探险家说，他们身边多了一个人：“第三人”现象

In 1916, explorer Shackleton's ship was trapped by ice in Antarctica and sank. More than twenty people waited on a desolate island; he took five others in a small wooden boat, drifted at sea for over ten days, and reached South Georgia Island. But the side where they landed was uninhabited; to find a whaling station where people lived, they had to cross the island's unnamed snow mountains and glaciers. He chose two companions, Worsley and Crean. The three of them walked for thirty-six hours straight, barely stopping.

Later, in his book, he wrote that on the way, he always felt there were four people in the group. The extra person always walked beside them, saying nothing, invisible, but he was quite certain of it. The other two companions later said they had the same feeling, but no one mentioned it along the way; each pretended nothing had happened.

The three of them reached the whaling station. A few months later, Shackleton returned by boat and rescued all twenty-two people left on the island; not a single person was missing.

This phenomenon later came to be called the "Third Man." Mountaineers have experienced it, divers have experienced it, solo sailors, pilots, and people waiting for rescue after disasters have also experienced it. In the 9/11 attacks of 2001, a person who escaped from the South Tower of the World Trade Center said that in the stairwell, there was also an invisible presence beside them, constantly encouraging them to go downstairs. They said that this presence sometimes spoke, sometimes guided them, and helped them persevere.

In 2009, a Canadian writer wrote a book specifically about this, called *The Third Man Factor*, collecting over a hundred such cases.

Psychologists explain that under extreme fatigue, oxygen deprivation, and loneliness, the brain "generates" a companion on its own to help a person endure.

As for what Shackleton and the others saw, they couldn't say after returning. He wrote in his book: Sometimes I felt that we were not three people, but four.

#Paranormal #网络转载 #科学解释