Skeptomania - Paranormal / UFOs, etc.

GSpoon

OK. I am a hardcore skeptic. No ghosts, no little green men, no loch ness, etc., but frankly this has stumped me for years.

Back when I was working at dominos in hillsborough I had something happen at the store that I could not and can not explain. I was cashing a driver out in the front of the store after closing time. We were about 15 feet from from the front door. All of a sudden the front door, which was locked with a dead bolt, violently shook as if someone was trying to get in. Problem is there was no one there. I turned to the driver, who was looking at me and we both asked "did you see that?". I walked over to the door and looked around. I ever pushed on the door to make sure it was locked. It was, and I could barely get it to budge, no less shake like had just did.
Thinking that the wind was the only good answer I went outside through the side door, walked over to the front door and again tried to shake it. Nope, it barely moves. No way the wind did that.

So what could have done that?

The front of the building on two sides is glass, and the door is in that corner. the glass starts about three foot from the sidewalk (it is brick at the bottom. the corner near the door has about a 2 foot bricked up spot and the wall beside it has about 2-3 foot of brick before it turns to glass (just the corner is bricked on that side). It would be big enough for someone to hid behind, but we would have seen them walking over to that area since we had a glass windows giving us a clear view for at least 30 feet each direction that the person would have had to walk to get to the door. I also walked to the door which would have gave me a good view of anyone standing to the side of the blind spot from where we had been standing. The store was on a steep hill and it had a fence going around it. There was only one way in and out and we would have a clear view of anyone coming in. The were two drivers outside of the store (they were at teh side door and to our backs) they did not see anyone else outside.

The thing that gets me is that teh door shook hard enough it rattled the window beside of it, but only that window, none of the others (as would have happened if it was a wind gust). Now I'm a big dude. I can bench press over 200 pounds for reps. I could not shake that fucking door as hard and as fast as it did that night.

I am at a loss. Til this day I have no clue what did it.

Yaish · Intel Chief

Unfortunately, me neither.

I have seen some odd sort of harmonics get set up by passing trucks and stuff, I suppose that could have happened here.
Where there any businesses or anything on upper floors?

It could also have been built up tension in the door itself. If there was something in the jamb, something putting stress on the door it could have released suddenly, a sort of "doorquake".

Or ghosts. Could have always been ghosts.

GSpoon

it is single story. The store sets up on the hill and toward the back so it is every bit of 100 yards or more to the road.

I thought about maybe it was settling, but the building is old and well settled. It is one of those simple metal frame glass doors that you see on any convience store. I just dont see any settling causing that door to shake like it did. I heard it shake and that is what made me look up when I did. Like I said, it was pretty violent. The only way I could get it to shake the way it did was to unlock it so it wasn't as tight in the frame.

223fmj

Not really suggesting this as a possibility, just food for thought...

I once had a customer describe something similar- a violent banging noise inside of their wall near an interior door that scared the bejeezus out of them. They thought someone was in the room messing with them when their home was supposed to be empty but for them.

Turns out that the king stud in the door jamb had been slowly twisting itself around inside of the wall- it was probably installed soaking wet, or it hadn't been kiln-dried. When it finally worked its self off of the nails in the bottom plate it really let loose. It snapped part of the actual cheapass doorjamb at a finger joint. When we removed the doorframe from the rough opening, the jack stud just fell out of the hole. The king stud had even worked loose of it.

GSpoon

I take it that was with a wooden door? Would the same be possible with metal? The door and frame were both metal, well the door is glass with a metal frame around the glass and the metal bar across the the door near the middle were you push it open. I know wood can do some weird things as it ages but I don't know if metal metal can, or at least not the way this one did. I did see the door moving as well as hear it, and that fucker was moving.

I am not saying it couldn't be something structure related. I would question that in over a years time there that was the only time it ever did anything funny was that one night. I also asked around and no one else had anything strange happen that they could remember.
I also considered the weather, but it was calm, not windy or storming, and it wasn't cold.

Again, and I now I keep repeating this, but the door shook. It wasn't a sudden movement or a quick little bam. This thing was shaking in the frame for a good two or three seconds.

Raven · Google Meister

the only thing i could think of is the truck answer... otherwise, i've got nothin'. I'll ask Carol if she knows where her demons/aliens were that night, maybe that could be the answer...
Ok, now the sarcasm just becomes habit-forming, damn'it...

GSpoon

the problem with a truck is the building is 100 yards from the road, uphill, and the door doesn't face the main road, it faces a car dealership that was closed.

could it have been structural? I know that wood settles but could metal react like that without a tempature difference? I seriously doubt that pressure or vibration could have played a factor.

223fmj

GSpoon

it was a normal commercial grade metal door with a metal frame. There was no wood used in the contruction near it.

Pressure was one of my first guesses, and it could still be a possibility. At home I had a door slam hard enough to knock the metal strike plate around the lock off the door frame after we opened a few windows.
However in this case what could have caused it? None of the windows opened, and the only other doors in teh building were also closed.

If for some reason there was a pressure change in the building then the door could have been effected and the lock could have caused the door to rock or shake since it was locked and couldn't slam.

223fmj

Gren · God Of Oreos

Items to check....

What time of year was it? If summer in NC, there are pretty wild temp differences from the heat of late day (over 100F often) to the quick cooling that comes with evening. Factor in that metal (door) and wood (framing in which door is housed) expand and contract at different rates and maybe...

Heat & Air unit... My house is over-insulated and sound-proofed and as air tight as a house gets. Sometimes when the heat or air comes on the pressure exerts itself on those house 'parts' that can move - the doors and windows. I've not seen the shaking, but if one door is ajar when the heat or air comes on, it gets slammed shut with a big bang.

Other than that and other suggestions, barring a trickster co-worker, who knows?

Skydiver

Dust Devil is a possibility... I've seen some that rival an F1 tornado before, sucking up big shit on construction sites.

Or it's the ghost of a pissed off customer that choked to death on a spicy pepperoni, or the Peppergeist....

Yaish · Intel Chief

By stored energy I am thinking that maybe when the door was latched there was something holding it back a bit. That could have been some expansion in the lock mechanism that caused it to be locked, but not completely set. As the metal cooled or contracted the latch could have sprung fully into place, causing the door to shake violently.

Gren · God Of Oreos

When I was a silent partner in a restaurant, I revamped fire protection, safety gear, and theft protection, to protect staff and to lower the insurance overhead. One of the security devices was a panic button that automatically locked the front door when pushed. The cash register was about 30 ft from the front door and whoever was at the register faced the front door over a counter. Whole front of store was knee to ceiling glass, so staff felt better thinking they could thwart a robbery if they saw an apparent bad guy approaching. Anyway, a door and door lock so equipped could jam and shake and shimmy I'm guessing, with a power surge or switch problem or short.

asmodee

What comes to mind for me is a very low pitch pressure wave, also known as VLF sound. The government has been testing these devices for years. There was an X-Files episode about it. I have no evidence, nor have I ever seen anything which suggests this, but I believe (without reason or evidence of any sort) that "they" are using these VLF broadcasts as a means of genetic manipulation, setting up a resonance loop which shakes apart specific DNA sequences as chosen by the frequency. Once shaken apart, the VLF may be followed by a second VLF of another frequency to cause the broken DNA components to recombine in a specific, controlled way. Metal doors and divining rods are the only way to detect these broadcasts.

Seriously, though, sounds like it might possibly have been a pressure wave thing. I have seen similar things, as Gren said, with a passing truck doing an engine brake, but it is also possible with a sonic boom, thunder or some other sound of sufficiently long wavelength. It may have even been inaudible if the wavelength was below about 20Hz or so.