Naked US tourist amok in Swiss town may have been high on mushrooms

An American tourist who ran naked through a peaceful Swiss town, vandalized a church and escaped from police clutches by jumping into a lake could have been on hallucinogenic mushrooms, a local magistrate said.

The 34 year-old from Massachusetts, who has since been allowed to return home, ran amok in the western town of Morges, by Lake Geneva, two weeks ago,

He started babbling incoherently in the hotel lobby, stripped and ran naked along the quayside, broke a stained glass window in the nearby protestant temple with a stool and set a precious 1898 bible alight, police in Morges said.

After being seized and handcuffed by police, he made a leap for freedom into the lake and bit two people who tried to help him while he was hanging on to a boat.

Having recovered his senses, he later appeared before investigating magistrate Gilles Riva and "coherently" explained that he had eaten 'magic mushrooms' that he had bought in the Netherlands during a trip through Europe.

"He said he had lots of regrets and said sorry at least fifty times," Riva told the Swiss news agency ATS. Riva said the mushroom theory was "possible".

The tourist, who also offered 250 dollars for each of the people he bit, was not named.