So, aliens. Do they exist? I mean, probably. Just based on probability it seems reasonable that somewhere out there in the universe - it is quite big after all - some sort of life has managed to arise somewhere other than Planet Earth. But have aliens come among us? Has an extraterrestrial race developed the technology and the desire to master intergalactic travel, the ability to appear in a form that we can comprehend, and then come to steal some chickens off a farmer in rural Mexico? Well, that seems a lot less likely, and personally I don't believe contact has ever been made. But there are a lot of people out there who do believe - and a not insignificant number who claim to have seen or even been directly contacted by beings not of this world. So what's going on?
In Passport to Magonia, Jacques Vallée has a pretty decent stab at finding an answer to that question. Published in 1968, the book received its fair share of criticism on release: from the scientific community who took offence at the idea that anyone would suggest that such a topic merited serious scientific discussion, but, more surprisingly, also from the increasingly established ufology community. The thing is, the thinking at the time was that the sudden increase in activity post-World War II was a direct result of humanity's foray into nuclear warfare - a higher power keeping an eye on us, so to speak (and it is undeniable that the flying-saucer-with-flashing-lights-and-little-green-men type of reports have come exclusively post-1945). But Vallée goes down a different path, suggesting that such incidents aren't evidence of extraterrestrial life at all, but instead a continuation of a much older idea, one that has permeated virtually every culture on Earth since before recorded history.
His theories do make a lot of sense - having recounted a handful of the most prominent UFO and alien abduction cases, he draws a pretty evident conclusion: that effectively no two reports have any single detail in common. From the physical description of the flying crafts themselves to the appearance and actions of the occupants that sometimes emerge from them, there is nothing but inconsistency. Some aliens are huge, some dwarf-like, some speak French, some English, some Spanish, some another, indecipherable language. Some don't speak at all but communicate telepathically. Some creatures are here to collect plants, seemingly on a mission of scientific exploration, some mutilate cows, some just sort of stand around and then disappear when people get too close. So clearly, if these are truly aliens, we are being bombarded from hundreds of different planets and the chances of wider contact being established should be almost a certainty. Vallée proposes a different approach, and drags up stories from the past showing parallels - and here the consistencies do start to add up - between reports of close encounters from the 20th Century and those of fairies, goblins and angels of centuries past. He demonstrates similarities between contact stories - from the ability of these beings to "freeze" humans, to their generally benevolent intentions, to witnesses' reports of lost time. There's also the fact that alien technology seems to be advancing at a similar rate to our own, and that almost any given culture has a similar legend somewhere in its history - and that reporters do tend to frame things in their own cultural context. Essentially, people see what they want to see - but they do seem to be seeing something. And what lends all this weight is that Vallée emphasises throughout that none of this should be taken as irrefutable evidence of the supernatural, or the extraterrestrial. He goes out of his way to shoot down the "ancient aliens" theory by stating that any stories or relics that may appear to be evidence from that time can be dismissed as exaggerations or simply made up. And moving forward, he says that reports of fairies or aliens aren't necessarily any more true. But the sheer weight of material cannot be disputed: whatever the reason, there is something within humanity's consciousness that, throughout the ages, has resulted in people seeing things that they cannot explain, and that a serious, scientific investigation of the phenomenon could reveal some fundamental truths about humanity.
The second half of the book is given over to a compendium of a huge range of "flying saucer" reports since the mid-19th Century. This I found less interesting; it did, however, confirm how global these sightings are, and the wild discrepancies in accounts - craft range from half a metre to a hundred metres across, and aliens from 30 centimetres to 4 metres tall - it just can't all be the same thing. And a lot can be explained away by the usual means: experimental aircraft, weather balloons, owls, hallucinations or just plain old storytelling. But the volume of reports, the range of witnesses, some of whom really have nothing to gain, and the occasional, intriguing similarity, all add up to a curious read.
Passport to Magonia is completely unlike anything I have read, but it's not without its flaws. A lot of Vallée's sources are questionable at best, although to his credit he does admit this; The Flying Saucer Review may be a legitimate publication but it's far from a neutral one. And he does damage his credibility somewhat with a tendency to sensationalise - sometimes even resorting to outlandish 60s-style clickbait within his own chapters. Several phrases along the lines of "after reading this account, I'm sure the reader will be amazed" left a lot to be desired.
Half a century on, I wonder if Vallée would have written a very different book today. In a much smaller world where everyone can get video evidence at a moment's notice, we're still not really any closer to finding out the truth; but it all seems a little less plausible. Nonetheless, I can't help but feel he had something resembling a point here, and that there are indeed aspects of human nature that haven't been adequately explored.
4.5/5
Then again it was the 1960s, so maybe everyone was just on drugs.
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