Dimensions: A Casebook of Alien Contact - Above Top Secret

magical object sometimes described as a large, flat, round table, sometimes as a hillock. A disk or alarge cone resting on the ground would fit that description. In describing the fairy knoll, Hartlandwrites: "The hillock was standing, as is usual on such occasions, on red pillars!")The "wee folk" offered the bride a cup of wine, and she joined in a dance with them. Then shehastened back home, where she could not find her family. Everything had changed in the village.Finally, on hearing her cries, a very old woman exclaimed: "Was it you, then, who disappeared atmy grandfather's brother's wedding, a hundred years ago?" At these words, the poor girl fell downand expired.It is fascinating indeed to find such tales, which antedate Einstein's and Langevin's relativistictraveler by centuries.The supernatural lapse of time in Magonia is often allied to the theme of love between the abductedhuman and one of the beings. Such is the pattern of the story of Ossian, or Oisin.Once, when he was young man, Oisin fell asleep under a tree. He woke up suddenly and found arichly dressed lady "of more than mortal beauty" looking at him. She was the queen of thelegendary land of Tir na n'Og, and she invited him to share her palace. Oisin and the queen were inlove and happy, but the hero was warned not to go into the palace gardens or to stand on a certainflat stone. Naturally, he transgressed the order, and, when he stood upon the stone, he beheld hisnative land, suffering from oppression and violence. He went to the queen and told her he mustreturn. "How long do you think you have been with me?" she asked. "Thrice seven days," said he."Thrice seven years," was the answer. But he still wanted to go back. She then gave him a blackhorse from whose back he must not alight during his trip in the other world, for fear of seeing thepower of time suddenly fall on him. But he forgot the warning when an incident induced him todismount, and at once he became a feeble, blind, and helpless old man.It is not necessary to spend time here, to dwell in detail, on the tales of the island of Avalon, Morganthe Fay, the legend of Ogier the Dane, and the magical travels of King Arthur. All these traditionsinsist on the peculiar nature of time in the "other world." Nor is this limited to European history, asHartland again points out:Many races having traditions of a Culture God – that is, of a superior being who has taughtthem agriculture and the arts of life, and led them to victory over their enemies – add that hehas gone away from them for awhile, and that he will some day come back again.Quetzalcoatl and Viracocha, the culture gods of Mexico and Peru, are familiar instances ofthis.Similary, Vishnu has yet a tenth incarnation to accomplish the final destruction of this world'swicked. At the end of the present age, according to Hindu tradition, he will be revealed in the sky,seated on a white horse and holding a blazing sword.Such great traditions are common knowledge, like the abductions of Enoch, Ezekiel, Elijah, andothers in the Bible. What is not commonly known is that such legends have been built on thepopular belief in numerous actual stories of the less glorious, more ordinary and personal, type wehave reviewed here. For instance, while all books about Mexico mention Quetzalcoatl, they usuallyignore the local beliefs in little black beings, the ikals, whose pranks we have already mentioned.While their relationship with modern Latin American UFO lore is clear, they also provide anobvious parallel to the fairy-faith.In his study of the tales of Tenejapa, anthropologist Brian Stross reports of the ikals:They are believed to be beings from another world, and some have been seen flying withsome kind of rocket-like thing attached to the back. With this rocket they are saidoccasionally to have carried off people.Similarly, Gordon Creighton reports: