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Proposition 1. The behavior of a superior race 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, for example, then it follows that any theory of the universe
that does not take our ignorance into account is bound to remain in academic exercise.
Proposition 3. The entire mystery we are discussing contains all the elements of a myth that could
be utilized to serve long-term social manipulation purposes, as illustrated by the curious link
between the contents of the reports and the progress of human technology, from aerial ships to
dirigibles to ghost rockets to flying saucers and to biogenetic engineering  a link that has never
recieved a satisfactory interpretation in a sociological framework.
With respect to the last point, I find it remarkable that the first instance of a blackout caused by a
UFO should be found in Twilight Bar, a play written by Arthur Koestler in 1933. During the play,
which takes place on a small unnamed island where civil war is about to break out, an enormous
meteor flies over the town with a high-pitched whistling sound as all the lights go out. The craft
plunges into the sea, and two beings, dressed in white coveralls and moving as if in a trance, come
ashore and introduce themselves as messengers sent to warn mankind that it has three short days in
which to mend its ways. Otherwise, the creatures say, mankind will be destroyed and the earth will
be repopulated by a superior race.
The first reference to UFO effects on car ignition came in a novel written in 1950 by Bernard
Newman entitled The Flying Saucer. It is true that when Newman's book was written, some UFO
reports involving magnetic disturbances (of the compass) were already circulating. Even in 1944,
the military had already amassed considerable information about unidentified flying objects, the
first large-scale scientific investigation having been done by the National Bureau of Standards the
previous year. But the fact remains that the coincidence between these works of imagination and the
actual details of the reports that came from the public is a remarkable one, and it opens the way to
unlimited speculation.
Knowledge of the structure of time would imply superior knowledge of destiny (I am using the
word "destiny" to designate not the fate of individuals but the mechanism through which physical
events unfold and the canvas upon which they are implemented). Before we go on to the question of
the psychic component of the experience, perhaps I also should remind the reader of two points we
have touched upon earlier: (1) the relativity of time in Magonia, a theory passed on to us in
numerous tales we have reviewed; and (2) that astonishing little remark made by a sylph to Facius
Cardan, which antedates quantum theory by four centuries: "He added that God created [the
universe] from moment to moment, so that should He desist for an instant the world would perish."
As Jerome Cardan says, "Be this fact or fable, so it stands."
6. The Psychic Component: Metalogic
Return of a Specter
It is difficult for the public to tolerate a mystery that refues to die. When encounters with
unidentified flying objects were suddenly reported all over the United States during the first half of
October 1973, after seven quiet years, and when two men from Pascagoula, Mississippi, told their
tale of abduction by grotesque robot-like creatures, the public recognized the return of a specter that
science had pronounced dead and buried with great pomp just a few years before. The burial had
been performed by the University of Colorado at the cost of half a million dollars, and the eight-
hundred page postmortem had clearly stated that the study of UFOs "cannot be justified in the
expectation that science will be advanced thereby." Professor Edward Condon, who led the study,
felt so strongly about the uselessness of the whole thing that he destroyed the project files. Three
days before his death, in March 1974, he was still urging a physicist friend to drop his study of
UFOs. When Condon was told that a documentary was being prepared, he advocated that all the
footage be burned. The Air Force subsequently closed down its own public relations office for the
monitoring of sighting reports (Project Blue Book) with a similar declaration.
When the sightings again filled the world press, it became clear that the subject of UFOs was as
alive as ever. It was easy for flying saucer enthusiasts everywhere to exclaim: "We told you so!" But
it was not easy for the witnesses to understand what they had seen. Ant it was even harder for them
to forget it. Some never will.
A husband and wife who drove a truck in the Midwest were fired from their job when they reported [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]