Have you ever mistaken something ordinary for a UFO or Ghost?

I've seen lot of TV shows with a Mulder and Skully monster of the week type of story where a character mistakes something ordinary for something supernatural or paranormal. Some of them have been fiction like the X-files while others have claimed to be based on true stories like the various Project Blue Book TV shows.

In most cases the SFX used on the TV show looks absolute nothing like anything that exists in the real world because it's an SFX or a model, or it's deliberately made to look fantastical to fool the TV audience.

After watching these programs I'm often left skeptical as to how somebody could seriously mistake the lights on a logging road 10 miles away for a UFO, or the good year blimp flying in line with the planet Venus for bigfoot.

Has anybody here seen something that they were absolutely convinced was paranormal or supernatural at the time, but which just turned out to be something completely mundane?

I'm not so much of thinking of "I saw a shadow and thought that it was a ghost, for about 1/2 a second", more something sustained over a period of time. Like being convinced that you were being followed through the woods by a Windigo, but it turned out to be a wild cat, or thinking that you were being abducted by aliens, but it was somebody shining a flashlight at your tent.

Something that you only found out what it was later on and thought "man do I feel silly"?

a reply to: AaarghZombies

Nope..
Never seen a ghost, ufo, Bigfoot, lock ness monster or a unicorn.

In the strictest sense of and unidentified flying object, yeah. I never thought it was a spaceship or anything. Well, I thought it might have been a satellite, but it wasn't.

I'd just crossed a river on horseback in Central Mexico. It was just after dark, we were headed home and miles from anything resembling what you'd know as civilization. I'd just let my horse take water from the river and was sitting on a log while he grazed a bit. I looked up and saw a light fly overhead at an unbelievable rate of speed; I'm talking, like, it transversed 80% of the zenith in a matter of a few seconds.

I was agog. I couldn't imagine what would or could be moving so fast across the night sky. Then I realized ... it was a lightening bug just a few feet above me. In the dark and without perspective, it'd looked like something in the heavens flying across the expanse; once I got my perspective back, it was just a little ol' bug lazily traipsing across the air just above my head.

Also, I saw a unicorn once.

I was walking to the store when we lived in Texas. I'd walk about 3/4 mile down a side-road and cross a highway to get to the store. Just before the highway and on the right was a pasture where somebody kept cows and horses. As I was walking past this pasture, out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a beautiful dun mare with a long horn come right out of her forehead. I spun around in utter disbelief and ... Just as I looked at this beautiful golden unicorn, the long-horn cow sitting on the ground right behind her got up and the unicorn disappeared.

The way the cow was sitting, that horn was right behind the mare's head, but I couldn't see the cow from where I was walking.

I always like to say that for just a split second I lived in a universe where unicorns existed.

a reply to: AaarghZombies

Your question made me laugh.

When I was a young girl, must have been 8 or 9 years old, the whole family used to visit our two grandmas every Sunday evening. To get there we had to travel through loads of countryside, and came home late at night. One night it was pitch black, no street lights, and I looked out the car window and there were a line of lights hovering above the ground in the distance, but as the car was moving, the lights were moving alongside us paralel with the car. I swear we were being followed by an alien spaceship! (Remember my age back then). But then it just seemed to disappear! I never mentioned it to anyone in the car as my mind was rattling with what it meant. I never saw it again even though we travelled the same road each week.

Whiz forward a few months, and the light nights were here. Travelling along the same road one night, I happened to look accross to where I first saw the 'alien ship'. There in the distance was a train, travelling the same way as us, and then disappeared behind a massive hedge!! Of course the penny dropped that what I saw that night was the train lit up at night, travelling on the track quite near to the road and then vanishing behind a hedge that I wouldn't have seen in the dark.

I am so glad I never mentioned it at the time as they would have ribbed me for ever about it.



This picture was one I found on google, but quite similar to what I saw, but a bit closer but not so long.



Duh!

a reply to: incoserv

Oh man, how disappointing that it wasn't real eh? Funny story though.

a reply to: MissBeck

Hahaha! I can see where a kid would think it was something unidentifiable.

Have you ever mistaken something ordinary for a UFO or Ghost?

Never seen a "ghost" except in PC games sometimes with the "ghosting" effect caused by video settings.
Everything flying is a UFO till one realizes what it is.
So , logically speaking , something cannot be mistaken for a UFO.
It is what it is.

originally posted by: incoserv
Also, I saw a unicorn once.

I was walking to the store when we lived in Texas. I'd walk about 3/4 mile down a side-road and cross a highway to get to the store. Just before the highway and on the right was a pasture where somebody kept cows and horses. As I was walking past this pasture, out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a beautiful dun mare with a long horn come right out of her forehead. I spun around in utter disbelief and ... Just as I looked at this beautiful golden unicorn, the long-horn cow sitting on the ground right behind her got up and the unicorn disappeared.

The way the cow was sitting, that horn was right behind the mare's head, but I couldn't see the cow from where I was walking.

I always like to say that for just a split second I lived in a universe where unicorns existed.

Unicorns in Mexico?

originally posted by: Gothmog

Have you ever mistaken something ordinary for a UFO or Ghost?

Never seen a "ghost" except in PC games sometimes with the "ghosting" effect caused by video settings.
Everything flying is a UFO till one realizes what it is.
So , logically speaking , something cannot be mistaken for a UFO.
It is what it is.

The official air force definition is that something is a ufo is only a ufo after its been investigated and the investigation hasn't come up with a probable identity.

It's shorter than saying flying saucer.

originally posted by: AaarghZombies

originally posted by: Gothmog

Have you ever mistaken something ordinary for a UFO or Ghost?

Never seen a "ghost" except in PC games sometimes with the "ghosting" effect caused by video settings.
Everything flying is a UFO till one realizes what it is.
So , logically speaking , something cannot be mistaken for a UFO.
It is what it is.

The official air force definition is that something is a ufo is only a ufo after its been investigated and the investigation hasn't come up with a probable identity.

It's shorter than saying flying saucer.

Uh ,no.
Just no.
Any aircraft observed that is not readily identifiable is deemed a UFO.
Then the investigation begins.
If the investigation cannot draw a definite conclusion , it still goes down in the records as a UFO .

Where do you get your information ?

originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: AaarghZombies

Nope..
Never seen a ghost, ufo, Bigfoot, lock ness monster or a unicorn.

Maybe you're suffering from reverse Pareidolia.

This is where you expect everything that you see to be ordinary, or to have a rational explanation, so that if you were to actually see something fantastical you would dismiss it as being something prosaic.

Say you were out walking one night in the wood and a fairy were to give you an atomic wedgie, because you are psychologically preconditioned not to believe in faeries you'd instantly disregard what you saw and would substitute the next most logical event that could explain what happened. For example, that you saw swamp gas combusting which would account for the glow of the fairy, while at the same time Hillary Clinton jumped out of a bush and interfered with your undergarments, which according to Reddit is a thing that she does.

Thus your paranormal experience would become something that happens everyday (Again, according to Redit) to ordinary honest Americans.

originally posted by: Gothmog

originally posted by: AaarghZombies

originally posted by: Gothmog

Have you ever mistaken something ordinary for a UFO or Ghost?

Never seen a "ghost" except in PC games sometimes with the "ghosting" effect caused by video settings.
Everything flying is a UFO till one realizes what it is.
So , logically speaking , something cannot be mistaken for a UFO.
It is what it is.

The official air force definition is that something is a ufo is only a ufo after its been investigated and the investigation hasn't come up with a probable identity.

It's shorter than saying flying saucer.

Uh ,no.
Just no.
Any aircraft observed that is not readily identifiable is deemed a UFO.
Then the investigation begins.
If the investigation cannot draw a definite conclusion , it still goes down in the records as a UFO .

Where do you get your information ?

In Europe something is classified as a unidentified, then investigated. If it's still unidentified after the investigation it retains this classification. Otherwise it's reclassified.

In the US something is classified as being unknown, then investigated. It's only classified as being unidentified if it cannot be identified after the investigation has concluded.

a reply to: AaarghZombies
Yep, I saw a silent triangle ufo. Freaked out and ran inside to get my glasses and phone to take a pic.

Those shifty aliens changed themselves to birds flying at night in formation.

I really should have still taken the photo.

a reply to: AaarghZombies

In the US something is classified as being unknown, then investigated

What the Hades do you think Unknown/Unidentified means ?
English 101 for the win.

a reply to: AaarghZombies

Years ago, I was downstairs turning lights off etc just before going up to bed. My then partner had gone up a while before me. As I was halfway up the stairs I heard my partner let out a blood-curdling scream that made my hair stand on end, and I dashed up the stairs and into the bedroom and turned on the light to find him cowering and terrified with the sheets pulled up in front of his face.

As soon as the light was on he peeped over the sheets saying he saw two bright red glowing eyes staring at him in the dark as he half sat up to look at his watch. But of course there was nothing there.

When I switched off the light the 'glowing red eyes' appeared again - turns out they were the red 'stand-by' neons on the tv and video player that were in the corner of the room.

He felt like a right wally.

Best laugh I'd had in years lol.

In my twenties I worked for an animal charity and the work involved a lot of living outside and camping on beaches in remote places. There was also a lot of sitting around camp fires and (I wont lie) quite a lot of drinking.

One night I woke up in my sleeping bag on the beech and looked around to see a man that was completely on fire from head to toe and walking slowly down towards the sea. It was other worldly and bizarre rather than terrifying and I rationally knew that what I was seeing couldn't be real. But I kept looking and I just couldn't see it as anything else.

It was only when I stood up that I saw there was a car parked on the dunes at the back of the beech. The car had it's hazard lights on, which was illuminating the person with flashing orange light. I instantly realised what I was actually seeing and my reality suddenly snapped into seeing what was really there.

I assume that as I was so used to seeing camp fires and so not used to seeing cars at that point my brain just filled in reality with what it thought was most likely. While I was seeing it though it was totally convincing and if I had turned away and ran without looking properly I would never have known any different.