How to Write a Bestseller

Gareth J. Medway
Magonia 81, May 2003

Critics of Erich von Daniken – who has recently been back in the news with another book and a forthcoming ancient astronaut theme park – have been undecided whether his thesis is to be deplored because it is wrong or because it is unoriginal. The idea that modern technology may have been known to the ancients is almost as old as the technology itself.

The Schauberger Error

Kevin McClure

Magonia 81, May 2003

It’s much easier to dismiss an absurd claim that is fresh and new, than one which has been around for a while, and has taken root. It is, for example, simple enough to assess the reliability of David Icke’s assertion that Dr Josef Mengele – seemingly after he died – mind-controlled a young American woman to make her go to Balmoral Castle, and officiate at rituals where the Queen and Queen Mother turned into reptiles and devoured small children.

A Social History of Ball Lightning

Martin Shough
Magonia 81, May 2003

Back in 1967 the astronomer Gerard Kuiper dismissed a 10% residue of unexplained ‘UFO’ reports with a wave of the hand, thinking it ‘reasonable to assume’ that this testimony must be “so distorted or incomplete as to defy all analysis”. Inconsistently, however, he advocated a major Defence Department-FAA programme to research “very rare natural phenomena” such as ball lightning. Why? Because “no adequate data yet exist of ball lightning”, even though its existence had been ‘known for at least a century’. [1]