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?

CoffeeToffeeFudge you are hugely enjoying the retelling

I was simply giving all the information around what I had saw as not to drip feed and to pre empt the questions such as 'where were you? 'What had you been doing'' 'who were you with' etc.

No chance the boy was hiding. As I said the street was pretty clear, and she walked past me and continued away very much sans child.

For clarity, I have an FP Degree, as such I am very aware of what the brain is capable of, ergo my not sharing this IRL. Your example you shared is called False Memory Syndrome, which usually becomes exaggerated when you calculate the length of time from the initial incident. In this case, I was immediately aware and there was no one with me at the time privy to what I saw to influence or make what I saw anyway suggestible.

Er, no...not “false memory syndrome”. That’s something else entirely. What I’m describing is simply how everyone’s brain works. Yours included.

You were not able to see every side of the woman at once, were you? No. Then you could easily have missed the boy. It’s that simple.

But this is very typical. You asked for a logical explanation, but don’t like it when you’re given one.

You did not see a ghost. Nor did you see a glimpse into an alternate reality. So my explanation (assuming all the details you’ve given are correct) is the only viable one, boring as it is. Sorry.

Time slip. The boy won't actually walk down that street until next Wednesday.

I don't buy the argument that the boy must have slipped behind his mum/the bags etc. You'd still be able to see him due to the movement.
Sometimes there are things in this world that can't always be explained

Love a Woo moment, love this!

I remember a very similar thread about someone who saw a boy in the whay home from school I think it was, and execatly the same thing happened, the boy disappeared and there was no place he could have gone. Does anyone else remember that one?

SongforSal A similar story for you. Some years ago I was working in a fast food shop. it was close to closing time when a group of older men rushed in, one of whom was tiny. Not dwarfism, just generally tiny; very energetic bouncy and bubbly. One of the group placed their order and they told me they had been to a lecture on the history of All Saint's Day and were in the town every year. Little man continued to bounce around, he was great fun and they collected their order and left, with him bringing up the rear.

The following year I looked forward to seeing them again, and, sure enough, the group of men walked in and ordered. I asked where the other man was, they looked a bit puzzled so I described him in detail. They swore no one else had ever been with them and they hadn't seen him. The 5 of them came in one car and there would be no space for a sixth...

I have often wondered about that night. The girl who worked alongside me had seen him as well so it wasn't my imagination...

I've had a 'disappearing person' before.
Was on a train which was stopping at every station on the way home. As we got closer to the terminus, the passengers thinned out. I was sitting in a carriage which had a 'dead end' (as in, it had the driver carriage the other side, so there was no way through). As we approached the second to last stop, a man got up from the seat behind mine (between me and the dead end) and walked towards the doors.
I'd been reading a book but the movement caught my attention. We pulled into the station, the doors opened, beeped then closed. He was still there so I assumed he'd lost track of where we were and wanted the same station as me. He stayed by the doors and I picked up my book again to glance through.
A few minutes later we got to the terminus. I got off and then realised that I hadn't passed anyone to do so. There were two other people on the platform, getting out of other carriages - a woman, and a man who was most certainly not the one who'd been in my carriage (completely different height, build and ethnicity).

There was not boy - the shape of the bags, gaps and shadows suggested a boy to your brain and it filled in the blanks so you saw a boy. When the woman moved and you look away for the second the angle changed and there was no longer a boy shape gap/shadow because of the change of angle.

I've seen a ghost. He looked real. It was momentary and he could not have been where he was as the garden is walled, enclosed and monitored by CCTV. Others have seen him and described him as I have. Bless him. He is with his Mum.

"This was no Victorian style hallucination of an orphan."

so? That doesn't mean you didn't picture someone who wasn't there.

So I haven't come back to this thread as I didn't know what to say. The following morning a woman was found sadly dead a few feet away from where I saw the lady and child. Completely unrelated and coincidental obviously. I just felt it a bit crass for me to be banging on about the 'boy' when an actual person lost their life.

In other news, nothing has vanished in front of me this week!

Time slip?
Are you in Liverpool ?