Tossed pasta, hold the gravy

One of the silliest – and most endearing – space/time »anomalies« I've ever heard of, is Michael Talbot's account of an unusual event which happened right in his living room.
He attributed it to a »poltergeist«.
I would attribute it to a »glitch« in spacetime, the inner workings of which are at this time unknown to us, which led to an anomalous manifestation of... spaghetti. Out of thin air. (Although one is tempted to wonder just how »thin« said air can be, holding all those carbohydrates...)
Which is why it probably qualifies as a »time slip«, in the sense of anomalous displacement in spacetime.

Be it as it may, the »service« was unexpectedly swift but less than smooth... (Think Fawlty Towers sans saucers. :)

Here's the story as it appears on page 150 of Talbot's very flawed but absolutely engrossing and entertaining, must-have book The Holographic Universe:

»Still it is with some trepidation that I admit that my own poltergeist also occasionally materialized objects. The materializations started when I was six years old [...]. Unfortunately, I usually did not see the actual materializations, but only witnessed their aftermath, such as when a pile of spaghetti noodles (sans sauce) fell on my chest one day while I was taking a nap in my New York apartment. Given that I was alone in the room with no open windows or doors, there was no one else in my apartment, and there was no sign that anyone had either cooked spaghetti or broken in to throw spaghetti at me, I can only assume that, for reasons unknown, the handful of cold spaghetti noodles that dropped out if midair and onto my chest materialized out of nowhere.«

Whoa, that gives a whole new meaning to the term »String theory«...!

I did say it was silly, didn't I?
(And endearing - that too.)
But does that mean that it was untrue?
That it did not happen?

I wouldn't dare to make such a claim – and not just out of respect for the late author.
All I can say at this point is that I wish I were besieged by flying saucers of pasta and pelted by missiles of the farinaceous kind when I am hungry and lazy at the same time... :)

***

The pasta story may sound "silly" (or not), but I suspect that's just because of the object involved (spaghetti: there's something inherently funny about them, isn't there?) and the slapstick circumstances (man asleep on the couch gets hit by a loose plateful of noodles).


But noodles were not the only object that ever "hit" Talbot - or other people, for that matter. And anomalous materialisation is only one of the many aspects that he writes about.Which is why I really recommend reading his book. Its flaws notwithstanding, it has a lot to offer. And I can proudly say that it's one of the "pet" books in my 1000 + books library.