IT HAPPENED TO ME...

First-hand accounts of strange experiences from FT readers

I just knew

I woke up on 28 February very much aware that Albert René, the former President of the Seychelles (pictured right), had died. I hadn’t heard it on the news or any other media outlet the night before. I always had an interest in the islands and the socialist experiment that René initiated after he launched a coup that toppled the playboy President James Mancham in June 1977. He went on to defeat several CIA-backed coup attempts throughout his long period of office, and became an advocate for a nuclear free Indian Ocean. I went online and looked up BBC News Africa and there it was: France-Albert René, President of the Seychelles 1977-2004, had died the night before at the age of 83. I have no idea how this knowledge came to me before I read that news article.

Phil Brand

London

Cretan wildcat

In early June 1987, I hired a scooter to go and view the fabled “birthplace of Zeus” cave in the Dicti Mountains of Crete. On the trip back, becoming lost in total darkness and riding a far from roadworthy machine without lights, I decided to spend the night in the mountains. I had not been long in my sleeping bag before I heard the sound of something obviously large prowling above and behind me. Reaching for my small torch, I swung round to be confronted by a large catlike creature crouched on a rock not six feet (1.8m) from my head. I think it was more startled than I was, as it snarled and spat in the torchlight before disappearing down the back of the rock.

It was about four times the size of a domestic cat, with lynx-like ears and a ‘tabby’ pattern to the fur. I did not see the back half, so have no idea of tail length. It was somewhat disconcerting to lie there in the darkness listening to it crunching bones and tearing at something it had caught not so far away. No doubt I had chosen a spot in the vicinity of its lair and I was more than relieved to see sunrise. Brian P Jackson

West Worthing, West Sussex

Editor’s note: a Cretan wildcat, long regarded as legendary, was caught in April 1996; see FT98:20.

Something over Corfu

In the summer of 2002, my then-girlfriend and I went on a package holiday to Corfu. Late one afternoon we were walking along the beach when one of us spotted a metallic object in the sky. It was shaped like an upside-down shuttlecock, and was just hanging there. It wasn’t moving, and made no noise that we could detect. It was a calm, clear day, with barely a cloud in the sky. Transfixed, we watched the object for 10 minutes or so, trying to work out what it was. Despite a growing sense of unease, I am a sceptic at heart, so I was leaning toward identifying it as a satellite or balloon of some kind. Thinking I might be able to identify the thing at some later date, I pulled out my old Kodak and snapped off four or five photos. We then continued our walk and went for dinner.

On our return to the UK, I took the film from the camera to be developed, thinking I would be able to solve the metal shuttlecock mystery; but on looking through the photos we found we had captured only a clear blue sky. Whatever we’d seen that day hadn’t come out in the photographs. I’m still not sure if this was down to a defective camera (unlikely, as it had no problem capturing anything else) or some kind of cloaking technology employed by whatever the object was (also unlikely). I’m still puzzled by this experience. I can’t have imagined it because my then-girlfriend saw it too. But if the thing were actually there, why didn’t it appear on the photos?

Chris Saunders

Guangzhou, China

Giant worm

On the afternoon of 12 March 2019 I decided to clear a neglected concreted side passage between front and back gardens. I took apart a plastic compost bin used undisturbed for many years to store bits of wood etc, and started to scrape away the mud beneath, which contained several worms, slugs and so on. I noticed a very large earthworm disappearing under a nearby shed. The visible part was about 12in (30cm) long and as thick as my index finger – twice as thick as an ordinary full-grown worm. I attempted to grab it, but not tightly so as not to harm it, and it continued to move. I let go to fetch a camera, but when I returned it had disappeared. I have not seen it again. It was the colour of common garden worms and segmented, so it wasn’t a slow worm, which I have seen years previously in a former garden.

Back in the 1970s, a nature column in the Herne Day Press had a report of a very long worm found in a garden about half a mile from mine. I visited the writer and obtained a photograph, and sent the details to FT. Valerie Martin

Herne Bay, Kent

Hilarious and peculiar

On 22 August 2018, my partner and I were walking from South Harting in West Sussex to Buriton in Hampshire. Around midday we stopped beside the pond near South Harting village to eat lunch. Having been here before, we were expecting to be pestered by the resident mallards – but only one female duck was on the pond. It initially ignored us, but then suddenly emitted a loud quack and paddled furiously towards the shore, a few feet away, and skittered away across the grass as if on an urgent errand, vanishing into nearby woodland. At this point there was another loud quack, whereupon an orderly line of about 10 ducks appeared from out of the trees and rapidly waddled in our direction before surrounding us in usual pester mode. It was both hilarious and peculiar, as this kind of altruistic teamwork surely isn’t typical. The daffy blighters deserved a crust or two after that!

Nick Maloret

Milton, Hampshire