Wonders in the Sky by Jacques Vallee Read Free Book Online Page B

Earth’s original ten suns were making life insufferable, in which case it should be regarded as legend rather than fact.
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    Source: Brothers Magazine (Japan) No. III, 1964. This magazine was one of the earliest publications about UFOs in Japan. Unfortunately, it did not provide a quote from an actual source.
    23.
    April 34 AD, China, exact location unknown
Squadron of flying intruders
    A white, round object accompanied by 10 small stars flies overhead. This could refer to a train of meteors, but the pattern is unusual if “accompanied” means that the ten small stars were flying in some sort of formation with the main object.
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    Source: Edouard Biot, Catalogue des étoiles filantes et des autres météores observés en Chine pendant 24 siècles (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1846).
    24.
    61 AD, China
A golden apparition is said to have spread Buddhism
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    Han Emperor Mingti, who had heard of Buddhism, had a vision of a golden figure floating in a halo of light – interpreted as a flying Apsara (Buddhist angel). Some sources present this vision as a dream, others as an “apparition.” Arthur Lillie mentions it as a “golden man, a spirit named Foe,” while Gray calls it “a foreign god entering his palace.”
    Whatever it was, the visionary being was interpreted by the Emperor’s wise men, including Minister Fu Yi, to be the Buddha himself. Consequently, an envoy was sent to India to learn about the new religion, returning with sacred Buddhist texts and paintings as well as Indian priests to explain the teachings of the Buddha to the Emperor.
    The narrative we have does not mention any physical object in the sky at the time, which strictly takes the event out of the realm of aerial phenomena. As will be seen in Part III of this book (“Sources and Methods”) the two coauthors have had extensive debate over the wisdom of including such cases in this catalogue, especially from sources steeped in myth and symbolism.

    Fig. 4: Flying apsara: painting from the Mogao caves, China
    On the one hand, there are thousands of instances where witnesses describe “entities” similar to those typically associated with UFOs, in connection with a “halo of light” that can hardly be considered as a material object. These are often reported in the contemporary literature as “bedroom visitations” or apparitions. We did agree that a difficult line must be drawn between such events and reports of ghosts, ape-men or monsters, which belong in a related but separate study. On the other hand, we find continuity between the interpretation of “signs in the sky,” aerial objects with entities aboard, and flying or luminous entities seen by themselves. Accordingly, we have included a limited number of prominent cases of this kind.
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    Source: John Henry Gray, China, a History of the Laws, Manners and Customs of the People (Courier Dover: 2003), 106; Arthur Lillie, Buddhism in Christendom or Jesus the Essene (London: K. Paul, Trench, 1887), 188.
    25.
    21 May 70 AD, Jerusalem
Flying chariots surround the city
    Flavius Josephus writes: “On the one and twentieth day of the month Artemisius, a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared: I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals; for, before sun-setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding cities .”
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    Source: Flavius Josephus, History of the Destruction of Jerusalem , Jewish Wars , Book CXI, quoted in “ The Genuine Works of Flavius Josephus , the Jewish Historian ,” translated by William Whiston, (London, 1737). See also: Sara Schechner, Comets, Popular Culture and the Birth of Modern Cosmology (Princeton University Press: 1999), 32.
    26.
    Winter 80 AD,