Bizarre happenings: The explained and the unanswered

 I have had many very-strange, even frightening, incidents in my life. Most I can explain, while others remain a mystery. Here are four examples.

The phantom piano player

I was in my late teens and home alone. Or was I alone? There was total quiet until I heard someone, or something, playing the piano in the basement. 

I grabbed a handgun - turned on the cellar light - and walked down the stairs. There was no one on the piano stool. The entire cellar was vacant.

I went back upstairs and within minutes, the piano playing started again. There was no melody to it, but those piano keys were being struck by some unknown force. This was starting to get scary.

Back down the cellar stairs I went once again. I was cautious and frightened.. I wished that there was somebody else with me. Then I saw the intruder. It was a grey squirrel walking across the piano keys. 

I quickly evicted the intruder and breathed several sighs of relief. 

The voice in the darkness

I was once again alone, but this time it was night time in my wilderness camp. The camp was nine miles from the nearest paved road, and I doubted that there was another human being anywhere close. In a wilderness without artificial lights, nighttime means total darkness.

Then I heard it. In the total darkness, I heard a soft male voice talking. Well, that did it! I wasn't going back to sleep anytime soon.

At first I thought the voice was outside in the dark night, but I narrowed the location down. The voice was coming from inside the camp - specifically from the small loft.

Climbing the loft stairs with a revolver in the right hand and a flashlight in my left, I arrived at the top of the stairs, and the male voice continued. I had no idea what i was going to find.

The "culprit" quickly became apparent. The frightening voice originated from a long-ago-discarded battery-operated radio that suddenly revived upon my arrival at the camp. I was listening to the late news on a Canadian radio station. Pulling the ancient batteries from the phantom device ended my fears.

Disturbing noise breaking the silence of the North

I was back at my camp for this one, this time with my Wife, Linda, and daughter, Lisa. It was daytime, and we were inside the camp when we heard a "thumping" sound. It was loud and very close. My first thought was that a bear was attempting to do a forced entry. Lisa turned to me with a strained - and frightened" - "DAD???"

We looked outside. No bear. There was nothing to see. But the noise continued. The answer came when we stepped outside, and a snowshoe hare that was wrestling with an empty, plastic milk jug emerged from uner the camp. Those powerful hind legs pummeling the milk jug reverberated. 

The hare, which I logically named "Thumper" left its plaything and hopped into the brush. It seems like nothing is ever what it appears to be.

"Spontaneous" exploding glass

These three incidents happened over the past 50 years and they remain a mystery to me to this day. I have zero explanations for what happened.

I was in my late-20s and on duty in a police cruiser when the side window to my left exploded into thousands of fragments. I thought I was being shot at. I was covered with small pices of the tempered glass, and my investigation into the cause came up with nothing.

I was in my 40s when the second incident occured. I had just parked my personal car and was walking away when I heard that same mild explosive sound. The left-front-side window was in fragments. There were no indications that the damage came from a rock thrower or gunman.

The third incident happened in our rental apartment when I was in my 60s. This time, my wife, Linda, was present. I walked by our cooking oven which was to my left. As I walked by, the tempered glass panel in the oven (which was not on) had disintegrated with the sound that I was getting accustomed to. 

The manager of our apartment complex seemed skeptical when I told him what happened. This had to be a "first" for him, and I don't blame him for his way of thinking. I found it hard to believe it happened myself. But it did - three times - and I have no answers for the phenomenon. 

My investigations have revealed that tempered glass can explode randomly, but it is a rare occurance. If it happened once, I would not be writing this. If it happened twice, I may still dismiss it as a random-but-isolated event. But three times leaves me baffled. 

 nothing is what it appears to be.