In "A Midsummer Night’s Dream," Queen Hippolyta asks King Theseus whether he believes the stories lovers tell about seeing fairies and nymphs in the Athenian forest. Theseus says no, not for a minute.
People who come back with those stories fall into three categories: they are either lunatics, lovers or poets. They suffer from an excess of imagination. Hippolyta says, "Well, you know those four lovers, they all seem to have the same story, and their account was extremely vivid and extremely consistent."
This exchange between Theseus and Hippolyta speaks very strongly to me. I myself have never seen a ghost, and I have never seen a UFO, and I do not really believe people who say they have. On the other hand, their accounts are so vivid and so consistent that I think they must have seen something. Something is going on, and so I am left with a quandary.
I'm Tom McBride, and that's my perspective on Shakespeare and UFOs.
Copy Edited by Eryn Lent
