On the afternoon of January 3 we were skiing when I got a pain behind my right ear. It was a sensation similar to what -happens to one's jaw when Novocain wears off after a session in the dentist's chair. My skull ached and the skin was sensitive. In the middle of this sensitive area my wife could see a tiny pinpoint of a scab.

I believe that the combination of the infected finger, the rectal pain, and the aching head were what finally brought my memories into focus. The confused swirl resolved into a specific series of recollections, and when I saw what they were, I just about exploded with terror and utter disbelief.

One of the memories would come into my head, linger there a moment, then leave me with my heart pounding, gasping, sweat pouring down my face.

I thought that I had lost my mind.

For half of my life I have been engaged in a rigorous and detailed search for a finer state of consciousness. Now I thought my mind was turning against me, that my years of eager study of everything from Zen to quantum physics had led me into some strange and tragic byway of the soul.

As soon as I had them in focus, my memories became perfectly vivid-as vivid, say, as childhood memories become when one chooses to draw them out of the mental file where they are hidden. I sat at my desk, trying to make sense of what could not make sense.

I thought, quietly and calmly, You may be going mad, or you may have o brain tumor.

You've gut to find um which it is and take whatever steps are necessary. And then I rested my head on the desk, and, quite frankly, cried.

For a couple of days I lived with it. Maybe the "symptoms" would subside.

Then, quite suddenly one afternoon, I recalled the smell. Their smell. It came back to me as clearly as if I had inhaled it not a moment before. More than anything except discovering that I was not alone with my experience, that totally real memory saved me from going stark raving mad.

In the first week of January, a local newspaper published accounts of an object or objects being sighted in our area. This story appeared m the January 3, 1986, issue of the Middletown. New York Record. The headline called the appearance a hoax but according to the story local people who had witnessed the event doubted that. One man, however claimed that he had seen the things fly over a brightly lit local prison, and in the light he saw planes.

A follow-up story on January 12 expanded on the prank hypothesis.

My wife showed me the article and told me. "You said this would happen. You were talking about this last week." I did not remember the conversation, but the article caused me to glance over a hook my brother had sent me for Christmas called Science and the UFOs by Jenny Randles and the astronomer Peter Warrington.