There’s no shortage of free press available to Tahera Ahmad, a Northwestern University chaplain, who claims she was harassed by crew and passengers aboard a United Airlines-affiliated shuttle flight.

The whole thing is a farce, and anyone in the mainstream media with two pieces of brain tissue working can see this. The entire incident is a hoax, which would have been obvious had anyone in the media attempted to identify and contact the other passengers.

Ms. Ahmad claims she was denied an opened can of soda by a flight attendant because it could be used as a weapon. When Ms. Ahmad expressed outrage, the attendant and fellow passengers ridiculed her for being Muslim. You heard the story.

Did you hear the rest of her claim? She said upon landing, the pilot apologized to her personally as a person of “privilege.”

Okay, no one outside of academic fantasy land speaks like that. It’s the sort of ridiculous scenario that would come from someone like a university chaplain. The Czar immediately knew she had confabulated the entire story and starred herself in her own production. Of course, United forced the crew member to apologize and the whole story ejaculated its own hashtag on Twitter. Indeed, she had the story up on Facebook while mid-air, thanks to her laptop and a wifi connection on the aircraft.

Almost immediately, a refutation came out on the Internet from an alleged fellow passenger that tells a much more neutrally phrased story. Her version of events meets a pretty good standard of reliability: it’s simple, provides reasonable and credible responses, and is much more in line with how airlines handle passenger requests. The Czar admits the post could be completely fictitious, but it certainly sounds entirely plausible. And no one apologizes for white privilege in it. Yet the newsworthiness of the refutation has been ignored because the legend is so much sexier.

Further, the refutation suggests a possible reason no other passengers have come forward: in this alternative explanation, the airlines handled a rude passenger fairly quickly and easily. Other passengers may be entirely oblivious to what occurred, or never associated that Ms. Ahmad’s story was what they witnessed—because the two event descriptions are so radically different.

The Czar is inclined to believe the refutation; he utterly certain the original story of over-the-top bigotry is a fraud. Which isn’t to say Ms. Ahmad is up to something; no, she probably believes it, because she has long ago lost the ability to discern between reality and fantasy. And in her present occupation, she can live easily in fantasy worlds for years at a time.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.