Wonders in the Sky Read Free Page B

about the mythology and folk-lore of the “magical flight” are their primitivity and their universal diffusion. The theme is one of the most ancient motifs in folk-lore: it is found everywhere, and in the most archaic of cultural strata…. Even where religious belief is not dominated by the “ouranian” gods [those of the sky], the symbolism of the ascent to heaven still exists, and always expresses the transcendent.”
    Yet the lessons from the past are often forgotten. An examination of contemporary cults centered on the belief in extraterrestrial visitations shows that the modern public is still willing to jump to conclusions every time a UFO incident is reported, anxious as people are to follow instructions that appear to come from above. Even in these early years of the 21 st century, we observe a continuing process through which the myths of humankind become implemented as social and political realities. We are the witnesses and the victims of that process.
    Alien contact: mankind’s oldest story
    Most “experts” in the study of UFOs in the context of popular culture, state that visitations by “flying saucers” started after World War II. It is traditional for UFO books and television documentaries to begin with the statement that the Flying Saucer Era began on June 24, 1947, when an American businessman and pilot named Kenneth Arnold reported a series of unidentified flying objects over Mount Rainier, in the State of Washington. Even some well informed researchers have posed as an axiom (without citing any evidence) that the UFO phenomenon is a recent historical occurrence—“apparently no more than two centuries old” in the words of one American writer. This late date is consistent with the idea that UFOs are extraterrestrial spacecraft bent on studying or inspecting the Earth, perhaps as a result of the atomic explosions of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
    In contrast, if the phenomenon has existed in fairly constant form for a very long time, it becomes harder to hold to a simplistic “ET visitation” scenario to explain it.
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    Indeed, many documents point to the very ancient nature of the observations. In a recent book on abductions a Canadian researcher, Dr. Persinger, has observed that “for thousands of years and within every known human culture, normal individuals have reported brief and often repeated ‘visitations’ by humanoid phenomena whose presence produced permanent changes within the psychological organization of the experient. When these phenomena were labeled as deities the “messages” were employed to initiate religious movements that changed the social fabric of society.”
    Historical scholarship reinforces the latter view. In a book entitled Out of this World: Otherworldly Journeys from Gilgamesh to Albert Einstein (Boston: Shambhala, 1991) Professor Couliano, editor in chief of the journal Incognita and professor of the history of religions at the University of Chicago, has made it clear that the observation of UFOs and abductions by beings from beyond the Earth is mankind’s oldest story. Couliano asserts on the basis of ethnosemiotics that “human beings had beliefs concerning other worlds long before they could write” and that “the most ancient documents of humankind and the study of its most ‘primitive’ cultures…both show that visits to other worlds were top priorities.” He defines the basic question in terms similar to those used by modern abductionists: “Where did those people who pretended to travel to another world actually go?”
    It is impossible to catalogue the information accumulated by Couliano, who cautions us that he barely scratched the surface: “To collect all historical documents referring to otherworldly journeys is a gigantic task, a task that has never been undertaken before.” Clear examples of this material cover every culture, from