Mattoon Revisited

Willy Smith

Magonia 48, January 1994

 

The main claim to fame of Mattoon, a central Illinois town of about 16,000 souls, is the alleged activity almost fifty years ago of a prankster never apprehended or identified. During a short period at the end of the summer of 1944, more precisely from 31 August to 12 September, this individual, and perhaps some copycats, terrified young women by releasing some kind of gas in their rooms, gas that was never identified, but that gained him the name of the Phantom Gasser of Mattoon.

The 1952 Saucer Wave: A Story Behind the Story

‘Just Cause'

Magonia 48, January 1994

This article was reprinted from Just Cause, issue 36, 1993. Just Cause was the journal of CAUS, Citizens Against UFO Secrecy. This US organisation, unlike some others claiming to be battling against Government cover-ups, conducted a rational campaign to disclose UFO information which is genuinely being withheld by the authorities. It has uncovered a great deal of fascinating data, and we feel this article will be of particular interest to Magonia readers.

Virtual Banality

John Rimmer

Magonia 48, January 1994

If any psychosocial explanations of the UFO and abduction experience are valid, then we need to assume that it is fairly commonplace for the human brain to create realistic alternative worlds, in which cognition is replaced by, as Peter Rogerson has called it, a kind of virtual experience . We must also accept that this virtual world is, to the percipient, absolutely, totally, completely real, with no doubt whatsoever in their mind as to the physical, real-time nature of the experience they are recalling.