I'll bet you anything once ALL streetlights are LED, you will never see this manifestation ever again.
Never thought about that. At the height of it even I was thinking "Okay, this is weird, what if it does mean something?" But then had to remind myself that I never encountered it walking, nor has any other mechanical device displayed this. Just while driving. Throw in the amount of streetlights I'm seeing and yeah, it's just not a thing.
Another challenge is that every time you recall a memory, the experience of the moment augments and colorizes that memory with how you feel, what you're thinking, etc.
Yeah, memory is weird. About a year ago my dad, sister and I went to a family reunion with cousins we haven't seen since I was in my early teens, about forty years ago. So I see them at this family reunion for the first time since the early 80's and though they've been changed by time, and haven't thought about them in decades, I remembered them. It was strange. But as I was talking to the boy, he starts telling me that he remembers me picking him up and either carrying him, or throwing him in some manner and that he always loved it when I did that. I have zero memory of this. I tell him he was probably thinking of my older brother, but he insists that it was me. No memory. I tell him again and he again insists it was me. I was a small and skinny kid back then and wasn't given to picking kids up. My older brother was bigger and stronger than me, so most likely it was him.
Later his sister and I are talking and she mentions that she always loved coming to our house when she was a kid and she says something like "I always remembered the steps in front of your house." I asked her "what do you mean?" She says something about two or three steps on our front porch. I tell her that we didn't have any steps on our front porch, and she insists that we did. I explain that our front porch was raised from ground level by about an inch, and that you weren't really stepping up in anyway that was noticeable. Again, she insists, so I call my sister over and she listens to our cousin and my sister looks at me then tells her that our house didn't have any steps in the front. Our cousin still insists and after several minutes finally relents a little. But it was strange how in both cases these two remembered things so differently.
You do have to take all of this with a "grain of salt." It's the Internet.
Well not just the internet, conspiracy talk shows too. There are about three guys at work who buy into various conspiracies to different degrees. One of the guys started telling me that the moon landing was faked, and when I tried to explain it wasn't, he started going into details about why it was, unfortunately I couldn't remember all the rebuttals to this, but know by experience that conspiracy people automatically discount any explanation to the contrary as part of the conspiracy. He also mentions that the Earth is flat (I couldn't tell if he was joking), so that's easier to counter, but he still doesn't believe it and starts rattling off talking points. Like I mention photo's from space, and he tells me they're all computer generated. I remind him that computer generated photo's have only been around for a couple of decades, but not when the Apollo guys were flying. He says they were doctored. So we go back and forth and I tell him you have to take this stuff with a grain of salt.
I then start telling him about "Project Paperclip", a top secret program post WW2 that secreted high ranking German scientists out of Germany for the specific purpose of developing experimental technologies relating to invisibility screens, rocketry, and time travel. I name some of the scientists then explain how a couple were assassinated, how three disappeared, and by this point my co-worker is listening raptly. I explain how various technologies we have stem from this project and how the project was folded into another project related to UFO studies due to the acquisition alien technology at Roswell and how everything I just said was completely made up on the spot. He lurched out of his reverie and said "What?" I said I literally just made all of that up and explained that there was a real "Operation Paperclip" that got German scientists out in the later days or after WW2, but that everything else was made up on the spot.
He's like "Wow, I was interested in seeing where all this was going" To which I replied "Exactly." I then pointed out how he believed or gave serious consideration to everything simply because I spoke in a confident, authoritative way, used a lot names that sounded real, while throwing in a lot of dates. I then told him to apply that to radio talk show like Art Bell's where they do this, while throwing in some music. Like too many people that go for this stuff, they also seem to miss that everyone of these people that go on about conspiracies are usually selling something....books, videos, etc. And that all the talking is just the sales pitch. He stopped and gave it some thought, but we got distracted by work and I've never followed up. Hopefully that gave him some pause to think more critically.
I've periodically seen things that are very peculiar on the surface. My sister and mother have a penchant for finding "unusual coincidences" in things.
Unusual coincidence 1: yesterday a buddy of mine who works at a mail place got an envelope with the name "Michael Jackson" on it. So he starts kidding around with another employee telling him "Michael Jackson is coming", and the other team member is like "Meh, not interested in this joke". The other guy keeps telling him that Michael Jackson is coming. So an hour or so later, a dead ringer for Michael Jackson shows up (dude was a Michael Jackson impersonator complete with "handler" for show) weird thing is....he wasn't there to pick up that envelope, they assumed it was his, but he was there to rent a computer.
Awkward coincidence: My friend got a pic with the guy and then asked him about what he does and what gigs he was playing. He said the guy even sounded like Michael Jackson and that he even sang. So my friend asked him what his next gig was and he said he was going to talk to kids at a middle school! Awkward! Oh Michael, will you never learn?
