The Strangest Thing You Ever Saw

What is the strangest thing you ever saw?

For me, the first thing that comes to mind is glow in the dark wood. My dad had cut down a dead tree and later that evening, he went past the stump and saw that the cut surface was glowing like a glow in the dark toy. This is caused by some sort of fungus or bacteria. The phenomenon only lasted a couple nights. My brother was just a little kid and he was half afraid of it. None of us had ever seen that before or since. It was really strange, what can I say?

Being from Jersey, and I love Maine sooooo much, can you say a perfect fit for my favorite, Stephen King,hmmmmmm ???

When I was in second grade, my school was right next to a woods. Just a few feet in, was a little house where and old lady lived. The sunshine through the trees dappled the house and made it look spooky. We were all sure a witch lived there !
Poor old lady - probably a very nice woman in her 50's !

A few years ago I was aboard a 35 foot pleasure trawler anchored at night about 40 miles west of Key West. The sun had gone down, it was a beautiful summers night, nice breeze, the only light in the sky was the stars and moon. I looked over board into the water, the current was running strong and millions of bits of plankton were flowing fast in the water, irridescent, like fire flies in the water. It was very strange and amazing.

:^)
Molly

I've always wanted to see the plankton like that -- either that or the phosphorescent jellyfish (what a great name for a band, huh?).

Look at this! These folks EAT them: http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~jeanine/phosphorescent.html

Well, I'm sure I've seen stranger things, but this is what popped in my head.....

Last June we had a thunderstorm come through and it rained something like 4 inches in an hour. Started getting hail during all of this and eventually the hail reached a size just larger than a golf ball. We have a sump in our basement to pump out any ground water to prevent damage to the foundation and it drains out through a pipe and terminates somewhere about the middle of my backyard. Well, there was so much rain, so fast that the water from the sump was shooting into the sky like a jet about 7 or 8 feet into the air.

Of course, my DH was out of town on business and I thought the world was coming to an end with all the thunder, hail pounding the house and torrential downpour going on. He always misses the freak weather here. This past winter he was in sunny CA when we got a 8-inch snowstorm and you-know-who was left to shovel the drive and walk without the helping of a strapping man! Geeeeshh!

For me it was seeing the Brown Mountain Lights. This has been recorded in NC since the time of the first settlers. You park your car on a dark night and wait for the show to begin on the mountain. A large "balloon" of light forms on the ground and rises slowly into the air where it disappears. Sometimes there are many, sometimes just a few. Researchers have investigated this for years, but have never found an explanation, so they just say it "must" be Foxfire or St Elmo's Fire, although that never rises. The indian ledgends are more interesting.
Pati

(Un)natural phenomena are so cool sometimes. Had to look it up - interesting! http://www.brownmountainlights.com/

Thanks for the web site, never thought to look for one. I lived near there for a few years (Morganton, NC) so had heard the story and saw them. NC seems to have it's share of strange things. Near Lake Lure NC there is a mountain called Rumbling Bald. At times there is the sound of giant boulders falling and crashing INSIDE the mountain, but there is no vibration. The government and others have spent a lot of time trying to find the source of the noise, but no luck. This is another one the indians had legends about. My daddy heard it as a boy when he lived near there. There is a series of books called "Foxfire" that has a lot of information about the different things in those mountains. Really interesting to us plant people are the stories about the herb healers or "Conjure women".
Pati

In 1979, my granny and I both saw strange red lights in the night sky for about a week before my grandfather died. At the time, I was only 14 and was afraid to tell anyone for fear that they wouldn't believe me. It was many years later that we found out that we both had seen the lights. The old-timers really believed in death omens.

We are having a same kind of conversation at the Finnish gardening forum. Some have seen ghosts, orbs, UFOs, etc.. or they believe they have seen. Who knows.

My mom and her sisters saw an UFO in the mid-60's when they were young, their mom also saw it. Later again, in 1994 she saw a same kind of UFO again. Many others had seen it as well.

I don't remember seeing anything strange, although I have visited some quite strange places :S

This message was edited Jul 1, 2005 9:34 AM

This isn't quite as weird as the lights, but I thought it was interesting.

When I was in Hawaii, I saw a Japanese cemetery INSIDE a dormant volcano. I took some pictures of the headsdtones as they were so fascinating to look at. Quite a neat experience.

Awesome Smilin`. :O
And I thought Florida was hot...

I had a relative that lived in Gurdon Ar,and on a Halloween night we decided to go down to the railroad tracks to see the scary light everyone has talked about for years.We waited around for about an hour,and some other people were hanging about waiting to see the light.One of them turned and looked around,and low and behold it was coming towards us.It was a train coming.But,after the train passed us by,there is was.A bright white light staggering along the tracks.I thought i was going to pass right then and there.Everyone started screaming,even the guys.lol.We did not wait around.We headed to the house and stayed there.I was 16 at that time.
This Gurdon Lights have been featured on Unsolved Mysteries.
http://www.astronomycafe.net/weird/lights/gurdon.htm

A number of years ago, we took in a special trip to Portugal for our 25th.......decided to drive to the interior of the country and see the way it was, and still is, the old country. Whilst driving up a hill, after a wonderful lunch......we noticed the stream beside us running uphill???? Stopped, got out, and kept believing we weren't seeing things...apparently, the illusion of this phenomenon, we heard later, in the town of Allbufeira, is a true one....and they say, others that is, this can be found in different places throughout the world...????? Elaine

I can't remember for sure now, but I seem to recall there is one like that in Nova Scotia or New Brunswick. Apparently is has to do with the magnetics of the poles and I don't know what else... LOL

Florida has a famous hill something like that. If you park your car at the bottom in neutral gear it will roll up the hill. It is probably an optical illusion, but it sure does feel spooky!
Pati