“And so I did not tell them anything about what actually occurred, even though it happened to all three of us, and, primarily, to them. I do not know what the explanation they made up was, but I do know they would never have believed what actually happened, which was this:

A tiny insect on my finger ejected a droplet of water from the tip of its abdomen. This droplet struck one of them directly in the pupil of his eye; and when it did, he was thrown backward a couple of feet, landing on his back, and being then incoherent for a few seconds.

The insect was a preying mantis nymph, native to Ghana. One of them was keeping it as a pet. I had it on my left index finger.

To this day I do not know what they think happened, but what actually happened was that a young preying mantis knocked a guy off his feet with a droplet of water the size of a pinhead. That’s what actually happened.”

— an anonymous informant