Please read-just happened-Northern Virginia

Hello all. This particular sub-forum is not my style, but I am completely perplexed by what happened to me forty five minutes ago. Standing at an estate-sale in Northern Virginia, I, as well as the pack of six or seven roving estate-sale attendees I was traipsing through a field with, experienced two, and exactly TWO violent flashes of light that left me temporarily blind and forced one woman to tumble to the ground on top of her infant son. What the hell did I just see and did anyone else in the NoVA area experience anything similar this morning? Thanks...


Hungrydirt

Edited to add geographical headline to the thread topic in order to pinpoint information.

[edit on 20-3-2010 by hungrydirt]

Did you all talk about it, and all have the same experience? Anyone see anything that anyone else didn't? Any sound? Any pressure or rumbling? Any sudden changes in temperature? Anything left over in the field, charring, smoke, ect? Any more you can add to your report? Anything leading up to the event that seems strange looking back, or that caught your attention as being strange at the time?

Is your memory of it crystal clear? Or is it fuzzy, like getting hit in the head? Was your thinking coherent and clear throughout the experience? How much time passed between flashes?

My first guess would a lightening strike. The weather there looks pretty good though. Sometime overwhelming sensory experiences like lightening strikes or explosions don't leave you with a very clear memory. You might not remember hearing anything, or feeling any heat, even though you would have had those experiences at the time. It sounds to me like lightening or explosives. If you were in a residential area lightening is much more likely, but explosives cannot be ruled out.

It seems like the main feature of your experience was a bright flash of light. Certainly the most common natural explanation for this would be lightening, either regular lightening or heat lightening(common in spring) or ball lightening. Non-natural explanations that come to mind are explosives or powerful electrical discharges, but it's hard to reconcile those with your description of the location. Any transformers or power lines nearby?

My initial thought was that I was experiencing an aneurysm or something to that effect. There was no ringing in my ears, and I was dazed as I watched the mother and her child struggling to get up off of the ground. I immediately walked to my car when I realized I was in fact NOT dying, and went straight home.

No souls have responded, so I guess this is one of the limited anomalous experiences I have had that will go on without answer or corroboration. I will hold out hope, however.


hungrydirt

reply to post by hungrydirt


Hey hd, could it be possible to give us a location in NOVA as I am in DC myself and could call a couple of friends (depending on the location) to ask if anyone experienced something similar.

Cheers!

reply to post by OnceReturned


Thank you for responding Once! Let me give you the details as closely as I can recount them.

I was keenly interested in a wealth of antique smithy equipment for sale at the estate in question. If you've ever been to a sizable estate sale, you will be familiar with how the items are set out in groupings, and the more large sales are spread out over significant portions of acreage (if the property boasts such land).

I was sort of haunting the area I was interested in, the blacksmithing items, wandering back and forth between some antique farm equipment that was nearby. There was a married couple, two men, and a mother with her infant son. They were in the same vicinity as me, and we were all sort of staking out our spot around a massive Hay Budden anvil that I was not going to be outbid on (ha!).

While I was perusing a collection of threshing equipment, the first flash occurred. Although this initial burst did not effect my vision, I looked up at the sky (not at the sun), I didn't see any alien motherships or rogue planet X's, but the second flash seemed to "radiate" for the sky. My retina felt like they had been punched in with a measurable amount of force and a sound accompanied it that I can only liken to a "WUMP". Immediately following the flash, I was, as I said, temporarily blind. I started rubbing my eyes in a futile attempt to regain my vision. The child that was with his mother started crying after I heard what i presumed was his mother slump over on him, and the two men that were near us rushed to help her up as my vision returned in purple and green splotches. The wife of the married couple was emphatically gesturing to her husband and rubbing her eyes, and he was holding her face in his hands.

As I said, after I realized that I was not in fact dying (I firmly felt like I had experienced a cataclysmic medical emergency initially) I half ran half walked to my jeep and, for lack of a better phrase, "hauled ass" back to my home.

reply to post by schrodingers dog


Sure, SD. I was in the vicinity of Casanova. Thanks for the response.

reply to post by hungrydirt


Unfortunately I don't know anyone in the vicinity ... but you're not too far from Quantico so perhaps that's something worth considering.

Otherwise I'm afraid I can't be of any help at all.

Thanks for sharing your story, I'm glad you're alright.

Regards.

As I sit here contemplating what, the only man-made event that I could see influencing this at all is the fact that for seemingly the last three to four weeks, there has been some incredibly loud annoying munitions testing going on at Quantico, which even though this article comes from Fairfax county, I can hear it all the way out in Fauquier, as can many of my annoyed neighbors.

Link

Some kind of weapons testing maybe?

This is truly one of the strangest things that has ever happened to me, and I feel a bit lost.

This will sound strange, but do you have any skin reaction, like a sunburn type rash?

Headache?

When the flashes occurred, did the hair stand up on your arms or head?

Any ongoing ringing in the ears?

And did you get your anvil?

I have had a headache since my excursion to the sale, but I can't remember if I had it before or after the light. I chalked it up to allergies.

The only thing I can point to as a "side effect" was the terror that the ordeal provoked in me. I've been in several "life and death" type situations (car accidents, boating accidents, etc.) and I actually prided myself on being "cool under fire". The sense of panic and dread that whatever this was stirred up in me was chilling.

Add on to that the fact that I thought I had gone completely blind and you have quite a cluster f of a situation.

could it have been a daytime lightning flash? even if there i not a cloud in the sky lightning can travel laterally for hundreds of miles from another storm.

There have been strange things going about with the sun - but - is there a possibility one of these houses was owned by someone who could have got their hands on an advance crowd control device? Revenge and all that?
One of those devices the military had designed to flash burn people into submission?
???

It sounds like an electrical discharge of some kind but I also have another possibility to throw out there.

You were at an estate sale, correct? That would give me the impression that someone associated with the objects and the land had died recently, am I correct so far?

Spiritual energy can be a very powerful thing at times. Maybe whoever's items were being sold didn't want anyone messing with their stuff and somehow mustered up enough energy to cause this incident to make everyone leave because it didn't want anyone messing with it's stuff.

It always could have been a neurological event the the behavior of the other people was a coincidence. If it happens again, go see a doctor.

reply to post by hungrydirt


Do you recall if anyone present was wearing sunglasses?

If so, were they affected as well, and to the same degree as you (if you could tell)?


I'm wondering if this was a physical occurance (lightening, explosion, etc.), or an induced neurologic phenomenon, which would be truly extrordinary, on such a "public" scale.


The relative vicinity to a military base, also home to the FBI's training facility, and your observed reaction, leads me to suspect the possible test-deployment of some sort of "Crowd/Riot Control" device.


A super-sized, aerial "Flash-Bang" stun grenade -type device?


(Dang! Several minds, all on the same track! )

[edit on 20-3-2010 by Bhadhidar]

reply to post by hungrydirt


hungry,

I'm trying to understand why you would leave without talking to the other people who were affected by the flash. If you knew or had assumed at the time what had caused the flash and didn't feel that the others needed your help or you theirs, then your leaving could be understandable. If that is the case, what did you think caused the flash?

Thanks for all of the posts everyone! All possibilities are relevant as I have no earthly idea as to that it could've been. I am less apt to accept the possibility that this is some neurological disorder because I could ascertain immediately after my vision returned that everyone I was keeping company with experienced something. Especially the "married woman" who was boasting the same kind of reaction I was.

It still doesn't seem to late to go back to the estate sale and start asking people if it happened to them too. Maybe you could even find the people you saw around you at the time. Or go to the local police department near the estate sale...or closest hospital.

That is the only way you are going to find information...no one here will be able to tell you what happened. And I wouldn't wait any longer...the longer you wait, the less likely you will be able to find people who experienced it.

I'm confused as well as why you just left without talking to the other people.

Originally posted by Aislin
reply to post by hungrydirt

 

hungry,

I'm trying to understand why you would leave without talking to the other people who were affected by the flash. If you knew or had assumed at the time what had caused the flash and didn't feel that the others needed your help or you theirs, then your leaving could be understandable. If that is the case, what did you think caused the flash?

Good question. For starters, I had no idea who the people were, and everyone else was being attended to by others that were present when my vision had come back to me. Also, as I stated, I was initially afraid I was experiencing a possibly life ending medical situation. It was frightening, and my initial reaction was to get the hell out of dodge instead of stand around and investigate peculiar flashes of light with people I didn't know.

Sorry if you can't understand my reaction, but the primal fear in me was telling me "Get out of here.".

If I'm reading your account correctly, it also seems that the women were affected to a greater degree than the men present in the group.


That is very strange, especially if this were the result of a purely physical event.