"Does anybody else here have times when they can remember some event as having happened - then later, you find out that you were wrong and what you remembered never happened at all"
A most unusual occurance once presented itself to me about eleven years or so ago. I was in Leeds, I'd travelled up from London for an interview at the University there, and was waiting in a room full of applicants, about thirty or so. People who knew one another (small numbers of two or three) huddled together but largely the room was silent because nobody knew each other. I say silent but the radio was on.
There was an announcement on the radio that a light aeroplane had in the last hour crashed into an unidentified flying object over some county somewhere, near to a civilian area (I think it may have been just outside of Birmingham). The unidentified flying object was described as unlike anything anyone had ever seen, and that local fire departments were having a devil of a time putting out the blaze which had begun to spread. There was also word of bodies found thrown from the wreck, and the item did mention that the light aeroplane had only the pilot on board and yet something like about six bodies had been found though it was difficult to determine if some of these bodies weren't people on the ground. It was an item inbetween other news items delivered with as much serious intent. Infact as I recall it was the opening item. What followed afterwards was politics, an agricultural article and short piece about a football stadium and then the weather. It was radio two so it'd made national news.
Anyway, it was an item that certainly brought me out of my shell a little and as it was playing I noticed that nobody was really reacting to it. The groups of people chatting hadn't stopped chatting, and those staring at the floor and not talking had barely blinked. there was no connection. The article was quite long as they began to talk about the possibility of visitors from other planets etc. There was even concern about widespread panic, though judging from the room I was in, there was no danger of that. Anyway, just after the article I turned to the person next to me and asked, "did you hear that?" and they just looked at me and said, "hear what?" Well I assumed there and then they'd just been lost in their own world and just hadn't heard (you know how you do). I went on to say "the radio, the ufo crash." the fella next to me just said, "no, I didn't hear that." but he was intriged. The conversation went flat quickly after that and silence was resumed. An awkward moment.
So I went into the interview...the radio could be heard, actually quite loudly in the hallway outside the interview room. I actually started by commenting on the remarkable news, but they said they hadn't heard it. understandibly so, they were no doubt interviewing at the time. but what struck me as odd was simply no-one was talking about it at all.
Anyway, I left the interview and picked up a ride home to london with people from Sheffield. I was talking to them about it, and they'd heard nothing either. we put the radio on. no follow up story. nothing. got back to london, I scoured the papers, the news channels. nothing. It was only then that it hit me that maybe, just maybe nobody else did hear it...it must have been my addled imagination. but the thing is I DID hear it. There was an entire news item on it, which I sat and listened to whilst waiting for my interview. I have ever since that day searched and searched for the item in question, cross referencing sightings etc etc...but nothing. There's not even any record of it having been a hoax news item.
