Not seeing is believing

Last week the world was abuzz with the story of how Gatwick Airport had been closed due to sightings of a drone dangerously close to the runway. Cue social media outrage that something must be done. Get the military in to shoot them down! I even read how Dutch airports are training eagles to take out rogue drones. The general tone, even from the more sober elements of the media, was that the government’s credibility was somehow damaged. All pretty depressing stuff.

So imagine my surprise that it now transpires no one in authority has actually seen the drone in question. According to the police, there was “always a possibility that there may not have been any genuine drone activity in the first place.” There were no pictures or video of the drone incursions into the airspace around Gatwick; there was “no available footage and [officers] are relying on witness accounts.” I was not one of those affected by the disruption and my sympathies go out to those that were. But you have to see the funny side, particularly at this time of year.

After all, we tell our children that a portly gentleman dressed in red manages to park a sleigh driven by nine reindeer onto the roof of our house, drops down the chimney and delivers unsolicited presents. Strangely we never hear him. Nine reindeer on the roof! Coming down a chimney! And although he is such a great house breaker, he never takes anything away. Indeed, he leaves stuff behind! No wonder we celebrate at Christmas: the guy is a phenomenon.

Santa Claus is testimony to the power of belief. As children we are willing to suspend our critical faculties because the payoff is so good that it pays to be a believer. It gets harder to suspend our critical faculties as we get older but people are still able to do it. After all, if it weren’t for the belief in an invisible Deity, we would not be celebrating Christmas. But Santa Claus today has competition in the form of Amazon, which is able to deliver goods to virtually anywhere in the world. Better still, they operate all year round whereas the man in red operates on one day only. There again, I would rather have Santa dropping down my chimney than Jeff Bezos.

The power of ideas is one of the most powerful of human forces. So let’s not knock those who thought they saw a drone at Gatwick last week. Maybe they did. Maybe they did not. Or maybe this was Santa doing a bit of drone testing in order to keep up with the competition. After all, reindeer are expensive costing around USD 2000 per year in upkeep. That’s a decent outlay when you are a pensioner working one day a year for free and who gives stuff away.

Increasingly we have to suspend our disbelief at the events unfolding around us. So I’m going to give the benefit of the doubt to those who thought they saw a drone at Gatwick last week. Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it wasn't there - after all, they laughed at Einstein. It just remains for me to wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and may you continue to travel safely in 2019.