Jun
Best Judge?
Sometimes we are not the best judge of circumstances. An example of this happened to me over 30 years ago, in the mid-1970s. I was in the upper room of an older house. There was a window near where I sat. It was opened a few inches.
I noticed a small but distant light approaching my location. It was very strange. Though aimed in my general direction, its path was extremely erratic. No aircraft could have moved that erratically. The quick jolts and bumps were too quick for any jet, airplane or helicopter. Could it be some sort of alien craft, such as a flying saucer?
Then I heard the droning sound of a small airplane motor. I opened the window for a better look. Suddenly, the light’s path was smooth and regular, like the path of a small airplane. It was indeed a small two- or four-seater single engine airplane.
What caused the UFO effect? I had first glimpsed it through the lower end of the window. It was an old window. Glass is a super-cooled liquid, and old glass made by the old processes tends to “melt” a little with age. This “melt” happens along the bottom of the window. Light passing through it is distorted. The window or the glass was also a bit loose, so that vibration would have made the distorted light seem to “jump”.
The “UFO” was an optical distortion caused by natural processes involving glass and vibration. The vibration could have been caused by anything from an appliance in the house to the sound waves from the airplane motor bouncing off loose glass. What seemed an impossible mystery at first was really a normal result of natural processes of light, super-cooled liquids and vibration.
Many a mysterious thing is actually a misinterpretation of a perfectly normal thing. My example is a reminder that things might not be what they appear at first glance. Many a person has wanted to see a wonder so much that he has ignored common sense. Sometimes we are not the best judge of things. A second or third look is necessary.
