[ScaredStiff (OP)]

On top of our mantel is a bronze (could be faux bronze) replica of the Chinese Flying Horse statue from the Eastern Han Dynasty. It's been in my family at least 25 years but I don't recall where my parents bought it. Aside from sitting on one mantel or another, the statue has no other history with us. It just sits there.

Last night, the horse shot straight up perhaps two feet then onto the carpet in front of the hearth. It was sort of projected upward as if shot from a slingshot - it did not simply tumble over and hit the hearth. It flew up and away from the fireplace landing about a foot away from the hearth.

The base of the statue remained on the mantel unmoved. The horse and base had been attached by one hoof of the horse. The metal on the base and hoof are not bronze but is some sort of fairly shiny metal, looking something like a weld.

Why after so many years of doing nothing would the horse detach and rocket upward from its base? Aside from some paranormal activity, what would cause it to do this? It hasn't been dropped as far as I know, and it hasn't been moved except for dusting and Christmas. Our kids are too little to have played a prank, and there was no other evidence (smoke, smells, other materials) around the mantel. Just the horse on the floor and its base on the mantel.

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[Karen W.]

I would think if your weather is cold.. and you had a nice hot fire maybe real good dry hardwood burning that it probably heated the metal up so hot that the metal expanded and popped like a empty pan on a hot burner.. they will get so hot they pop and eject themselves up with a pretty good forceand a audible pop. Usually happens when there is no moisture to heat up in the pan. It gets distorted and it pops  sometimes like its under pressure..

Just a thought in case you did have a fire in the fireplace beneath the mantle?

That would be my humble guess!

[blakestyger]

Are you a Catholic teenager? There's a high incidence of poltergeist activity amongst this group, I understand.

[ScaredStiff (OP)]

lol! No, not Catholic. Episcopalian....and just past my teens.

We did not have a fire on the night that the statue went leaping about. We have fires about every other day, so the statue has been exposed to heat/cold. Would the tension causing the burst have built up over time?

[Make it Lady]

Constant expansion and contraction of the two different metals at different rates would cause a fatigue at the join and it could have been expansion or contraction that finally caused the parting of the ways.

[DoctorBeaver]

Constant expansion and contraction of the two different metals at different rates would cause a fatigue at the join and it could have been expansion or contraction that finally caused the parting of the ways.

Wouldn't that have caused it to simply topple?

[bookslinger]

Ghosts. It's the only explanation. Or at least the easiest and laziest...

[tony6789]

Constant expansion and contraction of the two different metals at different rates would cause a fatigue at the join and it could have been expansion or contraction that finally caused the parting of the ways.

Wouldn't that have caused it to simply topple?

mayb not, if what scared says is true that there actually IS a weld then it is possible for a small air pocket to exist. after so many years of the air putting tension on both sides of the metal then it would have caused it to "pop" into the air. though i wouldnt think it would go very high.

[DoctorBeaver]

Just before I moved out of Sandra's we were standing in the kitchen having a natter whilst waiting for the kettle to boil, when suddenly the screw top on a 3 litre bottle of orange squash popped off and went about 3 inches into the air. Strange.

[tony6789]

hmm that couldnt be the result of a "ghost" as the ghostie wud had to have shaken it first and unscrew it no? hmmmm mayb it had been shaken and settled with the gasses still present or the cap had not been tightly screwed in?