☀ You can read / download Passport to Magonia: On UFOs, Folklore, and Parallel Worlds free below. ☀
Jacques Vallée*, the author of Passport to Magonia, is the French scientist whom the character in Close Encounters of the Third Kind is based on. For decades, he has been looking at the UFO phenomenon from a radically different perspective from the mainstream, and this book is a collection of accounts of incidents involving extra-terrestrial visitations throughout history.
a synthesis of folkloric, historical, and modern-day accounts of extraterrestrial visitors
We don’t usually quote from book jacket blurbs, but this one does a good job summarizing the contents:
Vallée synthesizes folklore, historical and modern-day eyewitness records, and astronomical research to reveal a startling but undeniable pattern of fact — that throughout history, and across widely diverse cultures, there is an absolutely consistent tradition of visitations from another world. What that world is called and how the encounters are interpreted have been influenced by the prevailing beliefs of each era and place. Yet, as Vallée masterfully demonstrates, beneath the superficial differences there is a fundamental similarity of experience that can only lead us to breathtaking conclusions.
It is fascinating to read stories from the Fairyland — don’t eat those buckwheat cakes! — and consider Vallée’s thoughts about their similarities to modern UFO stories. There are the Rip Van Winkle “missing time” stories from various cultures, the abductions, the substitutions by fairies of children with changelings, payment for services that appeared to be worthless and then turned to piles of gold…. He traces back stories of extra-terrestrial visits over hundreds of years. And, as the blurb attests, there are some astonishing similarities among them, whether we’re talking elves or ETs.
This is a long excerpt, and even at that we’ve left out a lot of good parts, but we want to give you an idea of the interesting kinds of true stories Vallée shares in Passport to Magonia:
Late on February 28, 1959, Gerry Irwin, a Nike missile technician, was driving from Nampa, Idaho, back to his barracks at Fort Bliss, El Paso, Texas. He was returning from military leave. He had reached Cedar City, Utah, and turned southeast on Route 14 when he observed an unusual phenomenon, six miles after the turnoff. The landscape brightened, and a glowing object crossed the sky from right to left….
Ninety minutes after he had sighted the strange “object,” Gerry Irwin was discovered unconscious and taken to the hospital. No trace of an airplane crash was found.
At the hospital, Dr. Broadbent observed that Irwin’s temperature and respiration were normal. He seemed merely to be asleep, but he could not be awakened. Dr. Broadbent diagnosed hysteria. Then, when Irwin did wake up, he felt “fine” although he was still puzzled by the object he had seen. He was also puzzled by the disappearance of his jacket: he was assured that he was not wearing it when he was found by the search party…. He woke up about 2:00 A.M. on Monday and asked: “Were there any survivors?”
The next day [after his discharge from the hospital], following an unidentifiable but very powerful urge, he left the fort without leave, caught a bus in El Paso, arrived in Cedar City April 19, walked to the spot where he had seen the object, left the road, and went back through the hills — right to a bush where his jacket lay. There was a pencil in a buttonhole with a piece of paper wound tightly around it. He took the paper and burned it. Then he seemed to come out of a trance. He had to look for the road. Not understanding why he had come there, he turned himself in and thus met Sheriff Otto Pfief, who gave him the details of the first incident….
Irwin soon disappeared, never to be heard from again. Vallée has some interesting ideas as to the purpose these “visitations” serve, including functioning as a kind of thermostat for the collective unconscious. Whatever the answers, this book is sure to open up some space in your mind!
read / download free or buy Passport to Magonia: On UFOs, Folklore, and Parallel Worlds
You can read / download (no need to borrow) the book Passport to Magonia: On UFOs, Folklore, and Parallel Worlds free via the nonprofit Internet Archive or buy* it from Amazon.
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