Things that happened to you that you can't explain

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Many years ago, my brother and I took a trip to Big Bend National Park. It’s a huge, hot mountain desert area. I was an experienced backpacker, my brother was not.

We decided to hike in the outback, off-trail, using a compass and maps (this was before GPS). We carried as much water as possible but were going to have to rely on springs for most of our water. We took proper precautions. We checked in with the rangers and were assured that all of the springs we were going to were running.

You probably can guess where this is going. Yep, a couple of days in, one of the springs that was supposed to be running, wasn’t. Yikes! Serious situation. I explained to my brother that we needed to sleep in what little shade there was during the day and hike at night - when it was cool.

He got panicky and wanted to head out as soon as possible (he also expressed a fear of snakes in the dark). I couldn’t stop him - he struck out into 100+ temps with no water. So I followed - I had to take care of him.

Cut to several hours later, I was walking behind him, I looked up and there was, what looked to be, a leprechaun on his shoulder, looking back at me. Motioning me onward, as if to say, “keep going”. Now, I don’t believe in any supernatural type things, certainly not leprechauns.

So I told myself that, thinking that would make it go away. I kind of rubbed my eyes a bit and when I looked back up - he was still there! He sat there on my brothers shoulder encouraging me for quite some time. It all seemed so real.

We eventually made it to the next spring and the trip was a success. Now you might say, it was the effects of dehydration but I didn’t suffer any other symptoms.

To this day, I still don’t how to process that.

What weird thing happened to you that you can’t explain?

2

Did you try to touch the leprechaun?

3

I can see that dehydration, heat, exhaustion and the danger of the situation led to physical and mental stress that can easily evoke hallucinations. No need for a supernatural explanation.

4

I’m not a woo-woo type of person, but on the morning my mother died, a few minutes after I got the call that she’d just died, I was up in the dark tearfully making coffee and I grabbed a mug which happened to have a rabbit on it. I stood there reminiscing about when I was a kid and we would have rabbit nests in the back yard in the spring. I remember being warned sternly not to touch the babies lest they be abandoned by their mother—but yes they were so irresistibly adorable—and I spent a few moments pondering whether it was my mother or father who was always after us about that—was my mom pro- or anti-bunny? I turned and happened to glance out the window and there sitting in the middle of the snowy yard, illuminated by the light of the window was a rabbit, a dark, textbook silhouette against all that white. I cried and grinned like a fool as I watched that rabbit eventually move off into the bushes, believing it was her sitting out on that snow waiting for me. Again, I have never been a person who believes in things like this, but it felt absolute.

This year on the anniversary of her death I reached into the cupboard to grab a mug for my coffee and it was the rabbit mug again. A one-in-eight chance of that mug being in front on that day. The odds seem explainable, but what happened the morning moments after she died—that I can’t wrap my head around.

5

One I had was I saw light reflected on my wall like someone was carrying a candle or other small light (as there was no flicker). I did not see the candle/light, but what would be the effect of it reflecting against the wall. My cat however seemed to be looking at where that light’s source should be, not at the reflected light on the wall.

6

Many years ago, my sister was sitting talking to a friend and a solid bangle fell off her wrist. Her arm was parallel to the table, i.e., it didn’t have any way to go over her hand (and didn’t, she swears).

7

I can explain this, but at first it freaked me out.

Now, I don’t believe in woo. I’m a programmer. I deal with data. Facts are facts. So seeing this really rocked my world. For about a minute or two.

We have a door to the back yard. Regular swinging door with a window in it. Once when closing the door, I saw an object, very bright, zip across the back yard. Looked to be going about 100 mph. Zip, and it was gone. It was about 75 feet away, one foot in diameter.

I took me a minute, but something from inside the house, had reflected on the the window that was in the door that I was closing. The window in the door then reflected that light onto the ground behind our house.

Or I just saw the reflection in the window, and it looked like it was on the ground outside. I was not able to recreate it.

8

No, we were hiking uphill, I was tired and kind of amazed at the situation. I guess that, partly, I was afraid of destroying the illusion.

I made it pretty clear in the OP that I don’t believe in supernatural things. That’s why I considered it unexplainable.

9

Just close it as “cannot reproduce”.

10

:grinning: Yeah. That’s about it. I even tried rebooting the “machine” Or door in this case.

11

I’ll never be able to explain this, but it happened.
Radio DJ Jonathon Brandmeier in Chicago used to occasionally have a Mystery Guest. He’d give a clue or two, and listeners would call in to guess who the guest was. This time the only clue he gave was to feature a snippet of a song being sung. The voice was kind of deepish, and I thought “Isaac Hayes”. So I called in. The first caller, immediately before me, wrongly guessed Isaac Hayes and I thought “Damn, I’m out.”
Then I heard a click/beep thing and I was on the air.
I had no clue. None. Nothing.
Out of freeking nowhere “Frankie Stallone” popped into my head. Not Frank, but Frankie, so that’s what I said, and I got it right!
I never followed Frank Stallone’s career, and have no clue where that came from. If that was God’s one miracle gift to me, I’ll let him know someday that although I appreciate the miracle, he could have saved it for something better.

12

Sorry, I didn’t want to imply that you believed in a supernatural explanation, I meant it in a general sense.

13

Did you at least get a price, a mug or something?

14

So I’m guessing not a great prize? :joy:

No worries, it’s all good.

15

He actually wanted to send me to Galena Il for a weekend, and I told him I didn’t want to go to Galena. I asked for “a t-shirt or a tape or something” and he sent me DVD, a CD and a t-shirt.

16

I went through a period in my adolescence where my dreams seemed to come true. It was mostly mundane stuff like what the school was serving for lunch, but I dreamed about the Olympic Park bombing the night before it happened. At least, that’s what seemed to be happening. It is likely I was having repeated deja vu experiences every single day for months.

My sleep patterns have always been inexplicable. They go in phases. I had the deja vu phase, the hypnopompic hallucinations/sleep paralysis phase, the tornado nightmares phase (that one still pops up occasionally), the lucid dreaming phase, the waking up screaming and thrashing phase, just one phase after the next for a period of months or even years, and then I never have that issue again.

Then there’s this, which I think has an explanation, but for decades I had no idea what happened. I used to belong to a Pentecostal church for a couple of years. When I was about twelve, I had a friend with severe mental problems and a holy roller mother, a sweet lady but a real nut. She had a lot health problems and was always watching and visiting faith healers. It was in this context that she had a daughter I am sure went on to be diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. My friend had tried to kill herself when she was nine and pushed her friend down the stairs. But her mother didn’t exactly follow the medical model of mental health. Every Sunday she would pull the girl up to the front of the church and everyone would lay hands on her and they would try to pray the mental illness away.

I was, at the time, extremely devout, attending church every Sunday, communing with the Holy Spirit, regularly speaking in tongues, all that sort of thing. So my friend’s Mom was always pushing us together as I was ostensibly this older, wiser friend. One night my friend and I were sitting at the top of the stairs in her darkened house, and she said, “I think the devil is here.” We ended up freaking each other out, so we ran downstairs to the kitchen. We told her Mom what was going on, and her response of course, was, “Yes, clearly there’s a demon here.” So she starts spouting Bible verses. We are all sitting at the table reading the Bible. I can’t for the life of me remember the verse she was quoting, but we were listening to some preacher on the radio, and the guy starts quoting the exact same Bible verse.

Enter Holy Spirit, I remember I was shaking so hard my head hit the table. Then my friend starts freaking out. Her words became incomprehensible. She ran into the bathroom and started convulsing. She ended up unconscious on the floor while her mother was urging me to cast out the demon possessing her daughter. So there I am, all of 12 years old, laying hands on my friend and saying, “Get thee behind me, Satan!” When I touched my friend it felt like something moving under her skin.

Eventually my friend resumed consciousness, remembering nothing. We were so freaked out at that point we ended up sleeping on the kitchen floor rather than going upstairs to that demon-infested hallway.

(This was about the point where my Mom was like, “Nope,” and pulled me out of the church.)

For years after that, I still found myself unable to explain what happened (and to this day I cannot explain what it’s like to speak in tongues or feel taken over by the Holy Spirit – the closest I’ve ever gotten to that feeling as an adult is doing EMDR, so I have to believe it’s an altered state of consciousness.)

Then one day, long after I had renounced Christianity altogether, I had a series of grand mal seizures.

And I was like, “Oh.”

17

You might be interested in reading about the third man syndrome. Guardian Angels Or The 'Third Man Factor'? : NPR

18

This isn’t quite in the spirit of the thread, but the first thing I thought when I saw the thread title was I got old.

19

Did you get a prize for guessing correctly?

20

I know you were half joking but when I was about 10 my grandmother died. I was old enough that the reality of the death of someone I knew, set in.

As I sat on the couch thinking about it, I decided people must die because they are not strong enough to will themselves not to.

I decided right then and there, fuck it, I am not going to get old. As Mr Mellencamp sang, “Growing up leads to growing old and then to dying”.

Up until about 40 I still felt like I wasn’t going to get old.

Then Mr Biology walked in.