Mike Hoban was sitting in the armchair of his apartment in Finchley, London. At his feet, Amanda Abraham, his girlfriend, was working on a quilt she’d started just before Christmas. Mike is reading “The World According to Garp”.
“Is that good?” Amanda asked without looking up.
“Very,” Mike replied. “I don’t think I’ve ever read anything like it.”
“At least it’s not Science Fiction,” Amanda said with a disapproving expression. She was more of a Jane Austen or Thomas Hardy type, and she tried to elevate Mike from what she saw as his lazy literature. She loved him, but they had different ideas of culture.
Amanda was a medical student. Mike studied physics. They started dating at the university Labour Club and stayed together until the end of his degree, but now it was time to part. At least temporarily. He was studying at Cambridge’s Cavendish Lab, and she still had a few years of medical study. She though, was determined to make them last.
He laughed at a passage in his book, and Amanda looked up, her scowl giving way to a warm smile of encouragement. Perhaps there was hope for him yet.
Idly, she looked out of their small window at the familiar view across London. The sky was a kind of azure rarely seen in the capital: cloudless and empty. Empty except for… She rose to her feet and pointed.
“M-Mike. What the hell is THAT?”
Mike looked up from his book, followed her outstretched arm with his eyes, and saw a dull-grey globe hanging stationary in the sky.
“I have no idea. A balloon maybe.”
The globe in the sky was still and featureless, but Mike knew it wasn’t a balloon. It only stayed like that for a couple of minutes before it accelerated off to the South.
Before they could say anything, two Phantom jets came streaking across the sky.
“Wow, did you see those?” Mike said. “They’re USAF, not RAF.”
“The yanks?” Amanda replied. “What are they doing here?”
“I dunno.” Mike grinned.
The next morning, they sat in Goldberg’s café. Mike was still excited, Amanda less so.
“You realise we can’t talk about this to anyone,” she declared.
He looked perplexed. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m taking up a career in medicine. You’re going into research. It would destroy our reputations if anything about this gets out. You must promise me not to mention it to anyone.”
After some cajoling, Mike eventually agreed.
Mike married Amanda and they lived happily for 20 years until she died unexpectedly. Mike never spoke of that day in July, until he retired. That was when he was called to the UAP hearings before the US Congressional Aeronautics Committee in 2023.
He stood unsteadily, cleared his voice, and tapped the microphone before him.
“Mister Chairman, members of Congress,” he began, “I want to tell you the story of when I was an undergraduate in London. I am at a complete loss as to what I saw that day…”
