By Tim Binnall
In a weird story out of Singapore, a man who thought he saw a Buddhist deity wound up fighting a skeptical bystander who couldn't spot the suspected apparition. The odd incident reportedly occurred when Philip Ong Guo Xiong and his wife noticed something unusual in the sky which they believed to be a vision of Guan Yin Ma, a figure revered in the Buddhist religion as a goddess of mercy and compassion. While the pair were snapping pictures of the odd sight, they were approached by a curious delivery driver who was passing by and wondered what the couple were photographing. Upon being told of the deity that they saw in the sky, the man also tried to capture the strange scene with his camera, which is when things went wildly awry.
Looking at his images, the delivery driver failed to see any sign of Guan Yin Ma in them nor did he recognize the deity in the sky overhead. Suspecting that he was being mislead, he then accused Xiong of being some kind of scam artist and began taking photos of the couple, which they did not appreciate. This led to tempers flaring between the two men and the delivery diver challenged his adversary to a fight. Xiong responded by shoving the man, which sent him tumbling into a nearby stone bench. Clearly, if Guan Yin Ma had truly appeared in the sky that day, her message of compassion and mercy was lost on the two men as Xiong was subsequently arrested for assault after a witness to the altercation called the police.