Your personal most bizarre/WTF moment of 2011

[Savannah]

Awww... will YOU be my Comfort Shark, Savannah?

It hurts me that you even have to ask.

[junglesmacks]

Awww... will YOU be my Comfort Shark, Savannah?

It hurts me that you even have to ask.

ry ruv roo

[Savannah]

[TinkerMom]

My bizaar moment was after The Temple burn. Somewhere out on the playa I was sitting cross legged and my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands, bowed down in tears. I was trying to collect myself. I then heard this strange small engine noise. I opened my eyes only to see a green neon E L wire remote control shark bump into my nose, repeatedly! I reached out and petted it, it tried to bite me and took off into the dark. Then I was almost run over by a sea snail, only to be saved by a bunch of jelly fish....wtf!
Now I know, if I told this story to any body back home, they would tell me to cut the drugs or take some!!

I saw that shark! That was so cool. We were sitting on the back of the art car and starting to roll away from the temple burn.. kinda somber.. dark night on the playa. All of a sudden.. that little RC shark comes chasing after us and followed us for quite some time.. it's tail wagging and bouncing over the playa. We sat on the back watching the temple smolder while the shark chased us away.. and like you, gave us a much needed laugh/reality check from the moment. Props.

Aren't moments like that just.....awe inspiring?
And yes, Comfort shark!!

[junglesmacks]

Aren't moments like that just.....awe inspiring?
And yes, Comfort shark!!

Agreed! I'm all for uplifting contributions both before and after the temple burn..

[gyre]

...

[remi]

I was driving to a music festival in the forest of B.C., Canada called Shambala at about 1am on a wednesday morning. I was driving behind a semi, and infront of my friend. We took a left hand corner on a hwy and I noticed, in a flash (because it was night and I was driving pretty fast,) what appeared to be a body lying on the other side of the road (part of the body was lying on the pavement in the opposing lane,) lying face down wearing a track suit. I though 'no fuckin way is that a dead body' (which would be the first time I would have ever stumbled upon a dead body.) The semi infront of me aggresivly slowed down and put his hazard lights on, so I figured he seen what I seen, so I quickly pull over (because I'm a smaller vehicle, I stopped 200ft before he did.) I woke up my passenger, and gave them flashlights and we all ran up the road (we told our buddies in the car behind that also pulled over to stay with the girls.)
We ran up the road... my heart was beating hard, I had a weird feeling. I kept running, expecting to see this body on the side of the road... getting closer to the corner where I seen him/her. I got to the corner, and there was nothing. I heard what sounded like a deer walking in the bush (snapping twigs,) and I yelled "Hello, is everything ok?", and someone responded, "yes, we're fine." This is 15-20km east of a small town in the middle of the forest with no roads or street lights or parked cars anywhere.
So we got the fuck out of there and the semi driver (who was at our vehicles at this point,) told us he would radio it in. Was that person playing a joke? What that a dead body that someone else collected while we were running up there? Was that someone trying to commit suicide but we came from the wrong direction.. and when we stopped they were embarassed and ran back in the forest?

Fuckin' trippy!

[gyre]

A friend of mine found someone sitting at a light in the early morning, figured they were asleep.
Went up to wake them up and not asleep.
Dead.

Went to call the police.

When they got to the intersection, the car was there running, but no body.
The weirdest thing was that the police weren't surprized.

More bodies are hidden, than found.


In that flash by the road thing, two friends thought they saw a hand on the freeway, but sure they were wrong.
Couldn't shake the impression, so doubled back, a long way between exits and it was a hand.

When they reported it, they expected a very different reaction, but the police were looking for it.

A body was found hanging on the side of a semi tractor, dead and missing the hand.
It had been there for some time until spotted by other drivers.
The theory was that he was snagged while hitch hiking.
Somehow ended up there and died on the truck.

[Dr. Pyro]

A friend of mine found someone sitting at a light in the early morning, figured they were asleep.
Went up to wake them up and not asleep.
Dead.

That reminds me. I think my girlfriend is dead. Oh, the sex is the same, but the dishes are piling up in the sink.

[geospyder]

On the day of the Temple burn I wrote a note to my brother. We knew he only had a short time to live but didn't realize how short. Within an hour of writing the note the BRC Rangers contacted me that I had a death in the family. It was my brother.

[AntiM]

My grandmother died in our living room, watching TV. Kinda sneezed and dropped her head down, according to dad. He sat there for a good twenty minutes, thinking she was asleep before he figured out she'd passed away.

[feistypenguin]

Feh there is now a streak of death stories and unfortunately I had one from last year as well... long story short the girl I was going to go to my first burn with didn't make it So I went with one of our mutual friends instead

My most fun bizarre moment on the playa:

My wingman and I are staggering around drunk on the playa around midnight, and we come across large gaggle of random burners being directed by a few guys with spotlights and bullhorns. They are directing anyone within earshot to form into two parallel lines and wait, and they leave their spotlights between the lines. We are all confused, but we just follow along because we want to see what would happen.

What we didn't realize was that there were skydivers making night jumps above us, who were honing in on our impromptu runway made out of spotlights and glowing people. Out of nowhere, this guy in a parachute touches down dead center on our runway, jogs for a big to bleed off some speed, and says "Where's my whiskey?!" as he gathers up his chute.

I was grinning from ear to ear for the rest of the night.

[Savannah]

Wow! I'm jealous.

[Ugly Dougly]

Thanks for bringing this back.

[This Woman]

Dr. Helix, I’d say thanks for bartending. That has happened to our bar before, it was obviously a benign and even helpful trespass, so we were all pretty thrilled about it. (he found himself in an empty bar and bartended for awhile.) I had a similar moment this year as well, but a little more wtf given I’ve never been able to figure out how the bartender made the drinks:

It was late at night, and the bar was empty. We weren’t quite ready to settle down, so we left all the lights on, but went to our camp chill spot. We had a human sized blow up blue alien, and since the lights were on I figured it was the perfect time to break him in to bartending. I put him in standing position behind the bar and left. After about half an hour we noticed noise in the bar and went to have a look. Inside, the alien was still behind the bar, but there were about ten patrons in there, all with drinks, chatting away.

[Super Evil Brian]

I have a few, but they're not as crazy as some of the stories.

1. I was volunteering in Media Mecca. During a slow moment I walked toward the entrance thinking I'd check out Burning Man going on outside. Media Mecca was across from Center Camp.

As I walked outside, a friend from NYC (the other idiot like me to have a fixed-gear bike, but he had a front brake. He also shoots B&W film like me and we're the same age) came strolling up in search of wifi. He broke something with his GoPro camera kite rig and was hoping the Internet had the answer. He didn't find the wifi, but he did find enough of an AT&T signal to get what he needed.

We were surprised to see each other. He invited me back to his camp where we all told stories of adventures. They made me an honorary Dave. My friend is Dave and there was a Dave in the camp, so naturally I must be a Dave also.

2. My neighbors were from Connecticut. They lived and worked in the different towns where I lived and worked when I was in Connecticut. That sort of happens a lot here in Austin.

3. I posted this elsewhere but I'll summarize. My girlfriend's mom died the night of the burn. I didn't think of her much, but that night I did. I thought about how she would get a kick of the blinking lights, tacky things, fire-shooting El Pulpo Mechanico and other beasts. "Linda would like this," I thought. On a whim I did find the secret "press" wifi and checked some messages (I couldn't connect enough to make phone calls but email worked), including many from the GF saying "everything is OK, I just need to talk to you." The red flags went up and I left before the Temple burn, rerouting my course for San Angelo instead of San Antonio, Texas, to attend a funeral.

[Super Evil Brian]

On the day of the Temple burn I wrote a note to my brother. We knew he only had a short time to live but didn't realize how short. Within an hour of writing the note the BRC Rangers contacted me that I had a death in the family. It was my brother.

Oh no, I'm so sorry.

For whatever reason this hit me sorta hard.

[ultratang7]

When the little bird came up to the BBQ I was hosting on weds. and ate from my hand. Big ups to the BRC Vet who (with my help) rescured the little guy and brought him up to the mountains.