PASSPORT TO MAGONIA: From Folklore to Flying Saucers

Taking a flying leap off the deep end, Mr. Vallee (who did such a considered analysis of centuries of sauceritis in his Anatomy of a Phenomenon) plunges into sheer speculative fantasy, substantiated by unsubstantiated reports of actual landings. Admittedly, it's the wildest sort of goose chase but the believer will have the most exotic fun computing the author's parallels. His thesis (one that has been dabbled in but never drafted up before) is that the alleged descriptions of extraterrestial types (dwarfs, giants and winged men) are dramatically similar to the stuff of myth and legend. This covers everyone from St. Anthony who had an interesting discussion with a dwarf in the desert to Joe Simonton of Eagle River, Wisconsin, who traded his pure water for some gnomes' homemade barley cakes (the ""Gentry"" of the Irish middle ages were wee folk who subsisted on pure water and barley cakes with salt--Joe's were salted). Etc. with one century's worth of reported landings listed in chronological order. It's enough to drive you to your local witch. But then, we've just discovered a moon man.