My Seriously Weird UFO Experience
The experience itself was actually nothing out of the ordinary, just one more sighting like all the others. However, every time I tell someone this story, they always respond “it’s the preamble that’s weird”.
I’ve considered sharing this on Medium before, but held back because it falls outside the themes I want to concentrate on. The current surge of UFO material by other writers has now persuaded me that this is a good time to go ahead.
The background story began several years ago when I had the opportunity of visiting Cambridge (England) for the first time, our neighbours having invited us to stay in a house they owned within the vicinity. As I’m very keen on reading, just before the first visit I did an internet search for second-hand bookshops in Cambridge. I found several clustered in the centre near the University complex, but noticed that there was another some way away in what seemed an inconvenient place.
For a few years I therefore only went to this main group of shops. During these visits, however, my wife and I discovered an interesting pub some way away from the University complex at the other end of Cambridge, where we went to end the day out.
Then, as a birthday present, my wife offered to treat me to a day out in Cambridge, this time taking the train from London. This is where the story starts to get interesting. The day before this trip I had a strong inner urge/intuition/internal order to Google second-hand bookshops in Cambridge again. This time I noticed that the shop I’d originally rejected was very close to the great pub we had discovered. It therefore made sense to include it in my round of bookshops for the first time.
Our usual plan was to do separate shopping and then meet at the Eagle pub in the centre for lunch, where we showed each other what we had bought. So the next day, at the station we separated and I went straight to the new bookshop, and browsed around. Although I had previously been aware of UFOs, I had never taken any special interest in them, and wasn’t looking for books about them. However, as I was browsing through the Mysteries and Paranormal section I noticed a book by Timothy Good, who I now know is a well-known ufologist. It looked interesting so I bought it.
While waiting for my wife to arrive at the Eagle for lunch, I started to browse through the new books. I randomly opened the UFO book at a page where Good was discussing black discs, apparently too small to contain a human, therefore presumably remote-controlled and for the purposes of observation. This was somewhat surprising, since it was nothing like what one thinks of in relation to traditional UFO sightings.
Later in the afternoon we took a taxi down to the other pub I mentioned. We arrived at opening time, so there were very few other people there. Having ordered our drinks, we sat down in the garden, where we were alone. I looked up and immediately saw a black disc flying over the nearby houses, which then disappeared beyond them. It was within my view for a few seconds. I immediately asked my wife, “did you see that?” She agreed that she had, so there was fortunately one independent witness. This disc looked precisely like what Timothy Good was describing, and which I’d been reading about earlier in the day.
How should such an experience be interpreted? It would seem that some guiding, daimon-type consciousness was organising events to get me interested in the UFO phenomenon and take it seriously. This consciousness must have somehow known in advance that the disc was going to appear at precisely that moment at precisely that place. I have responded to that invitation, and try to keep up with the UFO literature as much as I can; fortunately there is plenty on Medium. My regular readers will probably understand, given an experience like this, why I am so unimpressed by mainstream science, physicalism, and why we need to open up to the total weirdness of the universe.
It was interesting that all this happened on my birthday, perhaps symbolising a new beginning. Also interesting was that, upon my return to London, I googled ‘UFOs in Cambridge’. Top of the list (or perhaps the only one?) was a sighting several years earlier. It was said to be above the same road as the bookshop!
============================================================
I can’t find anything on the internet which precisely resembles what I saw, but this is a close approximation:
I hope you have enjoyed this article. I have written in the past about other topics, including spirituality, metaphysics, psychology, science, Christianity, politics and astrology. All of those articles are on Medium, but the simplest way to see a guide to them is to visit my website (click here and here). My most recent articles, however, are only on Medium; for those please check out my lists.
