The idea that supposed paranormal activity can all be put down to drunkenness on the part of the observer

People who claim to have seen UFOs, ghosts, or other paranormal phenomena are frequently accused of being drunk. To “see” a ghost in a pub is the ultimate expression of this, as is the sighting of a UFO on the way home from a hostelry. I object to this sceptical presumption. As a habitual drunk-getter, I can authoritatively say that being in this state does not cause one to hallucinate.

In fact, in order for one to imagine that one has seen something odd when drunk, it really has to be very odd indeed. I could chat away in a pub for hours with a semi-translucent man without questioning his apparent non-corporeality. And I have more than once experienced displays of inexplicable lights, whilst returning from my local via a disused railway line, which, had I encountered when sober, would have scared me silly.

No, to suggest that anything out of the ordinary can be written off as the delirious delusions of a reveller is the laziest form of scepticism there is. I myself am a sceptic. About pretty much everything. But it wasn’t always so: my interest in all things paranormal started at around the age of ten. It took me twenty years of reading and thought to figure out that, well, yes, it’s probably all bollocks. To paraphrase Dara O’Briain, “if psychic abilities were genuine, we would all have evolved to have them.” Natural selection favours the gifted.

The landlord of a local pub of mine, a Tudor building, recently gave me a tour of his establishment, when I drunkenly expressed an interest in its extensive history. I was escorted to the cellar, which he informed me, used to house the horses, four centuries ago. Even before he told me this, I was overcome by the smell of horses. But I did not assign this to horse ghosts. Because it seemed reasonable to me that a damp cellar might have a slightly equine odour about it. Likewise, on a foray into aforementioned dilapidated railway line, with my sister, we both experienced an odd phenomenon. I was wearing a pair of rubber-toed canvas shoes, and Kezia a pair of white trainers. At a certain point on the path, both sets of our shoes began to glow ultra violet. I was, at the time, engaged in a degree in astrophysics. My sister is a sceptic with a small “c” – an extremely open-minded, but intelligent and educated observer. We did not immediately assume that it was the work of extra-terrestrials, but instead, worked to find a rational solution for the occurrence. We came up with marsh gas, incidentally.

Had I mentioned this happening in public, the nay-sayers would have raised their collective arms in glee, and pointed out that we were drunk when this happened. Well, obviously we were. It was midnight, and we were hanging around a deserted path which happens to lie between the pub and my house. But our drunkness accounts for us being there. It does not account for everything inexplicable that has ever happened to anyone, who, whilst out of doors at night-time, may have experienced anything odd.