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Ok, What Was It?

^ This is what I was looking for, but didn't know that was what you called it to ask the right question.
 
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Jodie said:
She drives a Toyota Corolla and left the trunk lid up while she was making trips back and forth to the car. We got into a conversation and while we were talking we both saw her trunk lid move up and down three times. There was no wind.
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Are you familiar with the toy drinking birds? They work by changes in temperature; this is where the energy comes from to make the bird move. For the trunk lid, we have to do the same thing and identify the source of the energy. If there was no wind then I'm thinking that it was because of sunlight heating up the trunk lift springs. I would guess that with a little expansion, they weren't quite strong enough to hold up the lid all the way so it dropped a bit. Now, keep in mind that the springs have more force as they are compressed so there is no reason to think that the lid would fall all the way closed. With the lid partly closed, the sunlight could be blocked so the springs could have cooled, contracted and again had enough force to open the lid. Like the drinking birds.

The Kleenex seems pretty straightforward to me. The tissues are interleaved so that as you pull one out, the next one is left sticking up. When this is perfect, they are only removed from the top like fan-fold computer paper. However, I have seen times when this process did not work perfectly and when you pulled the tissue out of the top, it lifted the remaining stack inside the box. If this happened, then the weight of the stack could have pulled the tissue back down. So, the energy to move the tissue would come from a counterweight.

I went to the bathroom and couldn't get the door shut so I just pushed it to. The door was in my direct line of vision the entire time I was in the bathroom except when I got up to wash my hands. When I turned around to exit the bathroom the door was completely shut and the latch hook lock was down. There is no way to shut the door without hearing it scrape the frame. And the only one who flip down the latch hook lock would be me.
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My house was built in the 1930s with balloon framing and plaster and lath walls and ceiling. I've been in older houses such as William Henry Harrison's Governor's mansion in Vincennes and my aunt and uncle's house which also predates the Civil War. Let's just say that standards have changed over time. The most likely reason why the door wouldn't drag is because of your shifting weight causing the floor to flex in a different way. This is not unusual at all. So, the door could have closed by itself while you were washing your hands. I can't speculate yet about the latch because I don't have enough information to understand how it worked.

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LTC8K6 said:
Those hooks on doors often fall down and latch themselves.
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Jodie said:
That I can understand, but not how the door got pushed into the crooked jam and certainly not without my hearing the scraping noise that should cause.
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Oh, I guess the latch part has already been answered. I suppose that's all three then.
 
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Snorkio said:
I saw a long thin "tentacle" protruding from a vent underneath the controls above the stove-top surface. It was brown-ish, and slowly moving, like a finger gesturing or feeling around, and appeared as if it were 5-6" in length, about as thin as a pencil.

I still don't know what I saw, it was either a hallucination from being tired after work or a really big mouse inside the stove.
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I would say a large mouse or a juvenile rat. When my grandfather first started working in the mines they used lamps with some kind of organic oil. The rats would put their tails in the spouts of the lamps and then lick the oil off.
 
Jodie said:
Here is the next odd incident. I was helping my 76 year old aunt take care of my 90+ year old grandmother with dementia. My grandmother's partial went missing, we assumed she had misplaced it somewhere and that we would eventually find it.

A few days later I was getting my grandmother ready for bed and turned the light on in the room. The light had a flush mount fixture. I happened to glance up and see a U-shaped shadow outlined on the glass shade.

I went and got a chair, stood up on it, unscrewed the glass cover, and found my grandmother's partial inside the glass shade. Any suggestions on how it got up there? Neither relative was agile enough to climb up on a chair, so it couldn't have been either one of them. I got nothing......
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Yes, unfortunately, I do have an explanation for this. I took care of my late wife for ten months in home hospice care. One day I found the bathroom scale setting on top of the portable commode which was right next to the hospital bed. I set it back on the floor. The next day, my wife who was hallucinating because of the pain medication asked me why the printer was laying on the floor and wanted me to put it back on the table (the portable commode). She was dying from congestive heart failure and her energy level varied a lot. Some days she was feeling pretty good and I would take her out. Other days, she was too tired to walk the 10' from the bed to the shower and I would wash her hair in bed using something like a miniature inflatable pool.
 
Jodie said:
I hate that I saw something I didn't have a frame of reference for. Plasma ball lightening was what I settled on since it originated over an air conditioning unit, maybe the ground wire malfunctioned?
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Your description sounds nothing like ball lightning. You described it as:

Jodie said:
I looked over and saw sparks going up the side of the building, over an air conditioning unit, then over the roof before they went out leaving what looked like a floating ash. It slowly drifted my way and was undulating, at that point I thought it might be a plastic bag.

As it got closer it looked larger than a small plastic bag so I stepped off the stoop to get a better look. It floated directly above my head and as it stretched out while undulating it was shaped like a square with rounded corners, it had a grayish/blue tinge with phosphorescent red balls connected by reddish branches inside of it.
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I agree with the others who say this sounds like burning ash. I've seen ash like this many times. You even said that it looked like ash.
 
I did think about your three battery problem but I wasn't clear on the details. I assume that at least one failed in an unusual way and that all three were replaced. I couldn't quite tell if it were certain that all three failed in exactly the same unusual way or were replaced for exactly the same reason. I'm not clear if all three were hard to remove for the same reason. Did you actually see all three batteries? Did you help with the attempted repair? Are you certain that all three cars could not be started? Did any of them turn over or was there any click from the solenoid?

I don't have enough details to speculate on an answer. However, 35 years ago might be before internal hood releases were common. Do you know if these cars had a hood release inside the car? Were all three cars locked? Details like this are important.
 
Jodie said:
^ This is what I was looking for, but didn't know that was what you called it to ask the right question.
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We'll, if it was your electric supply you would probably see the scorch mark and would definitely need a qualified electrician to check your distribution board.

What tends to happen is a regular flash and spark when something pops that then gets remembered as something far more catastrophic and impressive by the witness. Understandable as their memory is tainted by fear and there is a good survival instinct in exaggeration. Play back footage of a fault and the memory has often erred on the side of caution.
 
barehl said:
I did think about your three battery problem but I wasn't clear on the details. I assume that at least one failed in an unusual way and that all three were replaced. I couldn't quite tell if it were certain that all three failed in exactly the same unusual way or were replaced for exactly the same reason. I'm not clear if all three were hard to remove for the same reason. Did you actually see all three batteries? Did you help with the attempted repair? Are you certain that all three cars could not be started? Did any of them turn over or was there any click from the solenoid?

I don't have enough details to speculate on an answer. However, 35 years ago might be before internal hood releases were common. Do you know if these cars had a hood release inside the car? Were all three cars locked? Details like this are important.
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I never locked my own car, I don't know about the other two. I don't remember anything about the hood releases on the vehicles but mine was an early 70's model Ford Mustang ( how I wish I had that car now!!) and my parents' cars were a late 70's model Chrysler and a Chevy Pickup. All three batteries went out on the same night and they were too swollen to remove easily. None of the cars would start, but I can only remember specifically that nothing happened when I tried cranking my car. I was the first to leave so went back inside to get a ride from one of my parents. I remember seeing the batteries looking puffed with stuff oozing out. I was a teen age girl at the time and didn't know anything about cars to help with repairs, and I am still ignorant when it comes to car repairs.
 
Tomtomkent said:
We'll, if it was your electric supply you would probably see the scorch mark and would definitely need a qualified electrician to check your distribution board.

What tends to happen is a regular flash and spark when something pops that then gets remembered as something far more catastrophic and impressive by the witness. Understandable as their memory is tainted by fear and there is a good survival instinct in exaggeration. Play back footage of a fault and the memory has often erred on the side of caution.
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This was across the parking lot from me, I initially thought someone shot off a firework. I wasn't the least bit afraid, I simply couldn't figure out what I was seeing. I didn't see any scorch marks on the unit when I walked over the next morning to take a look or any debri from any fireworks. I'm calling it a plasma ball for lack of a better term to describe it, it glowed and it came from the A/C unit so I assume it was electrical, I really don't know what it was.
 
Jodie said:
I never locked my own car, I don't know about the other two. I don't remember anything about the hood releases on the vehicles but mine was an early 70's model Ford Mustang ( how I wish I had that car now!!) and my parents' cars were a late 70's model Chrysler and a Chevy Pickup. All three batteries went out on the same night and they were too swollen to remove easily. None of the cars would start, but I can only remember specifically that nothing happened when I tried cranking my car. I was the first to leave so went back inside to get a ride from one of my parents. I remember seeing the batteries looking puffed with stuff oozing out. I was a teen age girl at the time and didn't know anything about cars to help with repairs, and I am still ignorant when it comes to car repairs.
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I don't think you have ever said how cold it was or I missed it. An old partially charged battery could freeze and bulge the sides of the case. This has been suggested earlier by myself and others, but the term "exploded" had been used making such a diagnosis very unlikely. A fully charged good lead acid battery will survive to about -70C (-95F). An old weak battery that cannot hold a full charge, but can still start a car can freeze at temperatures that can be experienced in much of the U.S. -15 C or so. (5F)

http://mathscinotes.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/finalplot.jpg

Plot taken from this site:
I have dealt with this issue for a number of years. I thought it was worth documenting why the UPS batteries can freeze. The solution is simple — disconnect the charged battery from the UPS. A lot of other things will freeze (like water with anti-freeze in the vacation home’s plumbing) before that charged battery will freeze.
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Unlike most liquids, when water freezes it expands, with tremendous force which can burst pipes or battery cases. The electrolyte used in lead acid batteries is a mixture of sulfuric acid and water.
 
barehl said:
I agree with the others who say this sounds like burning ash. I've seen ash like this many times. You even said that it looked like ash.
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Nah, ash wouldn't be interesting enough.
 
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I can barely believe this thread has gone on for 297 posts!

What exactly are we discussing?
 
deaman said:
I can barely believe this thread has gone on for 297 posts!

What exactly are we discussing?
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I think, in general, we are discussing how extremely hard it is to explain an event long after the opportunity for really observing it has passed. Clues that are less than obvious disappear entirely with time.

In this context, it is moderately amusing to try to figure things out, but it does also, I think, provide some insight into how paranormal events and ghost stories can come about.
 
bruto said:
I think, in general, we are discussing how extremely hard it is to explain an event long after the opportunity for really observing it has passed. Clues that are less than obvious disappear entirely with time.

In this context, it is moderately amusing to try to figure things out, but it does also, I think, provide some insight into how paranormal events and ghost stories can come about.
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O.K..

I'll buy that.
 
My own "OK, what was that?"

For around the last 3 months my wife and I have been hearing a mysterious sound at roughly the same time of the morning perhaps 2 or 3 times a week, while using our respective computers in the living room. It sounds like it is coming from outside as the dining area door is usually open to the back yard.

The sound lasts about 1 second, and is best described as pretty close to a cat hissing when provoked...ssssshhhhhhhh, with a back of the throat element to it. Pretty much white noise with a little amplitude and tone shift.

For the first several weeks, I would run into the back yard to see if I could spot the culprit, to no avail. We speculated, perhaps a new squirrel noise? a neighbor's patio door? something failing in the house? garbage truck air brakes? pranks? Poltergeists???:) etc.

Last week, my wife told me she heard the sound come from my computer area when I was not at home, completely on the other side of the room from the patio door to the outside. Finally, I myself heard the sound come from my own desktop area, and realized what the source was!

My iPod Touch was updating, via wifi, the notifications for a game app called "Trucks and Skulls". Instead of using a musical tone, like most apps, Trucks and Skulls uses a whooshing sound which is pretty loud coming from the tiny speaker.

The iPod, along with phone and car keys, usually resides on the dining room table, near the door, except when being charged by my computer in the evening!! That's why it originally sounded like the noise was coming from outside. Difficult mystery finally solved! Wow!
 
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