Someone in my garden taking pictures of us inside?!

[cholla]

Something really flipping creepy happened to me last night and I guess I just need someone to say they believe me and I'm not going mad!

I was stood at our kitchen sink washing the dishes in between feeding my 9 mo ds who was sat in his high chair. There is a window directly in front of the sink which looks into our conservatory, which then looks into the garden. It was about 6pm and pitch black outside. Then suddenly there was a flash that seemed to come from the garden. By flash I mean the type of 'white' light that comes from a camera flash and I am convinced that someone was in the garden taking pictures of me and my son.

DH got home not long after and, while he hasn't directly said it, I know he just doesn't believe me. Okay so I was slightly hysterical by the time he got home but still...

so I guess I'm asking, AIBU to expect not to be treated like a child who has fabricated something out of nothing? Or is it likely to have been something other than a camera flash? DH keeps saying 'the light in the conservatory must have blown and that is what you saw' but I KNOW 1. The light wasn't on and 2. What a light from a camera flash looks like.

Someone tell me I'm not a hormonal hysterical mess and it might have been someone taking a picture. I feel like I'm going mad!

I'm sure you saw something but I guess there is no way of knowing what it was.

A few weeks ago, late at night, my DH had a freak out and leapt off the sofa yelling 'There's someone in the back garden with a torch'. I had a total heart thumping panic as he rushed off to get armed with his own torch. Well there was no one with a torch but it was a peculiar reflection of car headlights from the front of the house and shining down the side of the house.

So it may have been something like that and not anything sinister.

Well, it's easy to imagine things if it's dark outside.

What you experienced was real, although the cause might never be found. If it happens again, and it's safe to do so, and you feel brave enough, you could switch off the lights to see if you can get a bearing on where the flash came from - a tree or part of the house opposite. In daylight, you might get a better clue on the origin of the flash.

But I hate it when people who should be supportive, minimise or dismiss something that clearly frightened you. Sometimes some people don't react because it didn't happen to them; and sometimes some people don't want to think there's a potential threat that they'll have to be brave about.

You have a baby, and it's part of your natural instincts to go high-alert when something like that happens. You demonstrated a clear-headed and fast reaction to get out of danger if needed, so well done for that.

Were you holding a baking tray or anything else shiny that could have reflected light?

It might have been a neighbour's security light's bulb popping just as you looked up?

Tungsten bulbs often used to pop with a flash just after they had come on, because of the electricity load, didn't they? Might have been something like that.

Do any of your neighbours have security flood lights? Obviously they're usually on a motion sensor I'm always accidentally switching ours on manually for a split second and then flicking it straight off again (the switch is right next the kitchen light switch) and I think that could create a 'flash' effect to someone in another garden.

I was also briefly freaked out by what I thought was a flash in our garden a while ago but it was our neighbour in his own garden with a torch and it reflected off our metal compost bin for a moment; the effect was surprisingly bright and unnerving.

Jeffrey