On a similar note to the thread on the closest you have thought you have come to dying: what is the most bizarre thing you can remember having lived through?
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Mrs SR and I were staying at a hotel in Rome and had gone out for dinner one night. On the way back to the hotel, we encountered a group of young Greek men hanging outside of the hotel. I don't know what they were there for, but they had arrived earlier in the day for what I had assumed was a football match or something. Whatever the case, they were acting all macho, and made us feel very uncomfortable.
That night - around 3 in the morning - we were awakened by an almighty BANG, and when I got out of bed to look out our 8th floor window, there was smoke billowing out of the whole base of the hotel.
By now, smoke alarms were going off, but we could hear little other activity (we were facing the back of the hotel, so could not see the street). We decided, seeing as there was no way out of the hotel other than the emergency stairs that led straight into the lobby, we would just wait in our room until the hotel people gave us instructions.
After waiting for awhile, we just drifted back to sleep.
In the morning, we woke up to a virtually silent hotel, got dressed, and went down for breakfast. From about the 3rd floor down, the stairwell was covered in a fine white dust, complete with bloody footprints on the steps and handprints on the walls. It was really disconcerting. When we got to the lobby, well... it wasn't there. The entire thing had been blown out. What was left was blackened, there were no windows left, and the bar was reduced to rubble.
Amusingly, there was a makeshift desk where one of the hotel receptionists was working away as if nothing was out of the ordinary. I went over to ask him what happened, but because I speak absolutely no Italian, he just looked at me and indicated Mrs SR and I should go down for breakfast.
Whereas the breakfast room had been full before, it was empty except for the two of us, so we ate and then went out for the day.
We scoured the papers for news, but there was indication that anything had happened, and to this day we still have no idea except to suppose it was the Greek men who were not seen again.
I think you've won your own thread
I think you've won the near death one without posting on it too
Driving home from Cumbria about 10yrs ago on the M6. About 9pm. Lorry about 3 cars in front of me decides to drive across 3 lanes and into a bridge. Carnage and dust, debris everywhere. Managed to steer and avoid most of the chaos.
Stopped to try to help the lorry driver but due to debris and mangled truck couldn't get near. Motorway was closed for 24hrs. I got home 5 hrs later. 😥
Staying on the 37th floor of a pretty s****y NY hotel one night, I got in the lift to go out for a show. The bell hop pressed the button for the lobby, and warned me that there was an incident going on down there, and not to be alarmed. When the doors opened, about 12 inches away a man was lying unconscious on the floor, being given CPR by a paramedic. I literally had to step over him to get past. The fire brigade were busy taking a revolving door off its bearings so the stretcher could come in.
I went out (to watch The Producers) and when I came back, all was well. I asked the concierge if the man had survived, and he said yes. Rather indiscreetly he went on to say, "have you heard of a band called The Rolling Stones?. He's one of them."
Truly bizarre night.
I once met a woman who thought I was marriage material. 😯
magic mushrooms
I once met a woman who thought I was marriage material.
You married her didn't you?
Watching an advertisement for "men who like cat sex" on iTV. Sheeba "resistance is futile". You make your own mind up.
I once met a woman who thought I was marriage material.
You married her didn't you?
Oh yes. She now knows she was wrong, but will never admit it! 😉
As a young PC working in North Manchester in the mid 90's, I wasn't long out of my probation and working on nights on my own. We had an abandoned 999 from an address on a large council estate in the early hours of the morning. I arrived at the house which was in total darkness and looked to be abandoned and when I went to the door it was slightly open but there was no reply to my knocking or shouting.
I went inside and tried to turn on the hallway light. Nothing. I walked in the lounge and could just make out a woman on the sofa with her back to me. She was holding a doll and was wearing a hospital gown. I spoke to her several times but she didn't respond so I approached her slowly while asking why she had called us.
As I got to the back of the sofa she dived forwards onto the floor screaming NOW! - DO IT NOW!
I genuinely believed I'd been set up and was about to be shot, stabbed, or whatever so I rapidly got out of the address and shouted for back up. After a few minutes it became apparent that nothing was happening so we went back inside. She had wandered off from a nearby secure unit and had returned to her family home which was now basically derelict. Scared the bejeezus out of me for a couple of minutes. 😀
Coming home from work one day, my neighbour greeted me out the front. He's a colleague/friend from work so I know him pretty well. He told me that there was a man in his back garden, with my garden chairs and a collection of cleaning materials. He'd reported it to the non-emergency number and the police would be over at some point.
The neighbour was renting, and the house was for sale.
He'd arrived home to discover this chap, and asked him what he was doing. The man explained that it was a lovely house, and it was where he lived now. He'd seen the for sale sign and decided he'd take possession. Obviously he couldn't gain entry but as a house proud owner he'd walked the 10 minutes to our local One Stop and bought paper towels and various cleaning sprays, and proceeded to clean the windows and frames before getting a bit tired, and liberating my garden chairs so he could have a bit of a rest.
He then dragged one of the chair to the front of the house and set up a little camp in the sunshine.
The police arrived, and asked the man his name, which he didn't want to give, and his address. "Here, this is where I live, this is my house!". After a few more questions they found some ID on him, called it in and when they got an answer suddenly grabbed the guy and cuffed him. We then heard them telling him that he was wanted in Aberdeen (I'm in Berkshire) as he'd missed an appointment (parole? bail?). They put him in the police car and drove off.
He had a strong African accent so our theory was he may have been an asylum seeker who'd skipped off. Poor chap was probably mentally ill too, he was convinced he now owned the house next door.
The chap having a good wash in the stream that we rode past this morning. Ares shinnying in the sun. Camper van 20 yards up the road. This wasn't in the middle of Scotland where it wouldn't be out of the way but in Redbrook, Wye valley
I'm not sure any of it was real!
Living through a massive 7.6 magnitude earthquake in Taiwan would be pretty high or should that be in the close to dying thread? Weird experience seeing your house bounce around. The epicentre was only 50km away which killed thousands.
Apart from that the Yuenshui firework festival at the end of Chinese new year has to be the most bizarre.
spirits...
My ex and I were sat on the sofa, holding hands kind of a loft playing with each others thumbs....as you do....all of a sudden a wisp of what looked like smoke came from her thumb and just as quickly disappeared!
I put it down to her deceased father warning her off me. She didn't listen.
The ghost of Princess Diana has visited my moms house. She has a large display cabinet fronted with glass with Doulton in and commemorative plates and the like. There was a charles and Diana plate, it was sat on one of those plate upright stands that hold the plate at a tilted back angle. When she came down stairs one morning the plate was broken and laying forward against the glass, which is basically impossible from its previous angle. None of the other ornaments etc had moved.
When my father passed away, and right after the funeral, my right front tooth hurt me for about 10 days. My father had a very wobbly front tooth near the end of his life. The pain went and I never had it before or since.
My girlfriend's neighbours constantly moaning about where I park. There are 12 spaces, two maybe three cars there ever. They make you move, kick her door and damage it. Some of them don't even own a car!!
I had a van there this week. We had to call the police. They helped me park it in the most inconvenient way we could. Hilarious.
Mahousive earthquake as well. It weird because you can't run anywhere as just standing up is difficult enough. You view all these massive structures in a different way when they get shaken around like nothing
I had a bad do on a pill once, ended up convinced the whole club were there to take the piss out of me and out of my dancing. Whenever I saw anyone talking they were saying 'that's him, tell others' very strange. I treated drugs with a bit more respect after that.
One of the things that comes back to me in sort of flashback regularly was an incident in Robin Hood's Bay, Easter '86 or '87, not sure exactly which at the moment.
I was sitting outside having breakfast in the garden of the holiday let on the Sunday morning after arriving the previous night about 1/3 the way down the hill (weather was good) at about 8 am. I heard this "bang, bang, bang" noise coming down the hill and looked round to see a young girl, about 7-8years old, dive to the ground up against the wall on the opposite side of the road, immediately followed by a JCB which was clearly out of contol. The banging was the front shovel hitting the tarmac I guess the driver had tried to slow it down by dropping it to the ground. The JCB missed the girl by a gnats whisker. Her mother then appeared and was obviously traumatised.
It is that image of the terrified girl and the noise of the bucket hitting the road that sticks with me
The JCB tried to negotiate the bend in the street that is about 2/3rds down the steep hill, failed, and rammed into the corner of the house on the left taking the whole front off. The JCB then tipped over on its side. Myself and a couple of mates ran down and pulled the unconscious driver out ( I realise now not the best idea). The front of the house was a mess, you could see into the upstairs bedroom, I remember a wardrobe still against the wall etc.
About five minutes later the owner of the house walked up the hill-she had gone to the bottom of the hill for an early walk-if she had been in the house who knows what would have happened.
We were interviewed by the Yorkshire Post a bit later on. It was my first experience of what I had said being 'reinterpreted' by the journalist or the editor ( e.g. Altered to make more sensational)
Sat round the kitchen table in Mrs RRR's student house with herself and a few house mates.
As clear as day I heard someone run up the stairs. I looked at her house mate but didn't say anything.
We then checked the house. Front door still bolted from inside, every room checked. Only time I've genuinely thought I experienced something supernatural.
One evening 25+ years ago ( i was early to mid 20's ) I met a beautiful young female in a Munich cafe. We drank coffee, then a few pils ( not pills ) we talked, giggled, cried with laughter and generally had a great time in each others company. When the cafe closed I was invited back to her flat where we watched telly ( quietly as her young daughter was asleep ) and drank wine, giggled some more etc.. long story short we got very naked there on the sofa and got extremely entwined in a very rude and totally natural way..it was fantastic. Everything seemed surreal in a 'I can't believe this is happening to me' kinda way. We dressed, sat and had coffee talked some more..about 4:30 AM she says you'll have to go now as my husband will be waking up shortly to go to work...
When I was a teenager at college, I delivered pizzas on a moped.
About 10:30 at night, I saw this orange glow above the housing estate, weird I thought then carried along the road.
I then caught a glimpse of an orange flying saucer, with lights flashing along the side of it - Close Encounters type stuff. Amazed, and scared at the same time I rode a little closer then it disappeared in the dark.
30 seconds later, it came back and I could read the logo "The Future's Bright, the Future's Orange"
****ers.
Earthquake for me as well. Sitting on my hotel bed in Sydney the door starts banging and the floor rippling under my feet.
I couldn't fathom it so went to answer the door which i thought someone was knocking on and as I looked down the corridor an American girl was shouting earthquake! I just said OH abd went back inside my room.
I bet she thought I was cool as ****.
There is a house in the New Forest close to Burley. It is a modern building with a large glass area. It sits on its own, but is in no way off the beaten track. Many years ago I was approaching by bike and chuckled to myself because it looked like the man inside the house was cleaning the very large windows while stark naked. While reflecting on my mistake, a post office van started reversing back up the single track road away from the house. The driver had a very startled look on his face. It turns out that the window cleaner was indeed stark, bollock naked.
I was also on a bus traveling to the station one day. During the journey I saw someone get run over. When I eventually got to the station I made a call from a phone box (this was 20 odd years ago in a far off land). Hearing a commotion behind me, I turned to see that a man had dropped dead not 5 meters from me. That was more grim than bizarre in itself, but it was a bizarre coincidence.
Nothing compared to what's been mentioned so far, but anyway.
Sat in a backpackers hostel in San Diego, talking rugby with a kiwi girl. The obligatory questions of where you're from comes up. With promoting it, turns out she lived and worked in the same small, poxy town that I grew up in in the back end of the West Midlands. She even drank in the same pub as I used to, I suspect we had been there drinking at the same time. Very odd indeed.
Also, walking through London, with my (now ex) girlfriend. Literally bumped into my Mom and Dad. Nothing odd there you say, bar that I didn't know they were going to be in London, and they didn't know I'd be. We certainly didn't know where each other may or may not be.
I travelled a couple of hundred miles north on holiday to Buxton, only to meet my next door neighbours walking down the street. Weird, had no idea they were even going on holiday, they were supposed to be looking after the cat.
Brighton beach, Fat Boy Slim concert with a quarter of a million people in the crowd. I bumped into my brother and shortly after, the boyfriend of my girlfriend's sister.
Was in a pub and an old bloke walked across the floor, blue blazer, cravat, loud brogues and went through the door. No problem with that, apart from the fact that the door had been blocked up for years. I put it down to excess fun and then the guy I was with, an ex-army captain, said 'did you just see that?' Oh dear.
Was in Antigua, Guatemala, and a group of 4 in a pickup truck went around town for over an hour mugging people and then stabbing them. It was bizarre and caused much hysteria. I got a taxi for 6 blocks and legged it pronto to my room.
My mate had gotten his hands on a bag containing a rather unusual cocktail of ketamine and PCP..
Now everyone knows that you shouldn't use ketamine intravenously right? cos it will kill you stone dead... If you really feel like you have to inject that shit then you inject it intramuscularly..
Unless of course you mix it with the correct amount of PCP, as the stimulant effect of the PCP will keep you alive
(this is probably a very exact science so don't try this at home kids!)
What I have found with most drugs is that you have time to administer yourself with the dose, then put your equipment down and sit back at just about the time the drug hits your brain (or whatever it does).. But not so with this cocktail
Sat in a mutual aquaintance's bedroom in the squat that we inhabited, we embarked upon our mysterious journey...
Before we had managed to deliver even a quarter of the dose, we turned to each other, and without speaking, we communicated the following conversation via some freaky psychic channel
'holy ****ing shit' says I, 'are we ****ing dead?'
'I don't know' says my chum, 'but if we are I don't suppose there's any way back'
'well we may as well finish the hit then right?'
'I can't think of a logical reason not to at this point'
'we're having this conversation in our minds right?'
'yes. It would certainly appear that way'
'this is by [i]far[/i] the most bizarre thing that I have ever experienced'
'yep. Me too.... by [i]far[/i]'
What followed is somewhat blurry in my memory, but closely resembled a scene from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and didn't really make much sense until we regained our wits later that night in the local night club, walking around in a manner very remeniscent in it's physical aspect, of the first men on the moon
I was walking with my 1 year old in a buggy when I heard some bangs coming out of a very fancy building across the road (Makati, Manila). As people began to run, I joined in and went into the nearest 7/11 where the doors were promptly locked by a policeman who was loading up his shotgun and crouching next to the counter.
After 10-15 minutes and many shots, there was screeching of tyres and some 4x4s with blacked-out windows sped in either direction.
It turned out that the owner of the building had died and rival brother and sister had immediately sent their personal heavies to take over the building and secure its ownership.
Quite frightening!
bizzare - i guess this counts....
late 80's, student at aberdeen uni. was walking home from old aberdeen to hillhead halls through seaton park at about 2.30am. spotted a car parked well into the park on a walkway with headlights on and a couple of folk milling around in the lights. approaching cautiously with images a of drug deal or something dangerous going on you can imagine my surprise to find a 'glamour' shoot in progress. after ogling a rather foxy lady for a few seconds, honest, i casually sauntered past the pair, bit them a good morning and watched her scramble for some clothes.
🙂
Now everyone knows that you shouldn't use ketamine intravenously right? cos it will kill you stone dead
Err, I've had it IV twice and I'm alive to tell the tale. This was in a hospital though. It's a hell of a pain killer and taken IV you go from screaming agony to tripping in a matter of seconds. I was very entertaining for several hours after that, rambling about hell mouths, badgers vs racoons, dwarf airports and a variety of other things that no one else could see.
The oddest thing I've ever seen was North Korean children in Pyongyang 'protesting' about how much they liked one of Kim Jong Un's new flagship policies. North Korea is a strange place, well worth a visit.
I genuinely have no rational explanation for this one so any suggestions would be most appreciated! Everyone, other than the three of us that were there, thinks we're mental.
About ten years or so ago, me and a couple of pals, probably about 20 yrs old at the time, decided last minute to head to the Lakes for a wild camping trip. Armed with little more than a cheap 3 man tent, a couple of slabs of Stella and some sleeping bags we drove West. We arrived in the area surrounding Keswick (I think) in the light and had a reccy into some woods after leaving the car in small parking area off the road. Once we had found an appropriate spot to camp/drink we went back to the car to collect our gear and walk the 15-20 minutes back to the spot at dusk.
We set up camp and then set about the Stella. At about midnight we realised we'd left some essential kit in the car (probably a ten deck of Lamberts or something..) and being the Geordie hard lads we were decided that all 3 of us should make the trip.. The last little bit of the walk back to the car was about 250 yds along a relatively narrow but quite straight bit of B-road lined either side with woods. We're walking this last bit towards the car drinking our bottles, carrying on, chatting shit and such like, under a clear night sky lit only by the moon. Happy days. Then.. all of sudden a bright flash lights up everything (and I mean EVERYTHING!) including ourselves for about a second or so. I remember the flash duration as it was just long enough for the 3 of us to all look at each other with a shocked/disturbed/WTF/scared look slapped all over our dials.
Needless to say we absolutely legged it back to my mams 1999 Ford Fiesta in pitch darkness. Unfortunately, the "Finesse" model did not have central locking and this being a 5-door car meant that once I had fumbled the key into the lock and opened my drivers door and then had to reach over to the passenger side, open that, and then reach over the back and open the rear door as well! All the time my two mates clawing at the handles like their lives depended on it! We sat in darkness, the only car in there, for about 5 minutes.. We contemplated writing off the camping gear for about 10 seconds before concluding it would be completely wrong to leave all of our gear in the woods (waste valuable Stella) and so went back to the tent to drink the remainder of our night away around a camp fire.
I've never been able to explain this. It wasn't lightning as it was a clear night and there was no noise. It was too long for a camera type flash and there were no speed cameras on that stretch of road. The only irrational explanation is that the three of us were abducted by aliens before being quickly rejected from the probing/testing programme for being complete idiots.
A girl I know used to work as a webcam girl, told me when we were drunk.. out of "curiosity" I used to try and catch one of her shows but she was never online when I looked.. so occasionally I'd watch another random British girl on there (strictly for research purposes of course)
A few months later I got wasted at a mate's leaving do, was chatting to one of his girlfriend's mates for a few hours, she had a good sense of humour, got on pretty well.. she then told me what she did for a living.. at which point I suddenly realised she was the girl I'd seen online.. hadn't realised up til that point.. ("Hang on.. I've f*cking w*nked over you!" was my exact choice of phrase).. she thought it was funny, didn't mind in the slightest, just didn't want her boyfriend to know that I'd seen her.. she ended up writing a blog about me, kinda flattering!
Couple of years later I googled her name, have since discovered she once made custom videos for someone which involved pooing on her phone. Nice.
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Mahousive earthquake as well. It weird because you can't run anywhere as just standing up is difficult enough. You view all these massive structures in a different way when they get shaken around like nothing
Apparently was in a 6.4 in Greece. The rumour was that the govt. said it was a 5.7, because anything over that they legally had to compensate for structural damage.
Had aftershocks for several days after and actually got quite blasé about them.
Sat in a mutual aquaintance's bedroom in the squat that we inhabited, we embarked upon our mysterious journey...
Before we had managed to deliver even a quarter of the dose, we turned to each other, and without speaking, we communicated the following conversation via some freaky psychic channel'holy * shit' says I, 'are we * dead?'
'I don't know' says my chum, 'but if we are I don't suppose there's any way back'
'well we may as well finish the hit then right?'
'I can't think of a logical reason not to at this point'
'we're having this conversation in our minds right?'
'yes. It would certainly appear that way'
'this is by far the most bizarre thing that I have ever experienced'
'yep. Me too.... by far'What followed is somewhat blurry in my memory, but closely resembled a scene from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and didn't really make much sense until we regained our wits later that night in the local night club, walking around in a manner very remeniscent in it's physical aspect, of the first men on the moon
Genuine tears
😆
An advert today on STW for a folding mountain bike with 26" mag wheels?
That's pretty trippy.
The Mrs and I were had gone to Innerleithen for the weekend to enjoy a round or two of Golf. Walking in to the No. 1 cafe for lunch we bump in to my sister, who lives in Dublin, leaving.
There's also the time I met an angel (a real honest to God flesh and blood angel) but I really don't want that tale to reach the public domain that is the internet.
15 years ago I went to certify someone dead who'd been found. Not my patient or practice. They were lying peacefully face up on the floor of an empty room entierly surrounded by empty perrier bottles, all stood up neatly.
never found out what happened with that one.
Not sure if it’s connected but we had a few weird occurrences not long after my grans funeral. (20 years or so ago)
The only one I can remember now was when my mum woke up up very warm in her room.
She, like I, never have the radiator on in the bedroom but it was on full whack, and this was in late spring so the boiler shouldn’t even have been on.
Went downstairs to investigate why it was on, and found that an unconnected (to the boiler anyway) pipe had burst and the kitchen was starting to flood.
If it had been left till morning, then most of the downstairs would have been under water.
There were a few more things along those lines, strange warnings, but I can’t remember now. Would have to ask my mum as they had more resonance with her due to the timing.
When I was 15, I was sat in watching telly with my family one night when the doorbell rang. I went to answer it and there's a girl possibly a bit older than me at the door and a few mates in a dodgy Cavalier with the engine running. The girl asks if I am (Says my actual full name) I say, yes. She then asks if I know a girl by the name of something or other. I say I have never heard of her. She asks if I work in the fish market in town. I say I do not, I'm still at school. With that, the girl says "oh, ok, we thought she was lying and this proves that she is". She then goes on to tell me that the girl who's name I forget has told doorbell girl and her mates that she is pregnant and it's mine. Had literally never even heard of her or met her before.
3 years later and I'm at college with a very hot girlfriend (didn't last long) and she brought up that she knew the lying girl. Which was also a bit odd.
Err, I've had it IV twice and I'm alive to tell the tale.
You're quite correct of course, my mate had it in hospital after getting very seriously burnt and administered by a highly trained anaesthetist I'm sure it's very safe..
Dirty half-mad teenaged boys buying bags of white powder from shady new age travellers should exercise more caution though 😉
I went InterRailing in 1990 and bumped into the girl that worked in the art supplies shop next door to my old place of work (who decided to go travelling after I told her I was going to do it).
Bumped into her in Zurich Bus Station, then again on a ferry in Venice about a week later.
Was cycling to a concert one evening and about to cross a bridge over a busy main road when I saw a girl hanging by her fingertips from the edge. Someone else had already jumped over the fence and was trying to get her up but not managing. I jumped over the fence as well and tried to pull her up with one hand while holding on with the other but we still couldn't do it. Eventually a 3rd person arrives and that does it while at the same time some people had ran out onto the road underneath to stop the traffic.
At this point I was shaking as I thought she was going to die, but then without a word the girl and the first person who was helping her just walked off together 😯
Still got no idea what was going on
I once went to Pride and saw about seven people all dressed up as Nana Mouskouri. Thta was bizarre. 🙂
Two very strange things have happened in the two years I've been living in a bungalow on a cringeworthily well-to-do estate in textbook surburbia (this has made things even more surreal).
One Sunday afternoon I was standing at the sink doing the dishes. The kitchen's at the front of the house and there's a window in front of the sink that looks out onto our cul-de-sac. A cow runs past at full tilt.
(It later turned out that it had got on to the busy dual-carriageway nearby and had to be shot by a police marksman. Kinda spoilt it a bit.)
One evening last winter, I came home from work, in the dark, and my bike light picked out a body behind the wheelie bins on my drive. There's a middle aged man slumped against the fence. I approached him cautiously, talking to him calmly in a friendly voice but got no response. I could see he was breathing fine and just seemed to be asleep. He was reasonably well-dressed and didn't seem to smell - pretty certain he wasn't homeless.
Since the street was quiet and dark and I was the only one home, I went to let my neighbour's know what was happening in case things turned nasty.
I went back and tried to wake the fella up, but I didn't want to start shouting or moving him. Still had no response so went back to my neighbour's and called 101 to ask them to send someone round if possible and to see whether they had any more of a clue what to do than me (they didn't).
After a few minutes on the phone and trying to think what to do next, I went back to see the guy. He'd disappeared.
I was beginning to think I'd dreamt the whole thing, and I'm pretty certain my (retired) neighbours think I made the whole thing up since they never saw him - I didn't want to get them into any danger.
The following morning I found a packet of fags with one missing and a lighter on the floor by the bins. That's the only thing convincing me I didn't imagine it.
I think the guy must have just been drunk (though he didn't smell of booze) and walking back from the pub thought our driveway was a good place for a little snooze. Woke up with me shining a light in his face and talking to him but managed to pretend to be asleep until I'd gone and scarpered. Still doesn't quite add up though.
On a night out once, a girl was walking towards me in a corridor to / from the loos. A bloke appears from behind her, stops us both and says to me "here, you take the right I'll take the left", pulls her top down to expose her bare naked breasts, we both have a quick "nomnomnom", he puts her top back and we carry on our separate ways.
This was in St. Anton as a seasonaire, so not *that* bizarre. but also at the time, stuff my (wet) dreams were made of. Later that night, a friend "pulled" said girl - she was sick all over his bed.
I had a completely bizarre jinxed "holiday".
Myself and two friends were going to Peru for a fortnight to do the usual tourist things such a Machu Picu etc about 6 years ago now.
We should of known things weren't going to go to plan when the taxi driver that picked us up from Lima airport was clearly coked off his nut and had white powder along the dashboard.
The next day we were lying in the hostel, when an almighty earthquake shook the building and the back wall fell down, causing lots of brits, americans and aussies to spill out on to the road.
Randomly in coversation with one of the aussies, he recommended we get a coach to Bolivia and ride the "Road of Death", supposedly the worlds most dangerous road ridden on MTB. Typically, that didn't go to plan, and i crashed after 62km with 2 km to go when the back wheel fell to bits, I came round literally with my legs dangling over the edge and looking at a series of crosses on the side of the road and a lorry in the ravine below. I'd dislocated shoulder,snapped of the head of the humerus and put brake lever into my leg. Cue an 8 hour journey back to the capital La Paz, where i underwent surgery for my shoulder where they put metal pins in, but they didn't pick up on the bleed in my leg, so i woke up in the middle of the night dosed up on Bolivian anaesthetic, with the sheets red with blood, at an altitude of about 3000m above sea level to Baywatch overdubbed in Spanish on the TV thinking i'd gone to a very weird version of Heaven!!
Then flown back as a medical emergency, first put on an American Airlines business class flight, first plane had an electrical fault and couldn't fly, got on next fly, only for the co-pilot to hit me square in the back of the shoulder i'd had pinned days earlier with his metal flight case, finally got as far as Miami, where i was put on a BA flight first class and between the free champagne and the Bolivian painkillers, i babbled nothing but ballcocks at Sophie Ellis-Bexter before passing out.
To finish off the most disastrous trip ever, coming back through customs at Heathrow, customs asked "where are you flying from?", i replied Bolivia, "did you pack your own bags?", truthfully i answered no, that a nurse had, i was then clearly in a very badly injured state, strip searched and had my rucksack contents emptied everywhere!
I've got one that's not crime or drugs related, might've told this before.
Me and a mate walked up to Llyn Idwal late one night to camp by the lake and do some climb or other in the morning. We got there around ten I suppose, lay in the tent chatting as you do. Weather was still and clear. Around midnight we heard a long way off a roaring noise approaching very fast. We had enough time to stop and look at each other before it slammed into the tent. There was only a shockwave, a sort of slab of heavy wind, and it then roared off down the mountain. What you'd expect if a plane had flown very low overhead perhaps, except there was no other sound, no engines, nothing. After that, there were a few other gusts of wind, which got gustier, then more wind, then within an hour it'd turned into full on gales and howling rain. We lay there until the first signs of light at 4am then packed up and went home in what was now appalling weather, being in no mood to climb.
Googled it many times over the years then finally found a candidate. Turns out that when conditions are still and cold a layer of air in contact with high ground can become cooler than the surrounding air, creating a dense layer. If this cold slab of air gets disturbed somehow it can slide down the mountain, rolling like some kind of cold avalanche, picking up quite a bit of speed. I found a page but forgot the name of the phenomenon.
I reckon the start of the changing weather had disturbed the cold air that had been pooling in a cwm.
Sitting on a bench at a bus station in Delhi, waiting for a bus to Manali.
I become aware that the Indian bloke sitting next to me has one of those little wooden coffee stirrer things and he's sticking it into my right ear, very carefully. I remain perfectly still and he removes it with a flourish and proudly displays the piece of earwax that he's just removed for me.
I thought the only fitting response was, "Thank you very much."
I've danced with the devil in the pale moonlight.
molgrips, [url= https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katabatic_wind ]katabtic wind?[/url]
Yeah, quite possibly, but googling that seems to bring up consistent winds, rather than a rolling sudden shockwave. Persistent katabatic winds seem to start up in stable conditions, but seems in this case the change of prevailing weather caused this sort of flip of cold air.
on our recent bike touring trip through europe. first night in slovenia (fantastic country that is worth a visit). wild camping as we did every night just off the main road down a gravel track, just off to the side on a smaller dirt track that leads to a dead end. we are sleeping at the dead end, my mate in a tent me closer to the road just in my bivvi bag. about midnight a range rover pulls up, engine off, doors open, people come out. foot steps getting closer and closer. my heart pounding not really because i think its dangerous but because i will scare the living daylights out of them when they bump into me. anyway they stop just short. two guys one girl. they each smoke a cigarette (very bright in the pitch black) they then proceed to noisily crack on with what they came for, and i assume paid for, with the young lady. each smoked a second fag and off they went. truly bizzare at the time and quite uncomfortable, they will never know they had two english guys about 5 or 6 meters away from the action.
I've been thinking about this thread for a couple of days now, I took, like many other posters it seems, a lot of drugs between about 1996 and 2001, some later too, but with less enthusiasm. Lots of very strange and wonderful things happened during those days, partly because if you don't already know, strange and wonderful things [i]seem[/i] to happen quiet often when you're on drugs, and if you do like drugs you do tend to spend time with people in situations which are strange, but rarely wonderful, but the truth is that I can't for the life of me remember any of these things, just that they happened.
One this that DID happen though, happened during 2001 when I was blind sober for almost a year. I was working in an Internet Cafe in Sydney roughly 10k miles from home, I got chatting to a Lad who walked in looking for a certain hostel - it didn't take long to work out that we had similar accents - "So, where you from" "Britain, well Wales to be exact" "I'm from Wales, Cardiff, or Small-Cardiff-suburb-town to be exact "Me too!".
So there we were, 10k miles from home in a city of 4 million - which is unlikely, but we fancied not too unlikely - as we were both in the 'backpacking' age group and Sydney was a popular port of call for the terminally short of imagination like us - but what was strange was that when we boiled it down - we were from the same housing estate, the same age group in school (but went to the opposite secondary school to each other - there's two in our town) we lived in adjoining streets, knew lots of the same people, actually 'knew of' each other, but to the best of our knowledge had never met before - we'd lived in the same estate for most of our lives too. We had a laugh and off he went to find the hostel, and I finished my shift and went home.
3 weeks later I got a call in work from my travelling mate, or ex travelling mate, we wanted different things so he'd moved onto Melbourne and finally into a tiny little ghost town where he worked knocking down old abandoned wooden buildings - his firm were advertising for another hand, and low and behold this guy had walked out of train station that morning to take the job - he called me "Do you know Dave Something or other?!" I replied - "I do! I met him 3 weeks ago".
Never set eyes on the guy since, I checked with my travelling mate to make sure it had really happened, and yes it had. I'm told he met a girl and never came home from Oz.
Not so bizzare, but surreal. New Years fireworks in Manila - an Asian country with a latin culture that felt like Colombia. Never, ever seen or heard such a barrage of explosives in my life. Close your eyes and it could have been WW1.
That went on at that intensity for hours. I reckon more people died from accicental deaths that night than civilians did in the opening airstrikes of the Iraq invasion.
I once bought a Kitkat and discovered upon biting
Into it that it was all solid chocolate right the way through.
No wafer!
I know, freaky, right?
@P-Jay:
but went to the opposite secondary school to each other - there's two in our town
Was it St Illtyd's vs Rumney, or Cantonian vs Bishop of Llandaff?
Whilst spending some quality time with the OH in bed I turned arround to see a small girl stood in the doorway. Rationalised it as new house, extreme tiredness, a couple of beers, and a ridiculously hot curry. But still weird.
Bivying on a beach, dog walker from nearby campsite comes past at about 8am "do you live here".
@molgrips, I've had the same whilst camping in the Llanberis Pass, quite freaky.
Many magic mushroom stories mostly funny rather than weird.
In the pitch black
Me "Theres a man with a bike right there"
Mate "Where?"
Me "Next to your face"
Mate "[rude word]"
Poor man on a bike.
@molgrips, I've had the same whilst camping in the Llanberis Pass, quite freaky.
Very interesting - that's the first time I've ever heard anything similar...
A few years ago when my cousin worked in the signalbox I'm in tonight he told me when he'd been lay down trying to get a sneaky bit of sleep (on more than one occasion this is), he'd had all the lights off in the box and could have sworn he could hear someone (other than himself) breathing. Since then he left and I took his job in here and I've also had quite a few moments when I've been asleep but woken up from the feel of someone brushing past me.
I'm a pussy when it comes to stuff like that anyway and being alone in a signalbox in the middle of nowhere doesn't help!
Whilst living in Toulouse as a student, a group of us went off on a weekend on the piss in some beach town, possibly Biarritz, although could have been somewhere in northern Spain (bit hazy).
We never booked accommodation on these jaunts, just took sleeping bags and blankets and found somewhere to crash. On one occasion we found a nice patch of short grass and soon fell asleep/passed out. At some point we all woke each other up to shouts of “oh shit it’s raining”, but just as soon as it has started, it stopped again. Then started again. Then stopped. Took a while to work out that we were on a golf course and the sprinklers had come on…
So we decamped to the beach, in the dark. In the early hours of the morning we were woken up by a car which came and parked nearby on the road at the top of the beach. Big Merc Sedan, all the doors open, stereo on, Eiffel 65’s “I’m Blue” on repeat very loud. Four oriental blokes in suits got out, and came down to the beach about 50m from us, followed by a boy who looked about ten who was holding towels. The blokes stripped naked, had a quick swim/splash about in the waves while the boy stood on the beach with the towels and clothes. Then they got out, dried, dressed, got back in the car and drove off.
As it got light in the morning we all started waking up (realising that if you sleep on a beach you end up quite damp in the morning). One of the group, Big Dave, pointed out a bloke in the distance, walking along the beach and looking furtive. He sidled up to a wooden beach hut and spent a couple of minutes apparently cracking one out (his back was thankfully to us), then walked off.
We weren’t even on drugs that night, just beer and Pastis 😯
More recently, I had my melon twisted by an optical illusion. A guy at work mentioned one he’d seen on facebook which was a picture of a brick wall, and the question “Can you see anything unusual?” I spotted “it” strait away, and we discussed the varying lengths of time it takes people to get it. He’d been stumped for a couple of minutes, but once he’d seen it, couldn’t un-see it. His wife, even after having it pointed out, still struggled, but had seen it. (I won’t explain more in case anyone wants to have a go).
Anyway, I mentioned how it was like The Dress that did the rounds a while back. He’d somehow never heard of it, so off we went to his desk to google it. Looking at the image on Wikipedia, it was exactly as I remembered it, very obviously white and gold (although shot in light with a blue-ish hue). Over the course of a few minutes of discussing it I noticed that if I viewed his monitor from above the image seemed to be more clearly white and gold. So I checked it from a low angle looking up, and it looked blue and black. Weird, but I put it down to how LCD monitors are made/operate as I’ve noticed colour shifts due to observation angle before.
And then, as I was in the middle of a sentence, I was looking at the screen and time seemed to slow down, just a fraction of a second in slo-mo, and the dress was now blue and black. I was properly discombobulated. Real slack-jawed, open-mouth speechless. The dress now looked black and blue from all angles, and the idea that it could ever have been white and gold seemed ridiculous, it was a real cognitive dissonance moment. I was in a bit of a daze for the rest of the afternoon, it really shook me up (but not in an unpleasant way, I was just a bit spaced out).
I just googled the image again now, writing this, and it’s white and gold as it was originally…
Both of us wide awake as someone is moving around downstairs, then slides clothes off rails before finally (just me awake at this point) a female voice says 'good night'.
A few more similar. I'd like to say I know her name but it could be one of two
I've also had surreal moments at work.
@Nickewen this could have been your flash, I live in the alps and we get it all the time, just huge flashes (like lightning) without any sound... [url] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_lightning [/url]
Not the most bizarre, (I'd need more time to think) but last weekend I was on the way (driving) over to my parents place, about a mile from my home, on a fairly well used B road.
On one corner there's a rented house, weirldy the tenants have an old (knackered) series 2 landy, a shagged out horsebox and some sort of wood carving/totem pole outisde all chained together. Anyway, I spot the guy and his dog heading towards the garden gate onto the road. It was fairly early, guy appeared to be in t shirt and pants having just got up. Guy then bends down to take something off the dog I think, before opening the gate.
I don't know why, but looked again as he was at 3 o'clock to me, very close, now on edge of road. Turns out he was only wearing a t shirt, a pink one at that.
I'm a software engineer. I was at work, working on some code. Then I looked at the code on my screen and thought "What's this I'm looking at? Why am I looking at this now?" Not in a sudden "I am wasting my life" sort of realisation, more a "I don't think this is what I was doing a minute ago" sort of feeling.
The feeling applied to everything. I hadn't forgot anything, I could still remember where I was, who the people around me were, what I did for a living, etc. It was more like my memories of what had been going on moments earlier were in fact memories from a few days ago, a bit fainter and not associated with "now". It felt a bit like my brain had rebooted itself and had to restore its pre reboot state.
I had a short break, refreshed myself about exactly what I was working on and got back to work. It was not externally weird but as an experience it did feel truly bizarre.
I think I may have had one similar experience in the years since, but it was less acute, possibly simply because I wasn't doing anything much when it happened anyway.
finally got as far as Miami, where i was put on a BA flight first class and between the free champagne and the Bolivian painkillers, i babbled nothing but ballcocks at Sophie Ellis-Bexter before passing out.
crying 😆
I've raved in one of the towers of the tyne bridge
I've raved in one of the towers of the tyne bridge
Aye? Why, man? 😉
WillH's tale (no pun) reminds me of a time me and two pals camped in Swanage and went to the beach in the morning to cook breakfast in the dunes (not sure why). As we did, an old chap came along with his dog. He stopped by us and bode us good morning while he took in the sea view. Then dropped his pants and walked on. NOW we know its a nudist beach.
...so anyone remember the guy who used to wander round Marlborough Rd and environs in the heart of Sheffield studentville, in the mid-80s, in small hours, dressed in what for shorthand I can now call Victorian steampunk style, which then didn't exist of course. Black suit, white shirt. Can't remember if he had a hat or slicked back hair. But he did have a strange lopsided leer on his face, and a white rat moving from shoulder to shoulder and, basically, ran a major line in freaking folk out. What was the story there?