# What's the Weirdest/Strangest Thing You've Ever Seen/Witnessed? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 1, 2016, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-strangest-thing-youve-ever-seen-witnessed/758894 "2016-07-01T23:53:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Einstein\_was\_a\_Hippie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e99b99/32.png) [@Einstein\_was\_a\_Hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Einstein_was_a_Hippie)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-strangest-thing-youve-ever-seen-witnessed/758894/1 "2016-07-01T23:53:23Z")
I have been hearing people talk about weird things they found hiking in the woods, or seen out on the ocean or in the sky that they cannot explain. What is the weirdest or strangest thing you have ever seen or witnessed that you cannot explain? ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2016, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-strangest-thing-youve-ever-seen-witnessed/758894/2 "2016-07-02T03:51:24Z")
> [@Einstein\_was\_a\_Hippie](#): > > I have been hearing people talk about weird things they found hiking in the woods, or seen out on the ocean or in the sky that they cannot explain. > > What is the weirdest or strangest thing you have ever seen or witnessed that you cannot explain? I saw water turn to ice. I cannot explain that. I once attended an ESP demonstration. The psychic left the room, and a box was passed around. Each person present, maybe 20 or us, took something out of his pocket and put it in the box. When the psychc returned to the room, he had no problem handing back each item to its owner. ---
**Author:** ![stolatt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@stolatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stolatt)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2016, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-strangest-thing-youve-ever-seen-witnessed/758894/3 "2016-07-02T16:08:52Z")
My son likes to hang out at a music venue in this absolutely horrific neighborhood. As I dropped him off, a guy rode by wearing what I can only describe as a Satan skull mask. Just so you know, Satan rides a moped. ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2016, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-strangest-thing-youve-ever-seen-witnessed/758894/4 "2016-07-02T17:02:25Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > I saw water turn to ice. I cannot explain that. > > I once attended an ESP demonstration. The psychic left the room, and a box was passed around. Each person present, maybe 20 or us, took something out of his pocket and put it in the box. When the psychc returned to the room, he had no problem handing back each item to its owner. Just Fyi: Cameras and/or the person passing the box keep track and/or one or more of the 20 are plants and are signaling the teller. A more public form of this trick is magician 101; it’s really impressive when done with skill. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2016, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-strangest-thing-youve-ever-seen-witnessed/758894/5 "2016-07-02T17:02:53Z")
Easy to explain but still very strange\*: I saw a funnel cloud descending right over me. Touched down yards away. Looking straight up into the vortex was odd, but it’s not unexplainable. I’ve been in other tornadoes, but in a shelter, so I didn’t see them. Yes, the inflow winds were very strong. It was only an EF-1 - imho, ymmv ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2016, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-strangest-thing-youve-ever-seen-witnessed/758894/6 "2016-07-02T17:10:53Z")
I had a car vanish next to me on the freeway. There is a section of freeway in Sacramento that dips down into a walled channel for a half mile or so, with no exits - I think it’s the I-5 approach to Old Sac, but my recollection of the freeway quadrangle there has become fuzzy. It has no on or off-ramps, no splits, nothing but six or so lanes for a straight run through this channel thing. I entered it one morning with very little traffic and a red 911 pacing me about ten carlengths back. The Porsche closed on me and I waited for it to pass. It didn’t. I glanced around and was startled (and stupid) enough to hit the brakes; no Porsche. Gone. And nowhere for it to have gone. I’m sure there’s an explanation of some kind, but I’ve never thought of one and I’ve driven that stretch a couple of times looking for anything a 911 could have played hide-and-seek behind. Ain’t nothin’. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2016, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-strangest-thing-youve-ever-seen-witnessed/758894/7 "2016-07-02T17:53:11Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#): > > Just Fyi: Cameras and/or the person passing the box keep track and/or one or more of the 20 are plants and are signaling the teller. A more public form of this trick is magician 101; it’s really impressive when done with skill. No cameras. It was in 1955, and there was barely even TV then. Each person placed the item in the box surreptitiously, so even if there was a plant, it could have assisted on only a few items. In my case, I was careful to keep the object hidden in my hand when moving from my pocket to the box. It wasn’t a “theatrical” presentation, it was a meeting of people associated with a paranormal research group, who all knew how to be skeptical. I also sat in a room with Kreskin and three other colleagues of mine. Kreskin told one of them to pur his two index fingers together, and he did. Kreskin then said “You can’t pull them apart, can you?” He just laughed and said “No!!”. He actually couldn’t, until Kreskin told him to. Just out of the blue, with no prior workup. I talked to him later, he said No, he really could not pull his fingers apart. He was a guy I had known and worked with for several years. ---
**Author:** ![Waltzes\_with\_Cacti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90ced4/32.png) [@Waltzes\_with\_Cacti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waltzes_with_Cacti)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2016, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-strangest-thing-youve-ever-seen-witnessed/758894/8 "2016-07-02T18:19:23Z")
In Paris in 1977 I saw a man wearing a gorilla costume and carrying a harp walking down the sidewalk. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2016, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-strangest-thing-youve-ever-seen-witnessed/758894/9 "2016-07-02T19:48:18Z")
Back in the '70s I saw a tail-in-trunk string of elephants coming out of the Plaza Hotel in NYC. Any other hotel I could have accepted . . . but the _Plaza_? ---
**Author:** ![davida03801](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5e925/32.png) [@davida03801](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davida03801)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2016, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-strangest-thing-youve-ever-seen-witnessed/758894/10 "2016-07-02T20:05:30Z")
I grew up in the mountains and stayed in the same basic area. When it rained, it rained everywhere. Left or right, back or forward you could never not see or be in the rain. When I was 27 I moved to the Caribbean for awhile and on the 2nd weekend was on a boat and we were sailing along and there was a rain cell in front of us. Like a wall of water that we went into. About 10 minutes later sailed out of it and the rain turned off like a faucet. Never had seen that before. ---
**Author:** ![Enuma\_Elish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5e9695/32.png) [@Enuma\_Elish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enuma_Elish)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2016, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-strangest-thing-youve-ever-seen-witnessed/758894/11 "2016-07-02T21:18:19Z")
When I was a kid, I was out in the backyard shooting baskets with 2 of my brothers. They were 4 and 5 years older than me. I looked up into the sky and saw a silver triangular something. It stood in place for a bit and then shot across half the sky in a second. then it shot back the way it came, across half the sky in a second. I yelled to my brothers to look up, but they ignored me. The object shot down toward the horizon and then back up to its original spot and then streaked right to the far edge of the sky and was gone. I have no idea what it was. Not then. Not now. ---
**Author:** ![Rich\_Mann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ce73a5/32.png) [@Rich\_Mann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rich_Mann)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2016, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-strangest-thing-youve-ever-seen-witnessed/758894/12 "2016-07-02T21:23:31Z")
Years ago my wife and I were driving to a friends house. We turned onto a road that goes in a straight line up a steep hill. Sitting just above the road was the Moon. I pointed it out to my wife and she said, “That’s not the Moon.” I insisted that it was and she continued to insist that it wasn’t. When I asked her what it was she said the Sun. When I asked her what that incredibly bright thing setting in the west was she admitted that it was the Sun but still said the other thing was not the Moon because “You can’t see the Moon in the daytime.” The funny thing is that years later I realized that we had been going due North at the time. In the Northern Hemisphere the Moon is always South of the zenith. What did I see? ---
**Author:** ![Enuma\_Elish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5e9695/32.png) [@Enuma\_Elish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enuma_Elish)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2016, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-strangest-thing-youve-ever-seen-witnessed/758894/13 "2016-07-02T21:38:50Z")
> [@Rich\_Mann](#): > > Years ago my wife and I were driving to a friends house. We turned onto a road that goes in a straight line up a steep hill. Sitting just above the road was the Moon. I pointed it out to my wife and she said, “That’s not the Moon.” > I insisted that it was and she continued to insist that it wasn’t. When I asked her what it was she said the Sun. When I asked her what that incredibly bright thing setting in the west was she admitted that it was the Sun but still said the other thing was not the Moon because “You can’t see the Moon in the daytime.” > The funny thing is that years later I realized that we had been going due North at the time. In the Northern Hemisphere the Moon is always South of the zenith. > What did I see? Uhm - there are many times you can see the moon during the day in the northern hemisphere. ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2016, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-strangest-thing-youve-ever-seen-witnessed/758894/14 "2016-07-02T22:12:27Z")
> [@Enuma\_Elish](#): > > When I was a kid, I was out in the backyard shooting baskets with 2 of my brothers. They were 4 and 5 years older than me. I looked up into the sky and saw a silver triangular something. It stood in place for a bit and then shot across half the sky in a second. then it shot back the way it came, across half the sky in a second. I yelled to my brothers to look up, but they ignored me. > The object shot down toward the horizon and then back up to its original spot and then streaked right to the far edge of the sky and was gone. > > I have no idea what it was. Not then. Not now. Floaters, I’d bet. ---
**Author:** ![Enuma\_Elish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5e9695/32.png) [@Enuma\_Elish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enuma_Elish)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2016, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-strangest-thing-youve-ever-seen-witnessed/758894/15 "2016-07-02T23:07:09Z")
> [@voltaire](#): > > Floaters, I’d bet. I know what floaters are. They are round and don’t reflect light and move as my head moves … and are there when I close my eyes. This was a light reflecting triangle that wasn’t there when I looked away, but was there when I looked back after calling to my brothers. I don’t know what it was or wasn’t, but it was something. ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2016, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-strangest-thing-youve-ever-seen-witnessed/758894/16 "2016-07-02T23:08:17Z")
I’ve been to Times Square. Not so much a single great weird, more of a seething multi-celled weird. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2016, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-strangest-thing-youve-ever-seen-witnessed/758894/17 "2016-07-03T00:31:47Z")
> [@shiftless](#): > > I’ve been to Times Square. Not so much a single great weird, more of a seething multi-celled weird. Having lived in Manhattan, I can honestly say that you eventually sorta get used to it . . . but never entirely. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2016, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-strangest-thing-youve-ever-seen-witnessed/758894/18 "2016-07-03T02:17:24Z")
> [@Waltzes\_with\_Cacti](#): > > In Paris in 1977 I saw a man wearing a gorilla costume and carrying a harp walking down the sidewalk. How he got that harp to walk down the sidewalk, I’ll never know. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2016, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-strangest-thing-youve-ever-seen-witnessed/758894/19 "2016-07-03T08:30:27Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > No cameras… I was careful to keep the object **hidden** in my hand when moving from my pocket to the box. . Your item was hidden, but _you_ were not. When he took the items out of the box, I assume that you were right there, looking intensely at each item, right? And the “psychic” was looking at you. When you recognized your item, the expression on your face, your body language, etc, revealed the secret. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2016, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-strangest-thing-youve-ever-seen-witnessed/758894/20 "2016-07-03T09:23:43Z")
A couple of years ago I was in at the Court Complex when in front of me I saw a man. Stark naked, except for, get this, a pair of running shoes. That was not the weirdest thing. The weirdest thing was that everyone of the Court staff paid his nudity no heed. They either ignored him (no awkward glances or embarrassed laughs, they went about their business as if he was a potted plant) or when they spoke to him, spoke normally. And that includes me. Since it was after 4pm, which is when they bring in the mental health cases for Court orders, it was quite clear as to why the man was there, but still. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-strangest-thing-youve-ever-seen-witnessed/758894.md?page=2)