There is one other possibility, and that is that you really saw something! In the history of man there have probably been millions of reported “paranormal” incidents. These range from ghosts and esp to Bigfoot, UFO’s, timeslips, and yes elves, demons, gnomes ect. Furthermore, the evidence surrounding such reports ranges from completely non existent to somewhat interesting (but unfortunately never definitive). In addition, there have been some serious efforts at Stanford and Princeton (and elsewhere) to establish the existence of paranormal aspects to reality. Those who deny the possiblitity of such things should realize that if even ONE such report has objective reality then their paradigm falls apart. That is because such a “materialist” perspective doesn’t allow for other shall we say spiritual realities. Of course they could be correct.
I think you’re kidding, but just in case this post is the right answer- “Mangetout There is a race of smallish humans known as ‘children’; perhaps it was one or more of these that you say”…DON’T!
This rural road you were driving on… does it go through Hobbiton by any chance?
When I was younger and a high ranking moron, my cousin and I decided we could drive from Tampa. FL to Toledo, OH without stopping to sleep despite the fact we both had already been awake for almost 36 hours already. By the time we were an hour outside of Cincinnati we both began a rotation of driving for 1/2 hour then switching…both of staying awake as the passenger to make sure the driver was not nodding off. By the time I was half way through Ohio, with the air conditioner running full blast in the middle of December, I was awake but dreaming. My cousin couldn’t figure out why I was only going 45/mph and why I was tapping the brakes. I told him I didn’t want to hit the damn clowns and elephants that kept running across the road… Seriously, I saw airplanes taxiing down I-75. Rollercoasters in the middle of the road, dragons, etc, Wow.
I had been awake for about 55 hours straight. Sleep deprivation psychosis is not an enjoyable trip folks. For anyone who wants to do an experiment in sleep deprivation, please please please do not do it while barreling down the highway at 75 miles an hour.
BTW…no drugs on that trip…just caffeine for a futile attempt to stay alert.
The mind is a powerful thing.
Primal Highway Hypnosis…
I once had a bad case,driving at Night thru the Mountains, I saw Giant White
Springs Bouncing all over the Road…I couldn’t Escape them…
I pulled over,blazed another doobie,hit the road again only to pull up behind
a Pick-up that appeared to have a Large Sea Turtle in the Bed. The Turtle
Knocked down the Tailgate and fell on the Freeway in front of me. I swerved
to avoid a collision and the Pick-up kept going,unaware the Turtle had
ejected…
That was all for me!
We can’t stop now… this is bat country!
You skeptics! You patronizers! You, Derleth, beat me to the punch, and I just finished re-reading Fear & Loathing yesterday. Let’s stop sniggering for a few moments, and get some additional clarification out of the OP.
- How large were these “little people”, approximately?
- What road were you on (give town and state if possible)?
- What time of year and time of day was it?
Compare and contrast these to your father’s answers, and fill us in!
For what it’s worth, during a panic attack my senior year in high school, I was chased across campus by an oak tree. Luckily I made it inside and upstairs to the infirmary unscathed, and have not seen a self-propelled tree since (ents don’t count, thanks).
They were about 2 feet tall. Their bodies were not proportioned like children’s or midgets. Their heads were smaller than a child’s of the same height. I was on Highway 84 near Brookhaven, Mississippi. It was spring. Either March or April in 2000. My father is deceased, but he said he would see them in his house sometimes late at night when he was really tired.
Ah ha! Now we’re getting somewhere!
Maybe the OP was driving in Alaska. You know, heading to Nome.
Step 1: Drive past the Gnomes
Step 2:
Step 3: Profit!
Weird, I’m due to finish reading it today.
Oh, and all the good gnome jokes are already taken.
Careful with siding with the camp that claims that paranormal things could be true despite the fact that a hundred years of trying to scientifical prove them has been fruitless – your current pitting in the Pit could turn from polite to deadly.
Peace.
Ranger: “All right! Questions?”
Sal: “Yeah. Have yous ever seens Bigfeet?”
Ranger: “Technically, no. But I do see him each night in my dreams, and each day in the smiling faces of hairy children.”
Farnsworth: “Bunk! Bunk, I say! Bring me a bag of Bigfoot’s droppings, or shut up!”
Ranger: “I have the droppings of someone who saw Bigfoot.”
Farnsworth: “Shut up!”
Fry: “Bigfoot? Is that you? I’m not like the others, Bigfoot! I see through the monster coating to the gentle loner inside. I bet you have a wounded raccoon friend that you tenderly nurse back to health while you go coo, coo. But in the end they shoot you. But you teach us about things.”
Sounds like some kind of hypnagogic hallucination. A hypnagogic hallucination occurs at the odd time when sleep is just finishing or beginning. Because all senses are active at the time, they can be tremendously difficult to distinguish from reality.
The human brain tends to see “human faces” or “human figures” where there are none (like “the man in the moon”). It’s possible that there was debris of some kind, like snow or dust blowing across the road and part of your brain thought “gee, I hope that’s not a person” and then your brain morphed it into little “people” that suited the size and billowiness of the dust that puffed across the street.
“Phantom jaywalkers” are somewhat common – people think they see children or animals glide across the road in front of their cars, they’ll hit the breaks and swerve. So I did a google search on “hypnagogic hallucination ‘human figure’” and, sure enough, I found an interesting site about “road ghosts” that speculates on the mechanisms that may cause them (it uses case studies too). I didn’t read it thoroughly, so my apolgies if it turns into something hoaky, but it looked like it contained a few different possible explanations for the phenomenon.
It’s not weird to “see things” when you are really fatigued. Human figures are popular visions, especially in your peripheral vision (IMHO). Although, I tend to see black birds or flocks of swooping, black birds.
Long time ago a friend of mine claimed he had been driving to Boston and had been awake for about 18 hours when he said he saw a sort of very tall, multicolored humanoid on the roadside. Not exactly a gnome of course but comparing his experience with those of others in the thread I am wondering if what we may be seeing is an illustration of mental patterns through hallucination. Driving and seeing people by the roadside is common. People often gather on roadsides waiting to cross so there is probably a “link” between concepts here. Under duress the brain starts to malfunction but in ways that illustrate its internal maps of reality. Just a thought. I’ve never seen the little people myself. I have lost underwear though so maybe I’m just not looking hard enough.
Man, I just read this whole thing, and I’m still chuckling over “Metro-gnomes”
hehehe
You know when you’ve been playing your Playstation for too long and afterwards, whenever you shut your eyes you see sort of weird Playstationy images looming at you? Same thing happens with driving, apparently. So your brain and your eyes are bound to start playing silly buggers eventually.
You know why they’re running by the side of the road?
It’s 'cause they’re gnome-ads!
(OK, it’s not my joke–I got it from David Bowie’s The Laughing Gnome, which has a bunch of gnome puns.)
Is that the one that goes, “ha ha ha, hee hee hee, I’m the laughing gnome and you can’t catch me!
said the laughing gnome.”?
because…I hear that lyric all the time and have no idea if I heard the song long ago or if my brain made it up. I’m just curious.
Scientific proof for these sorts of things is hard to imagine. Even assuming such phenomina were objectively real (for the sake of argument) what sort of evidence would you expect to find? I would argue that there are good reports of various phenomina backed up by some evidence (albeit insufficient for accepting the reality of such things). However, the underlying point was that all it takes is for even one paranormal event to be objectively real in order to undermine the theoretical basis upon which a good deal of, hardcore, materialistic perspective rests. With regard to the observations of the OP, I would point out that the fact that his father reports similar sightings reminds me of the so called screen memories, and intergenerational experiences often reported by researchers such as Dr. David Jacobs who have investigated the so called alien abduction phenomina. Unfortunately, the primary method for investigating such events (hynotic regression) is of little more scientific value than the reported observations themselves. Note also that I have supplied in a previous thread a way of advancing the debate with regard to at least one reported, paranormal event so called “orbs”. My statistical comparison, protocol would provide some basis for either further investigation or dismissal of that type of alleged, paranormal occurance.
Also, I would point out that threats of impending “Pitting” for divergent opinions might not be the best way of promoting intellectual diversity. Sounds like the tactics used by the Catholic Chuch in responding to the views of Gallieo a few centuries ago! Perhaps, effective but intrinsically flawed.
That’d be the one. Fun song. 