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Before telling this story, it isn't an account of weirdness but an account of a mundane occurrence which for around three or four minutes had me convinced it was absolute weirdness at levels I've never known in my life. I was probably the most freaked out by something I had ever been...

So, we were on our honeymoon last month and had set off early in the morning for a day trip to somewhere on a different island, there was no way to go back to the hotel and pick up anything forgotten. The night before I had charged my camera and the spare battery. Once the spare is charged I always put it in the pouch in my camera bag along with a spare memory card. I was sure I had done that on this occasion.

Anyway, a couple of hours or so into the day and my first battery began to flash red. 'No problem', I thought knowing that the spare was in this case the original battery and so would last at least twice as long as the non-brand name one that had just died. I went into my camera bag and opened the pocket containing the spare battery and memory card only to find it empty.

I assumed at first that the zip had opened and the two items had fallen out into my bag as even if I had forgotten the battery the memory card would still be in there as I had not taken it out. The bag was searched. Nothing. Frustrated and annoyed with myself I moaned enough until my wife handed over her camera and let me use that - I am prone to be something of the stereotypical snap-happy tourist.

I decided that I must have taken it out of the charger and left it on the desk in the hotel and forgotten to put it in the camera bag. I was sure I had, but maybe not. I also recall my wife packing the camera bag and assorted other things into the backpack so pondered that perhaps the two items had fallen out when she was packing the rucksack if the zip had been slightly open. That gave me two places to look when we got back.

The day ended, we got all the pictures we wanted to and eventually got back to the hotel after nightfall. After settling back in I checked the desk by the charger. Nothing. I checked down the side of the bed where things had been sat before my wife packed the rucksack. Nothing. I pondered where I had left the camera bag last and if the two items could have fallen out on that table. Nope.

By this point I was getting annoyed at the prospect that they had somehow just disappeared into thin air or fallen out somewhere along the course of the day never to be seen again. Out of sheer exasperation I went back to the camera bag and poked my fingers in the pocket where they should have been, going all round to check they were not implausibly caught in the lining. Nope. The pocket was only about 5 cm wide by 4 cm high, there wasn't much hiding space.

By this point my wife joined the search, she picked up the camera bag asking if they were maybe in the main bit. Nope I said, I'd looked there and to prove the point took the bag from her and opened up the main part, at which point I noticed a sliver of silver peeping out of the small pocket.

There in the pocket I had run my finger all around just a minute earlier was the battery. My first thought was that my wife had found it, realised that she may have dropped it in the morning and to avoid blame had slipped it back in, but that would have involved some incredible sleight of hand as we had both been stood looking at the bag in that previous few moments.

I was absolutely baffled not to mention a little freaked out as I held the battery and tried to fathom how it had suddenly reappeared. Similar disappearance/reappearance of items had been happening at my wife's mother's place since the death of her grandfather so she was convinced it was just him playing a trick and seemed unperturbed. I was very perturbed.

I am very sceptical and always assume there is a rational explanation, this I had nothing to clutch at. I then thought, 'Okay, but where is the memory card?'. At this point I considered how absolutely ludicrous and insane it would be if I were to pick up the bag and look again in the pocket and see the memory card suddenly there - although I did not believe for a second that would happen.

I picked up the bag, opened the pocket and as my wife tells me with great enjoyment literally screamed for my life and threw the bag across the bed... there was the memory card right there! I can honestly say I have never had a chill go down my spine like the one I felt in that moment. I was absolutely floored, there was no logical explanation and there was no way I was possibly spending another night in that hotel room. It was an actual mouth agape, hands on head WTF moment.

My wife was also a little freaked out by the second magic appearance and as we both looked at each other she tried to rationalise it. She picked up the bag, poked about in the 'magic' pocket and began to say "It makes no sense, unless there is some kind of hidden..." stopping mid-sentence as she realised that the pocket did not just extend below the zip but also above.

The two items had been in the bag all along but had just in transit slipped above the zip into the part of the bag that itself zipped up over the main section. When she had picked the bag up to look in the main pocket it had dislodged the battery and it had slipped back down and when I had thrown it down after discovering the battery the memory card had dropped back to where it should have been.

Mystery solved and no need to find a new hotel, but for a short spell I had truly felt what it must be like to experience the unexplainable and have your view of the world flipped on its head. And thankfully the camera battery was flat as my wife tells me my face was a picture as I stood there trying to comprehend how two objects had just magically appeared out of thin air! Laughing

Posted: 15-10-2013 15:30 Post subject:

A lot of utilitarian / sports-oriented fabric artifacts (clothing, bags) have hidden spaces into which things can mysteriously disappear.

I've had two stress-inducing incidents involving such things ...

In one case, I was bicycling far out into the countryside wearing a new pair of rain pants. Before setting out, I slid my little baggie of cash and ID into one of the front pockets. When I returned home, I emptied my pockets. However, the pocket into which I'd put the baggie was empty. I ran my hand down into the pocket and felt all around it multiple times, but encountered nothing. Oh, crap ... I then took off the pants and put my hand into the pocket again - immediately feeling and retrieving the baggie. ????? ...

It turned out that particular front pocket was a double pocket (one behind the other) - a fact of which I'd been unaware. The lip of the inner pocket fit so closely to its backing material it seemed like nothing more than a seam. It wasn't until I inserted my hand at a certain angle (with the pants off) that my hand naturally slid into the hidden pocket. Apparently I'd just happened to insert my hand using the 'magic angle' when stowing the baggie at my starting place.

The second incident involved a new rain parka. It was multi-layered with an exterior shell and an interior mesh lining. I had phoned someone to get directions to their residence (while sitting down). I wrote the directions on a sheet of paper and slipped it into the slit beneath one of the flap openings on the parka's chest area. After walking for a while, I thought I'd lost my way. I reached under the chest flap to retrieve the directions and ... nothing there. ???

It wasn't until I shed the parka and looked inside that I realized the chest flaps didn't cover pockets - they were vent openings. While I was sitting down the paper stayed put up at the flap. Once I started moving the paper slid down into the space between the outer shell and the inner lining. It ended up sitting behind the mesh at the parka's bottom hem. Since it was a single small sheet, I hadn't felt it fall.