Ripley's Believe It or Not by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! for December 26, 2023

Highway Hypnosis usually happens when nothing happens. When it is so boring, the brain decides it’s not worth remembering.

Alien Hypnosis is when you’re abducted, but you don’t remember it or how you ended up in a t-shirt full of Jell-O.

Hello aliens! Please stop and pick me up.

But what FLAVOR of Jell-O??? Pedantic nerds everywhere NEED to know!

I’ve had Highway Hypnosis some times I forget that I drove thru the state of Delaware

Back in the 80’s when I lived out in the country I was on the way to work. I got lost in thought and when I came out of it I didn’t know where I was at. Nothing looked familiar for a few minutes.

HIGHWAY HYPNOSIS doesn’t just happen on highways. When I was in college, one day I remember pulling out of the campus parking lot, and the next minute I was pulling into the driveway where I lived (w/parents) 13 MILES AWAY. I had driven through three towns, all back roads, with many turns, stop signs and traffic lights, yet I couldn’t recall any of it! It startled me as I snapped back into the present. I was thinking about some issue so deeply, that somehow, my brain went on automatic pilot. It had to be that, since there were no police cars behind me drawing their weapons. Scary!

Usually the highway hypnosis happens when people are too tired.

There’s always room for jello!

How in the world do you fill a T-shirt with anything, much less Jello?

That’s when Otto Pilot is driving.

I did not know it was called Highway Hypnosis. I was just talking about this similar thing a day or so ago. When I walk, I get lost in my thought and do not remember passing certain landmarks that I generally notice every day. “Walking Hypnosis”? Maybe.

I live in San Diego, I remember a story of a cop finding a confused motorist at the ocean, looking at his (paper) map (clearly an old story). He was supposed to be going to New Mexico, but kept driving through Arizona and all the way through California. Good thing he noticed the ocean.

Try driving through Nevada to Salt Lake. You’ll get sagebrush hypnosis

I was driving on a rain-slicked freeway in Dallas one night in the 80s, when all of a sudden, right in the middle lane a van was stopped. Because of the rain, I didn’t see it until way too late. I just had time to think, “Oh, God I’m dead” before I plowed into it. (I even remember what song was playing on the radio—You Didn’t Have to Be So Nice by the Lovin’ Spoonful. You can bet I’ve slowed down every time I’ve ever heard that since.) Amazingly, I wasn’t hurt in the slightest, but I was dazed and confused. The big burly owner of the van came back to my car with a “I’m gonna beat your behind” look on his face, but when he saw me he could tell how out of it I was. I’m sure he thought I had been drinking or was stoned (I wasn’t). We exchanged info and then I drove the rest of the way home—twenty miles outside of town. I remember NONE of that drive—amazed I didn’t have another wreck. Pulled into the driveway, stopped the car…and it NEVER drove again. Front end, radiator and all, had been pushed into the engine block. NO idea how I made it those twenty miles.

Does the Full Moon Race involve bare bottoms?

So, what percent of those runners are never heard from again? ;-}

I wonder if Highway Hypnosis is the same as White-Line Fever.

For the highly esteemed wireless program, “The Goon Show”, Spike Milligan once requisitioned from the BBC canteen a sockful of jelly, to make the sound of someone being murdered with a sockful of jelly. Ying-tong-iddle-i-po!