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Unidentified Flying Objects,
by Colin Wilson.
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"The story of modern sightings began on 24 June 1947 when a businessman named Kenneth Arnold was flying his private plane near Mount Rainier in Washington State; against the background of the mountain, he saw nine shining discs travelling very fast – he estimated their speed at a thousand miles an hour, far beyond the speed of which any aircraft was capable at that time. Arnold said they were flying in formation, like geese, and that they wove in and out of the mountain peaks; he later compared their flight to a “saucer skipped across the water”. So UFOs came to be referred to as “flying saucers”.
"Arnold’s story was widely reported in the American Press, for he had a good reputation and was taken seriously – he had been out searching for the wreckage of a lost plane at the time he made the sighting, and obviously had no reason to invent such a story. Four days later, two pilots and two intelligence officers saw a bright light performing “impossible manoeuvres” over Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, and in Nevada on the same day another pilot saw a formation of “unidentified flying objects”. As these and other sightings were reported the Press began to give prominence to stories of flying saucers, and by the end of that year there had been hundreds of sightings – a number that soon grew into thousands."
" ... But was it conceivable that thousands of people – in fact, millions – could all be mistaken? For by 1966, a Gallup Poll revealed that five million Americans had seen flying saucers. ... "
Wilson discusses Chariots Of The Gods and points at various discrepancies in various works by the author, and things the author said but retracted later, yet let them continue in subsequent editions.
"As his investigation progressed, Keel became increasingly convinced that UFOs had been around for thousands of years, and that many biblical accounts of fiery chariots or fireballs are probably descriptions of them. In 1883 a Mexican astronomer named Jose Bonilla photographed 143 circular objects that moved across the solar disc. In 1878 a Texas farmer named John Martin saw a large circular object flying overhead, and actually used the word “saucer” in a newspaper interview about it. In 1897 people all over American began sighting huge airships – cigar-shaped craft. (This was before the man-made airship had been invented.) Dozens of other early “UFO” sightings have been chronicled in newspaper reports or pamphlets; Chapter 26 of Charles Fort’s Book of the Damned – written thirty years before the UFO craze – is devoted to strange objects and lights seen in the sky. One of the most convincing sightings was made by the Russian painter Nicholas Roerich (who designed Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring ballet); in his book Altai Himalaya (1930) he describes how, making his way from Mongolia to India in 1926, he – and the whole party – observed a big shiny disc moving swiftly across the sky. Like so many modern UFOs, this one suddenly changed direction above their camp. (In many UFO reports, the object seems to defy the laws of momentum by turning at right angles at great speed.) It vanished over the mountain peaks."
" ... Vallee devotes a chapter of The Invisible College to studying the case of Uri Geller. Geller, the Israeli psychic and “metal-bender”, was “discovered” by the scientist Andrija Puharich. Geller’s powers aroused such worldwide interest that it seemed inevitable that the first full-length book about him would become a bestseller. In fact Puharich’s Uri: A Journal of the Mystery of Uri Geller (1974) came close to destroying Puharich’s reputation as a serious investigator. It seems to be full of baffling confusions and preposterous and inexplicable happenings. Yet it also provides some vital clues to the mystery of “space intelligences”. In 1952, long before he met Geller, Puharich was studying with a Hindu psychic named Dr Vinod when Vinod went into a trance and began to speak with an English voice; this trance-entity announced itself as a member of “the Nine”, superhuman intelligences who had been studying the human race for thousands of years, and whose purpose is to aid human evolution. Three years later, travelling in Mexico, Puharich met an American doctor who also passed on lengthy messages from “space intelligences” – the odd thing being that they were a continuation of the messages that had come through Dr Vinod. When Puharich met Geller in 1971 the “Nine” again entered the story; while Geller was in a trance a voice spoke out of the air above his head explaining that Geller had been programmed by “space intelligences” from the age of three – the aim being to prevent the human race from plunging itself into catastrophe. Puharich goes on to describe UFO sightings, and an endless series of baffling events, with objects appearing and disappearing and recorded tapes being mysteriously “wiped”. Puharich assured the present writer (CW) that he had left out some of the more startling items because they would be simply beyond belief."
Colin Wilson has, not only in this chapter but throughout the book, used the term "spiritualism" in the sense of, not spiritual life or person as in yogi, but in sense of a medium dealing with spirits.
"In The Flying Saucer Vision (1967), the English writer John Michell also takes his starting-point from Jung. Michell accepts Jung’s view that the UFO phenomenon is somehow connected with the “religious vacuum” in the soul of modern man. He associates UFOs with ancient legends about gods who descend in airships, and his conclusions are not dissimilar to those of von Däniken, although rather more convincingly argued. But Michell also has an original contribution to make to “ufology”. In his researches he had stumbled upon Alfred Watkins’s book The Old Straight Track (1925), in which Watkins argues that the countryside is intersected with ancient straight trackways which were prehistoric trade routes, and that these tracks connect “sacred sites” such as churches, stone circles, barrows and tumuli. Watkins called these “ley lines”. Michell argues that the ley lines are identical with lines that the Chinese call “dragon paths” or lung mei. The Chinese science of feng shui, or geomancy, is basically a religious system concerned with the harmony between man and nature; it regards the earth as a living body. Lung mei are lines of force on the earth’s surface, and one of the aims of feng shui is to preserve and concentrate this force, and prevent it from leaking away. Michell was mistaken to state that lung mei are straight lines, like Watkins’ leys – in fact, the Chinese regard straight lines with suspicion; the essential quality of lung meis is that they are crooked. But Michell takes an important step beyond Watkins in regarding ley lines as lines of some earth force; he believes that ancient man selected spots in which there was a high concentration of this force as their sacred sites. Points where two or more ley lines cross have a special significance. Michell also points out that many sightings of flying saucers occur on ley lines, and particularly on their points of intersection – for example, Warminster, in Wiltshire, where a truly extraordinary number of sightings have been made. In a book called The Undiscovered Country, Stephen Jenkins, another serious investigator of such matters, points out how often crossing-points of ley lines are associated with all kinds of “supernatural” occurrences, from ghosts and poltergeists to strange visions of phantom armies. Once again we seem to have an interesting link between UFOs and the “supernatural”."
In fact, Colin Wilson had published a book, read three decades ago when it wasn't new, that spoke of Ely lines, Salisbury mound and more; recent search hasn't helped in identifying it, if it's at all available on kindle or Amazon.
" ... Like Vallee, Holiday finally became convinced that the answer to the UFO enigma lies in “the psychic solution”. It must be acknowledged that there is a great deal of evidence that points in this direction. On the other hand, it would be premature to discount the possibility that they may be spacecraft from another planet or galaxy; this is a matter on which it would be foolish not to keep an open mind."
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December 20, 2021 - December 21, 2021.
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