Wonders in the Sky: Unexplained Aerial Objects from Antiquity to Modern Times

Jacques Vallee · Chris Aubeck

tet 2010 · Shitur nga Penguin

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One of the most ambitious works of paranormal investigation of our time, here is an unprecedented compendium of pre-twentieth-century UFO accounts, written with rigor and color by two of today's leading investigators of unexplained phenomena.

In the past century, individuals, newspapers, and military agencies have recorded thousands of UFO incidents, giving rise to much speculation about flying saucers, visitors from other planets, and alien abductions. Yet the extraterrestrial phenomenon did not begin in the present era. Far from it. The authors of Wonders in the Sky reveal a thread of vividly rendered-and sometimes strikingly similar- reports of mysterious aerial phenomena from antiquity through the modern age. These accounts often share definite physical features- such as the heat felt and described by witnesses-that have not changed much over the centuries. Indeed, such similarities between ancient and modern sightings are the rule rather than the exception.

In Wonders in the Sky, respected researchers Jacques Vallee and Chris Aubeck examine more than 500 selected reports of sightings from biblical-age antiquity through the year 1879-the point at which the Industrial Revolution deeply changed the nature of human society, and the skies began to open to airplanes, dirigibles, rockets, and other opportunities for misinterpretation represented by military prototypes. Using vivid and engaging case studies, and more than seventy-five illustrations, they reveal that unidentified flying objects have had a major impact not only on popular culture but on our history, on our religion, and on the models of the world humanity has formed from deepest antiquity.

Sure to become a classic among UFO enthusiasts and other followers of unexplained phenomena, Wonders in the Sky is the most ambitious, broad-reaching, and intelligent analysis ever written on premodern aerial mysteries.

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Jacques Vallee holds a master’s degree in astrophysics from France and a PhD in computer science from Northwestern University. He is the author of several books about high technology and unidentified phenomena, a subject that first attracted his attention as an astronomer in Paris. While analyzing observations from many parts of the world, Vallee became intrigued by the similarities in every culture in patterns between modern sightings and historical reports of encounters with flying objects and their occupants. After a career as an information scientist with Stanford Research Institute and the Institute for the Future, where he served as a principal investigator for the groupware project on the ARPANET, the prototype of the Internet, Vallee cofounded a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley. He lives in San Francisco.

Chris Aubeck was born in London. He moved to Spain at age 19, and after teaching in Cáceres and Madrid for 24 years, he now lives in Granada. His interest in the historical and sociological aspects of unexplained aerial phenomena began at an early age. A student of language and folklore, he has helped compile the largest collection of pre-1947 UFO cases in the world. He has spoken on his research in many articles and on public radio. In 2008 he was awarded a prize for his contributions to the field by the Spanish organization Fundación Anomalía.