Forums

Posted: 15-01-2013 14:11 Post subject: The Case of the Teleporting Giant Spiders

Not the sort of thread you should read if you’re arachnophobic!

These are just three odd incidents that happened to me. By themselves they’re nothing spectacular, but since it’s happened multiple times...well, you know what they say, once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, thrice is a conspiracy. I’m not too sure of the dates, but based on where I was living and my job at the time I’d say they happened between 2002-2005.

The first incident happened late one evening. My family had gone to bed but I was stopping up late to watch a movie. The adverts came on and I decided to head to the kitchen and make myself a cup of tea.

Our kitchen was very small, about 4m x 2m. If you imagine you were looking at it from above the doorframe to the living room was on the bottom right and the door to the outside on the left wall. Cabinets were along the top, bottom and right wall, so the space to walk formed an L shape that connected the two entrances. A light hung from the ceiling in the middle and the kettle was by the outside door.

I turned on the kitchen light and heard a THUMP. It was so loud I thought something had fallen off the shelves, but nothing was out of place. Puzzled at what had made the noise I looked down.

In the middle of the kitchen floor was the largest spider I have seen in my life.

Now I know most people say that when confronted with big spiders, but this one was seriously enormous. It was a monstrous thing with thick legs that curled up high around it like buttresses and its whole body was an evil brown colour. If stretched out the legs would have easily been 3 inches long.

And it was between me and the kettle.

As much as I dislike spiders I don’t really like killing them, instead catching them and letting them go outside, so I slowly edged round this monster to reach a cup (if it had ran for me I probably would have wet myself!). I got the cup, only to discover it was too big to fit in! After ramming it in I weighed the cup down with a saucer and left a note on it since I wasn’t going to shift that thing Embarassed

This is only a minor thing, not exactly spooky or paranormal, but how did that spider get there? It was a small house, there’s no way a spider the size of a tarantula would have escaped detection for so long. Also the THUMP must have come from it, perhaps it fell off the light when I turned it on, but why would a spider just fall like that? And would falling from a height of 7 feet really make that much noise? I honestly thought a jar had fallen it was so loud.

Which ties into the second incident. I used to work in a Wacky Warehouse type place (absolutely horrendous job, btw). It was a large concrete warehouse, the roof about 30ft above. I was in the seating area for the parents when suddenly my gaze was pulled towards a nondescript part of the carpet. There was nothing odd or unusual, it was just a bit of carpet. Then WHOMPF, from out of nowhere, a giant spider literally appeared from out of thin air on the carpet right before my eyes. It didn’t fall, it didn’t scuttle over, it just popped into existence. It was black with a white pattern on its abdomen. After a moment of puzzlement I caught it in a glass and it went berserk, rearing up and hissing at me. I chucked it outside.

Perhaps this spider had fallen from the ceiling, but surely I would have seen it fall? It literally just blinked into existence right in front of me. One second it wasn’t there, the next it was. There was also the fact I was compelled to look at that empty patch of carpet right before it happened.

Now on to my final incident. This is the best one.

My brother and I were downstairs in the living room, our mother upstairs asleep. He was watching TV, I was on the computer. Something moved in front of my vision and I realised it was a big spider dangling by a thread. I squeaked and jerked away, which my brother found hilarious until it descended to the floor and ran towards him (my brother is extremely arachnophobic). I caught the spider in an opaque cup, and we decided to wash it down the bathroom sink. I slid a piece of thin card under the cup so I could pick it up and keep the spider inside. Because big sisters are mean my brother was convinced I’d let the spider go/throw it at him, so watched me like a hawk as I picked up the cup and went upstairs. I had no intention of letting a spider run all over me so kept the card securely pressed again the cup so it couldn’t escape. We got to the bathroom and turned on the tap. I would yank the card free so the spider would fall into the water and be swept away. On the count of three. One two three-

Nothing.

I looked inside the cup and on the card. Nothing. No spider. It had vanished.

There was no way the spider could have escaped the cup. If it had I would have felt it run on my arms, and I was keeping the card securely in place to stop that happening. My brother was watching the cup constantly and would have screamed blue murder if it had escaped. So where did this spider go?

Three random events, not too impressive, but the fact this thing has happened multiple times, all involving colossal arachnids...do we have teleporting giant spiders where I live? Shocked

Posted: 15-01-2013 17:50 Post subject:

I'm very arachnophobic but had to read those stories! Do you like spiders in general? You are so brave dealing with them, I'd be stood on a chair, screaming!

Posted: 15-01-2013 19:52 Post subject:

Hello Urvogel and welcome to the forum. Two questions...

The first spider - did you mean that one of its legs would be about three inches long, giving it an overall legspan in the region of 6+ inches?

The second spider - did anyone else see it apart from you?

Posted: 15-01-2013 20:24 Post subject:

These sound like huge spiders indeed for this country.
Fascinating stories!

Posted: 15-01-2013 22:03 Post subject:

For anyone that ever played Dungeons and Dragons, or many other similar games, phase spiders.
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Phase_spider

Posted: 16-01-2013 00:45 Post subject:

That disappearing spider thing is very weird. But as strange as it is, the worst thing is never knowing when it will show up again. I am extremely phobic about spiders too, and once I had a similar situation with a gigantic spider, completely black, as big around as a saucer and almost crab shaped appearing suddenly in the middle of my living room floor. (I live near Washington, DC, and have never seen anything remotely similar here.) Like you, I use the cup/cardboard method for ushering spiders outside when I can; but this time I grabbed a thick telephone book and dropped it directly on top of the spider. I have no memory as to how I disposed of the corpse.

Posted: 16-01-2013 05:05 Post subject:

Posted: 16-01-2013 13:41 Post subject:

I had a similar incident with a giant wasp once. In few into my room whilst I was playing computer games with my friend. No idea where it came from becausethe windows was closed (it came from the direction of the window) and it really was massive! We tried to kill it but were too scared to get too close so we closed the door & fetched my mom to deal with it (I was about 15 at the time I guess).
When she came to the room a few seconds later there was no sign of it. We ripped the room apart for half a day looking for it (even got the carpets up) but no sign so we gave up.
About 6 months later I was lying in bed and suddenly the same huge wasp appeared from nowhere - one second nothing - the next loud buzzing & its flying in the middle of the room. It wouldnt have got there without buzzing over there & attracting attention doing so.
This time I had the courage to flatten it when it headbutted the window.

Posted: 16-01-2013 17:16 Post subject:

Oh great, now spiders and wasps can teleport. What's next, time-travelling rattlesnakes?

Posted: 16-01-2013 19:21 Post subject:

Posted: 16-01-2013 23:13 Post subject:

Posted: 17-01-2013 08:22 Post subject:

If it was a huntsman (or some other non-native species) could someone (perhaps one of the neighbors?) have been keeping it as a curiosity or a pet and it escaped...err teleported out of its cage? Some people keep tarantulas as pets so it's not unheard of.

OP, in the second case, could the spider have been on the carpet all along and it took your brain a moment to process what you were seeing, kind of like one of those magic eye pictures, the way they seem to suddenly pop into view?

Posted: 17-01-2013 17:31 Post subject:

We got a huntsman in a box of bananas at work several months ago. It was caught in a tupperware container for the someone to pick up and do whatever they do with themIt may be a Tegenaria duellica. Apparently they are native to UK and can go up to 5 inches acrross (including leg span).

The following linky shows pictures of them, for any arachnophobes. That includes me BTW.

http://www.uksafari.com/housespiders.htm

Posted: 17-01-2013 17:35 Post subject:

Posted: 17-01-2013 18:06 Post subject:

Actually not the Windsor ones I was thinking of this shower of bastards;

http://www.arkive.org/purse-web-spider/atypus-affinis/image-A18393.html

Is this the type?