Dimensions: A Casebook of Alien Contact - Above Top Secret

probably took place in the second part of the nineteenth century.Scientifically inclined people scoff at such stories with a very indignant air. A group of "national"UFO investigators, when contacted about the Eagle River incident, stated that they did not intend toanalyze the cookies, planned no further action, and had much more important things to investigate.Two weeks after the sighting, Joe Simonton told a United Press International reporter that "if ithappened again, I don't think I'd tell anybody about it." And indeed, if flying saucers were devicesused by a superscientific civilization from space, we would expect them to be packed inside withelectronic gadgetry, superradars, and a big computerrized spying apparatus. But visitors in humanshape, who breathe our air and zip around in flying kitchenettes, that is too much, Mr. Simonton!Visitors from the stars would not be human, or humanoid. They would not dare come here withoutreceiving a polite invitation from our powerful radio-telescopes. For several centuries, they wouldexchange highly scientific information with experts like Dr. Carl Sagan through exquisite circuitryand elaborate codes. And even if they did come here, surely they would land in Washington, D.C.,where the president of the United States and the "scientific ufologists" would greet them. Presentswould be exchanged. We would offer books on exobiology, and they would give us photographs ofour solar system taken through space telescopes. But perforated, cardboard-tasting, pancake-shapedbuckwheat cakes? How terribly rural, Mr. Simonton!And yet, there is no question that Joe Simonton believes that he saw the flying saucer, the flamelessgrill, the three men. He gave them pure water; they gave him three pancakes. If we reflect on thisvery simple event, as the students of folklore have reflected on the stories quoted above, we cannotoverlook one possibility: that the event at Eagle River did happen, and that it has the meaning of asimple, yet grandiose, ceremony.This latter theory was very well expressed by Hartland, when he said, about the exchange of foodwith the Gentry:Almost all over the Earth, the rite of hospitality has been held to confer obligations on itsrecipient, and to unite them by special ties to the giver. And even where the notion ofhospitality does not enter, to join in a common meal has often been held to symbolize, if notto constitute, union of a very sacred kind.That such meaning is still attached to a common meal is readily seen at weddings and othertraditional meetings where food is an important constituent, even if the symbolic value of suchevents is lost to most of our contemporaries. Hartland goes so far as to suggest that the custom ofburying the dead with some food might bear some relationship to the widespread belief that onemust have a supply of terrestrial food when one reaches the land beyond or forsake the earthentirely. And indeed, in ancient and recent tradition alike, the abode of our supernatural visitors isnot always distinct from the world of the dead. This is a moot point, however, because the sameapplies to visitors from heaven. The theologians, who argue about the nature of angels, know it verywell. But at least the idea of food provides another connection. In the light of Hartland's remarksabout the rite of hospitality, a passage from the Bible is noteworthy:Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under thetree: And I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; after that ye shall passon: for therefore are ye come to your servant. And they said, So do, as thou hast said.And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them; andhe stood by them under the tree and they did eat.And according to Genesis 19:3, Lot took the two angels he met at the gate of Sodom to his house"and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat." So, after all, JoeSimonton's account might be a modern illustration of that biblical recommendation: "Be notforgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unaware."