Near miss?

The date: 27th January 2012

The time: 01.28am

The place: Cheshire, North West England.

<Clickerty Clack…Clackerty Click> (Imagine the sound of typewriters)
<OoOOOoooOoOOOOoooOOOh> (Imagine eerie sounding music)
(I’ve just realised those sound effects also look like a train, but never mind)

I was fast asleep in bed. I’d got to bed at around 11.30pm (or thereabouts) and was so tired, I think that I drifted off to the land of nod straight away. I wanted a good night’s sleep as I had to get up very early this morning as I had to run quite a few errands before starting work.

At 1.28 something woke me suddenly. I looked at the time – I have a clock beside by bed where I press a button, and the time is beamed across my ceiling in great big bold red figures. The date and the temperature is also there too, but I was only interested in the time at that time.

As soon as I knew the time, I realised what it was that woke me. A smell. A strong smell. A very strong smell. A very strong burning smell. A very strong burning metal smell. A close very strong burning metal smell. A very close very strong burning metal smell.

I have a radiator next to my bed – on the other side to where the clock is. I touched it, in case it was creating this strange odour that had aroused me from my slumber. It wasn’t.

I got up, and investigated all of the other rooms in the Mansion, and there was nothing to be found anywhere.

Someone earlier in the day had been doing some work with a circular saw in the grinds at the back of the Mansion (I know, everything seems to go on back there!), so I looked out of the window, to see if they were perhaps now soldering something (yes, I know it seems unlikely that someone would be soldering something at 1.30 in the morning, but I had to look. It’s like those movies where the person hears a noise in the middle of the night and they have to go out and investigate it – only I just looked out of the window). There was nobody there.

I returned to bed, and the strong burning metal smell had vanished.

My alarm woke me at 6am. I got up, and walked out of the bedroom, and across the vast hallway to the bathroom. I had an extremely itchy right ear, for some reason. I had a quick bath and washed my hair (which did not look like it had when I went to bed last night!) but the itch remained. In the end, I had to itch it with a piece of tissue, which did stop the itch. But, on the tissue, there was blood. A tiny speck of blood, from inside of my ear.

I grabbed another tissue, and there was another speck of blood, not as much as the first time. I continued to get dressed, and as the itch had now gone, I set about thinking of the possible things that could have happened to me during the night.

Thing One.
I have been kidnapped by aliens, and subjected to tiny microscopic ear examinations whilst hurtling at super-speed around Sirius at 1.30 in the morning. With me being woken by the strong burning smell – which could have been sulphur (which, incidentally, is associated with extra-terrestrial activity) rather than burning metal, I could have been hypnotised into thinking that I was looking around the Mansion and out of the window, when in fact I was in a large white room with miniature probes stuck here, there and everywhere.

Thing Two.
I was dreaming. Which is possible, but I have never bled from the ear from a dream before.

Thing Three.
I hadn’t been kidnapped by aliens, and someone had been soldering in the grinds, but they had been disturbed by the light from my clock when I checked the time, and put everything away before I looked out for them. They probably knew that I’d be checking the Mansion first.

Thing Four.
I hadn’t been kidnapped by aliens, or was dreaming, but had been bitten inside my ear by some miniscule insect with a venomous bite that causes hallucinations at 1.30 in the morning.

Thing Five.
A tiny fragment of the latest asteroid to come within a hair’s breadth of the Earth (named 2012 BX34, it passed within about 60,000km of Earth – less than a fifth of the distance to the Moon at 4pm UK time today. Experts weren’t expecting any damage) had shot ahead of the rest of the asteroid. Instead of being burned up by the Earth’s atmosphere, it was super-charged, and shot into my bedroom through one of the tiny gaps in the vents in the window. It then embedded itself inside my ear, where it did eventually burn up. And it was the smell of it burning that woke me up.

Thing Six.
I hadn’t been kidnapped or hit by a passing asteroid shard or bitten by a venomous insect. No-one was soldering at 1.30 in the morning, and I wasn’t dreaming. I simply woke up because I couldn’t sleep, and then went back to sleep, thinking that I was investigating the Mansion. And, my terrible hair this morning was due to the tossing and turning as I tried to sleep, knowing that I had to get up early.

And, Thing Six-A.
The red speck on the tissue wasn’t blood, but a red speck on the tissue. However, as the tissues are plain white, this seems unlikely.

Whatever happened at 1.28 this morning is certainly a mystery. And, it looks as though I have been thinking maybe a little too deeply into things as well…

Did you notice anything unusual at 01.28 on 27/01/12? Or maybe a strange itch somewhere later in the morning? Maybe you too have experienced the same thing as I.

An update will follow… I’m almost certain.