked if he had thought it would all go the way it had (some difficulties) and I would love to have a sign that he knew and approved of all of the work I'd done. I looked around the completely empty room and saw a corner of a book high on the bookshelves. I reached up for it - the Penguin Book of English Folk Songs sticking out on a shelf I myself had emptied and dusted. This was, I think, the first book he ever checked out from the library when he began to pursue folksinging as an activity when I was a small child. (He never returned it to the library. . . )

I examined the book, then with a thumb on each cover, I opened it in a general way and the page that I saw first was "The Golden Vanity." The song I had requested on my turn at the Song Circle that was held after he died.

There was another similar incident a few days later. Books that I know absolutely were not on those shelves before.

Gremlins. Or old friends.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: gnu
Date: 02 Apr 14 - 07:04 AM

I saw a colleague at work palm a long service pin (in box) at an informal ceremony held in a boardroom. I kept an eye on him. He placed it in a drawer in the recipient's desk. Much searching ensued during which he made many suggestions to which members of the department would respond in various ways along with offering similar suggestions. I said nothing of his ruse even though it bothered me. Afterward, I said to him, that was cruel. He smiled and said, "Yeah but I had fun." That part pissed me off greatly... a 30 year service pin?

Doubtful that such occurred in the op's instance, especially since one actually could palm and pocket such a case but I see great difficulty in executing same with a stool.

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 03:39 AM

refresh

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: DMcG
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 02:25 PM

Is it possible it was in the bag where it should have been all along, but your friend was too embarrassed to admit it after getting everyone searching so much? Or it taken as a joke and whoever it was got everyone searching and then felt it was past a joke but was too embarrassed etc etc?

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 02:26 PM

MGM, The usual flippant and supercillious remarks from the usual tedious suspects, one of whom has clearly overstepped the mark by being a trinity.

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 04:53 PM

Oh, them, Dick! Ignored the Popguns; they're all noise & wind & piss!

Best!

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 09:08 PM

It's happened I've been busy putting up a shelf, and I set down the power drill, and when I turn to pick it up, I can't see it. Panic search for it, till I give up. Then there it is. The same has happened with a big jar of instant coffee on the cooking surface while I was making a coffee.

The mind plays strange tricks. There's a "science" fiction book called Too Many Magicians by Randall Garrett, about a world where magic works, and one of tge key spells is one that doesn't really involve magic at all, it,s an invisibility spell so the thing is unchanged and present all the time, but people looking at it just don't see it.

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: Anne Lister
Date: 21 Oct 15 - 04:52 PM

The disappearing and reappearing thing has happened to me too many times to document. A good friend just refers to the phenomenon as the "house sprites" - not necessarily ghosts, spirits of the recently departed or anything like that but some kind of invisible inhabitant of the house who can occasionally play tricks. Her recommendation is simply to stop still, say out "Put it back" out loud and vehemently, leave the room and then come back in again. She says the object will generally be there, in plain sight.
When a group of us moved into a house in London (the group including Bonnie Shaljean, amongst others) we had a number of moving and disappearing objects. These were seemingly random in what they were and where they would reappear. We did all watch one night as a heavy wooden chair fell over, with no apparent reason and no earth tremors. The best disappearance by far was when all the dinner plates in the house disappeared one evening when we were entertaining the Watersons to dinner. We looked high and low and eventually served the meal on whatever we could use - flan dishes etc - and two days later all the plates reappeared on the draining board by the sink in the kitchen. We tried to blame this on one hapless house resident who was more than usually disorganised in his habits, but we couldn't find a viable way he'd done it. Oh well.

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: Penny S.
Date: 21 Oct 15 - 04:57 PM

I am reminded of reading about the way the eye and the brain work together. That the eye doesn't see what we think we see, because of the structure of the retina, and the brain fills in the gaps, using information from the way the eye moves in little jumps - saccades, I think, and it's general knowledge of the surroundings. Given that, it could be easy for people to miss something. I think it's quite common to miss something in full view. Sometimes because the mental image doesn't match the way the object is presenting itself to the viewer - which could explain the missed mace jar. But not the glasses case, though.

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Oct 15 - 06:51 PM

"one of whom has clearly overstepped the mark by being a trinity."

Heresy!!!

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: GUEST,Sol
Date: 22 Oct 15 - 11:21 AM

I experienced a similar thing to MGM.
Many years ago I was working with a colleague in a print room (4m x 4m with one entrance). We 'lost' a pair of large scissors that we had been using. There was minimal furniture in the room. After 15 minutes of a rigorous & futile search, it suddenly 're-appeared' on the top of an empty table in the centre of the room. Nobody had entered the room or left the room & I am 100% confident that the colleague wasn't pulling my leg. I don't make any claims to this mystery being supernatural however, I remain totally baffled by it to this day.

Incidentally,my late mother-in-law had a similar experience with the disappearance of a tea set from a bedroom cupboard. It re-appeared in its original place a year later. The cupboard had been emptied & searched my her & her husband when the tea set originally vanished. Go figure.

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Oct 15 - 11:39 AM

I have always thought that there is no need for any sort of superstition to think that there may be things going on that we don't know about yet. I mean, Hertz & Marconi didn't put the radio waves there in the late C19; they were there all the time: they just managed to speculate their existence, isolate and adapt them to use. So, I have always thought, with telepathy, e.g.; or the sort of phenomena of Hilary's spectacle-case & Sol's mother-in-law's teaset and his scissors, described in this thread.

I sometimes just reach out a hand and grab a fistful of air, and then wonder what I might be holding that I don't know about but which somebody sometime might identify and use to change the world in the way that electricity & internal combustion changed our recent forebears' world, of which we are still enjoying the benefits.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Oct 15 - 04:55 PM

Watch Race to Escape".

You will see groups of people become explicably blind in all sorts of situations.

Subject: RE: BS: An odd unexplained incident
From: Mr Red
Date: 22 Oct 15 - 04:56 PM

1) I find I have put things in the oddest of places these days. Once put down, the memory of where is lost immediately. Logic has little to do with it.
2) According to Stephen Fry, on QI, who couldn't possibly tell a lie: when looking for things say the word out loud as you look for it. It works, and my explanation is that hearing the words alters/reinforces your internal image of the item, pattern recognition if you like.
3) Many times I have searched for (say) a book and after a long search seen a book that could be put back on the shelf only to find it is THE book because I envisaged the front, and that was face down. Similarly looking for an item and carrying a mental picture of a blue item, only to find it was green with a bit of blue in it.

The mind is a wonderful thing, and ain't perfect. Whereas Gremlins know exactly what they are doing.