MetacHorIc Hallucination
Sometime in 1996 I accidentally solved the UFO mystery, complete with evidence. Though in that trickster way the Universe seems to enjoy, there was no possibility of convincing anyone else. I’d been interested in UFOs since the 1970s, and didn’t – quite – believe in aliens. My views seemed to vary depending on what book I’d just read. At 2am in the 1990s they seemed the most real, less so during daylight.
In the 1970s, at Mill o’Mains primary school in Dundee, I’d seen an F4 Phantom low and close over nearby houses. As an adult, a veteran of many RAF Leuchars air shows, I now realised that it was low, close to have been real. The roar would have been tremendous at that range – yet I heard nothing. A phantom indeed. Another of those hallucinatory qualities confirmed its status; I saw it neither arrive, nor depart – just that mental image of a cool fighter jet, suspended in mid-air. Having by now read [by David Barclay] I contrasted a 1989 case of the witness who saw a Tornado F3 chase a UFO, and fire a missile at it, hallucination, one where the conjured image is not merely placed in the environment,
