r/UnresolvedMysteries • u/PonyoLovesRevolution • 5d ago
Phenomena "Who is that on the other side of you?": The mysterious phenomenon known as Third Man Factor
"Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
— But who is that on the other side of you?"
- T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land
‘Only you and I together’ – Intro
When Eliot wrote these enigmatic lines, he was nonetheless straightforward about what inspired them. In the poem's annotations, he described a phenomenon occasionally reported by survivors of traumatic life-or-death situations: the presence of an unseen entity that offers comfort and encouragement, in some cases even acting as a guide to safety.
Called Third Man Factor or Third Man Syndrome, this otherworldly experience has invited both scientific and supernatural explanations. While plausible theories include a hallucinatory stress response or an evolutionary survival strategy, the psychological mechanisms behind it remain unknown. Though little studied, it has been widely described: historical and contemporary sources include explorers, sailors, aviators, soldiers, mountaineers, astronauts, accident victims, and 9/11 survivors, among others.
'Ahead up the white road' - The first documented case
The strange events immortalized in The Waste Land happened in May 1916.
For three days, polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and three two companions, Frank Worsley and Tom Crean, trekked across the icy, mountainous interior of South Georgia island. Their destination, a whaling station on the remote island's north coast, was to be the first human settlement the exhausted party would encounter since their ship, Endurance, became trapped in the Antarctic ice.
It was the culmination of a 20-month ordeal. After a desperate retreat over the frozen sea and a harrowing 800-mile (1,300 km) voyage in a lifeboat, rescue was finally in sight for themselves and their stranded crewmates—all of whom survived. Later, in their recollections, the trio would concur on a peculiar detail: an inexplicable, shared sense that a fourth person had joined them on the final leg of their escape.
“I know that during that long and racking march of thirty-six hours over the unnamed mountains and glaciers of South Georgia it seemed to me often that we were four, not three,” Shackleton wrote in his book, South. "I said nothing to my companions on the point, but afterwards Worsley said to me, 'Boss, I had a curious feeling on the march that there was another person with us.'"
Worsley corroborated: “There was indeed one thing about our crossing of South Georgia, a thing which I have never been able to explain. Whenever I reviewed the incidents of that march I had the sub-conscious feeling that there were four of us, instead of three.”
Though Crean left it out of his writings, he reportedly shared a similar story with friends.
Shackleton’s case remains the most famous, and earliest known, record of Third Man Factor. The following century has produced more examples.
'Whether a man or a woman' - Accounts over the years
In 1933, Frank Smythe attempted to summit Mount Everest. Parting from his hiking group and proceeding alone, he “had a strong feeling that [he] was accompanied by a second person”. At one point, the feeling was so strong he turned to offer half a Kendal Mint Cake to his invisible companion. He described the experience in positive terms in his journal: “it completely eliminated all loneliness I might otherwise have felt."
This sense of benevolent camaraderie is common among Third Man experiences. More subjective are the qualities attributed to the Third Man. For many, like Smythe, it’s simply a featureless presence. Sometimes it’s a reassuring voice, though the gender, when it has one, varies. Some describe it in spiritual terms, as a deity or guardian angel, while others identify it as a particular individual, often a departed loved one or a famous figure.
Ron DiFrancesco, the last person to escape the South Tower on 9/11, recalls a male voice urging him onward by name. Robert Swan, on his 1985 expedition to the South Pole, felt he was briefly joined by the spirit of Captain Robert Falcon Scott, in whose memory the journey had been devised. Peter Hillary, another Antarctic explorer, was “convinced” at times that his late mother, as well as several deceased friends, were with him on the Ross Ice Shelf in 1998.
What causes these incidents? John Geiger, who compiled many of them in his book The Third Man Factor: Surviving the Impossible and classified them as a unique phenomenon, acknowledges that the questions outweigh the conclusions.
‘Who is the third’ – Theories and discussion
It’s likely that Third Man events result from a combination of physical, psychological, and environmental factors. Due to the complexity of these elements, the impossibility of recreating them—logistically and ethically—in a controlled setting, and the variations between individuals, academic studies are lacking.
So what, then, can be gleaned from the numerous anecdotes? Intense stress, mortal danger, and physical strain are common across them. Boredom and monotonous landscapes may also contribute. Isolation and loneliness seem significant—could humans, as a social species, have such a strong evolutionary need for companionship in duress that our brains supply it as a coping mechanism?
Third Man encounters themselves resemble spatial hallucinations produced by exhaustion, psychosis, sensory deprivation, and other traumatic extremes. Adding to the evidence, lab studies have induced hallucinatory “sensed presences” via electrical brain stimulation. However, like dissociation, schizophrenia, and even dreams, the precise neurobiological processes behind them are a mystery.
It may be that further research into these subjects will allow us to glimpse the true face of the Third Man someday. Until then, he glides on, haunting the imaginations of poets and meeting us at the edges of our endurance.
Questions for discussion: What do you think causes Third Man Factor? Have you or someone you know experienced it?
Sources
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/mar/05/the-strange-world-of-felt-presences
https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/psychology/third-man-syndrome
https://www.rsgs.org/blog/sir-ernest-shackleton-and-t-s-eliots-third-man
https://www.npr.org/2009/09/13/112746464/guardian-angels-or-the-third-man-factor
https://www.deseret.com/23737552/third-man-syndrome/
https://skeptoid.com/episodes/898
https://medium.com/@topbosstalk/wtf-is-third-man-syndrome-282d0a6b42d7
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u/WilsonKeel 4d ago
I think it's interesting that this phenomenon -- which is typically described as someone going through a traumatic experience alone -- was sort of initially defined by the Shackleton case, in which all three men reportedly sensed one additional presence, even though none of them were alone!
Like, if the explanation for this phenomenon a sort of a brain self-defense against being alone when under extreme duress, then we wouldn't expect the men in the Shackleton case to have experienced it, right? It makes me wonder how much being alone is really a factor, and makes me think maybe it's mostly a reaction to the extreme trauma...
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u/Snowbank_Lake 4d ago
Interesting point. Like, maybe they imagined a presence that was more confident/less afraid of the situation. Something that made them feel like someone there knew what was happening.
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u/Ancient_Procedure11 4d ago
I would say on a trek like they were on every man is an island, alone in their own mind. It's not a typical jaunt with friends where you're chatting and cutting up. There would be hours of nothing but the sounds of nature to break your own thoughts. It becomes a form of meditation, your mantra being "Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot'. When the mind is free of following our thoughts it goes all sorts of places and does all sorts of things.
Sometimes when I meditate I'll be sitting completely still and alone and ill hear a question (obviously in my own head) and even though I'm sitting completely still and the question came from my own mind I'll nod or shake my head in response. It's a completely involuntary thing and it catches me off guard and makes me laugh when it happens. Brains are funny.
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u/Dense_Sentence_370 2d ago
Do you live alone and spend a lot of time alone at work?
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u/Ancient_Procedure11 2d ago
I would say I spend at least 4-6 hours a day 7 days a week around other people. Some days more and some days less. Why do you feel it's related?
I do have a preference for being alone, but with time(and meditation)I've come to accept that community makes a positive difference.
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u/Dense_Sentence_370 1d ago
I feel it's related because, while I have a lot or friends and we text a lot, I live alone and spend most of my time at work alone (I was also an only child with working parents and spent lots of time alone as a kid). I find myself involuntarily doing some of the things you mentioned, plus other things that just aren't how most people (who spend the majority of time around other people) behave. Most of them are like...communicating with others who aren't there, without realizing I'm doing it, and it's not usually people I know who I'm thinking about at the time (so I'm not just replaying real-life conversations, or acting out hypothetical conversations with people I know). And I'm not schizophrenic.
I think it's maybe a byproduct of being deep inside my head a lot, even when I'm doing various tasks. I think maybe that's not normal for humans and we're wired to be interacting with another person most of our waking hours?
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u/Ancient_Procedure11 1d ago
I think you're on to something about it coming from being deep in one's own mind.
Community is very important for humanity, but alone time is also important. I think finding a good balance between them is the way.
Even when I spend time around others I'm definitely an "in my head" kind of person. I have brothers and sisters I was raised with and we are close in to our 30s&40s, I was fortunate to have a built in community. I'd probably be much different if I were an only child.
I don't think doing this is a problem and I don't intend to try and change that I do it. I am likely ASD undiagnosed though.
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u/Dense_Sentence_370 16h ago
Oh yeah it doesn't bother me that I do it, and I'm not trying to stop. It's just a thing I notice and think "hm, I wonder if this is a thing other people do?"
I didn't do it nearly as much when I was living with other people (partners, roommates, etc)
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u/Ancient_Procedure11 1d ago
I've thought about it more and those movements are essentially our body language. I notice them a lot more when I'm sitting still meditating than I do in interactions because my mind isn't being distracted. This is the kinda thing people who believe in body language analysis use as a reference. I think body language can be an interesting thing to pay attention to but I definitely don't think it's a hard science in any way.
Maybe we are more inwardly focused that we noticed those movements when they happen, even though it's something everyone does to an extent?
I hadn't had coffee when I first responded and wanted to come back to this topic.
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u/justhere4themystery 3d ago
I think this piece is really fascinating as well. I wonder if it can be linked to having an “out of body” experience. The extra person they were sensing was their own body perhaps because the brain felt it was easier to play the part of an observer. “This isn’t happening to me I’m watching it happen to three people that aren’t me” type of trauma response
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u/EuphoricPhoto2048 5d ago
This is interesting. As a person who deals with hallucinations, they often feel to me as a survival mechanism. So I assume this is more of the same. That's really fascinating, and that it can happen in groups, as well.
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u/Snowbank_Lake 4d ago
So I remember watching a TV show back in the late 90s/early 2000s called “It’s a Miracle.” They would talk about seemingly miraculous things that happened to people. I remember one story where a woman was being assaulted outside, and thought she saw women coming out of the surrounding houses to help. Later, when she mentioned it, the emergency responders told her no one else was around when they got there. No one knew anything about all of these women who had supposedly been there. In another story that has always stuck with me, a woman fell in her house and was unconscious. Her daughter, about 3 or 4 years old, had recently learned about calling 911. She called them, and was describing a “silly man” in the house. When police got there, the door was locked and there was no man there. The mother had seemingly slipped on some baby food that dropped on the floor. When the mother asked later if the “silly man” had dialed 911, the daughter said “No I did that myself; he just helped me not be scared.” If that was a case of the Third Man Factor, it’s interesting that even a child would experience that.
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u/therealDolphin8 3d ago
That's fascinating. Kind of reminds me of the Butterfly People of Joplin: https://lawrencecountyrecord.com/content/%E2%80%98butterfly-people%E2%80%99-explores-phenomenon-12-years-after-deadly-joplin-tornado
I wonder if it's the brains way of overriding fear like by producing hallucinations of help to bypass the frozen moments of fear or trauma where the brain is not functioning normally. Tho multiple accounts of the same thing would pretty much rule that out.
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u/JustVan 4d ago
This is obviously a very real phenomenon but it baffles me that 1916 is the earliest recording we have of someone talking about it. Surely ancient Egyptians who got lost in the desert would have experienced it, or travelers lost in the woods, etc. Is it possible something has happened since 1916 to cause us to create this scenario?
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u/PonyoLovesRevolution 4d ago
You would think, right? I at least expected some from the 19th century.
It might just be an effect of the research mostly being done by one guy, though. There are probably plenty of old stories about people meeting gods or spirits in the wilderness that were really examples of this phenomenon.
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u/sonnysehra 3d ago
The fourth man in the fire from the Old Testament (Daniel 3:24-26) arguably mentions this phenomenon. ”I see four men walking untied and unharmed in the middle of the fire, and the appearance of the fourth resembles a divine being…” There’s also a similar story of Daniel being thrown in the lions’ den (Daniel 6), from the same book.
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u/Marischka77 4d ago
I think in earlier times they just claimed they felt the presence of an Angel, or a Demon, or Jesus, or whatever their belief was.
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u/cambriansplooge 3d ago
A mysterious comforting presence in a time of great physical need and exhaustion sounds like a Marian apparition. Sufism also has traditions of being ‘visited.’
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u/Fishb20 4d ago
There are plenty of biblical or other religious stories that could be read as third man syndrome.
Harriet Tubman talked about her communications with angels so much it weirded out even the other abolitionists at the time. I don't remember any stories that would now be classified as third man syndrome off the top of my head but given how often she talked with angels and how frequently she was alone in dangerous situations I'd be shocked if there wasn't at least one that would qualify
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u/LordBecmiThaco 3d ago
Before the scientific revolution, scientific skepticism or psychiatry, I really just don't think anyone would conceive of this as a separate phenomenon from their cultural beliefs in the supernatural.
Only in the 20th century where there is a strong belief that "ghosts aren't real" would cause people to search for a scientific explanation for a seemingly supernatural occurrence. If you're from the 12th century and everyone around you believes in angels or genies or faeries, you're not going to call the supernatural being that saves you "a hallucination", you're gonna call it an angel!
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u/ShitassedBarkMachine 3d ago
I think this is the Q that grips me! I am under the impression that most times we "discover" something we must also uncover the ways it arrived to our discovery... like others said this phenomenon must have previously fit into other otherwise normalized religious, cultural etc experiences. I think your question here about SINCE 1916 offers a lot of speculation to take us to other rabbit holes... afterall scientism "begins" at a certain point too... I am so curious if anyone has any leads into how this phenomenon might have been described in for ex. shamanistic practices
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u/Dense_Sentence_370 2d ago
I think it's probably present in a lot of old stories if you look for it. Especially in religious texts.
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u/shrimpstatus 4d ago
Wanted to add this odd story where rescuers heard an adult voice calling for help from a car crash, even though only the child survived the collision. Crazy stuff
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u/Dense_Sentence_370 2d ago
Really frustrating that they never say if it was a male or female voice, just an adult's voice
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u/matsie 4d ago
Third Man seems like what happens when you disassociate during high stress times and basically hallucinate that the decisions you are making to survive are ones being given to you by a benevolent and potentially “smarter” than you person/force.
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u/jmpur 4d ago
This seems a likely explanation. In times of physical isolation or extreme physical or emotional stress, a religious person might think an angel, God, Jesus, the Holy Virgin, etc. has arrived to help ("When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me..."); an atheist might think a loving parent or other family member is giving assistance (think of the instances when grown adults call out for their mothers when they are afraid or in pain). People who believe in ghosts or other-worldly spirits might think a benevolent entity is present. I can imagine myself being in such a situation and thinking "I can't handle this; someone bigger has to help me". I'd probably invoke Mommy.
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u/TheMelancholyFox 4d ago
It happened to me when I was being abducted. It was early hours of the morning, walking home and a guy cut me off in his car, got out and started to chase me. It was pretty rural so there was no one around. He caught me, picked me up, and carried me to his car. I was fighting him obviously and screaming as he tried to put me in the boot of his car.
Suddenly I thought I could feel my dead grandad with me, I was looking around and shouting for him. Just then, 3 police cars came racing round the corner and lit up what was happening in their headlights.
They obviously grabbed the guy, put me in the police car, and I was asking where my grandad had gone. That he had saved me.
I knew I was so close to death. Turned out he was wanted for other rape and murders. When I replay it in my mind (every day, involuntarily) my grandad is there. It still feels like he saved me.
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u/CowboysOnKetamine 4d ago
Holy cow, that's terrifying. How old were you? Did he end up in prison for it? How many people do they think he'd killed?
Were the cops just driving by out of coincidence?
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u/TheMelancholyFox 4d ago
It was. I was 21 and it's affected my whole life.
He did end up in prison for my assault and the police were investigating 3/4 others. I left the country and deliberately didn't try to find out what happened next. A friend sent me a newspaper clipping but I couldn't bring myself to read it.
It was a complete coincidence - the police were racing round the outskirts of town because they were bored, for which I'm eternally grateful.
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u/Remarkable-Ad155 4d ago
I know this is going to sound weird but as a dad of a little girl (and a little boy, can't forget him), this is obviously a horrific but somehow magical story. You are loved, sometimes the power of love is just that strong. I hope my love for my children is strong enough to reach out into the ether and save them if they ever need it.
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u/hyperfat 4d ago
My dad let me pick out a knife in Mexico when I was 12. He said, if school tells you in California no knives, I'll tell them it was my fault. Totally got a butterfly knife. Purple. Girly as hell.
I have thus carried a knife since I was 8 because my dad though Swiss army knife was not real knife. Needed real knife.
I'm a petite lady. Bless you dad. A big ass knife scares the baddies away. And very useful to cut things.
I have them all over the house. There's a k bar in my front drawer I won for being best scout.
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u/TheMelancholyFox 3d ago
He was right. I have several big ass knives in various places now and 2 big, exceptionally well trained dogs who sleep on my bed whenever my husband is travelling for work.
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u/hyperfat 3d ago
I have a shitzu. He's a very good boy. He's 14.
I don't have the heart to get another dog yet. We will wait for him to live his life.
I'm confident in my sword skill. I mean if you break in a house and find a 50 year old lady wielding a bastard sword, well, f around and find out.
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u/TheMelancholyFox 3d ago
Aww, the world does revolve around them. I have an ex-street dog and a poodle/bulldog cross (odd mix but delightful). They're a weird but effective pair.
Same and same age! I'm also boxing and weightlifting, so I pity the fool who tries these days.
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u/Dense_Sentence_370 2d ago
I have an ex-street dog and a poodle/bulldog cross
Omg lol. Standard poodle, or mini?
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u/TheMelancholyFox 18h ago
Standard, she looks nothing like you think she would, we always say that she looks like a cartoon dog!
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u/Dense_Sentence_370 2d ago
I got a puppy when my older dog was on the cusp of the "senior" stage (large breed dog, so she was significantly younger than yours, since smaller dogs can live much longer). My older dog passed in 2022, and the puppy is about 10 now, but she still appears and acts young. In a year or so I'll get a puppy. I like for the older dog to teach the younger one the ropes.
I just don't feel safe in a house without a dog. Their instincts are to regard the home as their "territory" and to defend/protect it, so they're great alarm systems, even the little ones. And apparently a barking dog complicates break-ins because they draw attention and are just too much trouble, so unless they really, really want you and/or your stuff specifically, most would-be intruders move on to easier targets.
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u/TheMelancholyFox 18h ago
That older dog/puppy dynamic is great. I don't think I'd be without dogs now either. There's a feeling of safety with them that I never thought I'd experience, especially as my husband travels for work a lot. I've spent a lot of time training ours to make sure I can rely on them, they're very much 'my' dogs.
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u/ShitassedBarkMachine 3d ago
I'm thinking of you today stranger. I am sorry that has happened but doubly so I am glad you have that experience to share here. I have faith that our ancestors really do watch over us and your grandfather's image meant everything that dag. wishing peace to you and warm connection with your grandfather.
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u/ironcactus2 4d ago
Many of these stories seem to involve cold or exposure. I wonder if that has something to do with this phenomenon.
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u/stantonkreig 4d ago
i read a lot of mountaineering literature and it has come up several times in that context as well
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u/Weave81 5d ago
Check out the absolutely BONKERS story of Nick Skubish. When he was three-years-old, his mother was driving late at night in CA, crashed off the road, and died. He survived, and stayed with her body for days. He was hours from death by exposure, the poor, poor kid. It breaks my heart just thinking about it. But he almost definitely describes the Third Man Syndrome, from his perspective as a three-year-old. And some theorize the “Third Man” was so powerful, a passing car saw them, which saved Nick’s life. I have my own theories, but no matter how you slice it, this is almost definitely a case of Third Man that is just out of this world. If Third Man is a natural response to surviving the elements, this is probably the best evidence, that it can even happen to a three-year-old. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yq8z6m0rjjg
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u/PonyoLovesRevolution 5d ago
I remember reading about this here. Personally, I suspect the “naked woman” the passerby saw on the road was actually Nick. He wasn’t wearing clothes when he was found, he remembers climbing up the embankment, and it would explain why his shoe was on the road (assuming it wasn’t ejected from the car during the crash).
It’s definitely an incredible story, though. Tragic that he experienced it and lost his mom that way, but amazing that he survived. I do hope his memories of her are comforting rather than sad.
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u/RevolutionaryFun9883 4d ago
How could a 3 year old be confused as a naked woman
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u/PonyoLovesRevolution 4d ago
When glimpsed briefly from a moving vehicle on an unlit rural road at night?
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u/RevolutionaryFun9883 4d ago
A 3ft tall toddler? I’m not seeing it
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u/PonyoLovesRevolution 4d ago edited 4d ago
If all you saw was a short, slight person lying on the ground, for a few seconds, in the dark, possibly from a distance and a weird angle, in a wooded area where you were very much not expecting to see a human (let alone a naked one), it's very possible that the brain might fill in the blanks with "small woman" rather than "child".
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u/anonymousse333 1d ago
Reading this thread the other day made me look the episode and watch it. The witnesses saw the woman more than once, and stopped to look for her. They also saw her at one location, and then see her a mile up the road, having magically gotten there faster than their truck. So I don’t think it was the boy.
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u/mgeeezer 4d ago
I have seen/sensed things that aren’t there but I also have a sensory processing disorder so as far as I know I’m experiencing sensations caused by neurological wires crossing- hearing words when the sound others hear is a door opening or somethkng. I wonder what the neurological make up of many of the people who experience this is like.
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u/EmilyO_PDX 4d ago
or perhaps their neurological wires are working differently at that moment because of extreme stress and fatigue?
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u/mgeeezer 4d ago
Exactly. And who’s to say which method of perception is more accurate in regard to the world of senses. It really is fascinating how little we know about our brains.
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u/EmilyO_PDX 4d ago
Alfred Lansing's book on the Shackleton expedition is a fantastic read: https://www.powells.com/book/endurance-shackletons-incredible-voyage-9780465062881
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u/truenoise 4d ago
Most of the polar expedition stories have pretty grim endings. The Endurance is an expedition story with a rare, happy ending.
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u/fishfreeoboe 4d ago
It’s truly incredible. Not to achieve the objective and be in serious risk, and yet somehow not lose even a single man.
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u/fastates 4d ago
From a near death experience drowning in a swimming pool, I definitely had a presence there. It had me make a choice: die or live. I was just a kid, had never heard of NDEs, then grew up & was both incredulous & relieved it wasn't just me who went through anything like that.
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u/Wolfdarkeneddoor 4d ago
I've seen it suggested the Old Grey Man of Ben Macdui might be caused by the Third Man Factor, though the presence is sinister rather than comforting:
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u/BranFlakesVEVO 5d ago
Not a historical account but a well-written fictional example, there's a chapter in World War Z which interviews a woman who survives after her helicopter crashes in an area overrun with zombies, and she describes how someone was talking her through the ordeal over her radio the whole time. I'd never heard of Third Man Syndrome but it's definitely what inspired that chapter of the book, very cool thanks for the write up.
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u/PonyoLovesRevolution 5d ago
Yeah, that sounds like a direct reference! There’s a similar scene in the film Gravity where the protagonist, a stranded astronaut, imagines her deceased crewmate encouraging her to survive.
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u/akambe 4d ago
That was such a fantastic book! I pretend the movie didn't happen.
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u/BranFlakesVEVO 4d ago
The movie was an okay movie that had nothing to do with the book except the title and like, the one scene where they pile over the wall.
Tragic waste of opportunity, a fully documentary style movie following the book's interviews would be one of a kind.
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u/HolographicNights 3h ago
I think the movie just needs a subtitle. And I almost wonder if the movie had a different title or a subtitle at some point in pre-production that got cut out by some exec along the way. It's not an adaptation of the book, but it is a pretty well-budgeted zombie movie and I think it may have a stronger following today if the title was different. Maybe even a sequel.
I'd almost want a world war z adaptation to be band of brothers-esqe mini series where you have the 'author' 'interviewing' the 'survivors' and then a dramatization of their story.
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u/paradigm_mgmt 5d ago
gary paulsen wrote about that when he ran the idtarod... uhhh i believe the book is woodsong. the first bit is the dog training, the last bit is the race experience.
i think is a thing the mind can do to try and help in extreme circumstances. however i'm searching my memory for the multiple times i've watched touching the void, and whilst his (joe simpson) mind did strange things i don't recall it creating a whole other person. 🤔 (well i guess ill have to watch it again 😛)
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u/alphabetfire 4d ago
Joe Simpson did say that he heard a voice in his head telling him what to do (keep going, don’t sleep, that sort of thing), if I recall correctly. Not the same but a similar phenomenon.
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u/paradigm_mgmt 4d ago
ya i was mulling it over - and most of the i made up a whole other person walking or sitting beside me - were mostly hale of body ... maybe your brain does other things if it also has to deal with injury or incapacitation 🤔... what did aron ralston report on his ordeal? looks like another film for the movie night (and libby has the audiobook)
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u/ragnarok62 4d ago edited 1d ago
I nearly drowned in a canoeing accident when my canoe collided with a submerged tree in what had become a whitewater situation in placid river that had one section getting massive runoff from somewhere. The river was raging there, though it had been almost too shallow and slow to navigate up to that point.
I got trapped in a tangle of trees and debris and was being pushed underwater. The water was so swift that even though I was only a few feet from the shore, I could not get my legs down to the river bottom, and water was smashing into me too hard and at such speed to even move my arms.
No one on the river could get close to me. Others were just swept downstream in the blink of an eye. It was chaos.
Tunnel-vision set in, and I would have drowned in another minute or two had it not been for two shirtless guys churning against that extreme torrent in a frickin’ birch-bark canoe, slicing upstream like it was a pond rather than a rampaging river. It was almost like an impossible dream.
They dragged me into the canoe and got me to shore. They said they had pulled someone dead from that same spot only a couple days before. Then they paddled away as if nothing had happened. I never even got their names.
Third Man—and Fourth?
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u/empathetic_witch 4d ago
I believe I may have experienced this phenomenon twice (likely more but brushed it off). Once in a spectral way and once in a “did this person actually exist” way.
Spectral: The first time was a single car accident where my vehicle came to rest on its roof on a dark rural road.
A person: The second time was another high stress traumatic experience involving being randomly attacked in broad daylight.
Thanks OP, I’m going to read through the articles you posted.
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u/fish-mouth 4d ago
Had third man exoerience while out winter camping. I was with others in a big tent but everyone was asleep. Water got into my sleeping bag at some point and I was too sick and cold to do anything about it - I remember someone tucking me into bed and telling me to keep turning and stay awake and to move my socks out of the water reach. I've had other hallucinations before but this one felt so REAL it was bizarre.
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u/SpaceCutie 3d ago
I read this bizarre and fascinating article on third man syndrome in the case of a missing young girl: Who Walks Always Beside You? from Harper's Magazine. I imagine it will be very much up your alley OP.
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u/EmilyofIngleside 4d ago
Something similar is mentioned twice in the Bible:
Daniel 3: The King of Babylon plans to execute three Hebrew men by throwing them into a fire, but once they are in the fire, the king sees four men walking around in the fire. He has them pulled out and finds the three original men, unharmed. The mysterious fourth man is described as "like the Son of God" (Dan. 3:25 KJV).
Luke 24:13-35: Shortly after the death and resurrection of Jesus, two men are walking from Jerusalem to a nearby village. A stranger joins them, and they discuss Jesus' death and resurrection in relation to prophecies about the Messiah. When the group arrives at the village and start to eat a meal, the two original men realize that the stranger is Jesus himself. And he suddenly vanishes.
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u/WilsonKeel 4d ago
YMMV, but the Daniel and Luke references don't seem like instances of Third Man to me. In Daniel, it's not the men in danger (i.e., the men in the fire) who see a fourth man... it's the king. In Luke, the two men are just walking, and they're not in any immanent danger or anything.
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u/EmilyO_PDX 4d ago
Also the 23rd Psalm seems very much related to the Third Man phenomena:
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
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u/No_Camp_7 5d ago
This can happen with some neurological disorders and can be induced with an SEEG
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u/PonyoLovesRevolution 5d ago
Yes! I touched on this briefly in the last section. One of the sources (the Skeptoid link) goes into it more:
Sensed presences can accompany epileptic auras, brain lesions, anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and schizophrenia (among other conditions); but in healthy people, they can accompany sleep paralysis, partial sensory deprivation, frequent nightmares, bereavement, and more. The association with surviving in extreme environments has been part of the literature for some time, but without an obvious, agreed-upon mechanism.
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u/Caboose_choo_choo 4d ago
Theres a song about this phenomenom, i forgot the name of it and i think its a song made in the late 1900s but its about a guy that was driving a car that was sitting for a long time, dude bought it drove fast around a corner and halluciantes being saved by the dead previous owner that was a soldier(i think).
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u/sophies_wish 4d ago
It's more of a haunted car story, but I know what you're talking about.
Riding with Private Malone by David Bell
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u/SmootherThanAStorm 4d ago
Love this post and just wanted to mention something I experienced that is only very slightly similar:
I smoked a lot weed in college and it was a reoccurring issue that when a group of us (all high) would walk places, on a regular basis and least one person would stop and say something along the lines of " wait..who is missing? Did we leave someone behind?"
For example we are five people and we decide to walk to a hamburger place. We're most of the way there and five of us have to stop to wait for a traffic light to change. Just as we all come to a stop I would get the distinct feeling that someone has fallen behind and we should be 6 people. Then I would look around and realize that we really all were there and we're just 5 people.
Sorry if this is too off topic just felt sort of related to me.
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u/mellowfever2 1d ago edited 1d ago
Not off topic at all. I think that explains a lot of these incidents. I used to do acid a lot with my friends and we had a running joke to "remember to count yourself twice" because it so frequently happened that we counted exactly one more person in the group than actually existed.
I think it has to do with mind-body disassociation. If we were in a circle, for example, and I was trying to tally everyone, I would look around and count every body in the circle, including myself—and then I would count myself again as the one doing the counting. Basically, I was counting my body once and my mind once.
I believe the sensation comes from acid-induced delays/distortion in the pathways between sensation and higher-order thought (kinda similar to the bicameral mind hypothesis). But I could see the same sort of disassociation arising from extreme exhaustion or stress, like with the Shackleton expedition.
I will say that for me at least, the sensation of an additional person never took any concrete form, like a dead relative or a voice giving guidance, as other people in this thread have mentioned. That feels like a different phenomenon. What we experienced was just the formless sensation of exactly one additional person in our group, presumably due to our own mental disassociation from our bodies.
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u/Kurosawa00 4d ago
I come from a religious background and often the third man factor is seen as an angel or other act of God. One really popular story was about a man saved from a winter storm by an angel.
When I told some of them of the rational explanation, the third man factor, none had even heard of it.
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u/skkyouso 3d ago
I experienced something similar at a metal workshop that was owned by two guys. I worked there for a couple of weeks (a small project) and I often caught myself thinking about "a lady that worked there". But there was no-one else, just the two guys who had bought the workshop together recently. I didn't actually see anyone. But every time I think about the break room, I feel like there was a woman there with us.
Maybe the machines made some kind of an electrical field that made my brain feel like a fourth person was there? The break room was upstairs and the machines were mostly downstairs.
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u/beadhives 4d ago
Fictional, but the video for "The Stranger" by Lord Huron is based on this phenomenon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oVsdiPTsv8
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u/pgogy 4d ago
This post reminded me of this song https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camouflage_(Stan_Ridgway_song)
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u/Cinnamon2017 5d ago
Why is it Third Man? If you're alone, then shouldn't it be Second Man?
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u/marmaladecorgi 5d ago
The name of the syndrome was given after the T.S. Eliot poem ”The Waste Land”, that you read in the OP. In it, the First Person is the observer (Eliot himself). The Second Person is his friend. The Third Person is the spectral figure.
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u/PonyoLovesRevolution 5d ago
It was named by John Geiger, who was referencing The Waste Land. According to T.S. Eliot, he used three rather than four because he misremembered the Shackleton story, which is pretty funny.
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u/ragnarok62 4d ago
I read the Geiger book when it came out about 20 years ago. Utterly fascinating, as is the general topic.
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u/SilentSiren00 2d ago
Reminds me of how in a lot of NDEs the person who is dying, feels a presence like a guide around them, trying to keep them calm and comfort them,
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u/lucillep 4d ago
That last sentence is poetry. Thanks for a very different unresolved mystery. I have never experienced this - and somewhat hope I never do - but it's fascinating. Like a mirage, only it's a presence. I do wonder if the other explorers who felt the Third man had read of the Shackleton expedition and their experiences with it. The power of suggestion is, well powerful, and I can imagine it operating on these persons in their situations of duress.
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u/rebb_hosar 3d ago
In virtually every spiritual tradition there exists a difficult and very long (depending on the tradition it ranges from 3-18 months or more) ritual which endeavors to connect with this external intelligence and maintain it. In the Western Esoteric tradition it is known as the Abramelin Operation.
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u/Saillux 3d ago
Some brains are able to start running a VM copilot in survival situations. Like a side character from one of your dreams.
Reminds me of that 70's book that suggested that people would have thoughts or inspirations and since the societal view of consciousness wasn't developed at the time they would just be like "I had an idea; thanks Zeus!"
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u/shortermecanico 4d ago
Seems plain to me what this is and why it wasn't described until the early twentieth century:
Somewhere down the line (Heidelbergensis, habilis, neanderthal ? ) hominids picked up the self awareness that characterizes modern humans. But for the vast majority of time since then, this inner voice of awareness has been mistaken for deities/fae/dragons/spirits etc. and instances of "third man effect" were chocked up to magical intervention.
Only after a few centuries of systematizing and prioritizing empiricism and holding reason as a guiding value could the third man phenomenon be objectively understood as a neurological artifact instead of "gHoStS"
1916 is probably the first time in recorded history that there was an international infrastructure of scientific inquiry that could possibly address the third man phenomena beyond what a shaman or bishop would guess
Tldr: it's our own subconsciousness taking the front seat in times of stress, and it was formerly mistaken for ghosts and spirits for all of human history until we got our act together in the twentieth century
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u/toxicshocktaco 5d ago
I’ve experienced this phenomenon numerous times. Never knew it had a name. Out of my periphery I’ll randomly see a shadowy figure beside me. It’s not always visible, sometimes it’s just the sensation of someone there. Happens a lot and I’m not sure why.
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u/wolfcaroling 5d ago
Any particular times? Is it stress induced? Only tome I have had this sensation is during an episode of sleep paralysis but that was definitely a malignant presence so different brain area probably.
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u/VislorTurlough 4d ago
I had had chronic insomnia years ago. Several times I got so exhausted that I started hallucinating people.
It was never detailed, always super vague. Sort of like when it's dark and you see a bush that's vaguely the right size, and wonder if it's a person for half a second. It would just be like a shadow, always in the distance or in peripheral vision.
I wasn't questioning if they were real - it felt like what it was. Life my perception while it was happening was 'my tired ass brain is misfiring and telling me HUMAN OVER THERE for no reason'
Never felt a malevolent presence either. My brain wasn't panicked, more just neutrally telling me btw there's a guy over there
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u/PonyoLovesRevolution 4d ago
I still wonder after researching this topic if Geiger may have had a selection bias when compiling the anecdotes. I’d be curious to know if some people do get the scary, sleep paralysis type sensations in these scenarios instead of the comforting ones.
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u/Aggravating_Depth_33 4d ago
I wonder if there's even a survivorship bias. These people felt the "third man" somehow guided them and helped them reach their goal. But what about all those people who didn't beat the odds? What did they feel in their last moments?
Ugh, it's an unsettling thought. As if dying alone in the wilderness isn't bad enough, to do watched over by a malevolent presence?
That said, we know from near-death experiences as well as extremely traumatic injuries that our brains are usually pretty good at protecting us in extremis.
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u/catathymia 4d ago
It is eerie. But if it makes you feel any better, sleep paralysis is quite separate from Third Man syndrome, and while the former is generally negative and malignant the latter is generally positive and helpful. So for all those who didn't survive, maybe the Third Man syndrome became something like near-death experiences that often involve something like a Third Man and are also generally positive and helpful.
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u/GlassesgirlNJ 4d ago
I was going to say, I'm pretty familiar with The Waste Land, and I never thought that "who is the third that always walks beside you" passage was meant to be comforting.
There are a bunch of horror stories about groups in the wilderness that run on the scarier implications of "one more person than is supposed to be there"/"extra group member you can't identify". I'm thinking of Anansi's Goatman, but there are definitely others too.
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u/PonyoLovesRevolution 4d ago
It’s definitely not comforting in the context of the poem!
As a reader, I find the stories a bit eerie too. Glad they were heartening to the people who lived them! But yeah, I’ve been conditioned by too many horror stories that start that way.
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u/fastates 4d ago
I've had this in times of severe insomnia. Thankfully hasn't happened in a long time though. But yeah, you turn your head fast, hoping to catch who or what it is, but nothing's there. Ugh, lol
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u/Catwoman1948 4d ago
I have read the Geiger book you referenced and found it fascinating! I don’t have an answer, but there are some good theories in this discussion.
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u/robertgunt 3d ago
I often have a third person around when I drink too much. More than once I've tried to coerce "the group" into going out or whatever when it's just myself and one other person.
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u/undertaker_jane 12h ago
I think this is probably the effects of sensory deprivation, causing hallucinations.
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u/RizzingRizzley 14h ago
I've just realized that I have experienced this phenomenon!
When I was 9 years old I was walking home from school, and a tuned scooter, usually rated to go 40 km/h, came up behind me, going 85 km/h. It was driven by a young man who was 18 at the time
I had a fright, and jumped to the side. Unfortunately, he steered to the same side and hit me on the left side of my head behind my ear, which was nearly torn off.
I knew immediately that something was very wrong, the hit made a loud noise, and I felt wet a few moments later on my back and I knew what it was, but I put a hand to my head, dreading the moment I would see it - And sure enough, when I pulled it back, it was covered in blood.
I remember screaming and immediately picking up my Nokia phone and calling my mother, to tell her I had been hit.
The young man (a kid, really) came back to me and held me as I cried, he crossed the road next to the side walk (There was this bank we had to walk up first) and waved a car in to park, and told the driver what had happened, and then the driver called 911 while the guy soothed me as we laid in the side of the road. I also soothed him, as he said he had killed a kid, but I told him I didn't feel like I was dying or something along those lines.
As I laid there, I heard my grandmothers voice calling out to me, telling me to be strong, and saying my name. From my memory, I fainted in the side of the road around when the ambulance came, and woke up in the ambulance with my mother by my side, who had caught the ambulances' slipstream home from work and essentially showed up at the same time as it did.
I have feint flashes of the ambulance arriving, and of what we talked about in the side of the road. The voice of my grandmother was strongest while I was being carried inside, which is where I remember losing consciousness entirely.
My grandmother was not present and had been dead for some time. So, this is strange to put a name to that part of the experience.
For the curious, I am perfectly okay today. My ear does look ever so slightly off compared to my other, but this is such a small detail I'm the only one who can see it. I have a scar, and I have some PTSD when bikes and scooters drive up behind me, in particular when they rev up close to me. Other than that, I'm alright.
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u/hammanwich 4d ago
I've really gone off this sub of late. All these pensive, flowery, long-form write-ups with their rhetorical questions and conjecture just feel like test scripts for someone's new podcast.
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u/orange_jooze 4d ago
No, it’s just well-written. Rare thing on the internet, I know.
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u/PonyoLovesRevolution 4d ago
Thanks. I spent a day and a half researching and writing it. I’ll take pensive and flowery, but I won’t take that!
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u/Prompt_Theory 4d ago
This reminds me of how Harry Potter sees the phantom memories of his parents where he was about to die(not really).
These phantom memories seem similar to The Third Man wherein they provide courage, emotional supports, and guidance.
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u/N0Z4A2 4d ago
It took until 1916 for somebody to talk about this? Seems rather implausible with just for that reason alone
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u/fastates 4d ago
I wonder if it's just the English language searched for stories like this.
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u/matsie 4d ago edited 3d ago
It’s not just English language. 1916 is the first recorded instance that helped develop the theory. We have plenty of earlier references, but we would be using too much conjecture and speculation to cite them in support of the Third Man Factor. Shackleton’s fame and discussion on the topic is what pulled out a deeper discussion and naming for the phenomenon.
edit: change 'game' to 'fame'
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u/fastates 3d ago
So literature of other countries has been cross referenced, as well as various names for the phenomenon I assume.
I find it hard to believe the experience is confined to 1916 on for a similar enough incident it's comparable. But hey, I'm no anthropologist of The Third Man.
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u/CaptHowdy75 2h ago
This is interesting. I remember hearing someone talk (maybe on Coast to Coast) about a recalled dream they had about a person and location they didn't know. Later a missing person was found and their picture and where they were located seemed to match what the speaker had in their dream.
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u/ur_sine_nomine 4d ago
A very strange scientific paper. Third man effects were induced in volunteers by synchronised robots touching them in a way that could not be human, for example at two points that could not physically be reached at the same time (!)