Strange Occurrence. Ever had one? In a bowling alley? Elsewhere?

I am curious if anyone else has had some strange occurence happen to them or could help offer me a sound explanation, or any explanation, for something that I experienced many years ago.

I have experienced many strange occurrences, seemingly more than my fair share, of very weird events, sightings, coincidences, and the like. Most of these I can just attribute to coincidence or rare events but one in particular stands out in my mind that I have never been able to explain away.

At the time I thought I was being pranked and it may be comforting to continue believing that but this event happened several decades ago and no one ever came forward to tell me so, and my inquiries about how it may have been done have answered that it would be "impossible" to pull-off. That's OK, but I wasn't the only one to see it.

I was 15 at the time and was in a bowling alley in Vallejo, CA. I had been given a new, my first, bowling ball and was there with my uncle and a neighborhood friend. We had been bowling several games when the other two decided to take a break and play some pinball so I was left alone to keep practicing my game. I appreciated the time to myself as I had been frustrated with my game, barely breaking 100 while my uncle consistently bowled around 230.

So, there alone, I bowled two more game by myself. In that time, during the course of about three frames consecutive for five pin spottings, I had several pins lifting up and going back overhead into the spotter mechanism. Two or three pins at a time would lift up, some moving steadily and others floating wobbily back up and out of sight before I would release the ball, one of the last to do this began to lift but then stopped and fell knocking over a couple more pins.

As this would happen I was in start position, ball raised, aiming and ready for initial throw or to pick up a spare. Once I recall taking a step when the pins began to lift, not always simultaneously but within the same moment, and aborted my approach momentarily.

When this first happened I was for a second shocked but recalled a bowling alley stunt on Candid Camera with shattering pins, so I thought not to react but just go along with the gag. I heard girl bowling in the adjacent lane calling attention to her date, "Look! Did you see that?" I remember thinking, good, the camera can fix on them, I am not going to react. I continued.

Many things crossed my mind during that time like, was I doing this somehow? Nah! Again, I would take my position, then see the pins lift again, smile to myself, and go on with my game like nothing was happening. The girl, older than myself, came up to me apparently shaken and with trembly voice inquired, "Does this always happen to you?" To which I replied calmly, "Well, not usually." I continued with my game but after throwing the next ball the two that had been bowling next to me were gone.

This all happened during about five pin settings and stopped just after that one pin had fallen. I continued on with my game somewhat expecting Allan Funt to approach me and ask me about what had happened but no one ever mentioned another word nor did that activity continue again. My uncle and friend returned another fifteen or twenty minutes later and said nothing about it either. I told my uncle in few words what happened but he only gave me a stupid look like he thought I was jerking him around. He obviously knew nothing about it.

To other persons who knew me somewhat I was considered a sort of kookie nut-job because of my interest in the occult. No one else I knew was interested in that sort of thing so anyone I mentioned it to would just blow me off and considered it just part of my quirkiness so I did not tell many people about it at all.

It was a couple years later I saw and handled an actual bowling pin. Having only seen them from the usual distance I was surprised by their size and weight. After I had met someone who was working in a bowling alley and knew the equipment I suggest a gag of that sort using a black thread or fishing line but they told me it would not be possible with automatic pin setters and knew of no place that might still use manual setters. Others told me the same.

Other psycho-psychic types I met and told that to suggested mind-over-matter sort of explanations, suggested my frustration about my poor bowling skills gave the emotional trigger to levitate the pins, etc., but I could never completely buy into that even though I have had some tele-kinetic experiences, but never anything else on that scale. It remains a mystery to me.

If it were some kind of occult phenomenon, why not something practical?

I would love to hear anyone else's strange experiences like this.

Check this out, perhaps its not exactly mind over matter, but imagination over perception. Ok, what if you and the girl had temporarily zoned in to a special reality, like a half-dream world. After the strange event occured, the people on the "other side" and the pins etc, reset themselves as if the strange events had never happened in the first place, and only you and the girl have a memory of it. It reminds me of an epsiode of Dr Who, there are people living in a worn-down area, and eating scraps that they can find, however, in thier world, they think they are living in a castle, and are eating the finest quail and brandy. If the imagination can control our physical perception, and even control our sense of taste, smell, and sound, then we could all be living in our "own worlds" and the "real world" remains as a kind of "structure" to keep everything aligned.

reply to post by SystemResistor


i'm having one right now...nwo i mean? oops! PWN IT!>?

"there is no spoon" ~ eats some Apple Saud [] with the spoon"

~Mona Lisa Smiles~

~Our World Is Illusion ~ Who Wants to Learn How to Manipulate Your Reality?!~

Since bowling alleys are sacred places to Discordians and that I was making work out of the game it may just be the Curse of Greyface having a little fun. As I recall this happened to me in the '68-'69 timeframe which coincides with the ten-year anniversary of the original bowling alley epiphany. That I went on later to found Gilliganics adds to that theory.

Posting this experience has caused me to reflect on this instance more than I permitted myself to do so before. That I bring up Discordianism please don't get the idea I am pranking. If anything, I was the one pranked. But I never could figure out how that might have been possible. Still, it sounds like the more plausible explanation. Now I am leaning toward the Curse of Greyface.

I like the suggestion that it could have been a reality-shift sort of thing. I don't feel talented enough to have pulled-off such a tele-kinetic stunt even if I was totally "in the zone."

I had to have "zoned-in" to a a special reality, and I guess one really special part of it is I got someone else zoned-in with me. I loved the look on her face when she asked, "Does this ALWAYS happen to you?" Priceless. If I could really really have super powers I could sure have fun with it. I mean, what else could you use bowling pins for besides playing games or using them as weapons? Games it would be then.

As a pre-teen many of us were not into high literature. Anything over 20 or 30 pages was just a waste of precious time. Comic books were the bomb! Besides for X-ray Specs and the other neat things in the back of the comics there was always that treasure chest ad that offerred super powers for those interested in learning how to get them. And when I was old enough to mow some lawns and make a few buck, and old enough to lie about my age I sent off to AMORC to learn those secret formulas.

I tell you, I was never disappointed in what I received from them, I did learn a lot. The only thing disappointing was the annual dues needed to continue membership so that every month I could get an envelop with four comic book-sized "monographs" to study, one for each week. It was so interesting and informative I kept my membership good for another year to learn more secrets. I might have continued more years if I hadn't discovered the joys of the opposite sex about then because I was learning to manipulate my realities hands-off around then with the help of those monographs.

I was a smart kid and loved science studies in school. I knew what they were talking about in those monographs when they spoke of electrical charges in your body that operated the central nervous system. And they had their own little "science experiments" to conduct but these had to do with utilizing those energies. Myself and my body was the science lab for these experiments.

I learned to get into a meditative state, very slowly at first, feeling a sensation in my toes then up my feet, legs, thighs, and so on until my whole body was "tingling" and aware. I became aware of the aura around a candle with its various colors, something I had never seen before, always there but unnoticed, and later when I could detect a similar aura around all things, especially living things or those that possessed energy.

I was told my hands, all my body but especially my hands, would radiate energies. I was instructed to get asmall bowl of water and put tiny drops of oil on the water, then after preparing my mind meditatively to put my hand around the sides of that bowl and watch if anything happened. Oh yes, after placing my hands there the oil drops began swirling, very slowly at first then more rapidly each time I did that experiment. by that time I was also muc quicker getting into that meditative state, almost instantly I could have my whole body buzzing and tingling, I could see auras, and I was ready that day when my monograph suggested I concentrate on my oil drops to bring them together into one larger drop in middle of the bowl.

That was a great leap from moving oil on water to making bowling pins levitate in a bowling alley. If that WAS my doing that it would have been a tremendous leap but I didn't conscious will those pins to move then. I caon't believe that could have been myself doing that. But later in life I always did focus my will onto objects to behave as I wanted. A part of me BECAME THE BALL when I threw it down the lane. And my concentrated will, my "follow through" lead me to become a better bowler over time. My will power gave me power over my surroundings. I would visualize what I wanted to achieve and I would do it.