In this paper we consider the non-periodic pendulum equation <(x)double over dot>+G(x)(t,x)=p(t), where G(x)(t,x) and p(t) are not required to be periodic in t. Under natural assumptions, the existence of infinitely many bounded solutions is established, furthermore, it is shown that, for any given unbounded solution x, there is a solution x(epsilon) which is bounded and such that the half power of energies of x(epsilon) and x remain close on a time interval of length epsilon(-1) with epsilon > 0 small enough. In the end, a specific p(t) is constructed to illustrate the existence of the unbounded solution for the equation under this p(t); moreover, the long-time closeness result also holds under this p(t). (c) 2025 Elsevier Inc. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.