Empire unusual suggested

48 PASSPORT TO MAGONIA
strously fat fine bird, with babies, all suffering with radiation sickness?
And—four legs? 15
And the newsletter published by the UFO Investigating Committee
in Sydney, Australia, drew a most interesting parallel
between the Snippy case and a more recent report from Canada.
Terry Goodmurphy of North Livingstone, Ontario, age twenty,
and his friend Steven Griffon, nineteen, were driving west on
Highway 17 about 9:30 P.M. on November 5, 1967, two months
after Snippy's death. As they neared the top of Maple Ridge Hill,
they saw an orange glow in the sky and thought it was caused by
a fire. They stopped to watch and saw it was moving. They drove
on again for about three-quarters of a mile and then saw the
object more clearly as it appeared to maneuver at an altitude of
about one hundred feet. The two boys became frightened, turned
around, and notified the Ontario Provincial Police. Nothing was
to be seen when the police investigated. However, that same evening,
something happened at the Lome Wolgenuth farm in
nearby Sowbcry, for on the following morning when a standardbred
mare, Susie, and another horse usually came in from a pasture,
only the second horse came to the barn, and a long cut was
noticed on his neck. Susie was not there. It was only after several
hours of searching that her owners found her, lying dead with
her throat and jugular vein cut.
Perhaps I have now succeeded in evoking in the reader's mind
a new awareness: the suggestion of a possible parallel between
the rumors of today and the beliefs that were held by our ancestors,
beliefs of stupendous fights with mysterious supermen, of
rings where magic lingered, of dwarfish races haunting the land.
Purposely, in this second chapter, I have limited the argument
to the mere juxtaposition of modern and older beliefs. The faint
suspicion of a giant mystery, much larger than our current preoccupation
with life on other planets, much deeper than housewives'
reports of zigzagging lights: Perhaps we can resolve the
point by trying to understand what these tales, these myths,
these legends arc doing to us. What images are they designed to
convey? What hidden needs are they fulfilling? If this is a fabrication,
why should it be so absurd? Are there precedents in
history? Could imagination be a stronger force, to shape the
THE GOOD PEOPLE 49
actions of men, than its expression in dogmas, in political structures,
in established churches, in armies? If so, could this force
be used? Is it being used? Is there a science of deception at work
here on a grand scale, or could the human mind generate its own
phantoms, in a formidable, collective edification of worldwide
mythologies? Is a natural force at work here?
"Man's imagination, like every known power, works by fixed
laws." These words by Hartland, written in 1891, offer a clue.
Yes, there is a deep undercurrent to be discovered and mapped
behind these seemingly absurd stories. Emerging sections of the
underlying pattern have been discovered and mapped in ages
past, by long-dead scholars. Today we have the unique opportunity
to witness the reappearance of this current, out in the open
—colored, naturally, with our new human biases, our preoccupation
with "science," our longing for the promised land of other
planets.
A new mythology was needed to bridge the stupendous gap
beyond the meaningless present. They provided it. But who are
they? Real beings, or the ghosts of our own ridiculous, petty
dreams? They spoke to us, "in smooth English." They did not
speak to our scientists; they did not send sophisticated signals in
uniquely decipherable codes, as alien beings arc supposed to do,
if they read Walter Sullivan, as any alien being should before
daring to penetrate our solar system. No, they picked Gary Wilcox
instead. And Joe Simonton. And Maurice Masse. What did they
say? That they were from Mars. That they were our neighbors.
And, above all, that they were superior to us, that we must obey
them. That they were good. Go to Valensole and ask Masse. He
will tell you, perhaps, how puzzled he was when suddenly, without
warning, he felt inside himself a warm, comforting feeling—
how good they were, our good neighbors. The Good People. They
took a great interest in the affairs of men, and they always "stood
for justice and right." They could appear in different forms.
With them Joe Simonton exchanged food. So in times gone
by, did Irishmen, who talked to similar beings. In those days, too,
they were called the Good People and, in Scotland, the Good
Neighbors, the Sleagh Maith. What did they say, then?
"We are far superior to you." "We could cut off half the
human race."