Strange happening that have a rational explanation.

[soapydopeybubbles]

I love a good ghost story and I'm intrigued by paranormal phenomena, although I don't actually believe in anything woo because science. However, I also have a rather overactive imagination and quite often manage to scare myself silly especially if I read them just before bed despite repeatedly telling myself that I don't believe in all things woo.

MumsNet has had plenty of threads about unexplained paranormal happenings; psychics, mediums, ghosts and unbelievable coincidences so AIBU to ask for stories about things that have happened to you but that turned out to have an entirely rational explanation?

[silverglitterpisser]

Oh I'm gonna love love LOVE this thread! Find things like this so interesting, thanks OP .

[soapydopeybubbles]

I'm wracking my brain trying to think of an example of my own but the only ones I've got are from TV programmes.

Surely someone must have something so that I don't look like a complete lemon

[vegplotter]

When I was a teenager I stayed at a Youth Hostel on a school trip. The hostel was in a really old manor house. I was in the girls bathroom and heard a knocking on the window. The boys bathroom was next door and I thought it was them messing around. I went to the window and looked out to see a steep drop and no way someone could reach across and knock. I was completely freaked out, convinced it was a ghost.

I heard it again a few minutes later. It was an enormous moth.

[Clawdy]

When I was about seven, we moved into an old house and for the first time I had my own bedroom. From the first night I could hear faint tapping noises inside the old fitted cupboards, and even worse, somebody breathing one night. After a couple of nights I refused to go in the room,and shared with my sister instead. My mum insisted it was just me being silly, but one night decided to try it. She said later she tried to sleep but to her horror heard the breathing noise. The next day she and my dad investigated! First they searched the cupboard and found mice droppings in one - so that mystery was solved. Then dad looked all around the window frame,inside and out and found old tubing hanging from the wall just outside.The wind blowing through it was making a sighing, gasping noise. As my mum said "Ooh, it sounded like someone's last breaths!" Nothing would persuade me to sleep there again, though!

[ZombiePiglet]

I was sorting things in the dining room andit was almost dark outside. Out if the corner of my eye I could see a cloaked figure running towards the french doors. I freaked and ran and turned to look - it had gone. Then it appeared again from nowhere. Before I could scream I realised I'd left the sheets on the line in the wind....

[Sunsoo]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_stones

The sailing stones in the desert. They were a mystery for years, but now they've been solved.

[soapydopeybubbles]

That must have been horrible clawdy, poor seven year old you.

At one point I was convinced that there was a mouse under my bed that would bite me in my sleep. My Dad debunked this theory by sitting on my bed, whereupon it emitted several high pitched squeaks.

My mum's face when I announced there was a mouse under my bed was an absolute picture

[LittleMissIntrovert]

My watch started playing up, going over 2 hours faster! Did it twice and to change the time you have to unscrew a very tight button on the side, so I knew I couldn't have done it by mistake!

The other day it stopped altogether, so I'm guessing it was to do with the battery! Was starting to freak me out!

[birkiekid]

When dc1 was a newborn we lived in a house in the country that was miles from our neighbours. DH was out for the evening and I was up late feeding dc with QI on the tv in the corner although I wasn't really watching it.

Suddenly I heard a mobile phone ring. It wasn't mine or DH's ring tone and it totally freaked me out. I muted the TV, turned on all the lights and rang DH in a panic. I was sure someone was in the house or creeping about outside in the dark. DH came home at high speed. Checked everywhere, inside and out and found nothing. I was 100% sure of what I heard. It was definitely a mobile ringing.

It puzzled me for a long time til one night we were watching a repeat of QI on Dave and one of the buzzer sounds was a mobile ringtone! I felt like a complete idiot when I realised.

[Binkybix]

When I was a kid you could peep through the fence into my neighbours garden. I did this one day because I heard frantic scrabbling and to my horror saw a huge thick, furry arm trying to get at the chicks in the bird box they had. I was genuinely convinced the neighbour turned into a werewolf for some days and was quite scared!

Then I saw it again from a slightly different angle and realised the 'arm' had been the extended mid-section of my cat as it tried to get the chicks. Oh well.

[soapydopeybubbles]

Did anyone else watch 'It's a Mystery'? It was on CITV in the 90s and was presented by Neil Buchanan.

I knew that it scared me witless but I watched it every week and never missed an episode masochistic child that I was

[BertrandRussell]

When I was 2 we moved house, and there was a pantry off the kitchen. Whenever the door was opened, I would burst into tears, and point and scream "Green Man! Green Man!" until the door was shut. My super rational parents were staring to get the jitters about it (in case anyone doesn't know, the Green Man is an important figure in English folklore) until one of them got down to my level and saw a splash of green paint on the wall under a shelf that was in the shape of a man's profile..........

[SevTSnape]

Na, soapy, I was busy watching Strange But True which was on at about 10 or 11pm every Friday. I was only about 5 or 6 but I absolutely loved it so my mum would let me stay up and watch it with her.

I have had an experience that I'm still unable to explain.
I was living in a flat with my mum when I was about 17/18. It was just the two of us.
One evening, the atmosphere in my room was just so fucking creepy, like someone was watching me. I hid under my duvet until I fell asleep because I was so scared. I mentioned it to my mum the next day and she said that she'd felt the exact same thing the night before I had.
So that was our first feelings of hauntings.

However, what I can't explain is the time my mum was on holiday. I invited some friends round to stay the night one night so that I wasn't alone. There were four of us and we all stayed in the living room - one of the sofas turned into a double bed, so the four of us all slept on that.
However, earlier in the evening, before we slept, I lost something that had been on my lap. I couldn't find it anywhere around me where it might have rolled off me. I thought it was a bit odd, but I just left it. Then when I got up to go to the toilet, I found it down by the living room door (on the other side of the room). No one had got up between me sitting down initially and me getting up to go to the toilet. No one could've grabbed it and thrown it as it was a heavy object - I would've heard it being thrown and I would've seen it.

Later on in the evening, we had the lights off watching a film and one of my friends suddenly yells "what was that?!" I turn on the light and she is holding an item of mine which no one would've had access to. My friend (who is an incredibly trustworthy person and can't lie to save her life) said she just felt it hit her in the face.

To this day I've not been able to explain these events, but I know you'll say it was my friends pissing about. But there was no way that it could've been them.

[nellorr]

Strongly recommend you get Paranormality by Richard Wiseman. It's fascinating.

[sebsmummy1]

I have recently had a tarot reading that has actually come true!! That's shocked me up the core considering it was very precise about events and timings.

[ahbollocks]

Ah I was going to start a thread!
my good friend and friend of dh family died a couple of weeks ago, was the funeral last week.
Ds (3) and I were sat eating a snack an hour ago and he suddenly looked out the window,raised his eyebrows grinned and said her name!
Hes never ever said it (quite a complicated name!) And previously has only said a abbreviation of it.
We hadnt been talking about her, id been explaining why he couldnt have ketchup on absolutely everything.
I know theres probably a logical reason, although he doesnt know that she has died.
Anyway, made me feel very warm ahappy !

[GlitzAndGigglesx]

I was home alone for a couple of weeks and was returning from work one morning. Once I got to my front door I could hear a croaky voice coming from inside the flat and tried to be really quiet incase it was a burglar but I couldn't make out any words. Then children's music started playing which freaked me out. I had to investigate so unlocked the door as quietly as possible and put my keys between my fingers to make a swipe at the intruder. Once I got in I heard the noise was coming from dd's bedroom and it was just one of the cats trampling over her toys causing all different ones to set off. The croaky voice was just where one had obviously been turned on for a while and killed the battery

[BettyCatKitten]

Place marking, love woo threads.

[BertrandRussell]

But this is an anti woo thread. People talking about things that could have been woo but aren't. like everything else woo

[fourchetteoff]

I don't

When I was abroad, in Fiji, as a twenty something, I suddenly and desperately needed to phone my dad. The worst part was, the island we were on didn't have good phone connections etc. I was frantic as I knew something awful had happened. I just knew. I was lying on the beach with friends but suddenly my stomach was twisting and i felt sick.

Weird thing is that I only speak to my dad normally every 6 months or so. He lives abroad and he's not much for phoning. So we aren't usually in each other's pockets and it's unusually to think about him much.

I finally managed to get through to my dad's house and there was no reply, so I managed to call my sister. Turns out that that very morning he had a life-threatening bleed from his intestines and had just come out of surgery.

It was the weirdest thing.

He's fine now. But I'm left with this annoying knowledge that perhaps my cynicism about 6th sense is not entirely correct.

[Clawdy]

Was just thinking that, Bertrand. There have been loads of woo threads, this is supposed to be the opposite!

[MrsTedCrilly]

Oh I love this thread!
DP had gone abroad for a few months so it was just me and the cats. I was more wary of weird sounds anyway being on my own but one night I heard something that was terrifying.. I was in the lounge and it was around midnight. I had the tv on quietly and was starting to get tired.. Suddenly I heard this demonic sounding whooshing noise that filled my ears for what felt like minutes, and almost vibrated the room. It sounded like something from The Exorcist or other paranormal films.. I just froze, goosebumps everywhere, cats tails down and ears back.. Then it did it again!

I hid under the blanket for what felt like ages.. until I realised it was the snow falling off the roof!! We'd had new slates put on so the roof is now shiny and smooth, so things run off it easily.. What I'd heard was the snow sliding all the way down the roof, banging the windows and falling in massive clumps. I was so relieved I started laughing manically!

[soapydopeybubbles]

I hate being in the house on my own MrsTed

My rational mind tells me that I can hear 'strange' noises because the house is quieter without DH, not because something spooky knows I'm alone but I'm still bloody scared.

[MrsTedCrilly]

Me too! I think that, but then when me and DP are being quiet together, just sat reading in silence or whatever.. I never hear any weird noises.

[OhItsYouAgain]

Just remembering this is embarrassing. When I was about 12, I was certain there was a big cat (Puma etc) under my bed as I could hear it breathing. Turned out to be my gerbil running on its wheel.