I have done every conceivable thing to try to duplicate light like that. Our guest room has one small window overlooking a seven-feet-deep covered porch. Beyond that the land slopes up gradually, so that not even car lights from the road can enter that room, much less moonlight or sunlight. With the leaves gone during the winter, we determined that the lights from the neighbor's house are also invisible from that window. The movement-sensitive light doesn't shine directly in, but down the porch. Had it somehow turned on — even absent bulbs

— Jacques would have seen not the trees and shrubs but the outline of the porch interior with the yard beyond in darkness. The reason for this is that the fight shines past the window and down the length of .the porch. Had the regular porch light been switched on, the same effect would have resulted.

Even with the neighbor's lights on, the porch light on, and a car in the front yard, we could not duplicate the effect. Nothing I can conceive of can account for the major light phenomena on that night. It may be possible to explain the blue glow I originally saw on the ceiling, but not that massive burst of light from above. I visualized the whole roof being ablaze. Jacques thought it was midmorning. Because of the fog, a helicopter, or indeed any sort of airplane, was out of the question. A pilot told me simply, "Forget aircraft."

At four-thirty the moon was still in the sky, but well below the line of the forest. Could the fog have somehow magnified the moonlight, causing dark-sensitized eyes to mistake its mild glow for bright daylight? Such a thing may have been possible, but the moon was low in the west and the source of the light was clearly directly overhead. And what about the explosion? Maybe it was thunder. But there were no thunderstorms in the area. Perhaps a freak bolt in some sort of unusual ministorm caused it, then. But the period of seeming daylight lasted many seconds, and was not apparent to anybody until after the explosion.

Thunder follows lightning, not the other way around.

Whatever caused the effect, it was a highly unusual phenomenon and it is unlikely that it can be identified.

And so far there is no way at all to account for Annie Gottlieb's testimony. I spoke to her immediately after talking to Jacques. While she must have overheard him on the phone, the two of them had no time between statements to discuss the matter. Also, they are normal, coherent, and reliable people. They had, and have, no reason whatsoever to lie and they are most unlikely to be so radically confused by normal realities that they would derive from them memories such as they report. One only has to look into Annie Gottlieb's writings to see the clarity of her mind.