A 'Woo' Thread. Please help with a logical explanation!

[SongforSal]

As not to drip feed, (Sorry if long!) I seem to be prone to the odd 'woo' incident, and have been since a child. I also think in most cases there is a logical explanation. I have been thinking over what happened today for the last couple of hours, using the adage that when you remove all possibilities, what you are left with must be the truth. The two truths I am left with are I either hallucinated, or short of seeing an actual 'ghost' for the first time I saw a glimpse into an alternate universe!

Please bear with me. I am not a nutcase, honest! I have told Dp what happened, and he looked at me like I had 3 heads. Suffice to say, I shan't ever tell anyone in real life this.

I have booked the last couple of days off work, as it is half term and I wanted to spend some time with DS14. Today I took him shopping in our local town, we walked, ate at a delicious restaurant, pottered about a bit and grabbed an ice cream. All in all, a very usual and nice day out.

Just before we came home, DS decided he needed a wee, at this point we were away from the main shopping centre by about 3 mins on foot. I said I would stay put, for him to double back and I would see him in 5 mins or so.

So. DS walks in one direction, my back is against a wall on a small and fairly empty street. I have clear views up and down. I decide to have a crafty cigarette. As I light it, I look up and see a woman walking in the middle of the street carrying 2 large bags, directly to her right is a little boy of about 4ish. He is taking massive strides, kind of stomping his feet like kids do, and swinging a little teddy back and forth, and swishing it around his head. I realise he is about to walk directly past me with his Mum, so I hide my fag behind my back. And the boys no longer there.

His mum walks past, I watch the back of her holding her bags as she walks away...and nothing. No bloody boy anywhere . There was no where for the child to go either. Most of the shops were shut, the street clear and fairly empty. I literally spun in a circle to see where he went. Nada.

I have never 'seen' a ghost like people claim. So my head jumped to I hallucinated. However, to my knowledge this hasn't happened before. I then thought of the many universe theory, and wondered if I had seen something for a few seconds that may have been there, just not in this timeline. Or I have a brain injury?

The whole experience was stranger than it sounds watching it, because I logically tried to work out how the boy disappeared, and I don't even think the best illusionist could have pulled that off.

Anyone have an explanation I haven't thought of, or had a similar thing happen?

He hopped into one of her bags.

Fell down a hole.

A large pigeon carries him off.

He was just a trick of the light/shadows.

You fag contained waccy baccy.

“He’s behind youuuu!”

I suspect there is some explanation involving viewing angles and objects where he could be hidden from view.
Although it would also be cool if there was a more woo explanation. Could he have been a reflection?

Ah, twas not a ghost, more likely one of my children. They often seem to do inter dimensional shifts*. I’ll be watching them and they’ll vanish and pop up somewhere completely different.

(* obviously they’re just very fast and random. I hope.)

Could he have been obscured by the big bag as she walked past, maybe bending down to pick up his teddy then have moved in front of her so you couldn't see from behind?
Did this boy and his toy look 'modern'. Anything about him stand out as being of our time in in the toy or a t-shirt or trainers he had on?

Ha. Love the replies. Yes, I have been trying to think of reflection scenario's! DP has told me to basically stop banging on about it, so I thought i'd turn to MN .

He was...I hope...flesh and blood. He had on modern day shorts and a t-shirt and a little teddy like toy. This was no Victorian style hallucination of an orphan. Don't know what to think. But he seems to vanish?! I appreciate this sounds bat shit written down btw!

Aww bless. How sweet to think she had a little boy with her. If it was me I'd post on your local Facebook page to say if it was you on X street at X time, your little boy was striding along beside you swinging his Teddy and he was fine. If that was me, it'd bring me such comfort.

Spooky

BlueMerchant I noticed his 'stomping' which made me smile. He was little in height...so maybe 3 not 4, soft toy that I assume was a bear that he was waving it all over place. Shorts and tshirt were plain, I assume modern day-no large logos that I noticed.

A tornado touched down for for a split second and sucked him up .
I would have wanted to go up to the woman and ask her she had a little boy but I would have been too scared to.

FloatingthroughSpace I think Dp would section me and i'd get a lot of public ridicule if I did that! To be fair, I have had a few odd things happen to me, by the same token these are likely lot's of coincidences and i'm making connections. I also have a knot in my stomach atm. It threw me a little iyswim.

Love a woo thread. 👻

I have actually experienced similar OP. Only once mind. And another person also saw, which helps to confirm that I'm not cray cray.

It was Halloween cliché. I was 15/16 at the time. A group of us were meeting up at another family members house. I was trailing a few steps behind, with my aunt.

As we turned the corner, I saw a man walking down the centre of the road, his back was to us. He was walking strangely, really exaggerated swaying. I just presumed that he was incredibly rat arsed, but it just looked very strange.

Myself and DA briefly looked at each other, nudge nudge wink wink, in a look at him fashion. And, he was gone! Completely vanished!

We only looked away for a split second. Strange thing is, NOBODY else in the group saw him at all.

How strange, can you share any of the other experiences? I love a bit of woo.

You need to tell us the other things that have happened now op!

What’s the science fiction shirt story I’m thinking of?

Adults and Children start disappearing but then the children are found in groups in other places.

Eventually they work out that it’s Aliens fishing and they are putting the children/tiddlers back!

Asimov?

Short

niceupthedanceagain If I write them side by side, it would look nuts. I also don't think they are all 'woo' but mostly coincidences. Of the top of my head the ones that stick out.. Holiday as a kid, the B&B owner had loads of cats that would sleep in my room each night. My DM has told me as an adult when talking about holiday memories , that the place we stayed had no animals at all, and none were in my room (they bloody were!) She then dropped on me the B&B had been a former cattery but had been closed down. Other family member verified I certainly did not have six cats sleeping in my room as I thought!
I have had a few dozen rather lucid dreams which appear to either happen, and manifest, sometimes after the fact but that could be my subconscious and coincidence. Some are horrible though in detail.

1. Small boy moved ahead and was obscured by Mum and shopping bags. DP does a version of this where he nips in and out of my blind spots multiple times, so he'll be at my side to the right and one moment, then completely disappear before reappearing at my left five minutes later, having darted to and fro in the meantime. It really, really annoys me, so much so, I have to ignore him until he decides to reappear - just pick a side and stick to it - and don't try and stay a couple of paces behind, I don't want a fucking entourage like I'm a Russian Icebreaker Ship.

1. B&B owner wouldn't admit that they still kept loads of cats because it pisses off potential clients. And your Mum is one of those who can never be wrong, pulling in other people by being so convincing about it.

Aw, as the mother of a little boy who is gone, I quite like thinking that he might sometimes be with me when I’m out shopping!

Is it possible you totally imagined the little boy? As in, your brain sort of expected there to be a child with the woman, so you conjured him up there to fill the gap?

I had a sort of similar thing happen with an inanimate object (ok it's not quite the same but bear with me!). I was packing to travel abroad, DH was already there on a business trip and I was joining him. Because I was travelling hand-luggage only, I had already sent a load of stuff with him the week prior in his luggage.

I was madly packing the night before, and I saw my venus razor in its little blue travel case. Important to note I definitely only have one of these. I put my hand on it, and thought I must remember to pack that. I carried on packing, then went to pack my razor and it was gone. I looked for it everywhere, I turned out every box, convinced myself I must have already put it in my bag, emptied that out, searched EVERYWHERE. It was gone.

I then spoke to DH on the phone, expressing my frustration that I couldn't find my razor. He said "Oh is it in a blue case? It's right here in my bag. In Italy".

So I had already sent it with him the week before. But I SWEAR I saw it when I was packing. I put my hand on it. I saw it.

I can only conclude that because my brain expected to see it, I conjured it up in my mind when sorting through my stuff and truly believed I had seen it. If DH hadn't found it I would never have believed it wasn't here somewhere.

So maybe you did the same with the little boy...? You expected to see him, so you saw him?

I think Lenny has it. The child was nothing to do with the woman but happened to be walking beside her when you first saw them, so you understandably assumed they were together. He was actually somebody else’s child, with the parent inside a doorway or down a side alley that you couldn’t see from your spot.

This happened to me and ex husband.We were driving down this long empty road in a transit van.A large dog,golden labrador came from nowhere straight in front of the van,like inches away.Ex put the brakes on fast and we felt a thud as we hit the dog.He got out the van telling me to stay inside as I was quite upset.No sign of the dog anywhere,nowhere it could possibly have run without being seen,no blood,no damage to van.Just appeared and disappeared.

A couple of things strike me:

You did not see the boy disappear before your very eyes. You looked away momentarily, looked back and couldn’t see him anymore. If this was an hallucination or a ghost, why didn’t he vanish into a puff of nothing while you were looking directly at him?Woo doesn’t have to conform to logic, does it? So this indicates a mundane, rational explanation.

Secondly, you are hugely enjoying the retelling. Most of your information is completely superfluous- delicious restaurant, ice creams, crafty smoke, all irrelevant. Reads like fiction more than a dry, factual account.

Now, before you get cross, I am not accusing you of lying. Our memories are not video recordings...they are visual representations that we put together after the event. Many, many, many scientific studies have shown that for each and every one of us our memories do not provide faultless and faithful retellings of events - which is why witnesses in court cases often have very different recollections from other people who saw the same thing.

I think there was probably a small boy walking alongside a grown woman with shopping bags. The difference in their sizes is the answer. As you briefly looked away, he moved around the woman and out of your line of vision. As they continued walking, he was slightly in front of her where you couldn’t see him. The shopping bags provided additional cover.

Probably, if you could go back and have another look you’d spot his legs with hers or see his shadow - but you got so caught up in a “Wow! Creepy, woooooooooo....” moment that you’ve (inadvertently) filtered out the small details that would explain it logically.