Human Invisibility Phenomena

[alfaniner]

I experienced another form of this just last weekend. I was in a large parking lot waiting for some people to show up. The pulled up in a large SUV in another area of the lot (around the corner). I went to meet them and talk a bit, then went back to the area we were setting some stuff up.

When it came time to leave, I went to get them, walking past my car. When I turned the corner, they were gone! I thought that was odd because I told them to wait for me.

As I walked back again, I realized they were parked right by my car, which I had walked past without even seeing them. They had been waiting for several minutes, so it's not like they just pulled up. And ours were the only two cars in the lot.

Here's a case where I was actively looking for someone in a particular place, and didn't notice them in the unexpected place. Were they invisible. NO, I just didn't notice them.

 

[SpaceFluffer]

As useful as these anecdotes are, I don't believe that they'll make a blind bit of difference to prander, based on his responses so far. He's clearly decided that a bout of invisibility is the best explanation for this weird occurence a year ago, and has refused to entertain the notion that his data is baised and inaccurate.

Clearly, some people just prefer to believe in something extraordinary based on insufficient data when a myriad of routine explanations would work just as well.

 

[Ashles]

Here's what I don't understand about your story Prander:

I went out there and stood where they all could see and hear me. They didn't look up and they didn't aknowledge me in any way, shape or form. I started talking and they didn't seem to hear me. They just continued on talking as if I was not there, even though they'd been waiting on me.

If I entered a room of friends and family who were all expecting me and they all ignored me, I would go up to one of them and start talking to them.
I wouldn't just stand in the centre of the room and start talking, I would actually go up to a friend and say something directly to them. If they continued ignoring me I would give them a nudge as I would assume they were having a laugh.

I just kind of stood there wondering what was going on. Since no one seemed to be paying attention to me, I just decided to leave for a minute and come back.

I cannot imagine a scenario where I would just walk back out of the room again to give it another go. This does not sound credible.

I'm sorry prander but I am very sceptical that your story happened as described - Around here we know cvery well the kind of tricks that perception and memory can play on us. Stories often get exaggerated in retelling.

I honestly cannot see someone behaving as you have described in that situation. "Oh everyone's ignoring me even though it's my party. I'll just go out and come in again and see if that works."

Prander the reason people are treating this less tha seriously is that it is a story being related on an internet forum of an event that happened over a year ago, which may have perfectly rational explanations which you are for some reason rejecting out of hand.

We logically can't really proceed much further with such a discussion. If you feel you can do it again then great we can suggest ways of testing this ability.

But if that is your entire story then most of us are likely to conclude that the story is either made up, mis-remembered or exaggerated by you, or that one of the suggestions by IXP above is the explanation.

The idea that you actually became invisible is quite simply massively further down the list of likelihood than any of those explanations.

 

[chillzero]

Firdtly, I agree with everythign Ashles says above. It doesn't make sense to me, the way you tell it.

Also:

They ..... were not otherwise preoccupied with heavy and distracting talk.

You keep saying this, but you don't know it. You weren't in the room. It could very easily be that one person mentioned something they all paused to think about - perhaps a departed relative? They were then distracted when you came in.

After a few minutes, normal conversation is resumed, and attention returns to the room, by which time you had left and returned (for some reason I don't understand).

 

[Spindrift]

The difference was that they were there specifically to hear what I had to say. They were waiting for me (patiently) and were not otherwise preoccupied with heavy and distracting talk. There were only a few people there, I'd say 5 or 6 at the most.

When did you become visible again? Did you have to leave the room and come back in?

Or did you suddenly re-materialize? If so, why didn't anyone comment on it?

Did the people ever get to hear what you had to say?

 

[Ashles]

When did you become visible again? Did you have to leave the room and come back in?

Or did you suddenly re-materialize? If so, why didn't anyone comment on it?

Since no one seemed to be paying attention to me, I just decided to leave for a minute and come back. When I came back, everything seemed normal again. They looked up, greeted me and things went on as normal.

To be fair he did explain that earlier on Spindrift.

And he could see hinself all the time.

 

[Beady]

I'm sorry prander but I am very sceptical that your story happened as described - Around here we know cvery well the kind of tricks that perception and memory can play on us. Stories often get exaggerated in retelling.

Just a thought, but is it possible (I expect Prander to disagree with this) that Prander's "experience" is actually the memory of a dream, rather than a memory of an actual event? There are a few things in my life that I quite honestly can't tell whether they are actual memories, or are merely dreams. Usually they take the form of an unbidden mental image of a rather nondescript place, and then I'll wrack my brains trying to recall where it was and when I was there.

Sometimes, of course, I'll remember a dream and know it was a dream. Especially the really good ones.

Anyway, it's just an idea.

 

[Ashles]

Just a thought, but is it possible (I expect Prander to disagree with this) that Prander's "experience" is actually the memory of a dream, rather than a memory of an actual event? There are a few things in my life that I quite honestly can't tell whether they are actual memories, or are merely dreams.

I've had that before a few times.

I had a memory of something I knew for an absolute fact that I had done (climbed down the outside of a school building). Quite literally the only two reasons I had to doubt this vivid memory was that it was flat out impossible, and there were none of the connected memories that I would have had (people seeing me, discussing it with others, how I actually did it...)

But the memory was so clear - not of any particular details, but the certainty that the memory was real.
It was very strange.

 

[Drostie]

Just to get this back on topic, as I don't really care about what prander says he did but can't repeat:

If you turned legitimately invisible -- that is, light did not reflect off of or absorb into your body -- claim set. That's a perfectly verifiable claim. We can put you into a plexiglass box of a skeptic's design, put cameras all about, and if none of the cameras show any evidence of you, that's that.

However, legitimate invisibility is something you yourself would know extremely well. If you had it, the world around you would be much much darker, and very blurry. Light would simply not be passing through your pupils to reach your retina (blurry) and your retinas would not absorb much, if any, light (dark).

Moreover, again, how far is the range of this invisibility? Do you become a walking shirt and pants, or not?

Popular invisibility -- that is, psychically influencing other people to be unable to recognize your presence -- is also a paranormal claim, but it would be unimaginably hard to create a proper double-blind test. How do you put you and the person looking at you in different rooms, for example?

I'd imagine that the JREF might *accept* the claim and not require the test to be double-blind. That is, we could hire fifty people off the street, put you in that skeptic's plexiglass cubicle, again, lock the door, and just bring in people one by one. "Do you see a person in there?"

Technically, to be rigorous, we'd also need some controls. A plexiglass box with someone else in it, who isn't modifying what people think about them.

The specifics of this non-double-blind test would vary from claimant to claimant, of course, but I think that those ideas would be sufficient.

 

[sf108]

Just a thought, but is it possible (I expect Prander to disagree with this) that Prander's "experience" is actually the memory of a dream, rather than a memory of an actual event? There are a few things in my life that I quite honestly can't tell whether they are actual memories, or are merely dreams. Usually they take the form of an unbidden mental image of a rather nondescript place, and then I'll wrack my brains trying to recall where it was and when I was there.

Sometimes, of course, I'll remember a dream and know it was a dream. Especially the really good ones.

Anyway, it's just an idea.

hmm...now you've got me wondering if that dream of my friend owing me money...was actually real??!?!

Anyway, this is another windmilling thread, much like the Achau thread.

Winny/Chran, the pic is of Hyolee from a Korean pop group FinKL. Voted sexiest woman in Korea 2004 I believe...

 

[chran]

Winny/Chran, the pic is of Hyolee from a Korean pop group FinKL. Voted sexiest woman in Korea 2004 I believe...

Well, that's understandable! Grrrrrrr!

Thanks for clearing that up. Now, if you'll excuse me ...

 

[rjh01]

sf108 did you HAVE to tell us who the picture was of? I thought it was a picture of you.

 

[jmercer]

Who is this "prander" you guys keep talking about? I don't see him on this thread...

 

[Ashles]

LOL - damn, if only we'd thought of that at the start.

 

[rwguinn]

Just a thought, but is it possible (I expect Prander to disagree with this) that Prander's "experience" is actually the memory of a dream, rather than a memory of an actual event? There are a few things in my life that I quite honestly can't tell whether they are actual memories, or are merely dreams. Usually they take the form of an unbidden mental image of a rather nondescript place, and then I'll wrack my brains trying to recall where it was and when I was there.

Sometimes, of course, I'll remember a dream and know it was a dream. Especially the really good ones.

Anyway, it's just an idea.

Jimmy Buffet:
It's a semi-true story
Believe it or not
I made up a few things
And there's some I forgot
But the life and the tellin'
Are both real to me
And they all run together and turn out to be
A semi-true story

(Semi-true Story, from "Beach house on the Moon")

 

[Timothy]

Who is this "prander" you guys keep talking about? I don't see him on this thread...

[Looks around] You're right! He's ... he's turned invisible!

- Timothy

 

[Winny]

sf108 did you HAVE to tell us who the picture was of? I thought it was a picture of you.

I was kinda hoping it was. Next thing was to suggest a skeptics "conference" at my place...

 

[sf108]

LoL.

Yeh she's friggin damn good.

You guys in Sydney? There's these really annoying Scientology people on George St. nowadays...handing out pamphlets titled "Are you stressed?" and doing E-Meter tests outside Woolies.

Do u know how much they get paid to do that? or are they so brain-washed they'll eat dirt to survive as a Scientologist?

Oh...we're talking about invisibility aren't we...*pretends not to see prander*...oh yeh, that's right, I'm Catholic, I can't play jokes on people.

 

[stevemosby]

Although Prander seems to have disappeared, ho ho, I wonder if he or anyone else has read 'The Glamour' by Christopher Priest? It's an old book, but it's very recently been published again in the UK (a month or so back), and it's about a sub-culture of people who can supposedly make themselves invisible. It's all very ambiguous, told from loads of people's perspectives, and it's never clear (cough) whether they really are invisible or whether they're just 'good' at not being noticed, or what. But (SPOILERS ahead for anyone who cares)...

Two scenes occur to me. The first is towards the end when a girl is proving the invisibility thing to the main character. She takes him into a stranger's house and they both walk into a living room full of people watching the TV. They walk around, stand in the way, and nobody acknowledges them (they lean and peer around the couple rather than the light passing through them). Then they sit down on the settee and the people make room for them without saying anything. Then they leave. When I read Prander's account, it reminded me very much of this scene.

The other one is also towards the end. The girl has been telling the main character about her invisible boyfriend, and how she took him home with her one time and her parents couldn't see him. He did all kinds of awful stuff, talking over the top of them, being rude, and they just didn't notice him. But the main character eventually visits her parents and they have photos of the boyfriend and remember him coming to stay, say he seemed pleasant enough, and so on. Needless to say, the girl is a bit perturbed by this. Apparently, her more-or-less estranged parents were just being nice...

Not sure all that is particularly relevant, but the similarity to it struck me more than to Hollow Man or something like that.

 

[Beady]

Several(?) days ago, I said this thread put me in mind of one of Houdini's illusions. Then, I wondered if Prander might be "remembering" an incident that occurred in a dream. Now, however, this thread has brought back that scene with Ed Begley Jr from "Amazon Women on the Moon."

Maybe Prander was naked, and people were just trying to be polite?