Delusional Syndrome

A week or so after Voyager 2 left Neptune in August 1989 and was set on a course out of the solar system, I saw an aurora borealis in the Stockholm area that looked rather peculiar: three deep red patches and three variable beams directed towards each patch. Auroras are created by charged particles being decelerated in Earth's atmosphere, emitting light in the process. I tried to determine the direction from which the beams were coming and didn't think they were from the sun. However, the direction roughly matched if they were to have come from Neptune.

Charged particles can easily be accelerated and thus can be used in ion jet engines. The three beams varied in a way that it seemed like a constantly corrected deceleration of a spacecraft approaching Earth to enter an orbit around it. I calculated that if a spacecraft monitored Voyager's final course change after passing Neptune and then started accelerating towards Earth with an acceleration of one "g" for half the distance, and then turned its engines towards Earth to decelerate with one "g" for the last part of the journey, its arrival at Earth would match the distances and times that applied. I didn't draw any particular conclusions from this, but I thought jokingly that, oh well, extraterrestrials haven't come up with anything better than jet engines either!

In mid-September 1989 around 3 p.m., I was riding a bus on the highway past Skarpnäck towards Tyresö. In the past, before Skarpnäcksfältet was developed, you could see kestrels hovering over the field, and it had become a habit to scan the sky there as the bus passed. Above the eastern high-rise building, I thought I saw a seagull gliding. But as I got closer, I saw it was a disc-shaped object. And right above the high-rise, it started rotating upright. Shortly after, a similar object came diagonally from above and circled in front of the rotating object and disappeared from my view.

The highway curves past Skarpnäck in a circular segment-shaped path, and the high-rise is almost at the center of the circle. When the bus passed the scene, I looked straight out through the bus window towards the high-rise for about ten seconds. When the bus had passed the segment, the road turns slightly to the south so that the high-rise ends up behind the bus, and that's when I lost sight of the objects as a forest grove started obscuring the view.

From my observations, I could determine where the rotating object was located (above the high-rise), and I could measure the distance from the road to the building on a map. Furthermore, I could see how high it was (about twice the height of the building), and I estimated that the disc was one-fifth the size of the moon, so about 0.1 degrees. Using trigonometric calculations, I concluded that the diameter of the objects was 5-10 decimeters. The objects were maneuvered very precisely despite strong gusty winds, so it couldn't have been helium balloons. Additionally, they seemed to be made of aluminum-like metal with sooty edges. As far as I could tell. But I couldn't see any propellers or openings for jet gases, and it seemed like the objects were floating around like large seagulls without being affected by the strong wind. The engines that powered these (presumably unmanned) craft must have been under the metal casing and operated based on principles I wasn't familiar with.

As I had to increasingly turn my head backward to see the objects, I tried to see if other passengers had also seen something. It was eerie to see the other passengers. They all sat as if in a trance, staring forward. Passengers on a bus can certainly look troubled, but now they all looked as if they were in the waiting room of death. But no one showed any signs of having seen the objects, which were quite far away. It was strange experiences, partly to see the objects dance above the rooftops and partly to see the passengers' expressions. This dreamlike scenario with the passengers suggests that it might have been some form of hallucination. But otherwise, everything was very real, and I have never had visual hallucinations before or after this incident.

As someone interested in astronomy and ornithology, I look up at the sky more than usual. And since I studied mathematics and physics at university, it was easy for me to make the calculations above. I have never been able to get rid of the thought that the two disc-shaped probes were communicating with me, partly by appearing in a way that allowed me to determine their size and partly because I had seen the strange aurora borealis earlier. And not everyone can do the necessary calculations either. Apparently, I was chosen and therefore suffer from delusional syndrome, which I could confirm in other ways after this event.

From Wikipedia:

Delusional syndrome, previously called paranoia and paranoid psychosis, is a diagnosis of a group of mental disorders characterized by psychoses with persistent delusions, with significant individual variations in content and expression.

Neither psychosis nor organic psychosis is a disease diagnosis in itself but is considered an abnormal mental state and is always a cognitive symptom or a behavioral symptom. Most psychoses are usually explained as conditioned by personality, psychological trauma, or certain neuroendocrine disorders.

The delusions in delusional syndrome show a very large individual variation and are influenced by the individual's culture and environment. However, the affected person differs from their environment or culture by having personal delusions that are not shared by, for example, the person's surroundings. These delusions are often bizarre (such as being pursued by extraterrestrials, which cannot be true), but they can also be less bizarre (such as being pursued by the CIA, something that could have been true but is not, as everyone realizes).

One of the most common forms of chronic delusional syndromes is persistent delusional syndrome (ICD-10 F22.0). The delusions in this group can be about grandiosity, persecution mania, a perception of bodily changes, but several variants occur. The delusion is often lifelong.

Grandiosity paranoia – grandiose ideas about identity or beliefs about a special relationship to an important or divine person.

Persecutory paranoia – delusions of persecution.

Medications for psychosis can have an effect, but since most individuals with delusional syndrome lack insight into the illness, they are generally negative towards medication.