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Urvogel Yeti Joined: 24 Dec 2012 Total posts: 70 Location: England Age: 28 Gender: Female |
 Posted: 12-03-2013 19:51 Post subject: |
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| Ringo_ wrote: | I have posted elsewhere on the forum (as it seems with most of my posts these days) about a siren that sounds in Stockholm on the first Monday of each yearly quarter. It sounds at 3pm and is audible in the entirety of greater Stockholm. I live a 20 minute drive from the city centre and I can hear it clearly.
There are horns and speakers placed in public buildings and in the attics of private homes (who receive a fee for allowing the sirens to be there). This siren is part of a warning system designed to let residents know of an impending disaster or attack. It can be sounded in the event of disaster, fire, flood, attack or you name it really. |
Better hope the disaster doesn't strike at 3pm on the first Monday of the quarter then  |
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| bosskR Thunder Lyger
Great Old One Joined: 02 Jun 2005 Total posts: 230 Location: Stockholm, Sweden Age: 33 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 06-05-2013 02:08 Post subject: |
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| AMoffatt wrote: | | ’playground panics’ |
Oooh, I just have to share the playground panic that I experienced as a kid of seven or eight.
In my school, there were stories of two ghosts or mysterious beings, known as the White Lady and the Black Lady. They would sneak up on you when you were undressed, like after gym class, if you happened to be alone ... They would draw the sign of the cross on your back.
That cross could never be removed. And the White Lady would say, ”If someone sees this cross, they’ll ask you where you got it ... if you tell them it’s from the White Lady, you die.”
Black Lady was a hell of a lot worse. ”If anyone sees this cross: you die.”
A few years prior, of course, one girl from our school actually did recieve the cross from the White Lady. A grownup asked about it, she said too much, ”became bloodied” and died on the spot. Everyone knew this had happened ”in real life”, knew who she had been etc
Anyway, the Black Lady did come to our school one day. There was found a bunch of black clothing draped over a traffic sign on the way to school, and we all knew it was a sign of the Black Lady. All of us were freaking out all day, going nuts. Teachers spent whole classes trying to talk to us about it but didn’t fully understand
Being children, we were not allowed to leave the schoolyard. There was a fence around it, and every break every kid was up against that fence, scanning the outside world for the Black Lady. School was on kind of a hill, and on the other side of the fence was a steep hillside. Beyond was woodland. In there, we were certain, lurked the Lady.
Some kids that were braver than others climbed the fence and ventured into the woods. Only one kid saw her. The Black Lady had a ”square head”
To this day, I get the shivers when I think about that kid, scared to death, and his story of a ”square head” in the woods. |
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| HenryFort Bad Craziness - Wide Asleep at the Wheel
Joined: 23 Oct 2005 Total posts: 871 Location: UK Again Age: 43 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 07-05-2013 20:44 Post subject: |
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| bosskR wrote: | | ... They would sneak up on you when you were undressed, like after gym class, if you happened to be alone ... They would draw the sign of the cross on your back. |
!!!
horrific and yet fantastically visual ! |
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| bunnymousekitt rabbity mousey cat-like thing
Great Old One Joined: 03 Jan 2009 Total posts: 218 Location: hiding under the kitchen sink Age: 36 Gender: Female |
| Posted: 09-05-2013 00:21 Post subject: |
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Wow, that's chilling, bosskR 
Children's tales can be so much more frightening than any adult fiction! |
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| zardozzz Ace of Wands
Great Old One Joined: 24 Apr 2003 Total posts: 199 Location: cheshire. UK Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 27-07-2013 21:22 Post subject: |
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| garrick92 wrote: | This morning, as I was walking to university -- so around 8.55am -- I heard a WWII 'Moaning Minnie' air-raid siren being sounded. It seemed to be somewhere about a mile away (you could hear it above traffic noise, but it was clearly attenuated).
I was immediately fearful that this heralded a nuclear attack.
The only thing that prevented me from starting to panic was a florist setting out her stall nearby, who carried on calmly as though nothing out of the ordinary was occurring. I assumed therefore that she was familiar with the noise, so it couldn't be an emergency. (Now I realise that this was probably an unsafe assumption, she could have been deaf for all I know).
For the 10-15 seconds or so in which I didn't know what was going on, I was right back at school with the nuclear paranoia I thought I had grown out of. I was even looking for open doorways so I could duck inside. Scary how this stuff sticks with you.
I have absolutely no idea why an air-raid siren was being sounded during rush hour in SW London.
We had several End Of The World scares when I was at middle school (1980-1984), all of which (from recollection) scheduled the appointed hour at 10am. On one occasion -- the last I suspect -- the headmaster got wind of it and prolonged that morning's assembly until 10am was safely past. This didn't reassure the doom-mongers, and news promptly spread that The End Of The World had been postponed until 10pm instead. Oddly, I don't recall anyone turning up at school the next day seeming relieved. We just carried on as though nothing untoward had happened.
No weird tests that I can recall, though. |
We have one of those sirens near us, in fact about 100 yards from where i now sit at the computer. We live in a completely urban area, with no quarries for at least 12 miles. The siren is in plain sight, on the top of an old telegraph type pole and as far as i am aware might have been there since WWII. I am certainly aware of it sounding regularly since the late 1960s.
It goes off every now and then, maybe every 3 months or so I hear it (of course it may be more often and im not here) I last heard it in the Spring.
I was told it was a test for the nuclear siren ! Later on I was also told that it was a warning for when the river was in flood!
I'm sure neither are correct. Does anyone else hear an old type siren go off regularly ? |
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| EnolaGaia Joined: 19 Jul 2004 Total posts: 1197 Location: USA Gender: Male |
| Posted: 27-07-2013 22:40 Post subject: |
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| zardozzz wrote: |
It goes off every now and then, maybe every 3 months or so I hear it (of course it may be more often and im not here) I last heard it in the Spring.
I was told it was a test for the nuclear siren ! Later on I was also told that it was a warning for when the river was in flood!
I'm sure neither are correct. Does anyone else hear an old type siren go off regularly ? |
Here in the US midwest (Dayton Ohio area), the siren system is primarily maintained for natural - particularly weather-related - emergencies nowadays.
As I understand it, the Cold War era Civil Defense infrastructure has been absorbed into the overall Homeland Security apparatus, and subsidiary jurisdictions (states, cities, etc.) are responsible to establish and maintain emergency plans and capabilities. Because of this, I don't think there's a uniform nationwide US siren protocol at present.
In the 20 years I've lived here, nearby sirens have been activated in the classic 'imminent attack' mode (alternating rising / falling pitch) only 3 times that I can recall - each time in relation to tornados touching down locally.
The overall metro area siren system is regularly tested at noon on the first Monday of the month, for only a few minutes. This protocol is how it's done here; it's not a national standard. I've seen emergency preparedness documentation from other jurisdictions that mention siren tests on a less frequent basis (e.g., annually). |
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| paulsamfreya In the residual... Joined: 16 Sep 2003 Total posts: 239 Location: Bristol, England Age: 49 Gender: Male |
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| staticgirl Following my fish Joined: 12 Oct 2003 Total posts: 463 Location: Hertfordshire Age: 40 Gender: Female |
| Posted: 08-08-2013 16:27 Post subject: |
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The Lincolnshire coastal towns' flood sirens used to be an old WW2 siren which was re-purposed. History does not record how many elderly holidaymakers who had suffered the Luftwaffe bombardments of their Midlands towns had a heart attack when the sirens went off. Neither is there a record of how many people get a fright when the coastguard flares go up either. I believe both have been replaced with other technologies in recent years.
My old primary school used to have these panics every now and again but I forget the detail. Do modern schools have them or have they been subsumed into the 'peedo-panics' (sic) that you get every now and then. |
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