Your degree of separation from (alleged) paranormal phenomena

In My Humble Opinion
21

Hmm, I picked 2. I knew the person it happened to, but her daughter was the one that told me the story.

When she was a teenager, she and her friends decided to go see a psychic – a crystal ball seer, I believe. This girl was a complete skeptic, but went along with it because that’s what all of her friends were doing. The predictions were pretty mindane and silly, but the psychis told this girl something very specific: “Your parents are going to get into a car wreck. They will be so badly injured that the doctors won’t even try to save them. Whatever you do, don’t let the doctors pull the plug. Insist that they do everything they can. Your parents will live.”

And 20 years later, that’s exactly what happened.

22

Mostly 1, and as a result of my telling people, a few 2.

I have

Seen a UFO

A religious statue moving

Two different ghosts

Had multiple sleep paralysis episodes

Had a deja vu

Seen/been abducted by aliens (including a possible pregnancy riff)
I sleep in a drawer in Agent Mulder’s desk :wink:

23

I don’t really know how to vote in this poll. There have been two things that happened to me that I chalked up to coincidence but others might see them as paranormal.

In college a friend read my tarot cards. She said that in 3 months I would meet someone who would become very important to me, and that mountains would be involved. Three months later when I was in Banff I met the man I ended up marrying.

The other was last summer. My husband and I were on vacation in Peru. We were hiking through the Amazon and the guide was taking about the spirits of the jungle and the local legends involving giving part of yourself to the jungle. We hadn’t seen any wildlife and I was losing hope. Well I ended up getting swarmed by bees while using the outhouse and had been stung all over my hands, arms, and up one leg. While I was collecting myself after that I “talked” to the jungle. Saying that I had given part of me and it was your turn.

The next part of the hike involved getting into canoes and paddling around this lake. We had stopped in the lake for lunch and I heard a splash. I look over and less than two feet from me was a 2 meter long Cayman. The neat thing was that no matter what the guide, or the people in the other canoe did, he stuck my my side. I said a little thank you to the jungle for that, and got some fantastic photos.

So kinda neat coincidence, but I wouldn’t call them supernatural.

24

Ziltch.

25

I had to vote for 0, most of mine have been related to various sorts of precognition and clairscentience, most revolving around a specific person to whom I was extremely close for a long time. I have occassionally gotten similar things with others, usually also people I’m close to, but never as strongly or as detailed as with that specific person.

One example, I remember getting an extremely uneasy feeling and an overwhelming feeling that something terrible happened to her. I remembered what time it was, but didn’t get a chance to check in with her until that night or the next day. When I ask about it, not only was it something bad, but it had happened only a few minutes prior to when I got the feeling. That’s just one of the examples I remember best, but over the years that I knew her, she eventually just sort of came to expect that I knew what was up.

For an example of precognition, I kinda-sorta predicted 9-11. I was watching Monday Night Football the day before with my friends, and somehow conversation got very morbid when we started talking about how much they didn’t want to go to work and I didn’t want to go to class. It eventually escalated from minor things up until someone dying would be worth it, but I won when I trumped it with something to the effect of “if thousands of people had to die to get class cancelled… hell, if twice as many will get me two days off, that’s even better.” The next morning I, of course, found out that thousands of people were killed, and classes were cancelled for two days. Boy did I feel like a huge jackass.

I have had a few other off the cuff comments like that correlating with other more recent disasters, most recently the Japanese Tsunami thing. Maybe I just need to never ever mention anything about people dying ever again.

26

I don’t know what ROUSs or ABCs are.

I’ve known people who claim firsthand experience with unseen ghosts. I’ve experienced weirdness myself but I chalk it up to my imperfect experience of reality.

27

Rodents Of Unusual Size - as per Princess Bride. “I don’t believe they exist… aaargh-garblewhile getting attacked by one.”

I guess I’m at 1 from everywhere. I think I have that “I’ll be nice when you tell me random stuff in public” look, because I am a freaking MAGNET for anyone with a paranormal/mystical/religious/spiritual experience to impart.

I can’t go a week without some stranger attaching themselves to me while I’m out shopping or walking and telling me about a “Word from God” they just got about my parents, or that my eyes are the kind that shows I have alien ancestry, or that when they touch me, they get “elven racial memories” transmuted into their heads.

I think my favorite is the lady about a year ago who was checking out books at my library, and brushed against me when I handed over her books. She gasped, clutched her heart, and stared up at my face intently, then started crying. She grabbed my hand, and started praying over it, patting it and interspersing the prayer with comments along the lines of: “Oh, honey, I know it’s going to be hard, but just you remember this day, and everything will be ok.”

I was totally :eek: :confused: :eek: :rolleyes: :eek:

Apparently my vibes are only for other people. I got nothing myself, and not for lack of trying, either. I spent my entire childhood trying to find ghosties and elves and whatnot. Never found a thing.

28

My mother swears up and down that she had an vision of three angels right hovering over her in bed shortly after we moved into our current house. She put great stock into the encounter, as she has three daughters and has a major thing for angels - it sounds an awful lot like an episode of sleep paralysis to me, though.

29

Terrible copy

This is the best copy I could find, and then I blanked out my wife’s face. I realize that the fact that she circled part of the hand prior kinda doesn’t help the authenticity, but that’s what I have been able to find. The computer crash I had a while ago was not friendly to my pictures and music.

30

It looks like it’s in the vicinity of the floor. If she’s sure nothing was lying down there, eg a stuffed animal, then that is pretty freaky. Thanks for sharing it!

31

None at all.

32

One personal experience

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10236804&postcount=13

33

I voted 0 but I have a 0 and a 1.

The 0: One night my ex and I were out at his mom’s house, and we had gone out into the yard to hang out with his brother. It was a clear night, and his mom lived out in the country so there were lots of stars out. You could hear the typical summer night sounds, crickets and tree frogs and such. For some reason, all four of us looked up at the sky at the same time. We all saw this odd “thing” for lack of a better word move across the sky. It was four red lights arranged in a diamond shape. Relative size-wise, it was about the same size as a full moon high in the sky. As it moved across the sky, it blotted out the stars behind it. It moved across very quickly, probably less than 30 seconds, and after we lost sight of it we realized that all the nighttime noises had stopped and it was totally silent. We all stood there with “whoa” expressions for a minute, then the crickets started back up again.

The 1: My grandfather had a massive stroke and was in the hospital, and he was semi-coherent. My gran was in the hospital room with him when he suddenly sat up in bed and said “Who are you?” Gran asked who he was talking to, and Granddad said “The guy at the foot of the bed”. Gran says “There’s no one there!” Granddad said that this person by his bed was saying it was time for Granddad to go and that Gran shouldn’t be afraid because everything was going to be ok. Gran said “You better go with him if he wants you to go.” Then Granddad laid back down in the bed, and he was gone just a minute or two later. Gran swears she started to feel a presence in the room, and she was convinced that God had sent an angel down to get Granddad. It made her feel better, so no one argued with her.

34

I voted 0 for two things.

First was a trip to Eureka Springs, AR, where we stayed at the Crescent Hotel, which is notoriously known for being haunted. I got the creeps a number of times but one night we distinctly heard someone knocking on our window, which was way high above ground level and had no ledge. It freaked me out at the time, but I was 18 and knew the place had a reputation, so, you know, whatever.

The other thing is the reason I am not an atheist. I’m mentally ill. This is not news to the SDMB. I’m bipolar II, rather severely*. I was once in a relationship with a real douchebag and he left me to go on a weekend trip with some friends and I knew he was cheating on me, and when he left I collapsed in the living room. I lay on the floor screaming, crying, drooling on myself. I was completely over the edge and suicidal thoughts were just around the corner.

I decided to pray. I prayed to “the mother” because I felt I needed a mother at that time. I asked to be helped through this rough patch because I honestly didn’t think I had it in me to survive it. I got a flash almost like a memory of what I needed to do in several veryc oncrete steps, out of the blue. First, I needed to take some charcoal (I’m an artist, this is something I had onhand) and scribble all my dark thoughts onto some paper. Next, I needed to burn the paper in the fireplace. Then after it was just ash, I needed to scatter/rub the ash until there was no trace of the paper. Lastly, I needed to wash my hands. I did those things.

When I was done, I looked in the mirror and was startled to see that I was grinning from ear to ear, in this big, cheesy smile. I tried experimentally to feel sad or worried and I couldn’t do it. It was like being high or something. It lasted about a week and probably saved my life.

To this day I think something intervened and kept my emotions from getting to me while I was in that bad place.

Not as spooky as some of the stories here, but it’s what I’ve got.

*they’ve made great advancements in medical management of this and these days I’m quite sane, thanks.

35

And a good’un. Might try it myself next time I’m being driven to distraction (calling to the Mother, I mean)

36

Ghost hunting is a bit of a geeky hobby with me and in the course of investigations I’ve turned up some eerie stuff that I can’t explain. That doesn’t meant I think it’s ghosts though. I just don’t understand how it happened; so as far as I’m concerned it’s currently paranormal.