extraordinary%20encounters

162 Marian apparitions
that these experiences were purely hallucinatory;
he was convinced of an underlying but
impenetrable reality forever disguised under
many masks. A British magazine, still published,
named itself Magonia after Vallee’s
book, though the magazine rejects paranormal
explanations of such phenomena.
The Magonia story appeared originally in a
circa 833 manuscript written in Latin by Agobard
(779–840), the Archbishop of Lyons.
The title in English is “Book Against False
Opinions Concerning Hail and Thunder.”
Agobard was fiercely hostile to all non-Christian
beliefs. One that particularly infuriated
him was the “mad and blind” belief that
“there exists a certain region called Magonia,
from which ships, navigating on clouds, set
sail to transport back to this same region the
fruits of the earth ruined by hail and destroyed
by the storm.” Agobard tells of “several
of these senseless fools” who held in custody
“three men and one woman, who they
said had fallen from these ships.” The prisoners
were brought in front of an assembly to be
stoned to death, but the archbishop managed
to save their lives, after “the truth finally triumphed”
and he had shown up the absurdity
of the charges (Brodu, 1995).
In a critical analysis of the legend, French
anomalist Jean-Louis Brodu reviewed Magonia’s
various uses over the centuries as well as
the embellishments that attached themselves
to it. In the UFO age, the sketchy account
was variously represented as a landing with
aliens or an early abduction case. Some accounts
twisted details and reported that the
captives had been stoned to death, Agobard’s
explicit words to the contrary. Surveying the
scholarly literature on the Magonian tales,
Brodu argues that Agobard’s account makes
no sense outside the context of the period,
which included the belief that the Earth is flat
and that ships can sail through cloud seas.
“Magonia” may be a corruption of “Magonianus,”
meaning “from Port-Mahon,” a onceflourishing
harbor on the Balearic island of
Minorca.
See Also: Abductions by UFOs; Fairies encountered
Further Reading
Brodu, Jean-Louis, 1995. “Magonia: A Re-evaluation.”
In Steve Moore, ed. Fortean Studies: Volume
2, 198–215. London: John Brown Publishing.
Drake, W. R., 1964. “Spacemen in the Middle
Ages.” Flying Saucer Review10, 3 (May/June):
11–13.
Vallee, Jacques, 1969. Passport to Magonia: From
Folklore to Flying Saucers. Chicago: Henry Regnery
Company.
Marian apparitions
Visions of the Blessed Virgin Mary (BVM)
have been reported since at least the third century
of the Christian era. The first for which
there is anything approximating detailed
knowledge dates back to 1061 when the BVM
provided a vision of Christ’s residence in
Nazareth and directed the witness, the lady of
the manor in Walsingham, Norfolk, to see
that a precise copy was constructed on the
spot. A few visions are well known, and the
Roman Catholic Church has granted official
recognition to a small number, though it has
rejected the vast majority as delusional. BVM
encounters are far from rare. Every year several
occur around the world. With very few
exceptions, the primary witnesses are
Catholics, and usually devout followers of the
faith. Sometimes other supernatural phenomena
accompany the BVM’s manifestation and
become, to the faithful, veridical evidence that
the event was real.
Undoubtedly the most spectacular such
case took place in Fatima, Portugal, in 1917.
The incident is extraordinarily complicated.
What follows is a highly abbreviated account.
Around noon on May 13, three children,
two girls and a boy, tending sheep, saw a flash
of light and observed a brilliantly illuminated
figure of a woman standing amid the branches
of an oak tree. The apparition announced that
she was from heaven and would return six
times, on each occasion on the thirteenth of
each succeeding month. On the last visitation
in October, she would tell them who she was
and why she had come. Soon word spread,
and by June 13 some sixty persons accompa-