Where did we go wrong? you may well ask.
Back in the day, we were sitting outside with a group of our good friends on our patio and enjoying a calm, balmy night on the subtropical east coast of South Africa. We had enjoyed a splendid dinner with copious amounts of good wine and had withdrawn to the patio overlooking the blackness of the sea broken by the white spumes of breaking waves below, in order to savour some fine Cape port.
It wasn’t long before the conversation turned to matters of the day and in particular, news items from the northern hemisphere where modern society and generation Z etc. combined to provide the world with revolutionary notions and ideas, much of which, we felt, were being forced upon the silent majority who, generally seemed to find these antics somewhat amusing.
Admittedly, our insights were increasingly uninhibited by the generous flow of the fruit of the vine, but the conversation was nevertheless comprehensible, while our opinions were grounded in six decades of experience on the streets of life. That we were bowled over by the almost daily craziness of the modern world was as much an understatement then as it is today. Much of it made no sense and yet allegedly, intelligent humans were making the calls and passionately living by their convictions.
And we affirmed this was not just an African thing, or even a prank made up to raise a laugh (which you can’t do for fear of offending a somebody). There are ‘serious’ decisions being taken in the 21st century that in days gone by would have been the creation of a cheeky script writer for delivery on 1 April to the amusement of the nation. I say ‘serious’ because even as I share these thoughts, deep down inside I still believe someone out there is taking the piss on a gigantic scale!
Our discussion was interspersed with examples. Someone said that the vice-chancellor of Cambridge University had reportedly closed a website inviting the anonymous reporting of ‘micro-aggressions’ after some of the dons had complained the university was fostering a police-state culture. Then the dons at Cecil John Rhodes’ Oriel College at Oxford University threatened to go on strike because the College had decided not to dispense with his statue despite woke pressure to do so.
The latter tale caused raucous laughter in disbelief and the noise disturbed an owl that stood high in our Um-doh-nee tree, pensively observing the nocturnal goings on.
When the question of various sports organizations giving approval for men who have transitioned to female or part-female, to participate on equal terms with women arose, there was a spontaneous outburst of amused incredulity.
As the evening progressed in high spirits and camaraderie, I noticed an almost perfectly circular ball of green light emerge from the right-hand side of our vision. The ball hung in the sky about twenty or so metres above the surface of the sea and was travelling a slow, steady pace northwards.
Look! I cried out, mesmerized, and pointed to the floating sphere.
Good God, said someone, while another asked, Is it a UFO?
I had certainly never seen anything like it in my life and also started to believe we were witnessing one of those extraterrestrial sightings. The manifestation was in itself startling because people from outer space was a concept that fell very firmly into the category of crazy imagination for most of us realists. The glowing sphere continued its perfectly horizontal path across our vision before disappearing up the coast, way off to the left. We were speechless.
I hauled out the computer and we looked up references to UFOs. We found an office for UFO sightings existed in Australia and there was a number to call. We called.
The man on duty was surprisingly understanding. He accepted our version of events on face value and asked us to record the sighting on their website. He said they received many such reports of similar sightings from across the world and thanked us for reporting in.
To say that we were a tad taken aback is an understatement. I mean to say, up until that moment, none of us honestly believed in aliens!
But we conscientiously completed the UFO report: date, time, location, temperature, weather conditions, detailed description, and once finished, clicked ‘submit’. We returned to the patio and poured ourselves another port.
About five or so kilometres up the coast, another longtime friend and colleague lived in a sprawling home with a 180-degree sea view of the same coastline. It suddenly occurred to me that he may possibly see the UFO if I tipped him off that it was on its way. I called him up and he answered immediately. He too was sitting outside on his patio, taking in the coolness of the night breeze. I told him what had happened and how amazed we had been at witnessing such a unique sighting.
The line was silent. Then he asked two questions: Who’s there with you? and How much wine have you chaps consumed?
You may imagine our amusement, tinged with embarrassment and disappointment, when he announced loudly for everyone to hear, It was a fucking Chinese lantern you bunch of morons!