Passport to Magonia: On UFOs, Folklore, and Parallel Worlds

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Magonia, heaven, hell, Elfland - all such places have in common one characteristic: we are unable to reach them alive, except on very special occasions. We tried to get it off but could not, so we cut the wire loose and stood in amazement to see the ship, heifer and all, rise slowly, disappearing in the northwest. And among those, blinded by such a deep stupidity that they believed those things possible, we saw many in a certain assembly of men, show tied up four persons, three men and one woman, as if they fell from those famous boats.

The great number of them who were put to death by fire and water throughout the kingdom is incredible. He compares the humanoids encountered by people throughout the ages, and how familiar they are if only one has an eye for folklore and history. Vallee compares the stories of UFO sightings and kidnappings with the Celtic "Fairy Faith" and other indigenous traditions involving fairies, elves, dwarves, leprechauns, trolls, etc.Among those so blinded with profound stupidity that they believe these things could happen we have seen many people in a kind of meeting, exhibiting four captives, three men and one woman, as if they had fallen from these very ships. This is where I would offer my only real criticism: Vallee drifts between sources and accounts with little regard for the reader’s frame of reference. Perhaps some of these Vallee included innocently enough (especially in these pre-Internet days of yore) but the way this book is written feels somewhat deceptive by its conclusion. Ex his item tam profunda stultitia excoecatis, ut haec posse fieri credant, vidimus plures in quodam conventu hominum exhibere vinctos quatuor homines, tres viros, et unam feminam, quasi qui de ipsis navibus ceciderint; quos scilicet per aliquot dies in vinculis detentos, tandem collecto conventu hominum exhibuerunt, ut dixi, in nostra præsentia, tanquam lapidandos.

After offering up many accounts (some of which you can Google online and discover have already been debunked), Vallee as I said admits that none of his own wild speculations are “scientific” in the least. What Magonia does have that Dimensions doesn't is an excellent catalogue of cases contained at the end of the book. He is an esteemed professor even today, and one of the most level headed individuals to take on the UFO field. Every explanation proposed so far falls short of providing a believable and comprehensive understanding of these phenomena. Obviously, and the author states this directly, all of this needs to be taken with a large grain of salt.

Given that I haven’t heard any followup from the congressional hearing (not that I am seeking it out) I’m assuming nothing came of it. Two-thirds of the book lists dozens and dozens of examples of high strangeness from the past that describe the same types of events that can be found in UFO literature from the past several decades. As an alternative to the extraterrestrial visitation hypothesis, Vallée has suggested a multidimensional visitation hypothesis. Carl Sagan had pop culture credentials but was rejected by both Harvard for tenure and the National Academy of Sciences for membership.