Do battery operated lights turn themselves on?!

[myyve]

I'm truly stumped, and confused too!

I own a very old pub / restaurant. It is listed and has been there since way before the 1800's with a lot of history around the building and the land prior.

We have updated and modernised it over the years, to a good standard and to be honest there isn't much of the interior that looks the same as it once did. There are of course the listed features that we have left, but the rest is very modern.

Anyway. I was sat by the bar this afternoon working, and nobody else was in the restaurant. The kitchen team were upstairs on their break.

I heard a humungous bang, and the table set up in front of me has a little battery operated lamp on it. It turned itself on!

I do have this on CCTV footage but can't share as it has me in it.. and frankly I won't subject you to having to see my tired state

But I've tried my best to think of every possible explanation, and honestly I can't explain the situation away! The bang sounded like a thud / stomp?

So my question is I guess, do battery lamps turn themselves on? It's quite large and heavy. It has to be turned upside down and the switch flicked to 'on' to work.

Most plausible explanation is that the switch was nearer the ON position than the OFF position and the bang/thud caused enough vibrations to nudge it to fully ON.

I had some of those little fake battery candles in the house. There was one in the lounge that constantly would turn itself back on, even though I doubled checked it was off, so I assumed it was a wiring problem. None of the others did it. It was really weird.

Yours sound like one of those big chunky ones with the on/off at the bottom though, I don’t think those can. Is the switch being moved? There’s no timer function on it?

I know the ones you mean! No, ours are pretty robust and heavy! No way if could be switched on without purposefully doing so!

I have battery fairy lights that automatically turn off after 8 hrs and switch back on 16hrs later - could it be something like that?

Well, there was an unconfirmed tremor reported at 1.08pm at Keighley today. They tend to be described as 'bangs' and 'thumps'.

https://www.allquakes.com/region/29420/earthquakes/england.html#:~:text=There%20were%20no%20significant%20confirmed,in%20the%20past%2030%20days!

Could have shaken a loose connection into completing a circuit if the batteries weren't properly in place.