Geometric Patterns On The Ground

Hello ATS,

I have no idea what forum the experiences I’m about to relate belong in. Hopefully there’s enough here to warrant my posting in the Gray Area.

Abstract: twice in my life I’ve seen what I can only describe as “shifting geometric patterns”—originating from the sky—projected onto the ground using a green light in front of me.

I was in my early twenties the first time I experienced the phenomenon.

I live in a mid-sized village in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. There’s nothing particularly unique about my town: there are a handful of schools, a library, post office, some big-box stores, an open-air mall, a few scattered parks, a small lake, a budding population, and one busy highway running right through the middle of it all. I live off the highway, on a little road connecting a Wal-Mart in the north, to one of our town’s middle schools in the south. There’s a lot of light pollution from the strip mall north of my house. None-the-less, I’ve always had a fondness for star-gazing, and would often sneak out behind the middle school late at night to lay in the open fields and watch the Heavens. I’m familiar with my night sky, both by my house and out in the darker areas.

It was a May evening, between 9 and 10 p.m., when I set out for an evening walk. Heading north, I couldn’t have taken more than twenty steps when it happened. Across the sidewalk in front of me, maybe two paces away, a quick succession of geometric shapes flashed across the concrete and then disappeared. Had I not been looking down I would have completely missed the event entirely. I looked up afterward, searching for any low-flying planes, thinking maybe I’d seen some kind of laser-light. After seeing (and hearing) nothing, I scanned the houses on both sides of the street, but found all calm. I filed the event away in the back of my mind and continued my walk, thinking nothing more of it that night.

Thoughts of the event crept back into my mind about 3 years ago.

This time it was a September evening, shortly after my best friend’s birthday, and I was once again taking an evening walk. I’d made it further into my trek, maybe twenty minutes, and was deeper into my neighborhood, further away from the light from the strip-mall. Scanning the sidewalk ahead of me to avoid any potential tripping hazards—as I tend to do in the darker areas of my neighborhood—I started thinking about the weird shapes, and began to wonder if I’d just imagined the whole experience. That’s when it happened again. Another quick succession of flashing geometric patterns projected onto the sidewalk a few paces in front of me.

This time I knew something was very off about the experience: I was on the far side of the neighborhood, on a long road without street lights, walking under a series of willow trees with a marsh to my right side. The overhanging limbs of the trees should have obscured any projection from above, while the scant few houses on the street ruled out someone shining a light through a window. The isolation made me nervous, so I pulled up my coat and made my way back home at a quicker pace than I’d have otherwise used.

I haven’t experienced the phenomenon since.

Now, on to the information I’m sure everyone’s been waiting for:

• I would describe the patterns as projects, most akin to those created by laser-pens, with thin contour lines.

• The duration for each experience was no more than 2 or 3 seconds, during which time 3 or 4 distinct patterns flashed across the sidewalk. The transitions between each pattern gave the appearance of one pattern radiating and then “morphing,” into the next.

• The shapes were predominantly circular and symmetrical, with a balance of empty space and smaller, overlapping / intertwined, curved shapes inside. Though I couldn’t recreate any of them by hand, if I had to describe them I would use the word “mechanical” to do it.

• The sidewalks in my neighborhood are about 50 inches wide. When the patterns came they nearly filled a single square of sidewalk. If I had to estimate, I would say the largest patterns had a 40+ inch diameter.

• The color of light used to create the patterns was green both times.

There you go, ATS. Two encounters with an unexplained phenomenon, that I can’t find any information about on the internet. I’m not looking to fit these experiences into any currently held beliefs, so feel free to put forth any thoughts, theories, or facts you have, they’re all of equal weight to me. I’d just like to know what I witnessed.


~ Wandering Scribe

a reply to: Wandering Scribe

Great tell, I haven't a clue but the obvious answer is..

a reply to: Wandering Scribe

do a google image search for "Geometric Patterns circle" post here what matches closest to the ones you saw.

a reply to: Wandering Scribe

I've got several suggestions/ideas on what this could be.

Could someone be playing around with a device similar to a dazzler ? Or could it have been some type of security device in place on a nearby property ? Could you be seeing a florescent reaction of some markings on the ground after ultraviolet light shined upon it. Could it be biological in nature that emits fluorescence perhaps from the Willow tree leaves or some type of stuff off of a bug in the tree that has gotten on the ground ?

There are some pretty odd stories about Willow Trees... did you recall if you were near the Willow Tree on both occurrences ?

A Dazzler:

A dazzler is a directed-energy weapon intended to temporarily blind or disorient its target with intense directed radiation. Targets can include sensors or human vision. Dazzlers emit infrared or invisible light against various electronic sensors, and visible light against humans, when they are intended to cause no long-term damage to eyes. The emitters are usually lasers, making what is termed a laser dazzler. Most of the contemporary systems are man-portable, and operate in either the red (a laser diode) or green (a diode-pumped solid-state laser, DPSS) areas of the electromagnetic spectrum.

W-Dazzler

Fluorescence Reaction:

Fluorescence is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation. It is a form of luminescence. In most cases, the emitted light has a longer wavelength, and therefore lower energy, than the absorbed radiation. The most striking example of fluorescence occurs when the absorbed radiation is in the ultraviolet region of the spectrum, and thus invisible to the human eye, while the emitted light is in the visible region, which gives the fluorescent substance a distinct color that can only be seen when exposed to UV light. However, unlike phosphorescence, where the substance would continue to glow and emit light for some time after the radiation source has been turned off, fluorescent materials would cease to glow immediately upon removal of the excitation source. Hence, it is not a persistent phenomenon.

W-Florescence

Willow Stories:

In China, some people carry willow branches with them on the day of their Tomb Sweeping or Qingming Festival. Willow branches are also put up on gates and/or front doors, which they believe help ward off the evil spirits that wander on Qingming. Legend states that on Qingming Festival, the ruler of the underworld allows the spirits of the dead to return to earth. Since their presence may not always be welcome, willow branches keep them away.[26] In traditional pictures of the Goddess of Mercy Guanyin, she is often shown seated on a rock with a willow branch in a vase of water at her side. The Goddess employs this mysterious water and the branch for putting demons to flight. Taoist witches also use a small carving made from willow wood for communicating with the spirits of the dead. The image is sent to the nether world, where the disembodied spirit is deemed to enter it, and give the desired information to surviving relatives on its return.[27] The willow is a famous subject in many East Asian nations' cultures, particularly in pen and ink paintings from China and Japan. A gisaeng (Korean geisha) named Hongrang, who lived in the middle of the Joseon Dynasty, wrote the poem "By the willow in the rain in the evening", which she gave to her parting lover (Choi Gyeong-chang).[28] Hongrang wrote: "...I will be the willow on your bedside."

In Japanese tradition, the willow is associated with ghosts. It is popularly supposed that a ghost will appear where a willow grows. Willow trees are also quite prevalent in folklore and myths.[29][30]

In English folklore, a willow tree is believed to be quite sinister, capable of uprooting itself and stalking travellers. The Viminal Hill, one of the Seven Hills Of Rome, derives it name from the Latin word for osier, viminia (pl.).

Hans Christian Andersen wrote a story called "Under the Willow Tree" (1853) in which children ask questions of a tree they call "willow-father", paired with another entity called "elder-mother".[31]

Old Man Willow in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, appearing in The Lord of the Rings.

"Green Willow" is a Japanese ghost story in which a young samurai falls in love with a woman called Green Willow who has a close spiritual connection with a willow tree.[32]

"The Willow Wife" is another, not dissimilar tale.[33]

"Wisdom of the Willow Tree" is an Osage Nation story in which a young man seeks answers from a willow tree, addressing the tree in conversation as 'Grandfather'.[34]

In "The Secret of Salix Babylonicus," set in the Babylonian exile, the willow is portrayed benignly as a symbol of sympathy in grief and perseverance in suffering, an upright character who shows solidarity with the exiles and comes to express the spirit of the psalms.

The "Whomping Willow" is a feature of the grounds of Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry in the Harry Potter stories. In Central Europe a "hollow willow" is a common figure of speech, alluding to a person one can confide secrets in. The metaphor was used e.g. in the poem Král Lávra (King Lear) by Czech poet Karel Havlíček Borovský (1854).

W-Willow

Sorry to Wiki your thread... but just giving background info toward my suggestions.

leolady

POWER OF THE MIND !
a reply to: Wandering Scribe

a reply to: Wandering Scribe
Could be an eye migraine I see some strange stuff when I get it.

a reply to: TechniXcality

The answers must be waiting for me atop the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan!

a reply to: NobodiesNormal

Well, my eyes are freaking out after that search...

I would say that these kinds of designs were similar, but not exact. I remember the patterns looking a bit more "mechanical" than these, but they're the closest:





Obviously my recollection isn't 100% accurate, since it's been some time, and I only ever saw them for a few seconds, but the patterns would morph from one to the next, and the "style" wasn't always the same. Sometimes straight lines, sometimes curved, sometimes both.

The pictures above are some of the closest I could find though.

a reply to: leolady

Thanks for the links, lots of new information for me here!

To answer a few of the questions...

1. I was only near willow trees during the second experience. The first time was on a sidewalk without any tree coverage.

2. Could ultra-violet patterns have morphed the way these did? I could understand a single pattern being the result of that, but I'd venture to say that, between the two experiences, there were at least 6 different patterns in total.

3. I would have the same question for bio-luminescence as I did for ultra-violet light: could distinct patterns have been displayed in the manner I saw?

I hadn't considered a dazzler, and will have to look into them more to see how it could have potentially been used to do what I saw. The willow tree information is interesting, I'm not entirely sure what to make of it all, but thanks for providing it.

a reply to: GEORGETHEGREEK

I can see the power of my mind influencing the second experience... what started it all though?

a reply to: Qwerm

Hmmm, I do have an amblyopia in one eye. I hadn't considered it could be the result of my weaker eye, but that's a fair evaluation. I do have regular check-ups, and while I've never had an eye migraine before, it isn't impossible. Thanks for offering up a potential lead!