SUBJECT: EXCERPTS FROM PASSPORT TO MAGONIA FILE: UFO2545 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴 Excerpts from _Passport to Magonia: On UFOs, Folklore, and Parallel Worlds_ by Jacques Vallee. (c) 1969, 1993 by Jacques Vallee. First published by H. Regnery Co., 1969. Published by Contempory Books, Inc., 1993. ISBN 0-8092-3796-2. -!!!!!!!!- In short, by suggesting that modern UFO sightings might be the result of experiments - of a 'scientific' or even 'super-scientific' nature - conducted by a race of space-travelers, we may be the victims of our ignorance, an ignorance that finds its cause in the fact that idiots and pedants alike, through a common reaction that psychologists could perhaps explain if they were not its first victims, have covered the fairy-faith with the same ridicule as other idiots and pedants cover the UFO phenomenon. The realization that rumors of the real meaning of the UFO phenomenon set in motion the deepest and most powerful mental mechanisms makes acceptance of such facts very difficult, especially since the facts ignore frontiers, creeds, and races, defy rational statement, and turn around the most logical predictions as if they were mere toys. [pg. 56] -!!!!!!!!- It was hoped that the recent scientific investigations of the UFO phenomenon would have treated this problem with the attention it deserved. Unfortunately, they have not done so. This leads me to offer, in the present chapter, all the information I can provide on this matter, with the hope that sociologists will tackle the problem with more than passing amusement. Of course, some details relevant to this aspect of the UFO phenomenon _cannot_ be published. This does not mean, however, that they should remain the exclusive property of a few bureaucrats concerned only with the preservation of their peace of mind and the stability of their administrations. To let UFO speculation grow unchecked would only make the public an easy and defenseless prey to charlatans of all kind. It would mean that any organized group bent upon the destruction of our society could undermine it by skillful use of the saucer mythology; _they could take us to Magonia with the blessing of all the 'rationalists'_. [pg. 132, emphasis Vallee.] -!!!!!!!!- There is a tendency among the believers to gather into large, very formal organizations, where they waste all their energy and, sometimes, a good deal of money, with practically no visible result. It is clear that such organizations answer a psychological need rather than a genuine desire to discover the answer to an interesting intellectual problem. Maintaining such a group implies a tremendous overhead - mailing lists, bookkeeping, etc. - and experience shows that research is always the last activity it can afford. Instead, these groups generate so much internal bitterness and so many interorganizational feuds that they prove to be serious obstacles to independent researchers who are simply trying to get firsthand data and do not care to support one particular personality or theory against another. There are so many such groups now that their publications no longer reach the scientists, who can hardly be expected to read fifteen or twenty specialized magazines every month. If people really wanted to get at the root of the UFO phenomenon, they should simply constitute a large number of small, informal circles, the only objective of which would be the gathering of firsthand reports. It should be obvious that professional scientists are not in a position to do this. They know the problem only through the daily press, which does not give information on reports made outside a small area. When it does, the witness account is so biased that the information becomes worthless. And even if the article is accurate, there is no way to measure the reliability of the witnesses or to learn their standing in the community. _Only local residents can evaluate such an odd occurrence as a UFO sighting at its true weight._ The creation of a network of active but informal groups would also help solve the problem of documentation and publication. When the main organized groups do conduct investigations, they bury them in their files or publish only biased, heavily edited summaries, thus screwing down the lid on the observational material they precisely set out to reveal. [pg. 158, emphasis Vallee.] -!!!!!!!!- If we decide to avoid extreme speculation, but to make certain basic observations from the existing data, five principal facts stand out rather clearly: Fact 1. There has been among the public, in all countries, since the middle of 1946, an extremely active generation of colorful rumors. They center on a considerable number of observations of unknown machines close to the ground in rural areas, the physical traces left by these machines, and their various effects on humans and animals. Fact 2. When the underlying archetypes are extracted from these rumors, the saucer myth is seen to coincide to a remarkable degree with the fairy-faith of Celtic countries, the observations of the scholars of past ages, and the widespread belief among all peoples concerning entities whose physical and psychological descriptions place them in the same category as the present-day ufonauts. Fact 3. The entities human witnesses report to have seen, heard, and touched fall into various biological types. Among them are beings of giant stature, men indistinguishable from us, winged creatures, and various types of monsters. Most of the so-called pilots, however, are dwarfs and form two main groups: (1) dark, hairy beings - identical to the gnomes of medieval theory - with small, bright eyes and deep, rugged, 'old' voices; and (2) beings - who answer the description of the sylphs of the Middle Ages or the elves of the fairy-faith - with human complexions, oversized heads, and silvery voices. All the beings have been described with and without breathing apparatus. Beings of various categories have been reported together. Fact 4. The entities reported behavior is as consistently absurd as the appearance of their craft is ludicrous. In numerous instances of verbal communication with them, their assertions have been systematically misleading. This is true for all cases on record, from encounters with the Gentry in the British Isles to conversations with airship engineers during the 1897 Midwest flap and discussions with the alleged Martians in Europe, North and South America, and elsewhere. This absurd behavior has had the effect of keeping professional scientists away from the area where that activity is taking place. It has also served to give the saucer myth its religious and mystical overtones. Fact 5. The mechanism of the apparitions, in legendary, historical, and modern times, is standard and follows the model of religious miracles. Several cases, which bear the official stamp of the Catholic Church (Fatima, Guadalupe, etc.), are in fact - if one applies the definitions strictly - nothing more than UFO phenomena where the entity has delivered a message having to do with religious beliefs rather than with fertilizers or engineering. Given the above facts I believe the following three propositions to be true: Proposition 1. The behavior of nonhuman visitors to our planet, or the behavior of a superior race coexisting with us on this planet, would not necessarily appear purposeful to a human observer. Scientists who brush aside UFO reports because 'obviously intelligent visitors would not behave like that' simply have not given serious thought to the problem of nonhuman intelligence. Observation and deduction agree, in fact, that the organized action of a superior race must appear absurd to the inferior one. That this does not preclude contact and even cohabitation is an obvious fact of daily life on our planet, where humans, animals, and insects have interwoven activities in spite of their different levels of nervous system organization. Proposition 2. If we recognize that the structure and nature of time is as much of a puzzle to modern physicists as it was to Reverend Kirk, then it follows that any theory of the universe that does not take our ignorance in this respect into account is bound to remain an academic exercise. In particular, such a theory could never be invoked seriously in a discussion of the constraints placed on possible visitors to our planet. Proposition 3. The entire mystery we are discussing contains all the elements of a myth that could be utilized to serve political or sociological purposes, a fact illustrated by the curious link between the contents of the reports themselves and the progress of human technology, from aerial ships to dirigibles to ghost rockets to flying saucers - a link that has never received a satisfactory interpretation in a sociological framework. ********************************************** * THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo * **********************************************