Did the Gulf War really happen or was it just meaningless pixels on our television screens?
Visiting French philosopher Jean Baudrillard reckons the fireworks never took place - but some locals think the distinguished one needs a stiff shot of reality.
Professor Baudrillard, who is lecturing at the Auckland TownHall on Wednesday night, shot to fame 10 years ago when he first predicted that the war would not happen, and then - after it apparently did - said that it hadn't.
The University of California professor has also asserted that Disneyland exists to conceal the unreality of America, Watergate was not really a scandal and that the year 2000 never happened.
The 71-year-old's ideas are based on the idea that technology and consumerism have killed traditional belief systems such as religion, and that we live in a state of "hyper-reality" in which people are increasingly divorced from the truth.
The sights and sounds of the Gulf War that came to us by TV, radio and newspaper showed something that was not real.
Captain Hugh McAslan, of the NZ Army, said our forces sent a team of medics to Bahrain. And they seemed to have taken part in something resembling a war.
"I think there's sufficient evidence to suggest that it did happen," Captain McAslan said.
Professor Baudrillard drew flak from an associate professor of philosophy at Auckland University, Robert Nola, who posted an e-mail to colleagues expressing doubts.
"If you push his line to the limit, then all images on TV amount to nothing," Professor Nola said.
"We can be deceived sometimes, but the war really happened."
