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        riddles >> what happened >> Joe Flannigan
        
(Message started by: Azgard on Jan 22^nd, 2009, 2:39pm)

Title: Joe Flannigan
Post by Azgard on Jan 22^nd, 2009, 2:39pm

Joe Flannigan came home Monday after work around 5:30pm. He unlocked the front door, walked into the hall, and put down his briefcase. Joe went up the stairs to his bedroom, but did not go in because he was shocked to realize that someone had been in his room since he had left for work that morning!

The only pieces of furnature in the room were his bed (made), a night stand to the left of his bed with a light and an alarm clock on it, his dresser with an assortment of coins, a comb, and a model helicopter on top, and his desk with a textbook and a model stealth fighter in progress spread out over the surface.

If nothing was missing and everything was where he left it, how did Joe Flannigan know that someone had been in his bedroom?

Title: Re: Joe Flannigan
Post by 1337b4k4 on Jan 22^nd, 2009, 3:01pm

[hide]did he leave his bed unmade?[/hide]

Title: Re: Joe Flannigan
Post by Azgard on Jan 22^nd, 2009, 3:02pm

Nope, Joe is a good soldier and makes his own bed every morning.

Title: Re: Joe Flannigan
Post by towr on Jan 22^nd, 2009, 3:11pm

[hide]If he's a good little paranoid, he'd have left something like a strip of paper jammed between the door, which would fall out if anyone entered his room. Any intruder not wary enough to notice such a trick would betray his snooping.[/hide]

Title: Re: Joe Flannigan
Post by cheesepuff on Jan 22^nd, 2009, 4:24pm

Paper traps, pencil led traps, door handle traps....

Maybe his textbook was moved around (same thing happened to me except that I later found out it was a family member who decided to visit me without telling me and left before I woke up.)

Or maybe the intruder forgot to flush :D

Title: Re: Joe Flannigan
Post by Noke Lieu on Jan 22^nd, 2009, 4:27pm

perfume.

or the fact that they were still there sort of gave it away.

Title: Re: Joe Flannigan
Post by 1337b4k4 on Jan 22^nd, 2009, 4:46pm

The comb had someone's hair in it? The light was on but he left it off, or vice versa?

Title: Re: Joe Flannigan
Post by Azgard on Jan 22^nd, 2009, 6:25pm

So far, cheesepuff is closest...

The lights are as Joe left them, no strange odours, and no purposely left paranoid traps.

Title: Re: Joe Flannigan
Post by denis on Jan 22^nd, 2009, 7:09pm

[hide]the intruder was still there[/hide]

Title: Re: Joe Flannigan
Post by Azgard on Jan 22^nd, 2009, 7:13pm

There were no extra bodies in the room, sorry denis.

Title: Re: Joe Flannigan
Post by gotit on Jan 22^nd, 2009, 10:42pm

The alarm clock buzzed even though he had not set any alarm.

OR

He had gone to office with his textbook open and when he came back it was a different page that was open.

Title: Re: Joe Flannigan
Post by Grimbal on Jan 23^rd, 2009, 12:52am

He did not go in. So maybe the door was ajar?

Or a polaroid of the bedroom was lying on the floor?

Dirty footsteps going in ... and not out?

John was away for 3 months (after work ... on a drilling platform). The alarm clock was beeping. If the alarm clock had been armed for 3 months, it would have run out of batteries.

Maybe the furniture is not where it used to be? Maybe when he tried to open the door, the bed was blocking it.

Title: Re: Joe Flannigan
Post by Azgard on Jan 23^rd, 2009, 10:25am

on 01/22/09 at 22:42:04, gotit wrote:

He had gone to office with his textbook open and when he came back it was a different page that was open.

You got it, gotit!

Title: Re: Joe Flannigan
Post by Eigenray on Jan 23^rd, 2009, 11:06am

Everything was exactly as he left it, and he doesn't have a programmable thermostat, so someone must have had the heat / AC on recently. Or his computer hadn't gone into standby, or the lights hadn't turned themselves off yet, or his dishwasher / washing machine / clothes drier were still running, or maybe the toaster was still making toast.

Or the coffee was still hot, or the milk he left out hadn't spoiled, or the ice in his glass hadn't melted, or the bed was still warm, or the shower was still wet, or there was still no ice in his freezer.

Or maybe there was a power outage that day, yet his clock was not flashing, or he forgot to turn off the alarm before going out, leaving it on snooze, so it should have been going off when he got back.

Or maybe he knew some mail was delivered that day but it wasn't there now.

Or, maybe he had rigged his house to explode while he was out (for the insurance money).

Or "that morning" refers to the last time the sun came up. He lives at the north pole, and that was a long time ago. Yet his plants were still alive, his food hadn't spoiled, there was no dust, ...

Title: Re: Joe Flannigan
Post by Grimbal on Jan 24^th, 2009, 9:35am

@Eigenray: I second you in that the problem statement is misleading. In line with your ideas, and since there is a reference to an alarm clock: the alarm clock was still showing the same time as it did when he left. Maybe you thought of that and discarded it because it could have restarted after a power outage. But I like the idea.

Title: Re: Joe Flannigan
Post by Azgard on Jan 24^th, 2009, 3:43pm

on 01/22/09 at 14:39:22, Azgard wrote:

If nothing was missing and everything was where he left it, how did Joe Flannigan know that someone had been in his bedroom?

Never did I say that everything was exactly as he left it... ;)

Title: Re: Joe Flannigan
Post by Eigenray on Jan 25^th, 2009, 8:49am

on 01/24/09 at 15:43:10, Azgard wrote:

Never did I say that everything was exactly as he left it... ;)

Yes but it's still fun to come up with more solutions.

Maybe he took a nap at work, and while sleeping, went home for lunch. Thus, everything was as he left it, but he was quite shocked to find that it was not as he remembered leaving it that morning.

Title: Re: Joe Flannigan
Post by gotit on Jan 25^th, 2009, 11:27am

Another solution which comes to my mind is Room Temperature. When he came back, the room temperature was lower than it was when he had left, thus indicating that someone had opened the window.

Infact this was the solution to one of Iceman's riddle.

Title: Re: Joe Flannigan
Post by towr on Jan 25^th, 2009, 12:55pm

on 01/25/09 at 11:27:49, gotit wrote:

Or maybe his room is so well-isolated, and he's so sensitive to temperature change, that he can sense someone was there because the temperature was raised ever so slightly from the other persons presence. ;D

Title: Re: Joe Flannigan
Post by Grimbal on Jan 26^th, 2009, 7:40am

Or the person farted and he's so sensitive to smell change, that he can sense someone was there because the level of stench was raised, and not slightly, from the other persons presence.
;D

Title: Re: Joe Flannigan
Post by Azgard on Jan 26^th, 2009, 3:49pm

The Myth Busters of Riddles....

Title: Re: Joe Flannigan
Post by Death on Feb 12^th, 2009, 3:57pm

Although if we keep heading down the pernickety technical road, turning a page over would move part of that page by... say... 10cm maybe, thus moving the page - it just depends on whether you look at the book or the page as the object

Also, nowhere do you say he even opens the door to look inside - so surely he wouldn't be able to spot anything that had changed within the room. Of course if he saw footprints going to the door and leaving the door from a different spot it might work...

Title: Re: Joe Flannigan
Post by Azgard on Feb 16^th, 2009, 7:59am

on 02/12/09 at 15:57:00, Death wrote:

I was considering the entire book to be one object.

Title: Re: Joe Flannigan
Post by iono on Feb 18^th, 2009, 9:23pm

couldn't the page have changed because the wind blew in?

Title: Re: Joe Flannigan
Post by Azgard on Feb 19^th, 2009, 1:11pm

Only if the window also happened to have been opened... Which it wasn't.