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?

[MrsTedCrilly]

At 27 seconds is what the noise sounded like, but louder and closer!

[AntiHop]

Love that book nellorr

[Robstersgirl]

I could hear a really eerie ghost like wail one night in my lounge.
I was really freaked out. It was guttural and slow.
Turned out DS's siren ELC policemans helmet had another toy on top of it in the toy pile, the battery had run low but as the house had been noisy all day I hadn't noticed its whirring.

[PterodactylTeaParty]

Playing conkers with my brother, aged about 10 and 11. He hit mine hard and it vanished, string and all. Instantly gone. We didn't see it fly off, and we searched and searched my room for weeks afterwards but there was no sign of it anywhere. It had just... disappeared. Weirdest, weirdest thing.

Seven years later, we took the curtain rails down and found a conker and string wrapped tightly around them, conker well hidden against the wall.

[MrsTedCrilly]

Pterodactyl that's amazing! Bet it was a great moment of "Ahh!"

[Pisghetti]

A few years ago around Christmas time, I had some bowls with little sweets in - chocolate coins and things like that. I would come home and find them upturned in the living room with a couple of things missing. I told my dad about it and he said it must be my son stealing sweets (he was about 6-7 at the time) but he'd been out with me when it happened and it just isn't something he would do. My birthday is pretty close to Christms and my son gave me a box of dairy milk which I put on the floor by the sofa. I went to get a chocolate out for us in the evening and the box was empty bar one lonely chocolate. The lid was on and the cardboardy bit that goes over the chocolates was in place so we were really freaked out.

Something in the corner behind the sofa caught my eye - all my dairy milk in a little pile. Turns out we had a MASSIVE binge eating rat living in a hole behind the gas meter that would come out and steal chocolates. I chucked all the chocolates away and kept the living room door closed until I could get someone from the council over and the bloody thing freaked out and ate the carpet by the door trying to get out it must have taken the chocolates one by one - I'm still really impressed it did so without taking the cardboardy thing out and it replaced the lid afterwards!

[soapydopeybubbles]

Have you told the conker on MN before Pterodactyl? I seem to remember reading it and thinking it was fab; such a simple explanation for something that seemed so bizarre.

[GlitzAndGigglesx]

Pisghetti I had to lift my feet off the floor reading that! I wouldn't be able to sleep for weeks I'm terrified of the buggers

[soapydopeybubbles]

I'm not sure which is worse Phisgetti; an invisible chocolate thief or a sweet-toothed rat that knows how to put the lids back on boxes to avoid detection

[TooManyMochas]

I very clearly remember waking in the middle of the night in my teens to find myself lying on my back completely paralysed. It lasted about ten minutes and was totally terrifying. It was only years later I heard of sleep paralysis.

Also I used to live in a tiny little 200 year old terraced house. Two days after we moved in I was alone in the house except for baby DS, who was asleep upstairs. I distinctly heard someone walk heavily up our stairs and then stride about in DS's room. I knew no one could be up there, but it was very creepy. We gradually got used to the weird way sound travelled from one house to another, although I never had that particular experience again. By coincidence the PILs lived in a similar house somewhere else and discovered that the neighbours four or five doors down could clearly hear MIL playing the piano, even though none of the nearer neighbours could hear a thing.

[MrsKravitzFromAcrossTheStreet]

When I was about 15 I kept finding things in my hair. White, oval things, about 3mm long so too big to be a normal nit egg, and with a hole at one end as though something had hatched out of them

For weeks I was terrified that I had some kind of vile infestation but was too ashamed to tell anyone and would obsessively examine my scalp in the mirror - but would find nothing, except more huge empty egg cases

Then one day I cleaned my hairbrush and noticed that most of the white rubber tips on the bristles had dropped off. Mystery solved.

[PHANTOMnamechanger]

MrsK !! and I can imagine how you felt at the time but it is funny now!

[PHANTOMnamechanger]

oh and thanks for making my head itch.

now theres something paranormal - why does the mere mention of nits make one itch!

[londonrach]

Ive reported this before. Uni halls. Wake up in middle of night to see two eyes with man attached looking at me. Locked door. Dm says i was dreaming. No way i know what i saw and couldnt sleep alone in that room again. Felt no fear though as felt eyes might no harm. Yet to explain it.

[VivaLeBeaver]

Ok. I have one from today.

I had one of my dogs put down a few weeks ago.

This morning the other dog was in the garden. Me and dd on the landing. We both heard a very distinctive noise of a dog running/scrabbling across the laminate floor in the hallway. Very clear and could even tell that the noise travelled from the direction of the dining room to the front of the house.

Dd, said what the hell. And I said that second dog must have got in through the cat flap even though she is now too big and hasn't for months.

We went downstairs immediately. No animal in the hallway at all and the second dog was still in the garden. We do have a cat but firstly we were so quick got g downstairs the cat would have either been in the hall still or we'd have seen it running back out (living room door was shut). Plus the noise was too loud for it to be a cat. It was a heavy animal with claws out skidding and scrabbling and ime cats don't do that.

[MrsTedCrilly]

Guys this is an anti woo thread.. A false alarm thread Where it appeared woo then it was resolved with a rational explanation.

[MrsKravitzFromAcrossTheStreet]

Phantom

Sorry about that! I itched all the time I was writing that post myself, and still am!

[iwanttogotothechaletschool]

I used to live up a hill in the middle of nowhere, no streetlights, very few houses. One night dh and I were not long in bed, I was lying facing the window when suddenly the window lit up briefly, few seconds later it happens again. Frantic elbowing of the dh in the ribs and me hissing there is somebody out there with a torch brought the loving response of don't be stupid. At that point there was an almighty bang and the window lit up again, dh leaps out of bed and looks out the window expecting to see a serial killer at the very least, nothing there. Turned out the banging was the outside electric meter cabinet door banging in the wind. The lights were from a house on the hill opposite us but miles away, they had visitors and as the cars were leaving the headlights were lighting up our window.

[SouthWestmom]

Erm let me think.
One night I woke up and heard a man in dd's room saying weird stuff like 'I love you' - she was about six.
Third floor of the house all locked up I wake dh and we creep towards this intruder.
Bloody Ken from Rapunzel Barbie being slept on and his voice activated .

[VivaLeBeaver]

Oh sorry, haven't thought of a rational explanation for my ghost dog yet.

[RobinHumphries]

When I was a kid I was at some big family event. We were all socialising with different people and I got chatting to someone who introduced herself to me as Aunty E. When I eventually met up with the rest of the family my mum asked where I'd been. I blithely answered that I had been talking to Aunty E. My mum looked very shocked and said but Aunty E is dead! I said no she's not I've been chatting to her!
Luckily I was then able to point out the woman. It turned out that my mum had always known her as Young E as Aunty E was the woman's mother. And that's the closest I've come to seeing a ghost!

[VivaLeBeaver]

Ok, have another one. . Now ive understood the thread.

I was alone in a Welsh hillside cottage. No neighbours nearby and a ten min walk up a mountain from the road. Real deserted stuff, not even any running water. I was about 18yo. Sat reading a book by the fire, evening time and the light was fading.

Then there was some terrible banging on the roof, started off slow and got faster and louder. Something was properly hammering in the roof.

I shat my pants. Ran out the front door and kept running.

Got about 50yds away and turned round and looked. The cottage was built into the hillside and some sheep had jumped from the hill across to the flat tin roof of the washroom extension. Three sheep clattering about on the roof!

[Shadow1986]

Lots of spooky goings ons happening to me during the night. Too scared to move. Feeling like someone was in my room. Sometimes like they were sitting on me so I couldn't get up. Turns out it was sleep paralysis. Where your mind wakes up but your body stays asleep so essentially you are paralysed, and comes with a horrible feeling of fear/dread/hallucinations. Caused by sleep deprivation!

[PHANTOMnamechanger]

viva thats a good un!

but for the record next time anything liek that happens the correct response is to hide under the bed/in the cupboard, not run out there where the monster is!!

[VivaLeBeaver]

I was worried the monster was breaking in!