Wormholes exist...

[The Anvil]

...they simply HAVE to. Today myself and another mechanic took a plane outside to do a leak check on a cockpit side windshield that we replaced yesterday. It failed the first check (not uncommon) and during the course of torque checking the screws the other tech dropped his torque wrench with the apex bit and adapter in it. We both watched it fall and separate when it landed. We found the wrench itself and adapter right away but the bit has completely disappeared from this plane of existence. An hour of searching on hands and knees (three guys) and combing the ramp with a huge bar magnet turned up nothing. No it's not stuck on the ladder or under a wheel and there are no holes or drain grates for it to end up in. We checked all of our clothing and took our shes off. Nothing. It's gone. F**KING GONE. I suspect that somewhere in the back of a Bed, Bath and Beyond is a swirling maelstrom of lost tools and mismatched socks.

It landed right about where the feet of the laid down 8 footer are. Yes I took the AOA probe cover off too. Not in there either.

[Tim H]

Funny story.  It happens. 

[Serk]

Ride your Valk around the area it disappeared in... Valk tires have an uncanny ability to locate, and impale themselves on, small bits of metal like lost bits...

Right Daniel?

[Smokinjoe-VRCCDS#0005]

Ride your Valk around the area it disappeared in... Valk tires have an uncanny ability to locate, and impale themselves on, small bits of metal like lost bits...

Right Daniel?

No doubt...Dug this out of my rear tire   

[The Anvil]

Ride your Valk around the area it disappeared in... Valk tires have an uncanny ability to locate, and impale themselves on, small bits of metal like lost bits...

Right Daniel?

No doubt...Dug this out of my rear tire   

Looked exactly like that one with a big torque drive head on it.

[old2soon]

At least you were/are outside the aircraft. When i was doing my aircraft maintenance work in the Navy most of my work was done in the cockpit. Any lost tools most likely reappeared at launch or recovery. You want a really fun job that took even with the Grumman reps help at least 2 and somtimes 3 tries to get right?? Main door on a C2A Greyhound has an inflatable gasket in the stationary door frame that is a royal P I T A to get glued in correctly. Messed with the C2A my last 2 years and the best we ever did was the second time around. In some ways i miss working on those big grey b-cthes!! Anvil i'm guessing those ramps up in your neck of the woods can get serious cold come winter? RIDE SAFE.

[art]

All my cars had wormholes.
whenever I dropped a socket or wrench the wormhole appeared an gobbeled it up.I think my valk has a small one

[tank_post142]

flip an F-4 upside down and give her a shake you'd be surprised what what hits the canopy! just make sure your chin is covered so you don't get whacked in the jaw by a ratchet. 

once spent 2 days pulling an ejection seat, consoles, stick, etc to find a socket that dropped into the abyss.

[The Anvil]

At least you were/are outside the aircraft. When i was doing my aircraft maintenance work in the Navy most of my work was done in the cockpit.

Oh we've had some doozies. Someone once left a bucking bar in a wheel well and they couldn't get the gear down on the test flight. They were running out of fuel and were gonna belly in (a large cabin Gulfstream) when on the very last attempt something jarred it loose and they landed safely.

  Any lost tools most likely reappeared at launch or recovery.

Or by the next guy who works on it.  

You want a really fun job that took even with the Grumman reps help at least 2 and somtimes 3 tries to get right?? Main door on a C2A Greyhound has an inflatable gasket in the stationary door frame that is a royal P I T A to get glued in correctly. Messed with the C2A my last 2 years and the best we ever did was the second time around.

Large cabin Gulfstreams have inflatable door seals too but they're pretty easy to install. I did once see another mechanic hook the door seal up to an air supply to leak check it and not bother to check the position of the regulator. POP! Dumbass. When I chewed him out for it (he was a habitual offender) he said " well the seal's probably leaking anyway!" Turns out it was the baggage door. That's a 5000 dollar mistake right there and that's small money in the grand scheme of things.

In some ways i miss working on those big grey b-cthes!! Anvil i'm guessing those ramps up in your neck of the woods can get serious cold come winter? RIDE SAFE.

Yup, ridiculously cold. It seems like airports are always colder than everywhere else anyway. Fortunately we do very little maintenance and repair out on the ramp in the winter. It's the ground crews I feel for.

[alph]

i've seen sockets fly over 12' away from were i was working when they hit the ground!  last week or so i was working on my daughters car, the service manual said 2.8 hours to change an air intake gasket, i got it done in 1 hour, then spent the next hour looking for the one 12mm nut that fell behind the engine!!    i decided to just go and buy a new one, it was only 20 cents, much cheaper then the whole hour spent looking for the lost one!  then again, don't have a F.O.D. issue in my garage.

[The Anvil]

i've seen sockets fly over 12' away from were i was working when they hit the ground!  last week or so i was working on my daughters car, the service manual said 2.8 hours to change an air intake gasket, i got it done in 1 hour, then spent the next hour looking for the one 12mm nut that fell behind the engine!!    i decided to just go and buy a new one, it was only 20 cents, much cheaper then the whole hour spent looking for the lost one!  then again, don't have a F.O.D. issue in my garage.

I lost a 10mm deep well socket when working on the radiator of my XTerra. Found it four years later when doing something else.

[John Schmidt]

It's most likely in the same paralell dimension as all the single socks that disappear in the dryer. As for working on a/c, when in the USAF it seemed like they always first installed the unit I needed to get to, then built the rest of the plane around it. If you think working on a B-52 is easier, think again. Just more stuff to work around. On one 52 up in Loring AFB, ME, I was working in a real tight area forward of the navigator's seat and bumped something that moved and rattled. I felt around in the dark and pulled out a small canvas tool kit that had obviously fallen way down into the lower depths...out of reach and out of sight of the owner. I found it only because I had to remove a few pieces of equipment for a field mod, making it more visible and accessible. The bag belonged to an airman/mechanic in California, he had some notes and other stuff that helped me ID it. I sent him a note just to make sure, and included a photo. He paid for it to be shipped back, apparently he had to pay for losing them and it had a couple expensive pieces of test equip. in it so I'm assuming the price was rather hefty. Needless to say, he was a happy camper.

[Jess Tolbirt]

the socket is probably still in the screw

[old2soon]

flip an F-4 upside down and give her a shake you'd be surprised what what hits the canopy! just make sure your chin is covered so you don't get whacked in the jaw by a ratchet. 

once spent 2 days pulling an ejection seat, consoles, stick, etc to find a socket that dropped into the abyss.

 The most difficult job(and yes i was once also)was explaining to the newbies why we had a wrench and tool count BEFORE going to an aircraft and ANOTHER tool count when we thought we were done. I had a couple of bronze wrenchs that were for my work on oxygen systems. I pissed off more than one engine guy and more than one hydraulics guy when not only would i NOT loan them my bronze wrenchs i wouldn't even let them TOUCH those particular wrenchs. Grease and oil around 100% pure oxygen is a REAL BAD IDEA. RIDE SAFE.

[Oss]

ask Dag about my phone  lol

yep they exist

not only that but the parts themselves can morph into the surroundings only to emerge later where you know you looked

[musclehead]

umm, yeah I was thinking about telling this story but since Mr. Anvil has posted the potential existence of the weird I gues I'll share too.

I was 18 and moved inot my first batchlor pad, a 3 bedroom on the second floor in Champaign Il.
my roommate was a few years older then me and fresh out of a divorce. he would call his ex every weekend becuse they had a child together (that kid is now 30+  ) every time they talked that I recall it ended in a screaming contest. there was a central hall that had the old ma bell rotary phone, those things could survive a nuclear blast!  so he gets off the phone one time after the screaming is over and slams the phone handset down on the cradle, causing no damage of course, and turns and walks towards his room. on the way he takes his sunglasses off his head and hurls them into the dinningroom/kitchen.

I stopped him and got him to calm down and talk for a minute (he calmed down real fast, angered real fast too. I can't imagine what married life was like for the two of them under the same roof. then he walks past me and into the dinningroom to fetch his glasses. I'm standing right there the whole time he looks around with an amused quizical look on his 'cause his glasses are gone. we were poor kids we had not even an empty cardboard box in this room. straight across from the door is a window we checked it, solid screen, solid frame not even a 'squito could get through there.

so we advanced further into the room and looked under/behind/on top of the fridge. then we got a bit unlogical and looked inside all the cabinets the stove and the fridge. as if a pair of glasses could ricochet through solid objects and land on a stack of plates. I even went outside to see if they disintegrated and then reintegrated on the other side of the wall.

this was one of the weirder things that ever happened to me, but not the weirdest by far ( thats another story for another day)

decades later I was thinking about this and went looking in the musty nether regions of the internet and found a website that has a bunch of these types of stories. after reading most of them some can be dismissed as airheadedness (is that a word?) or even drug use ( man I like got out my weed and my pipe, and my weed just disappeared!)
I was amused by some but scratching my head over others. one thread that runs through it all is the things that disappear are stuff you will miss, glasses, keys, pens and in the more modern era cell phones. i don't quite know what to make of that?

[The Anvil]

umm, yeah I was thinking about telling this story but since Mr. Anvil has posted the potential existence of the weird I gues I'll share too.

I was 18 and moved inot my first batchlor pad, a 3 bedroom on the second floor in Champaign Il.
my roommate was a few years older then me and fresh out of a divorce. he would call his ex every weekend becuse they had a child together (that kid is now 30+  ) every time they talked that I recall it ended in a screaming contest. there was a central hall that had the old ma bell rotary phone, those things could survive a nuclear blast!  so he gets off the phone one time after the screaming is over and slams the phone handset down on the cradle, causing no damage of course, and turns and walks towards his room. on the way he takes his sunglasses off his head and hurls them into the dinningroom/kitchen.

I stopped him and got him to calm down and talk for a minute (he calmed down real fast, angered real fast too. I can't imagine what married life was like for the two of them under the same roof. then he walks past me and into the dinningroom to fetch his glasses. I'm standing right there the whole time he looks around with an amused quizical look on his 'cause his glasses are gone. we were poor kids we had not even an empty cardboard box in this room. straight across from the door is a window we checked it, solid screen, solid frame not even a 'squito could get through there.

so we advanced further into the room and looked under/behind/on top of the fridge. then we got a bit unlogical and looked inside all the cabinets the stove and the fridge. as if a pair of glasses could ricochet through solid objects and land on a stack of plates. I even went outside to see if they disintegrated and then reintegrated on the other side of the wall.

this was one of the weirder things that ever happened to me, but not the weirdest by far ( thats another story for another day)

decades later I was thinking about this and went looking in the musty nether regions of the internet and found a website that has a bunch of these types of stories. after reading most of them some can be dismissed as airheadedness (is that a word?) or even drug use ( man I like got out my weed and my pipe, and my weed just disappeared!)
I was amused by some but scratching my head over others. one thread that runs through it all is the things that disappear are stuff you will miss, glasses, keys, pens and in the more modern era cell phones. i don't quite know what to make of that?

Your story is pretty creepy.

All that I know is that there was nowhere for this thing to go. It's a big, concrete apron. We watched it fall. It could not have gone that far. There was some wind but not that much and it's conical in shape so if it were to roll it would roll in circles.

People and large objects carrying them have gone missing before too. 

[musclehead]

umm, yeah I was thinking about telling this story but since Mr. Anvil has posted the potential existence of the weird I gues I'll share too.

I was 18 and moved inot my first batchlor pad, a 3 bedroom on the second floor in Champaign Il.
my roommate was a few years older then me and fresh out of a divorce. he would call his ex every weekend becuse they had a child together (that kid is now 30+  ) every time they talked that I recall it ended in a screaming contest. there was a central hall that had the old ma bell rotary phone, those things could survive a nuclear blast!  so he gets off the phone one time after the screaming is over and slams the phone handset down on the cradle, causing no damage of course, and turns and walks towards his room. on the way he takes his sunglasses off his head and hurls them into the dinningroom/kitchen.

I stopped him and got him to calm down and talk for a minute (he calmed down real fast, angered real fast too. I can't imagine what married life was like for the two of them under the same roof. then he walks past me and into the dinningroom to fetch his glasses. I'm standing right there the whole time he looks around with an amused quizical look on his 'cause his glasses are gone. we were poor kids we had not even an empty cardboard box in this room. straight across from the door is a window we checked it, solid screen, solid frame not even a 'squito could get through there.

so we advanced further into the room and looked under/behind/on top of the fridge. then we got a bit unlogical and looked inside all the cabinets the stove and the fridge. as if a pair of glasses could ricochet through solid objects and land on a stack of plates. I even went outside to see if they disintegrated and then reintegrated on the other side of the wall.

this was one of the weirder things that ever happened to me, but not the weirdest by far ( thats another story for another day)

decades later I was thinking about this and went looking in the musty nether regions of the internet and found a website that has a bunch of these types of stories. after reading most of them some can be dismissed as airheadedness (is that a word?) or even drug use ( man I like got out my weed and my pipe, and my weed just disappeared!)
I was amused by some but scratching my head over others. one thread that runs through it all is the things that disappear are stuff you will miss, glasses, keys, pens and in the more modern era cell phones. i don't quite know what to make of that?

Your story is pretty creepy.

All that I know is that there was nowhere for this thing to go. It's a big, concrete apron. We watched it fall. It could not have gone that far. There was some wind but not that much and it's conical in shape so if it were to roll it would roll in circles.

People and large objects carrying them have gone missing before too. 

it certainly qualifies as 'paranormal' but I don't know if it fits what people usually think of in those terms. there have even been disappearnces that were in the thousands of people, but I don't know 

[The Anvil]

Paranormal. I guess what's paranormal is a bit subjective. There are even some scientific theories that explain (in a highly speculative manner that assumes a lot of unproven theories like tangental timelines and parallel realities are fact) the disappearance of everyday objects and people.

Could be something really out there or it could be ninja squirrels f**king with us for entertainment. Who knows...

[DarkMeister]

Ah! Yes! The Ninja Squirrels! I routinely lose sunglasses. Not cheap ones, either. They vanish into thin air. Last few times I retraced my steps going back days and nothing.

Anvile - I'm sure you checked on the wing surface. How about the engine intake? Just sayin' - those bastards can bounce higher than my checks.

[Ghost]

I turned wrenches for 30 years, lost alot of stuff in those years. The one thing i did notice was that if you had a drain pan within five feet of what you were working on, what you lost would somehow end up in that pan. lol. The rest i cannot tell you where it went, and maybe i don't want to know.

[YoungPUP]

Here's the million dollar one. Senior year of highschool, (2000) I had a red 2 door chevy blazer. That thing died a terrible death getting rolled through  ditch.  I had lost a snapon screwdriver changing the power window motor on the pass. door.   Fast forward to last year. Neighbor buys an old 2 door chevy blazer for his kid. all black except for the RED pass door. Calls me over to see if I can find whats rattling in the door.........Yup! found my screwdriver almost 11 years later my initials in the handle and everything. Apparently these wormholes go both ways!

[Jess from VA]

Here's the million dollar one. Senior year of highschool, (2000) I had a red 2 door chevy blazer. That thing died a terrible death getting rolled through  ditch.  I had lost a snapon screwdriver changing the power window motor on the pass. door.   Fast forward to last year. Neighbor buys an old 2 door chevy blazer for his kid. all black except for the RED pass door. Calls me over to see if I can find whats rattling in the door.........Yup! found my screwdriver almost 11 years later my initials in the handle and everything. Apparently these wormholes go both ways!

Some people would go right out and buy a lottery ticket after that.

[RP#62]

If you ever do find it, I'll bet it'll be with my Valkyrie kickstand spring.  When we lived in Pittsburgh, I was working on the bike in the garage.  Went to put the kickstand spring on and ended up slinging it across the garage.  We tore that garage upside down trying to find it. Never did - ended up buying a new one.  I figured oh well, we'll find it when we move.   Well guess what, didn't find it when we moved. I put everything in that garage into boxes one piece at a time and never found it.  Didn't find it when we got to Phoenix and unpacked everything.  I must have slung it into another dimension.
-RP

[BF]

I have a theory that dropped sockets that disappear into thin air are actually transformed into wire hangars and reappear in your closet when the door is closed.  

[alph]

I just remembered this story from when i was a kid.

My mother use to think that i was too immature to have a watch when i was little.  So, when i actually found an old Mickey Mouse watch on the side of a river by a boat landing.  i was really excited to have a watch! about a month later i was taking a bath and took my watch off, put it on the sink, my mother came in and saw the watch and took it!  while i was taking a bath!!  i went crazy looking for that watch!  she says to me, see, you should take better care of your things!!  i later found it on her dresser, that's how i knew i wasn't crazy!!  

So, it’s not always a worm hole, sometimes it’s MOM!!

[Willow]

There you have it, Anvil.  Did you happen to see Alph's mom slinking around out there?    

[RTaz]

I know exactly what you are saying, several times I have dropped things never to be found again or what is worst is weeks later the object just materializes out of nowhere in plain sight.  (gremlins)

[Jeff K]

Four years ago Joanne took her truck in for an oil change. They told her they couldn't change her oil because her fill cap was missing. She told them that they were the only people to open her hood. No matter, they wouldn't do the job without her replacing her oil cap.

Fast forward four years... I replaced her battery, VIOLA! There is was, her oil cap was behind her battery. they must have set it on the battery while they changed the oil and never put it back on.
 

[tank_post142]

last feb i had to to a head job on my 97 ford van. somehow i lost a pushrod, 3 days i looked for it and then spent 1/2 a day trying to fit another one through every hole in the intake valley to be sure it did not drop into the engine. put it back together in early march, no problems since then with the new pushrod i bought, but somewhere there is a used pushrod either on the frame or in limbo.

[Chrisj CMA]

That explains it (worm holes) Its rare that it doesnt happen.  You are removing a fastener off the bike and it pops off the wrench or screwdriver like it was spring loaded.....I like when it hits the ground ahd you hear it, but I hate when it falls inside the bike and you hear tink, tink, tinktink, tink.............tink, but no thud of it hitting the ground.  its flashlights and magnets forever becuase you just dont know what moving part is now going to jam because you cant find that little thing..........

[The Anvil]

Here's the million dollar one. Senior year of highschool, (2000) I had a red 2 door chevy blazer. That thing died a terrible death getting rolled through  ditch.  I had lost a snapon screwdriver changing the power window motor on the pass. door.   Fast forward to last year. Neighbor buys an old 2 door chevy blazer for his kid. all black except for the RED pass door. Calls me over to see if I can find whats rattling in the door.........Yup! found my screwdriver almost 11 years later my initials in the handle and everything. Apparently these wormholes go both ways!

That's some Donnie Darko crap right there. Lucky for you it was a screwdriver and not a jet engine!

DM, we checked EVERYWHERE...

[DarkMeister]

"That's some Donnie Darko crap right there."

huh? Someone paged? 
Cheers,
Darko

[solo1]

I know the feeling.  Over the years lots of things disappeared for me too. Sometimes the missing part shows up.

Reminds me very much of what happened in 1949. A friend of mine had just bought a new AJS 500 cc vertical twin. It had the usual coffin seat common back then.   

I dropped over to see the new bike and we decided to take a ride, me on the Matchless and he was on his new twin. We pulled out of his driveway, went only one block when his engine locked up.

We pushed the bike back into his driveway.  He tried the kickstarter but the engine was locked. 
we decided that something was in one of the cylnders.  We flipped a coin and decided to pull the right cylinder head (the AJS had separate cylinder heads).  Found a roughly 10 mm nut ( English wentworth size) lodged between the piston and the exhaust valve .  No damage to either the piston , combustion chamber, or the valves..  THEN we started to look for where it came from. The seat cover was held down with a number of studs and nuts, one of the nuts was missing. The nut had fallen off and got sucked into the Amal carb (no air cleaner), past the intake valve, and then into the combustion chamber. We were lucky in choosing the right cylinder head to take off.

[fudgie]

Had a blow out on my Z-71 4 years ago or more. While 'trying' to change it I lost the extension to the tool that lowers the tire. Went back to find it the next day with no luck. 2 weekends ago I was driving up threw our bean field. Stopped to sweep off my bumper when the broom hit something. Here was the extension setting on top of my frame by the bumper. It has rode there for 30k+ miles thru some of the rough field terrain out there.

[R J]

I've lost a few things like all stated above, but the one that really pessed me off was a rattle in the right rear quarter panel in my brand spanking new 57 Chev Fuelie hardtop.

Took it into the garage and they couldn't duplicate the rattle so they wouldn't tear anything apart.

We had put up with this rattle for about a year, and my wife got hit in that quarter panel by a drunk.

Took the car to the Body Shop of the dealer we bought it from, and when I went to pick it up, they told  me in the Body Shop I had to go see the Service Manager before they could release the car.   That also pessed me off, but I did as instructed.

Walked in his office, by this time I knew him on a 1st name basis.

He said, Russ, we found your rattle.   He handed me a Coke bottle.  Apparently when it was put together, someone either put the bottle in there or it fell in there.    Didn't care, but sure was glad to get rid of that damn rattle.

Oh, by the way, that damn coke bottle sets on a shelf with all my Drag Strip trophies in the basement gathering dust.    Wife asked the other day what I was going to do with it, told her that was up to her after she buried me.   Or, she could bury it with me, it was up to her.

[Daniel Meyer]

I agree with Serk. It'll turn up in a valk tire. Probably mine. 

[musclehead]

I've lost a few things like all stated above, but the one that really pessed me off was a rattle in the right rear quarter panel in my brand spanking new 57 Chev Fuelie hardtop.

Took it into the garage and they couldn't duplicate the rattle so they wouldn't tear anything apart.

We had put up with this rattle for about a year, and my wife got hit in that quarter panel by a drunk.

Took the car to the Body Shop of the dealer we bought it from, and when I went to pick it up, they told  me in the Body Shop I had to go see the Service Manager before they could release the car.   That also pessed me off, but I did as instructed.

Walked in his office, by this time I knew him on a 1st name basis.

He said, Russ, we found your rattle.   He handed me a Coke bottle.  Apparently when it was put together, someone either put the bottle in there or it fell in there.    Didn't care, but sure was glad to get rid of that damn rattle.

Oh, by the way, that damn coke bottle sets on a shelf with all my Drag Strip trophies in the basement gathering dust.    Wife asked the other day what I was going to do with it, told her that was up to her after she buried me.   Or, she could bury it with me, it was up to her.

there's the fellow I wanted to hear from, logic and reason aside, what's the weirdest thing you ever saw RJ? LEOs sometimes have some whoppers of a story since they deal with alot of junk average citizens can't or won't handle.

[CajunRider]

I agree with Serk. It'll turn up in a valk tire. Probably mine. 

Daniel...

I'm sorry, but your Avatar matches that post PERFECTLY!!!   

[Daniel Meyer]

I agree with Serk. It'll turn up in a valk tire. Probably mine. 

Daniel...

I'm sorry, but your Avatar matches that post PERFECTLY!!!