Mining the Internet archives
Fortean and UFO phenomena have existed since long before 1947, as a meticulously researched study kicking off in the mid-17th century demonstrates
century, a small but steadily expanding band of inquirers, some active on Aubeck’s history-focused e-forum Magonia Exchange, have taken advantage of the Internet to delve into previously undetected data (in runs of thousands of newspapers, among other sources) detailing pre-1947 accounts of UFO and fortean phenomena.
Aubeck realised the Internet’s potential before other UFO researchers. The initial result was Wonders in the Sky: Unexplained Aerial Objects from Antiquity to Modern Times (2009), which he wrote with Vallee. It is an important work, but Return, ostensibly a sequel, takes matters considerably farther down the road.
The book opens with a discussion of the anonymously compiled Mirabilis Annus (1661–1662), an encyclopædic treatment of marvels. Some are prosaic; others “with the same circumstantial character” (the authors’ phrase) apparently defy explanation. Aubeck and Shough came to one or another conclusion by an excruciatingly thorough probe into surviving records, most now available online, examining each arguably ordinary explanation – astronomical, meteorological, electrical, biographical, fictional or other. One consequence of this is that Return reads like a scientific monograph. Some of it, frankly, makes for slow reading, however compelling the subject may be.
The book moves chronologically until it reaches February 1947 and sightings of five flying egg-shaped objects over South Australia. After a typically meticulous examination and rejection of alternative explanations (meteors, most prominently), Return concludes: “Simply put, this is a modern UFO [case],” one described and published five months before Kenneth Arnold’s 24 June spotting of similar objects brought flying saucers into popular awareness.
Unlike polemical debunking literature, the judgements on sightings are offered in a fashion that does not insult readers’ or witnesses’ intelligence. Chapter 9, about a January 1845 sighting over the Sea of Sicily from the brig Victoria, deduces that three glowing objects were probably “plumes of glowing gas released into the air by a submarine volcano.” How Aubeck and Shough get to that identification makes for an engaging scientific detective story.
Those who have experience of old newspaper accounts of ostensible UFOs and anomalies – I started hunting for them on microfilms of Midwestern newspapers in the mid-1960s – learned early on that some ‘news’ stories were bogus. On occasion, the persons said to have made the report did not exist. Return’s authors take care to establish the earthly presence of the alleged observers. Even better, they dig up as much as they can uncover about who they were, what jobs and positions they held, what
“is a model of how to conduct productive historical UFO and anomalies studies”
their local reputations were. Some deeply weird reports survive this sort of scrutiny.
My favourite concerns an alleged 1873 landing (a relating of which was committed to print not long after) in rural Zanesville, Ohio. A lanterncarrying man in black stepped out of the object, to board a peculiar horseless buggy which promptly zipped out of sight. The named witnesses, it turns out, lived and breathed as serious, respected members of their community. After eliminating likely counterexplanations, the authors remark mildly on the story’s apparent credibility, “fascinating because of clear similarities between this case and modern UFO encounters.”
Though they are hesitant to theorise (and given their manifest intelligence that is not always a virtue), Aubeck and Shough take issue with the widely held belief that UFOs as currently understood were not described prior to the mid-20th century. They were, and they included disc shapes – in other words, classic flying saucers. The implications of this, for instance to a modified version of the extraterrestrial hypothesis, are not explored, but the evidence should spur a round of substantive discussion among thoughtful readers.
Return to Magonia is a model of how to conduct productive historical UFO and anomalies studies. Other writers will come along with comparable efforts, but this is an instant classic and likely to remain an enduring one.