Spontaneous Disappearance

I've been interested in the topic of spontaneous disappearance for awhile and I wondered if anybody had any info regarding the subject.

Mostly, I'd like to hear about disappearance happening right before witnesses, be it living matter or inanimate matter. I know that things like this can happen on the quantum scale regularly, but such things as a human being vanishing into thin air is something paranormal. Does anybody have anything regarding this phenomenon documented?

Please, lets keep David Lang stories out of this since I've heard time and time again that it is simply an urban legend. Does anyone have anything different on this subject and what do you think is the scientific rationale behind it?

Thanks!

reply to post by Boothead



I do hope to read about such experiences, because that is one of my pet subjects of research.

And yes, there are a lot of cases anecdotally "documented" by serious, reliable people - but, by its very nature, such a disappearance cannot very well be filmed o photographed, does it?
(I am not asking you, I am asking all those idiots a la Randi out there, who seem to be under the impression that all people at all times carry a camera or a video recorder on them... and if they happened to live in a time when such contraptions were unheard of, well, tough for them! )

Such a "disappearance", experienced by my mother, actually triggered my interest in this and other related phenomena. (If you want to, you can read about it here.)





[edit on 22-3-2008 by Vanitas]

Very interesting Van...can you elaborate on the experience you said your mother had? I am one who usually posts answers to questions on here based on physics but I'm also up for any other explanations or theories. Maybe wormhole theories could play a role? Anything is possible I suppose if it still falls outside of human knowledge.

Also, I agree with our thoughts about such experiences being hard to document via video camera. I would suspect anything claiming to be legitimate to be a hoax.

reply to post by Boothead



In a nutshell: when she was a child, a person disappeared in the time lapse that it took her to turn her head (a few seconds).

The account I wrote in my blog (the URL that I provided earlier - and it's not a commercial site, this is not a bait, don't worry) is the most detailed version I can offer - down to and including the turnip.
(BTW, I am intimately familiar with the house, the garden and the street where it happened. They practically haven't changed. And so there is no way the man could've d "hid" from her, even in the unlikely event he had wanted to do so.)

The mention of a child usually invites "explanations" based on a generalised (and not really reliable) assumption that the child in question "probably" didn't see what she saw, or misinterpreted the event, or... - you name it.
But the fact is not only are not all children the same, as if they were a "race" all unto themselves, but, being free of indoctrination about what is "possible" and what not, they can see the "reality" in the raw, as it were - glitches and all.

Like yourself, I too usually get asked (not here, in "real" life ) to "solve" problems (and if you see my "proposal", here on ATS, for reporting so-called paranormal events, you'll see why. ;-) If there is a "logical" or natural explanation, however unlikely, I am going to drag it out in the open.
And yet, this story escapes my rational side - which is why I love it so much.


I hope other people post here, too, because sooner or later some famous stories are bound to come out which actually have been misreported, misinterpreted (Bathurst's story seems to be one of those) or simply confabulated, and I would like people to know that.
Why?
Precisely because I KNOW genuinely inexplicable events really did and do happen. We don't need "weeds" discrediting them.








[edit on 22-3-2008 by Vanitas]

What about this:

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by Karras


It's really not much use.
In the past, I've seen ridiculous information there - and then some equally ridiculous "refutations" of the phenomenon. Besides, it's rather poorly written, like many Wikipedia articles, and so those who are not familiar with the stories don't get a clear sense of their veracity (some have been reliably disproved years ago) or the research involved unless they go on researching on their own. And for that, you don't need Wikipedia. ;-)

If you're looking for a website, then About/Paranormal is a good point to start (it has many links).

Personally, I'd much rather hear first-hand accounts from people here... if there are any with such an experience.




[edit on 23-3-2008 by Vanitas]

I agree Van about looking for personal experiences related to spontaneous disappearance. The article provided by Karras, while interesting in its own right, does not really follow along with the concept I was going for in this thread. The lighthouse keepers could easily be the victims of a natural occurrence. After all, people "disappear without a trace" everyday and are never see from again with no evidence of there whereabouts.

I'm more interested in experiences involving people/objects vanishing right before an observer's eyes.

reply to post by Boothead




By the way, Boot: have you have had any such experience? Or heard of one?
What prompted your interest in this specific topic?

Originally posted by Boothead
I'm more interested in experiences involving people/objects vanishing right before an observer's eyes.

In Max Freedom Long's book titled The Secret Science of Miracles he cover some specific cases of apports and relates the mechanism through huna teachings. He also comments about a glass case of these objects located at Stanford Univ. Might be in a basement or gone by now.

I would get the book and read it then try to track down the Stanford angle.

I had heard a story once that a kid riding on railroad tracks suddenly vanished as his friends witnessed it. We have to make some gross assumptions in order for this to be taken as true...such as, that the friends were absolutely honest and did not make a 'mistake' they felt they needed to cover up. But, let's go with the 'what if' for now.

What our eyes see is not electrons, protons and neutrons (as I understand it) but the result of the motion of these particles. Our eyes pick up the very fast motion of these spinning things that make up atoms. IF this is the case, then what happens when there is zero motion in an atom? Does it become invisible?

From a faith-based standpoint, if you're a Christian then you do indeed believe in spontaneous disappearance. After all, we believers carry around a book of records of these incidences.

On a personal level. I had a book disappear. When I'd gotten another one, that too had vanished. It was one that I was uncertain of and asked to be shown whether it was true or not. I suppose that was my answer.

reply to post by saint4God



Very interesting thoughts.

And the last part of your post touches another very interesting phenomenon - one familiar to most of us, I suppose - which I like to call "the missing sock mystery"...

There's a lot of such stories on the website Reality Shifters that I keep mentioning (and no, I am not associated with it).

reply to post by Illahee


Thanks for the reference, Illahee.
I'll check the book.

BTW: Have you ever had such an experience?


P.S. I'll be adding this book to a "book shelf" of works that I'd like to suggest for review/discussion within the proposed "book review" forums/fora, if we ever get them.










[edit on 24-3-2008 by Vanitas]

Originally posted by Vanitas
And the last part of your post touches another very interesting phenomenon - one familiar to most of us, I suppose - which I like to call "the missing sock mystery"...

Hehe, not so fast though. I knew exactly where the first book was because I had it in order on my bookshelf. Other books on the shelf - Black Elk Speaks, The Sacred and Profane, Baghavad Gita, the Tao Te Ching, etc. The second one I made sure to put in the exact spot. It was the only one missing both times. The one before it was leaning on the one after it after it had gone. It was a one room dorm, so no chance of it getting lost. Five years later I told my mother about the incident. She said "that's funny, the same thing happened to me with that book" and told me about it. How many coincidences have to occur before it is no longer coincidence?

Many years earlier, I had a stack of 'questionable' material that had disappeared from my closet. The items on top of it were on the floor. No one else in the household understood it to be questionable. Again, I had asked proof of its validity and gone it went...which is good because I didn't want to have to explain to my parents why I was disposing of it since I seemed bent on collecting them. I had been warned not even to dispose of it by a friend of a friend because it may be picked up and used. Again, a relief more than a worry that it was gone.

I have an othello chip account as well accidently dropped by my own hand, but that was translocation moreso than disappearance (even though it did disappear for a number of seconds). Very wacky to witness. This one, however, I chalk up to goofy physics. The laws of physics apparently are not static.

[edit on 24-3-2008 by saint4God]

Supposedly, during a military excercise dubbed The Philidelphia Experiment an entire shipped disappeared.

reply to post by Choronzon



Well, yes, of course... But the whole incident is so contentious that it's almost useless to discuss it here (I am not dismissing it or you, don't misunderstand me, please).

Anyway, I've just remembered a tiny incident (?) from my own life that is still puzzling. I've described it in detail in my blog (I posted the URL in my first reply); all I can say here is that I saw a man enter a short passage from which there were only two exits. Both would have been clearly visible/audible to me - and I didn't see /hear him take either.

(Believe me, it's much more unusual than it reads here... )

How many coincidences have to occur before it is no longer coincidence?

A very good question.
Some would say... none?
(As for me, I really don't know. All I do know is that there is an itinerant "black hole" inhabiting my handbag and my apartment. It takes whatever it pleases, for as long as it pleases, and then releases it - sometimes months later - in the most unusual places... And I am still waiting for a newly bought - and definitely brought home - bag of Barilla tortellini to appear... )

The laws of physics apparently are not static.

Furthermore, they are all based on theories .
Need we say more?










[edit on 24-3-2008 by Vanitas]

Originally posted by Vanitas

How many coincidences have to occur before it is no longer coincidence?

A very good question.
Some would say... none?

Everything is intentional? EVERYTHING? I like the way you think. I'll get back to ya once I'm sure whether I agree or not.

Originally posted by Vanitas

The laws of physics apparently are not static.

Furthermore, they are all based on theories .
Need we say more?

2 for 2 on the impressive responses. Nicely done.

Sorry for not getting back to this post for awhile...looks like it's been growing though.

As to your question earlier Van about why I gained interest in this subject, I'd have to say that the story/folktale of David Lang has always interested me in which a man apparently vanishes into thin air in front of his entire family. It is most likely that this story is a fabrication from some of the other details it includes (I won't get into them for the sake of time...it can be found online somewhere I'm sure).

From your prospective, saint, I like the spin you put on the quantum physics side of spontaneous disappearance. This is a topic I've touched on in almost all of my posts on ATS. In another post I referred to a concept that if nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, then what we see as our "reality" is really what is happening an infinitesimally small fraction of time before our brains' process it (I would think our brains' processing speed also slows down this time). In this sense, we live forever in the past. If quantum theory is correct, we can never know what the future holds since it is a cloud of probabilities (this is pretty much what people believe anyway).

Now, to tie in saint's statement that if a particle fails to move it will not be visible:

Since the very act of observing "particles" means that they "move," is it possible for there to ever be a zero-motion particle unless nothing is "observing" it? Then again, if quantum mechanics is based on probability...is there also the possibility that particles could vanish sporadically? This is somewhat similar to the concept that if a person were to attempt to walk through a wall from an immensely long period of time, eventually, in theory, they would pass through it.

Of course there is always the possibility that something can enter into an extra dimension that falls outside human perspective. But this is very far out...!

Originally posted by Boothead
In another post I referred to a concept that if nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, then what we see as our "reality" is really what is happening an infinitesimally small fraction of time before our brains' process it (I would think our brains' processing speed also slows down this time). In this sense, we live forever in the past.

This is profound on many levels. It also gives new meaning to "stop living in the past".

Originally posted by Boothead
If quantum theory is correct, we can never know what the future holds since it is a cloud of probabilities (this is pretty much what people believe anyway).

Ya! Fun, ain't it?

Originally posted by Boothead
Since the very act of observing "particles" means that they "move," is it possible for there to ever be a zero-motion particle unless nothing is "observing" it?

We can watch particles slow down. It happens with water turning into ice (or supercooling water with low/no vibration for crystalization). Not sure to what extreme we can do this however.

Originally posted by Boothead
Then again, if quantum mechanics is based on probability...is there also the possibility that particles could vanish sporadically?

The word that comes to mind is 'harmonics'. A kind of frequency that goes undetected or undetectable. I think the theory says 'yes' though don't know anyone in the science world who would say that it happens.

Originally posted by Boothead
This is somewhat similar to the concept that if a person were to attempt to walk through a wall from an immensely long period of time, eventually, in theory, they would pass through it.

The alignment of every single electron would have so perfect that there were absolutely no collisions. That, and the movement of the person would have to be faster than the spinning electrons. A good trick that would make an illusionist very wealthy if they ever figure it out. I agree the theory is sound.

Originally posted by Boothead
Of course there is always the possibility that something can enter into an extra dimension that falls outside human perspective. But this is very far out...!

Indeed! I wish you were able to sit in on a college course I took called Quarks, Quasars and Blackholes by Dr. Harry Shipman. It was essentially "physics theories for non-physics majors". The discussion is a lot like this, you'd love it. No doubt after that class, many undeclared students went into Physics. Once we talk about the specifics of Special Relativity, I get lost.

Originally posted by Boothead As to your question earlier Van about why I gained interest in this subject, I'd have to say that the story/folktale of David Lang has always interested me in which a man apparently vanishes into thin air in front of his entire family. It is most likely that this story is a fabrication from some of the other details it includes (I won't get into them for the sake of time...it can be found online somewhere I'm sure).

Interesting thread, folks. I hadn't heard the David Lang story so I looked it up and found a pretty good refutation at the following site.

anomalyinfo.com...

Though I hate to see facts get in the way of a story well told, it kept my attention nonetheless. Further, I once spent some time with a noted "Intuitive Archaeologist", who would go into what was apparently a trance and consult with those who had gone before...the describe the site from information gleaned in that manner. Some stuff he nailed, some I'm still researching. All to say...there is something going on out there...

[edit on 1-4-2008 by JohnnyCanuck]