IT HAPPENED TO ME...

First-hand accounts from FT readers and browsers of www.forteantimes.com

Warning doves

A friend recounted this story to me some years ago. He was driving home quite late one night along country roads near where we lived in Shropshire. He had allowed the night drive and the relative quietness of the journey to lull him into drifting off to the point where, without realising it, he had stopped focusing on the road ahead. All of a sudden and out of nowhere two white doves swooped into his vision through the windscreen, fluttering their wings and so startling him that he instantly snapped out of his daze. Immediately upon refocusing, he could see he was almost at a narrowing of the road to allow for a small bridge crossing. Coming from the other direction was a very large truck, travelling far too fast to be able to slow and allow him to pass over the bridge first. He slammed on his brakes and just managed to halt before the truck came through and over the narrow bridge. All of this happened in a few seconds and left him very shaken. He was in no doubt that he would have struck the oncoming truck had he not been alert again.

Upon getting home he went outside into his garden to take some night air and reflect on the near-miss. After a few moments he became aware of something on the roof and looked up behind him. Perched there were two white doves looking down at him. As he looked at them they rose up and flew away, leaving him even more spooked, but of course very grateful! Duncan Kaiser Switzerland

Action replay?

One rather grey murky day sometime in the late 1970s, as I stood near the back of my house on Goldsel Road, Swanley, Kent, looking towards the north-east, I watched two aircraft coming from the direction of London and travelling towards the north Kent coast. They intrigued me as both were biplanes, the one in front being twin-engined the one behind a single engine machine. At the time (and still I think), the only twin-engined biplane flying was a De Havilland design with a very distinctive outline; this machine was definitely not that type, though too far away to identify any more clearly. The single engine machine behind was also unusual in the way it was flying. Whilst the lead machine was flying straight and level, the other was rising and falling behind it as though it was attacking the larger machine, but being faster was trying to use up some of its speed in the climb after the dive to stay to the rear. The distance from me and their relatively low altitude under the cloudbase gave me a sort of side view of the two aircraft. All this took place in silence, a fact I only considered after the event. The pair disappeared into the murk towards Longfield and the Thames estuary.

I have wondered in the years since if I witnessed a ghostly replay of a Gotha bomber of WW1 being attacked by one of the defending Royal Flying Corps aircraft as it returned from dropping bombs on London. Maybe someone with more knowledge of the Gotha raids could tell me if this was the standard method of attack used by the RFC on the German bombers. Andrew Long By email

A figure I saw years ago

Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s I was a patient at the Odstock Hospital in Salisbury, Wiltshire, which specialised in pioneering plastic surgery. The hospital was built in the 1940s to treat American servicemen stationed in England.

In the early hours of one winter morning, when all the other children in my ward were asleep, I lay awake. The entire hospital was silent, and a night duty Sister sat at a desk at the end of a corridor, writing and reading by the light of a lamp. There were about 10 to a ward. I was not tired or even drowsy. I was wide awake. I had had no medication and my operation was two days away.

Suddenly, I became aware of someone or something moving about in the ward. I looked around and saw a figure leaning over the boy in the bed nearest the doors, about 40ft (12m) from where I lay. It appeared to be a male figure. It seemed to glow white, but this may just have been as a contrast to the darkness all around. It made no sound, and was very focused on the boy, leaning in very close to his face. I remember feeling paralysed and unable to utter a sound. I had watched this figure for what seemed like minutes when it slowly raised a hand to the sleeping boy’s face.

I suddenly found my voice and called out. The face of the figure turned around sharply and stared straight at me. The face seemed alarmed, angry and deeply sad all at once. I must have screamed, because the lights came on and the Sister came marching in and gave me a furious telling-off and a sharp slap across the arm, which I thought was a bit off considering I had just been scared witless, and was trying to stop what to me was a malevolent attack; but she was not interested in hearing my explanation. The figure had gone, although it was still vivid to me.

I don’t know if the figure I saw meant harm or not, but I’ll never forget the look it gave me. Sometimes I still feel sorry for the figure, and regret yelling out. I was unable to get to sleep after this, more due to the terrifying Sister than the silent ghostly figure, and lay awake until dawn. Stefan Badham Portsmouth, Hampshire

Gap in reality

Re Jim D’s “tear in reality”

[FT359:75]: I had a very similar experience in the spring of 2004, when a friend and I saw a large ‘gap’ in reality above a lake. It looked like a knife had been taken to a painting. It was the same shape as described by Jim D too. I would love to hear from anyone else who has experienced something similar. Gem Crowe Birmingham