Welp... I may have experienced the most inexplicable events of my life in the past couple of weeks — a pair of incidents for which I have no reasonable explanation.
Here's the setup: on the front porch and in the yard, we have a number of Halloween decorations with lights that require one to turn them on and off manually, some of them from the front porch. One evening a little over a week ago, I stepped outside to light them up... and found them already lit. Neither Kim nor I had done this (in fact, she has never turned them on or off; I've always done it myself). Had they been lit for the past 24 hours, I was certain we would have seen them, since I'm outside numerous times during the day and early evening. The porch camera revealed no activity at the lighting controls.
Eventually, I settled on the most logical explanation: that I had neglected to turn off the lights the previous night and they'd been on for the past 24 hours, somehow unnoticed (I cannot stress enough how unlikely this scenario remains).
Last night, after we returned from a five-day trip to Wintergreen, the same thing happened: I went out to turn on the lights... and they were already lit. Here's the kicker: only a short time earlier, I had looked outside, and since it wasn't fully dark, I decided to wait a few minutes to turn the lights on. However, make no mistake: it was dark enough that I could not have missed them already being lit.
Again, I checked the porch camera videos. They showed me going out to pick up the mail during the afternoon; coming back from picking up the mail; and then stepping outside to turn on the lights, only to find them on (and uttering a few colorful expressions of astonishment). No video showed me — or anyone else — turning on the lights. Now, the chances of those lights having burned for six nights and five days without any of the weenie batteries in some of them expiring are roughly nil — about the same as me looking out last night and somehow determining the lights were not on if they actually were. Furthermore, before we even left on our trip, I had made double sure that all were off specifically so they wouldn't burn for six nights and five days, even if that were possible. From many years of past experience, I'd say the maximum lifespan of those weenie batteries is maybe 72 hours of constant use.
Unfortunately, I had already deleted any videos from the days/nights we were gone, which could have confirmed whether those lights might have been on for that long. Thus, I'm left with no explanation that makes any real sense. Even if the disturbing possibility that my memory is failing were true, it still wouldn't explain the lack of video evidence of me (or anyone) on the front porch turning on those lights, either last week or last night.
So... a haunted Halloween experience? You be the judge. I sure can't explain it.
