------------------------------------------------------ WOW! I just experienced a disappearing-object event, BIG TIME, with no sensible explanations and no questionable issues to provide any excuses. This is the first time an object has vanished right before my eyes.
I was stirring a tall paper cup of coffee with a wooden stir-stick while slowly pouring in cocoa powder. I lost hold of the stick and it slipped under the surface. (These particular cups are so tall that a stir-stick can easily sink out of sight, it happens often.) But then the end of the stick didn't float back up again. Hmmm, mysterious. Did the wood get saturated that fast, and sink? Must have. So I grabbed a second wooden stir-stick and stirred the rest of the powder in, then swept that second stick around to feel for the lost one. Nothing there. Hmmm, it must have broken in half, and the two halves were deep in the coffee? But they should be floating. I stuck my finger into the coffee, and it was too hot to continue, but I swept my finger around quickly and didn't feel the stick. Then I wondered... is this a "vanishing object" event? If so, then it'svery scary. But the stick MUST still be in the coffee. My emotional state has significance: while stirring, I was fuming about the situation between my ex-wife and teenage daughter... and right then I DROPPED the stick. Vanishing-object reports often involve DROPPED objects and emotional distractions, so I begin to suspect something strange. OK, I now stop and examine my memory. I was looking right at the coffee and watching the rotating cocoa powder on the surface... the stick really went under as I watched. Yes, I really was holding the tip of the stick and lost hold on it, and it HAS TO still be submerged in the cup, no question. And there really are TWO sticks involved: I really grabbed a second stick after the first one sank (and the top half of that new stick is dry: it never was submerged like the first one.) No question at all about the time sequence. But the missing stick didn't float back up again. What should I do next? Pour off the coffee! See if there's two stick-halves down under it. So I carefully went across the room and got my ceramic coffee mug, dumped its contents (two teabags and yet another wooden stir-stick) into the trash, and then poured off the hot coffee into the mug. And... no stir-stick pieces under the coffee in the paper cup. Holy. Crap. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now my hands are shaking and I have to type up the story quickly, before I convince myself that it didn't really happen. W. Beaty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Seattle, wa USA - Thursday, January 27, 2005 at 11:59:20 (PST) ------------------------------------------------------ And here's another recent one: ------------------------------------------------------ This happened a few years ago when I was working in the lab of a local chemical factory. We used an X-Ray spectrometer to measure the level of additives in polyethylene. We made small discs of the material and placed them in the instrument. One day, I placed a disc in the instrument, performed the analysis, and when I opened the sample compartment to take it back out, it was gone! Vanished into thin air! I repeated the test and again the plastic disc disappeared. There was no way it could have fallen into the machine because the sample compartment was an aluminum cup. After that it never happened again. Robert Franklin USA - Friday, May 30, 2003 at 11:35:00 (PDT) ------------------------------------------------------ Vanishing/Reappearing Objects http://amasci.com/weird/unusual/objs.html
