Something unexpected that made you go "wtf??"

@BearSoFair

Vapour trail conspiracy seems to be a thing as my DH has a very successful business man friend who insists this is a real conspiracy. He gets quite animated and serious about it, my DH thought he must be going mad, seriously.

I was living in a fourth floor flat and there was a row of tall thin trees across from my living room window.

(A quick Google image search says Lombardy Poplar)

The branches were bare of leaves.

I was leaning on the cupboard in front of the big window watching the world go by when I spot movement in one of the trees.

Oh, squirrel, bit big but squirrel I think. My little wildlife watching binoculars are in the trinket dish by me, so I grab them and focus in on the tree.

It's the neighbours cat walking vertically up the thick tree trunk using the branches to support it's back.

It went at least fifty feet up.
WTF being an understatement.

I swear on my mother's grave that this is happened.

My Grandma used to tell me a story about an uncle of hers called Noah. he was a pretty mean man.
It was one of the kids birthdays and a lovely cake had been baked with a layer of icing and decorations on the top.
Instead of cutting the cake in the normal way, he sliced a layer off the top of the cake horizontally ( so basically all the icing and decorations), placed it on his plate and said "that's for me", then proceeded to give all the kids plain sponge. WTAF kind of person would do that.

On holiday at a beach front restaurant a few years ago, full of families quite busy but not packed. Family at the table next to us was Mum Dad & a son around 7ish he had a huge plate of spaghetti and was twisting his fork around put a huge mound of it into his mouth and began chewing. I tapped my now DH as if to say that was a hell of a lot of pasta when he suddenly began choking... Visibly banging the table & choking, his parents ignored him and kept talking/eating it was only when he started going a different colour FIL jumped out of his seat and gave him the Heimlich he finally brought up a massive ball of pasta and he thanked FIL in Spanish, the parents didn't even turn around they continued the conversation and ignored the fact the whole restaurant was gathered around their small son who had literally just almost choked to death, we were all just sat stunned and in shock, restaurant owner gave us our meal for free & the boy an ice cream. I do always wonder how he is, and if his parents are still just as selfish.

Going back many, MANY years..... a chance conversation with a man I knew well, but had always considered to be THE most professional, straight-laced and buttoned-up bloke imaginable that kick-started an all-too short-lived period of the some of the best sex I've ever experienced.

Ah, memories!

On the top deck of a bus on the Old Kent Road in the middle of the day, small child tells her mum she needs the loo, so her mum makes her crouch, drop her knickers and wee on the bus floor. Eww.

Also last time I was in Aberystwyth, there was a guy walking round with a tame pigeon on his shoulder. It was quirkily charming until I saw the amount of birdshit down the back of his jacket.

We used to go out regularly with a group of friends and one lived in a village that had a fish and chip shop that we never went in as the owner had a reputation for scratching his backside and picking his nose and ears etc. One evening we noticed it was closed and remarked on it. "Yes" said my friend, "It's changed hands." Quick as a flash another friend said "Oh, what, is he using his left one now?!"

DH has a friend at work.

He caught Covid.

In hospital.
Out of hospital.
He's going to be OK.
Relapse.
On life support.
Doctor's say he is going to die.

Company update emails to all as his situation developed and changed.

Everyone was invested.
Everyone was sad.
Thoughts of funerals and collections etc.

The WTF moment was the email that came saying he had pulled through against all the odds.

A WTF but a fantastic one.

Lol nice to come across a funny thread it's given me a right giggle!!
I once saw on the news a man who murdered his wife and put the body in the car on a certain street and then moved to spain....It was the EXACT SAME husband and wife name, car type and colour, street and part of Spain as my old neighbours!!!....But it wasnt them!!!!! COINCIDENCE FREAK OUT!

@SailingBuddy China use weather modification already and have done for decades!

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/03/china-vows-to-boost-weather-modification-capabilities

@Inaseagull I'd love if that was true!

My DF was in the Merchant Navy during the war and his cousin was in the Royal Navy. Some time in the early 40s he was in Hong Kong harbour and a steward approached him asking if he had a cousin in the RN as he didn't think the name was common. They had a beer together in port.

It was his cousin, they'd spent their holidays together with their grandparents in Norfolk. They spoke once on the phone about 1969 as if they'd only just seen each other, but never did again.

Another one about pigeons......
My uncle was born in rural France and during the war was in the RAF. He used to lay snares over all the aerodromes to catch rabbits and his comrades like it when he was there as they ate better. Recently, during spring a fat male pigeon seeing his reflection in the doublee glazing thought the reflection was another pigeon and flew into the window stunning itself. The same thing happened to us, we left the pigeon, it came to and flew off. The one at my uncle's wasn't so lucky. Over 90, quick as anything, he went out, wrung its neck, gutted it and put it in his freezer!

Oh God, LOADS. Def a few with totally normal people suddenly revealing themselves as massive racists :(

I'm from Oxford. One day I was going about my business and walked past the Radcliffe Camera only to suddenly be surrounded by classic cars and people dressed like they were from the 1920s. Honestly thought I'd been caught in a timeslip until I walked round the other side of the building and saw the cameras. They were filming Brideshead Revisited.

A similar thing happened to my Friend's mum. She was driving past Magdalen College and suddenly, clear as day saw Oscar Wilde and almost crashed the car. It was Stephen Fry filming Wilde. Not a camera to be seen though, he was just mooching about in costume.

Weather machine was in a Kate Bush video, so it must be true.

SailingBuddy

The USSR used to. sort of, do this for the May day parade.

Basically you take a plane up and throw out some powder, similar to fine sand, this makes the clouds 'heavier' so they rained in the suburbs but not on the parade.

There is some theory behind it, but no evidence it has ever worked. I have heard the north Koreans or Russians use it so their huge parades are dry

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudbuster

Joining in with the bird-related wtf-ness. Both of these happened on the busy main shopping street of a large Northern city.

Similar to @smudgemylife I saw an older man sitting on a bench feeding the pigeons. Quick as a flash he reached down, grabbed one and placed it into a cardboard box at his side. Got up, walked off with the box under his arm. No one batted an eyelid.

Same street, a few months later, I wandered out from work at lunchtime to find a man sitting on a different bench, can of pop in one hand, some sort of hawk perching on the other. No one seemed to think it was at all unusual.

I think there's some truth in that! When we were getting married I read about the option for a cloud blaster (cost £10,000!!!) to make sure there were no rain clouds in your area.

Because if you research it, there have been programs that modify the weather and the tech has been in development since the world wars

I think we've found another one...

Just remembered another one. My DM's cousin's daughter was getting married. We are not close, they live a long way away and hardly ever see them. My FIL saw the wedding invitation, and saw the name of the husband-to-be. He said it was strange, because years ago, when he was in the forces, he had lived in the Far East, and the little boy in the house next door to him had the same name. It turned out it was the same person.

I had a colleague, who seemed completeing rational. Normal chit chat around the office for years. He was an analyst and highly educated. It was the week after the London marathon and the weather had been rubbish in the lead up to the day but the sun had shone on the day of the marathon.
I said how lucky it was and he said "well it's not luck, it's worth too much in tourism for it to have been raining". I must have looked as confused as I felt, so he explained how the government made sure that the weather was good for big events so as not to lose out on the tourism money that the events brought in.

I went back to my desk and told another colleague what he had said...and she agreed with his point of view! She said that the govt also made sure there was good weather for William & Catherine's wedding.
I can't understand how two well educated people could think that!

Having lunch in a nice place in Bristol. A couple of women come in with young children, the children are playing but quiet, women are chatting, all very normal.

Small boy climbs under the table, puts his hands backwards round a table leg and pie up, "Mummy, could you tie me up?"

Mummy just said, "not now dear" and carried on chatting to her companion.

Years ago, I was living and working in Germany. The German people were very nice, all seemed very hard-working, serious and professional, not really into jokey stuff.

I walked into the bank one day, not realising it was Karneval, and honestly thought I was dreaming. They were all working as usual but it was decorated for a beach party. They were all dressed in shorts and beachwear, they had palm trees, paddling pools, sand, some of them were playing with a beach ball. My face was like this:

I was working in a primary school and we had some uni student teachers in our class. One brought out a bottle of vodka from her bag and offered it around in the staff room at lunch. Another locked herself in a supply cupboard in a classroom to have a cigarette, thinking no one would notice. Both are now teachers though...