Physical Evidence for UFO Reports: The Sturrock Report

John Harney

Magonia 64, August 1998

The recent report of a workshop on UFO reports, funded by Laurance S. Rockefeller and given administrative support by the Society for Scientific Exploration was, according to the New Scientist, " ... funded by a little-known organisation which has published papers supporting such concepts as dowsing and reincarnation. What's more, the panel included a physicist who "designs' perpetual motion machines and an engineer who tries to move objects by concentrating hard". [1] 

The Psychosocial Controversy

John Rimmer

Editorial Notes, Magonia 64, August 1998

A few things seem to have come together lately to bring the extraterrestrial hypothesis back into the centre of discussion in ufology. The recently published Sturrock Report has provoked an outbreak of rather triumphalist ETH comment on Internet discussion forums. We are making our own 'contributions to the debate with John Harney's controversial Magonia ETH Bulletin and with the response that my 'Extremely Tenuous Hypothesis' article provoked from American researchers. 

The Age of Infantilism: A Response to Peter Brookesmith

David Sivier

Magonia 64, August 1998

 

In issues 54, 56 and 63 of Magonia, that stalwart of ufological scepticism and scourge of the wooly-minded, Peter Brookesmith, presented his thesis that the imagery and symbolism of the UFO, and particularly the abduction phenomenon, had their roots in the semitic conception of god as mitigated by the ‘American Religion’, defined by Professor Harold Bloom as “a severely internalized Grail Quest whose goal is immortality

Like Ball Lightning: A Memory of Ralph Noyes

Dennis Stacy

Magonia 64, August 1998

I’m sure I’ve got a picture of Ralph Noyes around here somewhere, but he was so unprepossessing, you never know. Besides, he wasn’t the kind to pose for pictures, and now there will be no more pictures of Mr Noyes at all. He died on May 24, 1998, as a result of a fall at his London home. “Ralph Noyes was born in the tropics,” according to the biographical note on the dust jacket of his 1985 novel, A Secret Property, “and spent most of his childhood in the West Indies...

The Devil and the Deep Blue Sky

Gareth Medway
Magonia 64, August 1998.

In Magonia 57 I argued that belief in Ancient Astronauts is a species of religion, a substitute credo for those disaffected with Christianity. The corollary is: what do Christian believers think of extraterrestrial hypotheses? A number of attacks on Erich von Däniken were published in the 1970s – exceeding in number his own publications – and the majority had a Christian stance. (1) (For some reason Australian Christians were the most vocal.)