From: density4@cts.com (Blue Resonant Human)
Subject: IUFO: ::: Alien Abduction -- Stardate: 17th Century :::
Date: 12 Dec 1997 02:03:10 -0500
To: iufo@world.std.com


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                            A L I E N
                        A B D U C T I O N
                        
                        -=:::  oOo  :::=-
                        
                     Stardate: 17th Century

                              -or-

               The Four Ambassadors of the Sylphs


"The famous Cabalist Zedechias, in the reign of your Pepin, took
 it into his head to convince the world that the Elements are
 inhabited by those peoples whose natures I have just described
 to you.  The expedient of which he bethought himself was to
 advise the Sylphs to show themselves in the Air to everybody:
 They did so sumptuously.  These beings were seen in the Air in
 human form, sometimes in battle array marching in good order,
 halting under arms, or encamped beneath magnificent tents.
 Sometimes on wonderfully constructed aerial ships ["flying 
 saucers" -B:.B:.], whose flying squadrons roved at the will 
 of the Zephyrs.
 
"What happened?  Do you suppose that ignorant age would so much
 as reason as to the nature of these marvellous spectacles?  The
 people straightaway believed that sorcerors had taken possession
 of the Air for the purpose of raising tempests and bringing hail
 upon their crops.  The learned theologians and jurists were soon
 of the same opinion as the masses.  The Emperor believed it as
 well; and this ridiculous chimera went so far that the wise
 Charlemagne, and after him Louis the Debonair, imposed grievous
 penalties upon all these supposed Tyrants of the Air.  You may
 see an account of this in the first chapter of the Capitularies
 of these two Emperors.
 
"The Sylphs, seeing the populace, the pedants and even the crowned
 heads thus alarmed against them, determined to dissipate the bad
 opinion people had of their innocent fleet by carrying off men
 from every locality and shoing them their beautiful women, their
 Republic and their manner of government, and then setting them
 down again on earth in divers parts of the world.  They carried
 out their plan.  The people who saw these men as they were
 descending came running from every direction, convinced before-
 hand that they were sorcerors who had separated from their
 companions in order to come and scatter poisons on the fruit
 and in the springs.  Carried away by the frenzy with which such
 fancies inspired them, they hurried these innocents off to the
 torture.  The great number of them ["alien abductees" -B:.B:.]
 who were put to death by fire and water throughout the kingdom
 is incedible.
 
"One day, among other instances, it chanced at Lyons that three
 men and a woman were seen descending from these aerial ships.
 The entire city gathered about them, crying out they were
 magicians and were sent by Grimaldus, Duke of Beneventum,
 Charlemagne's enemy, to destroy the French harvests.  In vain
 the four innocents sought to vindicate themselves by saying that
 they were their own country-folk, and had been carried away a
 short time since by miraculous men who had shown them unheard-of
 marvels, and had desired to give them an account of what they
 had seen.  The frenzied populace paid no heed to their defence,
 and were on the point of casting them into the fire, when the
 worthy Agobard, Bishop of Lyons, who having been a monk in that
 city had acquired considerable authority there, came running at
 the noise, and having heard the accusations of the people and 
 the defence of the accused, gravely pronounced that both one and
 the other were false.  That it was not true that these men had
 fallen from the sky, and that what they said they had seen there
 was impossible. [note the benevolence of this seminal "debunker"
 -B:.B:.]

"The people believed what their good father Agobard said rather 
 than their own eyes, were pacified, set at liberty the four
 Ambassadors of the Sylphs, and received with wonder the book
 which Agobard wrote to confirm the judgement which he had 
 pronounced.  Thus the testimony of the four witnesses was
 rendered vain."
 
-A.H. Clough, Introduction to Plutarch's "Lives"
 
from _Passport to Magonia_
1969 by Jacques Vallee
Contemporary Books, Chicago, IL
ISBN 0-8092-3796-2



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->  Posted by: density4@cts.com (Blue Resonant Human)