I’m a reasonable guy and all, but when the WuJo stuff starts happening in my own home to a highly reliable wife, it leads to a very big WTF moment. Here’s what happened.
I woke up this morning and trying to catch up on sleep sort of half-snoozed until 4:30AM. At which time I hear Elaine ask…
“Are you awake, George?”
I admitted I was and that I’d be getting up in a minute or two and sorry if I woke her with my tossing about. And then she related this bizarre story:
“Last night, I come to get bed and I got all snuggled in. A dozed off for a while, you know, how you will sometimes when going to sleep?
Anyway, I was enjoying the comfort of the bed, feeling the covers, feeling happy and safe when I – for some reason – opened my eyes.
I was shocked!
Somehow I had been transported back into the living…a light was on, the TV was on, the audio says was on, and there was a show on at very low volume.
I have no idea how that happened. But I was in one of the leather recliners, I had a comforter, but it felt different than the covers that I’d felt only a few seconds before.
It bothers me….”
Questioned further, she couldn’t recall any of the specifics about the “going to bed process.” You know…what was the last show on TV? Do you remember turning off the light? Did you click off the audio system? Do you remember touching the remotes?
“No, but even THAT is weird. I did all those things again and it was just like I had done them earlier..and it just….you know…bothers me!”
I was going to ask her if she remembered anything else being odd – had there been any odd lights around as she dozed off the first time? I’ll also follow up on how similar the comforter in the leather chair (side-by-side media chairs) felt to the covers in the bed…that kind of thing.
It is possible, even likely that what she experienced was simply dozing off in the media chair, and projecting that she was in bed? Yes, and I’d venture the odds on that are 80 percent – or better.
But the part that concerns me is the feeling after the fact of being “bothered” by it all. So here in a while, when she gets up, I’ll ask her to note if there are any new cuts, bruises or wounds that weren’t around last night. Although the odds are a tiny fraction of one percent, this is the kind of thing that is sometimes reported around “abduction” cases, especially the feeling bothered part, so it I’ll keep you posted on any follow-up.
Around the Ranch: The Left Mag Oddity
Elaine’s story was not the first odd thing that happened yesterday. I had posted Peoplenomics early and made it down to our hangar where our old Beechcrate lives. In order to be ‘legal’ to take Elaine with me flying, I need to maintain currency which means – under VFR flight rules, three full-stop landings in the last 90 days in the aircraft type and category.
Since I hadn’t touched the plane for 92 days (since our big Connecticut trip) I decided to bring down the air compressor, top off the tires (they lose a tiny bit of air sitting, and since we’re going up to Branson for our annual confab with Robin Landry and to compare notes one of these days, I thought a perfectly clear, crisp, fall morning would be ideal…
Everything went fine, of course.
I did three of the nicest short-field landings I’ve every done. And to give you an idea, I “borrowed” a satellite view of the airport off Google and I sketched in the approach, braking area, turn-around, taxiway, and so it again route.
To do three landings with 600-foot (and less) rollout after being “hands off” for 90+ days seemed pretty good to me. The first one was 10-degrees of flaps, the last one (about 450-feet worth) was full flaps, and the final one was two notches.
Because I’m still catching up on things from our road trip, I only had six landings in the simulator, but with the vortex generators, the trick is to come in at an approach speed where the stall warning is just coming one, since the “break” to the stall is about 6 MPH under that…no bounces and I was mighty pleased with myself.
But back to the weird part of this. I noticed on my last go-round of the pattern that the engine was not “turning up” like it should be. It was only making 2,250 RPM and usually it was 2,450 or higher, even during an aggressive climb. I leaned it out, slightly, which brought it up to 2,325, or so, and landed.
So here is the weird part: Every pilot before take-off goes through an extensive checklist which is called CIGARS: Controls, Instruments, Gas, Attitude, Run-up, and Safety.
In the Run-up there are a couple of things that take place: You apply the brakes full on. run the engine RPM up to 2000, then click the ignition two clicks right to run on the right mag only, then two clicks back to it is running smooth. A difference of more than 75-100 RPM can be a sign of plug or mag issues.
Then you do it again, only this time it’s one click left and then one click back to the right to check the other mag. After pulling on carb heat, to make sure that’s working right, you’re set to complete the S part of CIGARS (door secured? Seat belt tight? Any loose objects in the cabin?) and off you go to announcing your departure with something like “Palestine traffic, Musketeer7912-lima rolling for takeoff on runway 18, staying in the pattern…”
So how did the mags get over onto the wrong (single mag) spot after twice around the pattern? I have no clue, but I remember thinking at the time when I sourced the problem on the ground after deciding to go ahead and land rather than go through the low engine power checklist, since the first rule of piloting is “First, fly the airplane…” And if you’re ready to chop engine power and land anyway, the right thing to do is come in a tad high so you’ve got plenty of room to land even if the low RPM issue goes to zero.
Still…the question lingered all the way home from the airport: How did that mag switch get turned like that? It’s not one of those things you screw up on, and the odds of the switch being “split” and falling off to the single mag position is about zero. Hmmm…
Phone WuJo?
Reader CM reports an oddity of the WuJo stripe, only it involved phones…
Hey there George,
I got a good one….
We have a large house and we have two cordless telephones one for each end.
In February my wife complained that one of the phones was not recharging properly.
after swapping out the battery with a new one and that not helping, I opted to buy a new phone.
The new one was delivered and worked great for about two weeks…..then it was just gone.
We looked everywhere called it but no sound etc.,,,,,,, looked EVERWHERE FOR DAYS….
Finally I decided to buy a new one again……This all took place by early this summer.
Then 2 days ago I found the LOST phone next to the couch on the floor in clear view.
We know it had not been there for months, and there was no way it could have been lost in the couch and now fallen out…
My wife suggested that maybe a friend or someone had walked out with
it and finally returned it
without telling us, but I am inclined to believe that it had been
visiting in a different dimension.
Keep up the great work
CM
And I’m inclined to agree. All these little “collisions of observed reality” seem to have holes in them here and there. Not enough to make a conclusive case, or with enough repeatability to becoming an engineering exercise, but with enough frequency that an aware observer may note that “there must be some hidden variable at work here” and I’m convinced that it’s real though down in the noise floor due to the way our lives operate.
To put it in radio receiver terms (useful to electronics types and hams) the problem is that we have three kinds of noise to deal with in life.
The most obvious noise is that of the “local noise” which in ham radio might be the light dimmer or television that’s putting out ugly harmonic radiation inducting a 20-over S-9 noise level. In the quest for wujo events, they are all buried by this overriding social noise (reductionism, alternative explanations, marginal ADHD and so on.
The second kind of noise is the quality of the receiver each of us has built into us. It’s usually pretty good, and might be able to detect signals down into the 0.1 to -0.0317 microvolt range (or -127 to –137 dBm) for example, but only with a skilled operator. The most skilled of operators at this level are called prophets or sages and they use various means to really get the most out of their “personal receivers” – things like fasting and so forth. Or, in the case of shamans, they may use some chemical additives as a kind of bandpass filter.
Then there are the underlying atmospheric noise. Which in WuJo is the frequency of occurrence of an actual signal of an anomalous event.
Thus, in order to effectively study WuJo, it helps, I think, to train your mind to overlook the social noise that intrudes. In receiver design, think of it as a mental “noise blanker” because you really can turn down the external noise with practice.
Once you get there, then all you need to do is consciously “tune around reality” every day. You won’t come up with the really rare weak signals (like the prophets and shamans come up with) but you’ll at least be able to catch the occasional BBC or VOA kind of really strong signals, depending on your location.
Or, in this morning’s example: You may awaken in a different room, find a magneto switch that has self-moved, or a phone that drops out or this reality and shows up again at another MWI “join” junction some distance into the future, having jumped across a wrinkle in space-time to get there first.
Now that we have clear that stuff up for you…
JJ’s Pocket WuJo
We can now advance to our final WuJo report of the morning:
Yesterday, I was replacing the closer for my moms storm door. Put 2 1/8″ twist drills a 5/16″ & 1/4″ driver bit, and a Phillips driver bit in my right front pocket. Installed the new hardware and closer. When I got back in my shop ….. I emptied my right front pocket. The driver bits, the Phillips bit and ONE 1/8″ twist drill came out. Now when I say I emptied that pocket, I mean I turned it inside out. There was no 2nd twist drill.
I figured I was absent minded and left it at moms. Later that evening, getting ready for my shower, I emptied my pockets to throw my jeans in the wash. Much to my surprise, the twist drill was there with my keys and other items. Did I just experience a temporal shift on my thigh?
In a word: Yes.
Welcome to the club.
Send in your reports, pet theories of how this all works, and everyone is kept anonymous – first names only. Over time, the more data we collect, the better insights we can make into how this not fully materialized layer of Reality works. Should be fun to tinker with, though, because using the drill bit an phone transporters part, at least, promises to reduce our vacation costs dramatically.
Provided we land in the same relative time. What bothers me, though, is that when shoes and old clockworks are found in ancient seams of coal and such, is that people can simply drop out and miss our present “now” and land some 10’s of thousands of years off target.
But I suppose you’ve had days that’s feel that way, already, lol.
More tomorrow… write when you break even.
George george@ure.net
