Where have all the good socks gone?

This peculiar "anomaly" you surely know - or know of, at the very least: you put a pair of socks in the washing machine and only one sock reemerges. You go back and palpate the raspy entrails of the washing machine drum, as deftly as a gynecologist, to find the sock: nothing.
You look around the floor to see where the sock might have fallen out of the bundle of freshly washed clothes: nothing. You go back and search the washing/drying machine once more, this time taking care to look under and all around the machine. Nothing.
Then, months later, the sock reappears in the pantry or behind some remote radiator, in a place where you would never expect to find it - sometimes even in the same space where you keep your washing machine.

By Motorenmano

I must admit this has never happened to me, although I have seen it happen to other people (and certainly heard about it). What's more it seems to be an epidemic! (For details see the bottom of this post.)
And so, I have always thought this "phenomenon" must be simply the consequence of careless handling: it's very easy for a small thing like a sock to get stuck in some other piece of clothing or linen. Think about it: why socks, and why in the washing/drying machine? You don't hear about T-shirts or sheets disappearing in the gargantuan jaws of washing machines: it's always socks or, occasionally, some other small clothing item. People are a notoriously inattentive species. Aren't they? Aren't we?

Well, yes.
But that doesn't explain the sudden disappearance - sometimes followed (a long time later) by the inexplicable reappearance - of all sorts of inanimate objects even at times when attention, or the lack thereof, clearly wasn't the issue.

I for one have long suspected there must be an itinerant black hole on the loose in my home, sometimes invading my handbags, like a stowaway, to displace itself around town.

I have seen a contact lens (several times; I'll be returning to them in some later post) fall to the floor and somehow disappear while in full view.

In the past ten years or so, several of my clothing items have disappeared from my home even though nobody had access to the space where they were kept, there was no robbery (and they were not valuable anyway, except sentimentally, to me), I have never lent my clothes to anyone, and I know for a fact, beyond any doubt, that I would not have parted with them voluntarily (i.e. I did not give or throw them away); nor am I afflicted by any type of temporary amnesia. Those clothes never left the apartment except on me - and yet they are gone.


What's more, this condition seems to be contagious.
About two years ago, I suddenly developed an intense craving for Barilla tortellini. So I went to a store and bought them. I did buy a few other things, too, but the pasta was my main point of interest. At the checkout counter I put it in the shopping bag first, then the rest of the things I bought, before returning home to have a good plateful of tortellini.
The shopping bag had no tears or holes in it; I had no physical contact whatsoever with anyone during my short journey home, so nobody could have stolen them; the bag of tortellini could not have fallen out without my hearing it happen.
And yet, when I came home, the tortellini were nowhere to be found.
Two years later I still haven't found them.

(But then, pasta is notoriously misbehaved. For a supernatural adventure involving spaghetti see here.)

Another item I am still missing is an eyelash mascara, brand new. It disappeared on the day it was bought, from a little plastic bag that had no tears or holes through which the mascara could have slipped; furthermore, the little bag with the mascara was tucked within another, bigger bag. (It also would have made a noise if it fell out, and I heard none.)
A hypothetical mascara-loving pickpocket's intervention is out of the question, since s/he would have had to not only bump into me or make very close contact with me, but would have had to worm his or her grubby hand through a scatter of other objects that were also in the bag at the moment, all the way down to the bottom of the bag where the mascara was. But no other items were missing. And I had no close contact with anyone on my way home, anyway.

Taken from here.

But sometimes wayward objects do reappear. Such was the case with a pair of sunglasses my mother had bought for me years ago.

I use contact lenses, so my eyes are somewhat more sensitive to bright light than they would be in normal circumstances. Which is why I always use sunglasses in the summer and whenever there is bright light outside.
So I was understandably distraught when one summer's day a few years ago I could not find my sunglasses anywhere. (I had two other pairs of sunglasses, but the rims were not of the right colour for me to use them with the predominant colour of the clothes I was wearing that summer.)
At the time I used mostly one handbag, and while it was relatively big, I always found whatever I was looking for in a matter of seconds rather than minutes. Furthermore, I always put my glasses in the main compartment, so I never had to even look for them: I simply felt around the bag with my hand and retrieved them.
Until one day I could not find them anywhere.

I was sure I must have lost them, but could not figure out where.
The next time I visited my mum I told her about the sunglasses, and she looked for them around her home. She didn't find them.

I could have bought another pair, of course; but I was sentimentally attached to those sunglasses; and I hate shopping more than words can express. (Yes, you remember correctly: I am a woman. :)

Anyway, to make a long - three weeks long - story short, one day, as I was walking down the stairs in front of my mother's home, I opened my handbag to take out my wallet... and there were the sunglasses, their golden clasps shining in the sun. I went back and asked my mother had she found them and put them in my handbag. She was surprised - no, she didn't - and she laughed.

So did I.
What else could I have done?

And by the way, about a year later, it happened again - with the same pair of sunglasses. This time, they went missing for only a few days. And wherever they were, they must have decided they had a better time with me, because they returned on their own accord...

I am sure something similar has happened to many of you out there.
But I am also sure that many of such occurrences really are just a matter of inattentiveness. I am not posting these stories to encourage anyone to immediately jump to the conclusion that a dimensional anomaly or some paranormal activity must have taken place, if they can't find something that "should" have been where expected.
Remember: people can be remarkably absent-minded.

Also, if you are taking any pills, be aware that some can produce amnesia as a side effect. (The sleep-inducing substance called zolpidem, sold in the USA under the name of Ambien, is notorious for producing amnesia. People have been known to raid their fridges at night, or make midnight calls to people they would otherwise never dare calling - and most dangerously of all, to take extra doses of the medication - and not remember it the next day.)

In short, be sure to exclude all possible "logical" explanations before attributing any odd occurrence to something anomalous. And not just because it makes sense, but because not doing so diminishes the value of truly extra-ordinary experiences.

Anyway, here is a treat for all of you who are hoping to find a lost object: a few tips from one of our favourite writers on the subject, Cynthia Sue Larson:

Top Six Tips for Finding Lost Things

But if your main concern are socks and their fate, here is a foundation that is working towards the welfare of all socks, big or small, black or white, old or new. I am sure they would appreciate your help.

The Lost Sock Foundation

Come again?

Have you ever had the peculiar sensation that you're re-living, moment by moment, something that had happened before?
Of course you have.
Most likely you even know what it's called: deja vu.
(More - much more - about deja vu in a future post.)

Typically, it involves a sensation of a situation being repeated, without any sensory evidence that a repetition of any sort is taking place; and the time of the supposed "original" event is usually perceived as unidentifiable. In other words, people don't usually get a feeling of a deja vu about an event that took place a minute ago. (Unless, of course, you are participating in a mind-numbing board meeting - but I digress...)

But since the advent of the internet people have become aware of another, apparently similar type of event, often - and perhaps incorrectly - also described as deja vu: the apparent exact repetition of an event, involving the same factors (people, circumstances, etc.), within a time frame that would normally make the repetition of said event physically impossible.

For example: you see a person come out of a house - a house that you know without a doubt has no back or lateral doors -, stop for a moment to look at his or her wrist watch and then walk down the street.
A minute later, you see the same person come out of the same house, through the same (and only) front door, stop for a moment to look at the wrist watch, repeating every gesture in minute detail, and walk down the street - again.

Interestingly enough, many people seem to have experienced this. And even if some of these experiences could undoubtedly be attributed to insufficient attentiveness (or worse), others baffle the mind.

This delightfully illustrative short account comes from Cynthia Sue Larson.

The Lady Appeared... Twice

In fact, something seemingly similar happened to me, in early January 2008.

I was watching a live newscast.
I watched three segments in a row, then I stepped out of the room (I don't remember what the reason was, and it's not important). When I came back, I sat behind my desk to do some work. The TV was on all the time.

Not a minute had passed when I heard the anchorman announcing the first of the three segments that they had already shown. I remember thinking to myself "Oops...", but didn't bother to even turn the head. After all, even the best of journalists can make mistakes and reread an announcement or whatever.
But then the segment began - and it was the same one as before.
So were the following two.
To convince myself beyond reasonable doubt that it wasn't a "false memory" or anything like that I started repeating word for word the sentences that I had remembered from before. They were identical - even the anchorman's jokes were the same!

But still, no big deal. I was merely surprised to see the network switch to what I naturally thought to be the replay of the newscast for audiences overseas - before the live show was even through!
They had never done that before.
But, as I found out soon enough, they hadn't done it on that occasion, either... It had been a LIVE broadcast, just like on every other occasion I had watched it. And the anchor is a very reputable journalist who would have noticed if he were rereading the same segments that he had read a minute before - including the jokes he improvised.

Or would he?

Whatever it was (or was not), in retrospect this occurrence seems all the more remarkable because around the same date - give or take a day - another odd thing happened:

I was standing in my living room doing a yoga exercise. It was shortly after dawn break, and I saw the line of street lights being turned off. A few (perhaps five) seconds later - I saw them go out for the second time.
Naturally, I was somewhat startled: after I had seen them go out for the first time they hadn't been turned on again (to be then turned off again), of course.
I suppose this must be very difficult to grasp; and I certainly know it isn't easy to describe.
It was as if someone had hit a "replay" button - with no visible interlude (no visibly different state) between the two apparently identical events.

I am observant. Not much escapes me, I must say. (Literally: I must say it, because only I know myself, and so I know this wasn't simply an "attention" issue.)
That's what makes it so puzzling.

I usually like to speculate on the possible causes or sources of various phenomena - and the "weirder" they are, the better.
But in cases like these I really don't know what to say. Jumping to conclusions - any conclusions - would be counterproductive and possibly deceptive, at best.

The wisest thing to do, in my opinion, would be to keep collecting accounts of such events - and keep an open mind - and see where the evidence takes us.

Tossed pasta, hold the gravy

One of the silliest – and most endearing – space/time »anomalies« I've ever heard of, is Michael Talbot's account of an unusual event which happened right in his living room.
He attributed it to a »poltergeist«. I would attribute it to a »glitch« in spacetime, the inner workings of which are at this time unknown to us, which led to a anomalous manifestation of... spaghetti. Out of thin air. (Although one is tempted to wonder just how »thin« said air can be, holding all those carbohydrates...) Which is why it probably qualifies as a »time slip«, in the sense of anomalous displacement in spacetime.

Be it as it may, the »service« was unexpectedly swift but less than smooth... (Think Fawlty Towers sans saucers. :)

Here's the story as it appears on page 150 of Talbot's very flawed but absolutely engrossing and entertaining, must-have book The Holographic Universe:

»Still it is with some trepidation that I admit that my own poltergeist also occasionally materialized objects. The materializations started when I was six years old [...]. Unfortunately, I usually did not see the actual materializations, but only witnessed their aftermath, such as when a pile of spaghetti noodles (sans sauce) fell on my chest one day while I was taking a nap in my New York apartment. Given that I was alone in the room with no open windows or doors, there was no one else in my apartment, and there was no sign that anyone had either cooked spaghetti or broken in to throw spaghetti at me, I can only assume that, for reasons unknown, the handful of cold spaghetti noodles that dropped out if midair and onto my chest materialized out of nowhere.«

Whoa, that gives a whole new meaning to the term »String theory«...! :)

I did say it was silly, didn't I?
(And endearing - that too.) But does that mean that it was untrue?
That it did not happen? I wouldn't dare to make such a claim – and not just out of respect for the late author.
All I can say at this point is that I wish I were besieged by flying saucers of pasta and pelted by missiles of the farinaceous kind when I am hungry and lazy at the same time... :)

***

The pasta story may sound "silly" (or not), but I suspect that's just because of the object involved (spaghetti: there's something inherently funny about them, isn't it?) and the slapstick circumstances (man asleep on the couch gets hit by a loose plateful of noodles).

But noodles were not the only object that ever "hit" Talbot - or other people, for that matter. And anomalous materialisation is only one of the many aspects that he writes about.Which is why I really recommend reading his book. Its flaws notwithstanding, it has a lot to offer. And I can proudly say that it's one of the "pet" books in my 1000 + books library.