Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with unexplained

Help me identify this animal we've not seen

bodgy — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:23:11 -0800

What is living in my yard and what do I do about it? I live in Central IL. Lately our dogs (chihuahua) have been acting weird around our bushes next to our back deck, acting like they see something from the deck and then running around to bark at the bushes. We've heard no noises coming back from the bushes but we figured something was living there.

Tonight it happened again and we investigated the exact location and found two holes in the ground. One is a hole straight down and about two inches in diameter. The other hole, about 3 feet away, is more slanted downward at a slope and is much larger, five inches in diameter.

These holes are right by the foundation of our house.

What do we have there, and what do we do about it? And what is our least expensive option to fix this situation?

Finally, based on this information, how worried should we be that something will attack our chihuahua?

(As an aside, in the field behind our yard we saw a baby possum that our dogs barked at. We haven't seen them in our yard but it's the only "critter" type thing we've seen lately other than rabbits which we do see in our yard from time to time).

Good books about 'unexplained' phenomena?

misteraitch — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 00:17:25 -0800

What are some well-written, readily-available books about, for want of a better term, ‘the unexplained:’ apparently psychic phenomena, apparitions, telepathy, and the like? I have a pen-pal who is at college studying electrical engineering in north-eastern Africa. He has a great curiosity about philosophy, literature, and the arts, but books of all kinds are hard to come by where he is, so I have been sending him some of my old volumes.

He's expressed a particular interest in these ‘unexplained’ phenomena, but I am a skeptic, and haven't anything that fits the bill. What are some good general works on these subjects? Ideally, I suppose, I'd prefer books that would allow him to draw his own conclusions, and are neither blindly credulous nor dogmatically skeptical.

Has any non-Catholic ever mysteriously died from taking communion?

EmuBite — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 07:16:59 -0800

Has any non-Catholic ever mysteriously died from taking communion? This question was inspired by memories brought back by this thread.

Years ago, I attended a Catholic high school. As a non-Catholic, I never particpated in the Eucharist, which was offered every so often during chapel. Catholic theology was mandatory at this school. The instructor, and aging Augustinian priest, told us that there were cases of unexplained deaths where non-Catholics partook in communion, and he warned the non-Catholic students not to participate in the Eucharist. However, when pressed about these mysterious deaths, he refused to elaborate.

I always suspected this was a tale told to keep non-Catholics away from the sacrament. Has anyone else ever heard of this? Are there any confirmed stories of actually deaths occurring where non-Catholics have taken communion? If you have encountered this, what specific stories were you told?

I realize this is a strange question, but it is something that has stuck with me for years.

Strange Noise Emanating from Tungsten E

signal — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 15:02:11 -0800

Unexplained Noise Emanating from Tungsten E. I recently noticed a strange noise coming from my Palm Tungsten E: it's a high pitched whine, like the ringing in your ears after a Tool concert. In fact, I though it was a ringing in my ears until my wife told me she heard it too. The odd thing is that it sounds like it's in my ear, not actually coming from where the palm is located. And it's highly directional, i.e.: if I turn my palm so I can't see the screen, the sounds cuts off. If I move the palm left to right, the sound jumps from one ear to the other without any graduallness. Basically, it seems as if the sound were being beamed into my ears directly from the palm. As I recently downloaded the newest Charles Stross book to the Tungsten, I suspect some sort of aggressive memetic agent trying to hack my wetware, but I am open to more pedestrian explanations and suggestions.

Mystery

Tarrama — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 18:11:16 -0800

Have you experienced the inexplicable? In August, 1994 a friend travelling in a separate car, flagged us down and pointed to the night sky where we saw six orange/red lights moving in unison. Two of the lights moved higher and to the left. About a minute later the rest moved to the right and they all came to a standstill. We watched this for about twenty minutes and then raced home to get a video camera. When we returned they were gone.

The next day the paper reported that about 35 people all around the area had seen these lights, including the police who had watched them from the top of the police headquarters. Defence HQ and the airport had no explanation and the Bureau of Meteorology said it did not have weather balloons in the area.

So these lights were unidentified, flying, and objects of some sort and no they did not look like garbage bags with flares attached.

Do any of you have an answer for what we saw or seen something yourselves that you couldn't explain?