At 2.30 this morning the sound of the doorbell shattered the silence of our house. After a few seconds of confusion and annoyance I got up, tiptoed through the house and peered out a window that looks onto the front porch. I saw a figure retreating from our front door and heading down towards the other apartments in our block.

After some whispered discussions between hubby and me, and much monitoring of the window, we decided it was a mistake and went back to bed. Our heads just hit the pillow when the effing doorbell rang again.

I looked out the window again and saw a man dressed in what appeared to be a military uniform; camouflage rain slicker, maroon beret with some type of sheild pinned to it. A number of scenarios went through my head as to why the military would be knocking on doors in the wee small hours. Will we have to finally have to make use of the nuclear fall-out shelter?

We thought it a good idea to see what was going on, so we cracked the door and peered out. The man immediately started speaking in what sounded like German. His voice was monotone, sounding kind of depressed and upset. We asked if he spoke French. No. English. No. The conversation was going nowhere and to be honest was kind of creepy, so we said sorry and closed the door.

It took literally hours for us to get back to sleep and we spent the rest of the night straining our ears to every strange noise and wondering where the wierd "army" guy went and what on earth he was doing wandering around ringing doorbells at 2.30 in the morning.

I am still perplexed by it today and have no idea what all that was about last night. Anyone have any theories? Is there a Swiss legend of a wandering army ghost who rings peoples doorbells in the night?

Trick or Treat ??

Drunk and lost, trying to find his apartment?

Not that such a thing has ever happened to me, of course...

Nazi Zombies?

So drunk and so lost he's wandered out of his own language zone and still can't find the graveyard he had hoped to visit on All Saints... As they only rent out the plots he may never find the one he is looking for anyhow.
Seriously lost I would say, poor soul. No-one would be up that late around there if they weren't.

Well, it is all soul's day - maybe he's a lost or restless spirit.

I am thinking the Nazi zombie seems the most likely explanation.

Thanks Patxi.

(Have we invoked Godwin's Law in record time?)

Sometimes, if someone hasn't shown up for their military service, they send the military police around to get them back to their duties. Perhaps he was looking for someone for that reason?

Someone in my husband's division sloped off a few days early to escape the clean-up one year and the military police had to go and find him and escort him back to face the music.

I think, after they had finished with him, he wished he had just stuck it out for the last week and a half...

You think they'd be ringing doorbells at 2.30 in the morning to track down the AWOLs?

There has been some new neighbours move in and they are two youngish looking guys. Maybe they're on the run from the military?

Wow, Switzerland is suddenly seeming so much more exciting

Maybe helicopters, search lights and stun grenades aren't de rigeur here?

Well - he may have been sleepwalking - no joke! Happened to us once; I'd forgotton to lock the front door to our apartment at night. Hubby and I went to bed (dog was already asleep & snoring), when I saw lights on downstairs. We both got up, I grabbed the dog's collar and hoisted him to his feet, errr paws, and the 3 of us headed down the stairs. There was a guy standing in our guest loo wearing nothing but his undies and taking a pee. My husband grabbed him by the arm and asked what the f.... he was doing, which obviously woke him up. He really had been sleepwalking from 3 floors above us and needless to say, he was slightly confused and more than a bit embarrassed.

OH.MY.GOD!

Hehe, we had a guest once who got up in the night to pee. Couldn't find the bathroom so he went outside... got turned around and ended up in our neighbor's house on their couch. They found him in the morning, luckily he's an extremely charming guy and we were friends with the neighbors . I'm sure their 7 year old girl spun it into a whopper at school that day.

Did you park in his parking space?

At least it wasn't a *man in Black*.......

We've had a couple of knocks on the door about visitors doing just that (thankfully not in the middle of the night though).

I thought it was perhaps something to do with the car but this morning our car was safely in the garage as usual.

Happy Halloween!

Thanks Macchiato. Although the guy was about 28 hours too late for Halloween.

But you know the Undead, not so good with their timing. (Although being a Swiss Undead you would think he would be better).

This is a strong possibility. The fact that his voice was monotone certainly seems to point in that direction.

Being a sleepwalker myself, I can tell you you wouldn't believe the things you can do. Peeing random places is the most common thing (and is exacerbated if you drank a lot, but also happens when you're sober). I've also wandered into people's rooms, said some weird cryptic things and went back to bed when asked. Sleepwalkers are more responsive than you think they are and they'll usually they'll go to back to bed when asked.

You can usually tell when a person is sleepwalking because they have a blank look, it's especially noticeable for people who know the person because it seems like their soul is gone. It's not a good idea to wake a sleepwalker, as long as they're not a danger to themselves. I can't imagine how that guy who woke up in a stranger's apartment must have felt. I've woken up once during sleepwalking when I was a teenager and it was extremely disconcerting and scary. I was dressing for school and causing a ruckus in my room. Weirdly, what woke me up was the sound of my mom walking up the stairs. Imagine suddenly waking up and realizing that you're in the middle of putting your pants on. Yeah...

My coup de grace, though, was grabbing a 20-inch CRT TV (the old heavy type) in my room and letting it go on the ground. It was completely dark, but I managed to do it anyway, because if you live somewhere, the dimensions of the rooms and different items are commited to muscle memory, so you know where things are. The sound didn't even wake me up, and luckily it didn't land on my toes. It woke up my girlfriend, though, she jumped up and turned on the light. I'm standing in the middle of the room and I ask her, "Where's the couch?" Her: "You mean the bed." Me: "No, couch." Her: "No, go back to bed."

I proceeded to lie down on the bed, but vertically and not horizontally, and instantly falling asleep. She had to turn my body around (not easy considering I weigh almost twice as much as her) to put me in the right position because I was completely unresponsive. When I woke the next morning, she told me everything. I didn't believe her. So she pointed to the ground, and there it was, the TV lying there.

In my new place, I've fallen off our mezzanine bed and rolled down the almost-vertical 2 meter long stairs. Apparently I went, "oww, oww, oww" for about 2 minutes as my girlfriend was frantically asking me if I was OK. Then I just got up and went to the bathroom. I had only a bruised knee in the end. Had I been awake, I'm sure I would have tried to do something stupid to break the fall and ended up with a serious injury.

Whatalife.

Good news is, I'm getting my Swiss citizenship in a few months and this definitely means no army. I hope the army guys ask for eye witnesses, my girlfriend is always up for telling some of these gems.

Maybe your uniform guy was kicked out of the army and subconsciously playing out his frustrations in his sleepwalking.

well at least it wasn't this bloke!