Tirconnail Tribune, 25th July 2000
I’m at my happiest on a Grassy Knoll somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle.When I was teenager I devoured all sort of crap in book form as long as it had “Mystery” in the title.
The real mystery, of course, was how the book buying public-including muggins here never caught on that there was no feckin mystery at all.
Most of these “unexplained phenomena” have a perfectly reasonable explanation.
In the early 1980s there was all sorts of strange sightings in the skies above the New Mexico desert in the USA.
This craft that was photographed & videoed didn’t look like a conventional aircraft and jinked about the skies like a Peregrine falcon on acid.
It didn’t show up on radar screens and the military denied any knowledge about it.
That should have been the clue to sussing it out.
If any government, anywhere at anytime deny something then that’s as good as an admission of guilt for me!
In the fullness of time the Reagan administration wheeled out the culprit-the Stealth fighter/bomber.
Invisible to radar, more StarWars than Stars & Stripes.
No little green men, no extra terrestrials.
A simple, physical explanation.
We love the outlandish, the arcane and the supernatural.
99.9% of that is bollocks-but we love it.
We buy books about it, we believe in it.
There are perfectly reasonable people who you know that think that the X-Files is a drama documentary series.
Perfectly sensible people have been privately living in Deep Space Nine for years.
This fantasy stuff is harmless, until, of course you start to believe it.
A recent survey in the USA revealed that thousands of, apparently, sane Americans though that THEY had been the victims of Alien Abduction.
That is, they had been huckled up to the Mother Ship by a delinquent ET and given the full X-Files treatment.
I’m an old cynic these days, scientifically trained; I’ve got this thing about evidence & corroboration.
I no longer consume books about “Mysteries”.
I no longer fancy a girl in a Bay City Rollers rig out.
I have, finally, grown up damn it!
So when presented with a staring eyed, traumatised yank straight out of Mulder’s caseload I am more than likely to Say: “ET gave you a good rodgering Mr.Cailfornia?”
“He did?”
“Show me the evidence!”
No evidence I reserve the right to disbelieve you.
That’s me Boss-evidence based approach to any outlandish claim.
Show me the evidence and I will test that evidence to, my own satisfaction.
So I didn’t take anyone’s claim-unsubstantiated-that there were aliens dancing about the New Mexico skies 20 years ago No it was an American warplane, secret and revolutionary, but that was always likely to be the more likely explanation.
I admit that the X-File version is more enjoyable, but the Stealth saucer was actually made by humans and had human flying it, all for to kill other humans…
We don’t need to fear meteors, or invasions from Mars.
We’re perfectly capable, as a species, of conjuring up our own two legged Daleks.
Which gets me to the major mystery that is focusing some of the planet’s best minds.
How can they be here, but you cant see them?
Here in the McDaid triangle we have a tourism boom, but they don’t stay spend a night in B&Bs or hotels.
They don’t go to pubs or visit Glenveagh.
Strange, very, very strange.
How can this be so?
Lets look at the possible explanations:
(1) These tourists are apparitions from the time of the Famine. Only the highly honed patriotic middle eye that comes from being a Soldier of Destiny allows to one see these ghostly legions from our history wander the land.
(2) They are time travellers from another dimension. They want to see what the Donegal of this dimension is like. Their Donegal has roads, jobs, effective political representation and a tourist industry that last longer than a weekend. They don’t need to stay in B&Bs because they hop back to the parallel dimension-which is much more comfy. They only reveal themselves to the elite among us mortals. That’s why you and I have never seen them.
The Tourists are out there.
Those are two possible explanations-I would have loved those explanations when I was a spotty 17 year old.
Now?
I simply don’t think they are here.
We can’t see em, because they aren’t here.V If you want to test my theory about being able to see real tourists go to Kerry-you cant get moving for them. You can see them, hear them.
You can even touch em if you want, but that’s up to you.There is no Mystery of the McDaid Triangle here in North Donegal.
No Mystery.
No Tourists.
No Tourist Industry.Phil Mac Giolla Bhain
