Empire unusual suggested

110 PASSPORT TO MAGONIA
was sighted "about twenty years ago"—which would take us back
to 1947, a very important year in UFO history.
On June 5, 1968, the press reported that a Buenos Aires couple,
Mr. and Mrs. Vidal, had a very strange adventure while driving
between Chascomus and Maipu. They were surrounded by a thick
cloud of mist and fell asleep. When they woke up, their car was
on a dirt road they did not know, and they found out to their
dismay that they were in Mexico! The paint on their car, a
Peugeot 403, had entirely vanished.
The Vidals went to the Argentine consulate in Mexico, and
from there called some friends of theirs in Buenos Aires to make
arrangements for their return. The consulate has refused to comment
on the incident. The Vidals' car has been taken to the
United States for investigation, and Mrs. Vidal has been hospitalized
in an Argentina clinic, in a state of nervous depression. Fortyeight
hours in the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Vidal cannot be accounted
for.
BEYOND REASON
In the past twenty years, UFO reports have been studied not
only in a sensational light by people with journalistic motives and
methods but also by serious persons who have tried to place them
within the framework of space science, modern physics, psychology,
or the history of superstition. An increasing number of researchers—best
identified with the Flying Saucer Review in Great
Britain and with the groups such as APRO and NICAP 14 in the
United States—have made systematic efforts at responsible datagathering,
at the same time attempting to discover one or several
consistent "patterns" in the reports. But these efforts at rationalization
of the UFO phenomenon have so far failed.
The most appealing of the theories proposed, which would
regard the UFO's as probes from another planet, falls short
of explaining the phenomena in their historical development.
Present-day saucers cannot be evaluated without reference to the
1897 airship or to earlier sightings of similar objects. Then, too,
the theory of simple visitation must be combined with the assumption
that the visitors know far more physics than we do—
TO MAGONIA . . . AND BACK!
so much more, in fact, that an interpretation in terms of physical
concepts known to us is bound to end up in failure and contradiction.
A second major flaw in all the theories proposed so far
is found in the description of the entities and their behavior. Any
theory can account for some of these reports, but only at the
expense of arbitrary rejection of a much larger group.
The recognition of a parallel between UFO reports and the
main themes of fairy-lore is the first indication I have found that
a way might exist out of this dilemma. And although it is still too
early for us to pick up the scattered pieces of our old theories in
a new attempt at explanation, I would like to conclude this chapter
with a more precise review of the most difficult cases we have
before us. Of the "reasonable" sightings there is little that can
be said. The real problem begins when we find witnesses who are
typical of the average population and who tell a story that, though
not inconsistent with the spectrum of UFO reports, still stands
out because of a few specific details that are so unbelievable that
our first reaction is to reject the entire story.
The thought that the story must be disregarded because it is
a challenge to our reason is a reaction I am very familiar with,
and it has led me in the past to select for analysis only those
sightings that seem amenable to scientific criticism. Similarly,
major groups such as NICAP or APRO and the official investigators
working for Project Blue Book have devised some more
or less conscious standards for the automatic rejection of "unbelievable"
stories. To be sure, many of these reports do deserve
the "crackpot" label, but such stories are usually accompanied by
numerous signs of the witness's lack of mental balance. But when
no such psychological context is evident, we must appraise the
story very carefully.
October 12, 1963. It was raining hard between Monte Maiz
and Isla Verde, in Argentina, as Eugenio Douglas drove his truck
loaded with coal along the road. Dawn was coming. Suddenly,
Douglas saw a bright spot on the road ahead, like the headlights
of an approaching vehicle, except that it was a single, blinding
light. To avoid a collision, Douglas slowed down. The light became
so intense he had to lower his head and move to the side.
1 Tc stopped the truck and got out. The light had disappeared.
Ill