Shoppers vanish between shelves 7 and 8
WEST CHESTER, OH – A routine furniture shopping trip turned into a nightmare of cosmic proportions last Tuesday when multiple customers disappeared into what experts are calling an “interdimensional vortex” at the IKEA store on Ikea Way.
The incident began around 2:47 PM when shoppers browsing the bedroom display area between shelves 7 and 8 started reporting strange phenomena. Security footage, obtained exclusively by Weekly World News through anonymous sources, shows at least six customers simply vanishing into thin air while examining a HEMNES dresser display.
Store manager Brenda Kowalski initially dismissed early reports as “typical IKEA maze confusion,” but panic set in when families began frantically searching for missing relatives who had entered the bedroom section but never emerged at the lighting department.
“I was looking at nightstands with my husband Carl when I heard this weird humming sound, like a microwave mixed with Swedish death metal,” reported eyewitness Martha Hendricks, 42, of Hamilton. “Carl stepped toward shelf 8 to grab a MALM catalog, and then he just… dissolved. Like he was made of sugar and someone poured cosmic coffee on him.”
The disappearances triggered an immediate evacuation, but not before store security cameras captured increasingly bizarre footage. Sources describe videos showing customers walking normally until they reach a specific coordinate between the two shelves, where they appear to stretch like taffy before being sucked into what witnesses describe as a “swirling purple vortex decorated with tiny Swedish flags.”
Dr. Cornelius Blackwood, professor of Theoretical Paranormal Physics at the International Institute for Unexplained Phenomena, believes IKEA may have accidentally constructed a portal to another dimension. “The Scandinavian furniture giant has always used mysterious assembly instructions and impossible spatial layouts in their stores,” Blackwood explained. “It’s entirely possible their reality-bending retail techniques finally tore a hole in the fabric of space-time itself.”
Local authorities cordoned off the area while federal agents in unmarked vans arrived within hours. Government officials claim they’re investigating a “gas leak,” but insiders report teams of physicists with advanced detection equipment swarming the store after closing hours.
Even more disturbing are reports that the missing shoppers may still be alive in an alternate dimension. Ham radio operators across Ohio report picking up faint transmissions in what sounds like English mixed with Swedish, featuring desperate pleas for help and repeated mentions of “Allen wrenches” and “particle board purgatory.”
“We’re getting signals that sound like ‘Help us… trapped in eternal furniture assembly… instructions make no sense in this dimension,'” reported amateur radio enthusiast Chuck Morrison, who has been monitoring frequencies near the store. “There’s also a lot of crying and what sounds like someone reading IKEA product names backwards.”
IKEA corporate headquarters in Sweden issued a carefully worded statement denying any interdimensional incidents, claiming the missing customers simply “took advantage of our convenient alternative checkout system.” However, company stock plummeted 23% after leaked internal documents suggested this isn’t the first such incident at IKEA locations worldwide.
Local physicist Dr. Sarah Chen suspects the portal may be connected to IKEA’s notoriously confusing store layouts. “Their designers may have accidentally created a non-Euclidean geometry that intersects with parallel universes,” she theorized. “When you combine Swedish minimalism with cosmic forces beyond human comprehension, apparently you get a furniture store that doubles as a stargate.”
The store remains closed pending investigation, though neighbors report strange blue lights emanating from the building at night, accompanied by the sound of Allen wrenches clinking against interdimensional barriers and the distant echo of customers cursing Swedish assembly instructions across multiple realities.
The characters and events depicted in this story are entirely fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, or to actual events is unintentional and purely coincidental.
