There are two camps when it comes to the Third Man Factor (or Syndrome)—a phenomenon where a comforting, guiding, or helpful persona shows up in the midst of traumatic situation. This persona may be a presence, a voice, or sometimes just a knowing, but it has often helped people out of some pretty shaky situations.
One camp says the Third Man Factor is a psychological occurrence, and that in high-stress situations, a person’s mind may manufacture auditory or visual hallucinations as a way to self- soothe or help. Another theory explains it as Bicameral Mentality in which someone’s internal desires and emotions (and thoughts?) are attributed to some external source, such as gods or other supernatural beings.
The other camp believes the Third Man Factor has nothing to do with the human mind and actually involves supernatural beings. In many online stories and others I've heard, people attribute their third man experiences to angels, deceased relatives, or disembodied voices.
Not surprisingly, that’s the camp I’m in and here are five reasons why.
1. The Third Man offers advice or direction we humans couldn’t have known
Many people tell stories of voices or strangers giving them commands that, when obeyed, saved their life or someone else’s. One woman walking with her sick mom was told by a disembodied voice to turn around just as a car hopped up on the sidewalk and headed straight for them. They were able to get out of the way in time.
A man watching television heard a voice tell him, “Go now!” He knew instantly it meant he was to go to his young son’s room. When he got there, his toddler had moved the crib over to where he could reach a metal airplane mobile and was quietly choking on the weighted ball. The father was able to expel the ball and the baby lived.
Another person riding on a train was told by some unseen force to move. He didn’t move right away until the voice became more urgent, and he obeyed. He moved over into another seat. Once he sat down, a bullet came through the train window and struck where his head had been only seconds before.
If these voices were just coming from human minds, how did people know those dangers were coming? Only an outside source could have known.
2. The Third Man does things we couldn’t do.
One mother, driving 70 mph on the highway, saw a hand close the backdoor of her car after her toddler had opened it. Another person, falling from a ledge, felt a large hand catch him and push him back against the rocks until he got his footing again.
Someone else was hiking and exhausted by the 80 pounds (two packs) he had on his back. He was barely making it when he suddenly felt his pack lighten to almost nothing. He then easily made it to the top of the mountain where he felt the load settle on his back again.
In all three of these cases, this physical help came from outside of the person. Hallucinations can't help people.
3. The same Third Man is seen or sensed by more than one person.
Though many times only the person that experiences the help is aware of the presence, three people in the Shackleton expedition party (the Third Man Factor is named for this event) all felt the same presence of someone else in their midst, guiding them on a grueling 36-hour hike through the mountains to get help.
In another case, a young girl in a hospital who had trouble sleeping would get visits from a night nurse that would braid her hair and talk to her for hours. Though her parents saw the elaborate braids and the nurses on the floor were all individually under the impression someone kept the young patient company at night, there was never a bedside nurse on the schedule or in rotation. There was also no one working in the hospital that fit the young girl's description.
Arguments for Bicameral Mentality for the Shackleton Party say its because the three men who sensed the presence were all dehydrated and hungry in extreme circumstances. But that doesn’t explain why all three felt the same presence. And in the case of the bedside nurse, all the nurses were aware of someone being there with the girl every night even though no one had ever seen anyone.
4. The Third Man leaves physical evidence.
One person who had started to fall through ice on a frozen reservoir had hand print bruises on his back from where some invisible force pushed him so he skidded across the ice instead of falling through. These are hand prints his friend witnessed as well.
Another person had suddenly sensed someone sitting in the passenger seat comforting him as his car went airborne and then rolled. Once the accident was over (and he was okay like the presence had told him), he noticed the windshield had shattered and there was glass all over him in the driver’s seat. But when he looked to the passenger’s side, there was only glass on the edge of the seat, as if someone had been sitting there.
Could either hand prints or proof of a body been caused by the force of a human's mind?
5. The Third Man isn’t always experienced as a persona.
Though a helpful presence has not always been felt or people haven’t always heard a command, people have still received messages of help in ways that did make sense to them. People have heard car horns, alarms, and screams and have come running to help other people who neither caused the sounds or heard them themselves.
One particular instance was a young near-teen girl whose mother left her in the car for a minute and ran into the store. While the girl sat in the car, two men tried to coerce her into getting out, and when she refused, they got ugly and started yelling and trying to get in the door. The girl was frozen with fear. Suddenly her mother came running out and chased them away because she had heard the car horn honking continuously. But the girl had never touched the horn or even heard it sound.
Another woman got several types of warnings over two days that turned out to be for her. Among other things, her phone dialed 911 twice in two days, and an angel pin her grandmother had given her that was pinned on her visor fell off into her lap in her car. The woman equated the happenings with some pain she had been having in her leg and reluctantly went to the hospital. There she found out she had two huge blood clots in her body, either of which would have killed her if she had waited any longer.
What do you think? Are these helpful personas and voices just constructs of our human minds or are there supernatural beings out there trying to help us out when we get into tough situations?
Here are the links to some of the stories in Buzzfeed article here and here and in the comments here. It's amazing how many stories are out there!
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