OK. For those of you who have never heard of lateral thinking puzzles, I'm here to introduce you to how fun they are.

Here's how they work: with each puzzle, you can ask questions that can be answered with "yes", "no", or "irrelevant". These puzzles require you to use both your logic skills and your imagination. When one line of questioning leads you nowhere, you'll need to approach the problem from a fresh perspective.

As for the answers, we can do this in one of two ways. Either post your answer here and I will post if you are correct, or you can send me a PM with your answer so others who haven't figured out the puzzle can still keep working. I'll let y'all decide.

Here's your first puzzle:

When the music stopped, she died.

I think I know, but my "she" is not technically human.

Did she really die, or did she just stop moving?

I think we're thinking the same thing.

Is she in a box?

Gooch: no, she is a human

Fairy: yes, she really died

Chazee: no, she's not in a box.

Is she blind-folded?

Was she doing something dangerous, that resulted in her death?

Is she hooked up to a machine?

Are we allowed to ask more than one question before you answer?

Yes, you can post more than one question before I answer.

Chazee: yes, she was blindfolded

Fairy: yes, she was doing something dangerous that resulted in her death

ArlingtonLisa: no, she was not hooked up to a machine.

She walks a tight rope?

Would she have lived, had the music continued?

Chazee: yes, she walked a tight rope.

Fairy: yes, she would have lived if the music continued.

WOO HOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chazee PMed me the answer today! Any other takers?

Let me know if y'all would like me to post more than one puzzle at a time.

I'm game for another. They are fun.

Since there will be more than one puzzle, let me know which puzzle you are asking a question for or answering.

Puzzle #2: A man got up in the middle of the night, went downstairs, fixed himself a sandwich, turned out the light, and went back to bed. When he got up in the morning, he looked out the window and when he saw what he had done, he was so devastated that he killed himself.

Puzzle #3: A woman from New York married ten different men from that city, yet she did not breeak any laws. None of the men died, and she never divorced. How was this possible?

Puzzle 3........did she perform the marriages?

I am stumped on 2 to even take a guess he went downstairs....then looks outside the next day to see what he had done???

That was my guess on 3 as well.

#2...was he devastated because of the sandwich. Was it because of the light? Is it significant that the man turned out the light but was not mentioned as turning it on?

I'm with Fariy.....he does not turn on the light, yet he turns it off, then awakes to some sort of horror.

Ok.......has to be some sort of signal or search light........right?

Thanks Monica for introducing these puzzles, I had never heard of them!

Chazee, you are onto something there. Does the man, per chance, work in a lighthouse?

Chazee and Fairy, you two are good at these!

For puzzle #3: she does perform the marriages.

For puzzle #2: yes, it does have to do with the light and yes, he does work in a lighthouse.

What was the answer? It seems like a circus thing of a blind folded woman walking a tightrope, but I don't understand it.

I still think music box ballerina or dancer was a good answer.

The lady who walks the tight rope stops and gets off the rope when the music stops. The day she dies, the music stops too soon. She was not at the end of the rope.


I will go with a lighthouse keeper for puzzle 2 (Fairy, you were the one that led me to the light clue)

Puzzle 3, she is a justice of the peace.

I guess since I don't know anything about the circus I would have never got it. Thanks for explaining it chazee.

Yeah, that was my first thought too. I think some of them can have more than one logical answer. I have since looked it up and not only is the tightrope walker, and the musical box an optional answer, but there is also another. She was a spider on a chair. The kids were playing musical chairs and when the music stopped, someone sat on her. But it is fun to ask the questions and try and figure out what the asker is trying to get you to guess.


I'll add one:

#4:

A man lives on the twelfth floor of an apartment building. Every morning he takes the elevator down to the lobby and leaves the building. In the evening, he gets into the elevator, and, if there is someone else in the elevator -- or if it was raining that day -- he goes back to his floor directly. Otherwise, he goes to the tenth floor and walks up two flights of stairs to his apartment.

Oh CRAP gotta really think on this one....
Someone has to be on the elevator only in the evening? Or the morning as well?

His actions stay the same in the morning, whether someone else is on the elevator or not.

he doesnt take the elevator if its raining. hmmm.

Does he work in security?

I think I got it, but am trying to think about what rain has to do with anything. Is it because he is really short?

No, he doesn't work in security.

Yes, he is really short.

Haha I am so stupid, in the rain he can use his umbrella.

Makes you wonder why he wouldn't always carry something though?

Is he a dog owner?

Rain, short, umbrella

That's it! If someone else is in the elevator with him, he can ask them to press the button for him. If it is raining he can use the umbrella to push it. But if that isn't the case, he has to push the highest button he can and walk the rest. Good job everyone!

No, I didn't get it at all until you explained....but must agree with Gooch, he should have always carried an umbrella I thought perhaps it was something to do with a bellman I was totally thrown off course.

Yeah, I do agree he could have just carried an umbrella or something similar on a daily basis. But maybe he just can't be bothered.

OOH! Fairy's even coming up with the puzzles! Most impressive.

Here's another one:

puzzle #5: A truck driver called in to his office to report that his truck had broken down. A tow truck was sent out to tow back the disabled truck. When they arrived, the truck that had broken down was towning the tow truck. Why?

puzzle #6: A plane carrying 168 passengers crashes on the border of Canada and the United Sates. If half the passengers are from the U.S. and half are from Canada, where would you bury the survivors?

puzzle #7: During World War II, several British naval spies on the lookout for enemy ships and activities, posed as Canadian lobster fishermen. They had large numbers of pastic, orange-colored lobsters made for their covert operations. These lobsters came in various sizes with authentic markings. At night, the spies loaded the lobsters into the traps and threw them overboard. At daybreak, they would hoist the traps aboard the ship. The locals spotted them as fraudulent fishermen from quite a distance. How were they so easily detected?

#5: Did one or both of the trucks run out of gas at any point in this story?

#6: That's a good one....that one was told to me when I was about 8, and I've been using it every since, so I'll keep my mouth shut!

#7: Does it have to do with the depth of the water?

Puzzle 6.....You don't bury survivors

In regards to the lobster question, they are not orange until you cook them.

chazee got number 6 right.

I think fairy has number 5 in that the original truck ran out of gas and was too big for the tow truck.

I guess that is right. I was thinking they were orangish before you cooked them and bright red after you cooked them. Admittedly, I know little about it because I don't eat lobster.

Is the tow truck actually to small to tow the disable truck?

They still have a little orange, but they are mostly brown.

The question then becomes how did the disabled truck become able? That is why I think fairy got it right in that it was out of gas.

^^Would it not be more efficient just to bring gas to the disable truck?

Absolutely, but then again it would be more efficient for a small person to carry something to hit the high floors on the elevators each day instead of walking two floors.

Yeah, that is definitely the problem sometimes with these puzzles. By trade, I am highly trained in efficiency and effectiveness. Sometimes, I just sit and wonder why not everyone thinks of these things. But on these puzzles, you sometimes have to overlook the obvious. I remember one of my teachers telling us to always ask why a process was done a certain way. Our tendency is to assume that it has to be done that way, but sometimes, if you ask why, you'll find that it is more of a "well, it's always been done that way" type of thing. And once you get beyond that, you can really start to fix the process. Anyway, sorry to delve off the topic there.

Oh wait, I have another question/solution for the truck one. What if, disabled truck just wouldn't start and needed a jump. Tow truck comes, and gives disabled truck a jump, but then "tragically" runs out of gas. So then disabled truck has to tow the tow truck back to the station to get gassed up.

The little guy might have been overweight, and those days without rain,
gave him opportunity to exercise more

your correct.....logic plays nowhere in these puzzles