Peasant Poet John Clare experiences UAP

I’ve seen the midnight morris-dance of hell

On the black moors while thicker darkness fell,

Like dancing lamps or bounding balls of fire,

Now in and out, now up and down, now higher,

As though an unseen horseman in his flight

Extract from Will-O’-Wisp by John Clare (1793-1864)

Since the beginning of recorded history people from every profession and background have reported experiences with anomalous lights.

However they are described – most recently as UAP, UFO, flying saucer or just plain old fashioned unexplained lights – they always hover at the boundaries of our perception.

Much is made of the reporting skills of police officers, astronomers, aircrew and military pilots who report unidentified flying objects. But what about our writers and poets who are keenly aware of their surroundings and the world around them? They are also trained observers who, by nature of their calling, absorb details that are often translated into vivid imagery.

William Blake is of course famous for the mystical visions that he experienced throughout his life, including the angels, demons and other spiritual entities that accosted him in everyday places, from windows to stairwells.

Lesser known but equally profound are the weird encounters with anomalous lights and other supernatural creatures that are described in the prose and poetry of John Clare. The so-called ‘Peasant Poet’ was born in 1793 at the Fenland village of Helpstone, now in Cambridgeshire but at that time in Northamptonshire.

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