Magonia Memories: Where Did It All Go Right?

Peter Rogerson
'Northern Echoes', Magonia 99, April 2009

It is hard to imagine that this journal in some incarnation or another has been around for at least forty years. The exact date depends whether you date its origins with the Merseyside UFO Group Newsletter which started in 1965; with John Harney taking over its editorship and change to Bulletin in 1966; or with the founding of the original Merseyside UFO Bulletin in January 1968.

Fear and Loathing in New Hampshire

Peter Rogerson
Magonia 96, October 2007.

In September 2000 Karl Pflock and Peter Brookesmith organised a symposium for those interested in the Betty and Barney Hill case, at the Indian Head Inn, New Hampshire, near to the site of alleged abduction. Present were the organisers, Robert Sheaffer, Dennis Stacey, Eddie Bullard, Hilary Evans, Greg Sandow, moderator Marcello Truzzi, sponsor Joe Firmage and a guest appearance by Betty herself, along with her niece Kathy Marden.

Cunning Folk and Familar Spirits

Peter Rogerson
Magonia 93, September 2006

A care-worn young woman, going about her business, meets a stranger; an elderly man with a grey beard, wearing a grey coat and the clothes of the past generation. He carries a white wand in his hand. He asks her why she is so sad. She explains that her husband, baby and cow are all sick. Her husband will recover he says, but the other two will die. This comes true and she meets him again and again. He is a soldier who died in the wars of a generation ago.

Images of Imogen

Peter Rogerson
Magonia No. 74, April 2001

The classic Victorian ghost story – the ghost story to end all ghost stories – began in April 1882 when a retired army captain of Irish extraction, Frederick William Despard (53), his 46 year old second wife Harriet Ann (nee Nixon), ‘a great invalid’, and his teenage children, 19 year old Rosina Clara, Edith Sophia was about to turn 18, 15 year old Henry, 13 year old Lilian, 12 year old Mabel, and their little brother Wilfrid, 9, moved house.

Monorail Dreaming

Peter Rogerson

‘Northern Echoes’, Magonia 72, October 2000

  

Every so often in 2000, the undead but prematurely buried twentieth century has given the odd twitch of life. The fall of Concorde is one such twitch, for it is the end of the last survivor of the forgotten age in which this magazine came into being. Magonia was born in 1966 as the Merseyside UFO Research Group Bulletin; and in that year the teenagers of Warrington were asked to write essays on the future, including their visions of the year 2000.

Scole for Scandal

Peter Rogerson

Magonia 71, June 2000

The basic background of these books is simple: four people (out of an original group of seven) with a background in mediumship and related topics, met in a room in a farmhouse in Scole near Diss, Norfolk, and amazing things were said to happen. These included direct voice mediumship, apports, images on still photographs and video recordings, voices on audio tapes, materialised spirit forms, odd lights and in fact the whole shebang of physical mediumship.

Eyes Right: The Curious Politics of British Ufology

Peter Rogerson

Magonia 70, March 2000

One of the biggest controversies to muddy the waters of British ufology in recent years came when veteran political activist and anti-fascist campaigner Larry O'Hara exposed ufologist Tim Matthews as Tim Hepple, a man with a complex history of activity in extremist political movements. Here I try to make sense of the maze of rumour and counter-rumour.

Believe Me - Or Else!

Peter Rogerson
'Northern Echoes', Magonia 68, September 1999.

The recent furore over the 'memoirs' of an Auschwitz 'survivor' who turned out to be a Swiss citizen who had never been a concentration camp inmate, as well as the various scandals surrounding fake guests on a variety of TV chat shows and documentaries, highlights once again the difficulties in assessing the truth or otherwise of any narrative. They reinforce us in our suspicion that a very high proportion of the narratives in UFO, Fortcan and paranormal literature are fictions.

Talking to the Wall

Peter Rogerson, 
Magonia 68, September 1999.

A highlight of the latest issue of the Anomalist (No.7, Winter 1998-9) is Greg Sandow's essay 'The Abduction Conundrum'. This has been hailed in some quarters as the definitive answer to the psychosocial hypothesis. It most certainly isn't that at all. It is the usual mountain of special pleading, misstatements of fact, and cult of pseudo-open-mindedness taken to the point of lunacy that we have been hearing from abductionists for years.
👇

The Case of the Warrington Hummadruz

Peter Rogerson
Magonia 66, March 1999

There have been some interesting reports of a mysterious hum in the Penketh and Great Sankey areas of Warrington. The story first came to public notice in a short piece by reporter Steve Rylance in the Warrington Guardian for November 27th 1998, which reported that environmental health officers had failed to track down, after a year’s investigation, the source of a mysterious humming noise which was affecting Mrs Anne Heesom of Maliston Road, Great Sankey and some of her neighbours.

Is the ETH a Scientific Hypothesis?

Peter Rogerson

Magonia 65, November 1998

There are disagreements among philosophers and scientists as to exactly what constitutes a scientific hypothesis, but the general consensus is that scientific hypotheses should yield specific, testable, predictions; thus if hypothesis A is correct we would expect an experiment to yield, or to observe in nature B, C and D, if however the experiment yields, or we observe in nature X, Y or Z, then the hypothesis is unlikely to be true.

Truth, Tales and Catalogues

Peter Rogerson
‘Northern Echoes', Magonia 62, February 1998

In his 25 Years Ago column in the pages of the previous issue of our esteemed organ, John Rimmer paid handsome tribute to the notorious INTCAT. which used to (dis?)grace the pages of the old MUFOB and the early editions of Magonia. It was truly a child of its time, a time of naïve youth, when I actually thought you could tidily separate positive and negative cases. 

Deep Secrets

Peter Rogerson

Magonia 60, August 1997

Shortly before his untimely death our colleague Roger Sandell had planned to write a major article on the growing influence of conspiracy theories and fusion paranoia. If anything, since his death conspiracy theories have come in even further from their ancient home on the wilder shores of politics, into the cultural mainstream. They form the core of such cult television series as The X-Files and Dark Skies, to say nothing of the numerous commercial spin-offs.

Differently Abled

Peter Rogerson
'Northern Echoes'. Magonia 59, April 1997

A few months ago I challenged Jerry Clerk in the pages of Fortean Times to disprove the ETH, At the time I thought it was one of those things that you just couldn't do. It's not really the sort of thing you can prove either way, is it? However I now think that there is a chance we can do something very close to that.

Remembering Roger

John Rimmer, Michael Goss, Peter Rogerson

Magonia 56, June 1996

"It is with great sadness that we have to tell our readers of the death of Roger Sandell. Roger died on January 20th, 1996, at Roehampton Hospital in London, after an unsuccessful operation for cancer. He was 51. Besides the tremendous personal loss which all of us at Magonia feel, and I am sure all who knew him will share, there is a great loss to everyone who studies the subjects we cover in Magonia."

Abduction Updates

Peter Rogerson
Magonia 54, November 1995

We can now tie up a few loose ends on a couple of the early abduction cases. Firstly, Antonio Villas-Boas. Thanks to Luis Gonzalez, who supplied me with photocopies, I can confirm that the SBEDV Bulletin of April-July 1962, which published the AVB case was written in English (after a fashion!). It was the export and exchange magazine for the Brazilian group, so it was clear that a number of English-speaking ufologists must have known about the case before its appearance in Flying Saucer Review.

Blood, Vision and Brimstone

Peter Rogerson

Magonia 53, August 1995

 

This article was long just a title, originally intended for a review of Kenneth Ring’s Omega Project, but as time has gone on it has become the generic title for a wide range of the latest lore. We shall see how ufology has transformed itself yet again, perhaps the most dramatic transformation yet: the end of secular ufology itself, the triumph of 'religious saucerdom' sweeping aside the hopes of 'scientific ufologists' to distinguish abductees from contactees. The title, then, refers to the three central theories of post-secular ufology:

Recovering the Forgotten Record. Notes Towards a Revisionist History of Abductions, Part 4

Peter Rogerson
Magonia 50, September 1994

Abduction reports from outside of North America show imagery very different from the developing stereotype. One of the earliest non-American semi-abduction reports is an obscure and now forgotten report from Kenya, which appeared in the Nairobi Daily Nation sometime in December 1965. Michael Mudachi was sitting in his home near Eastleigh Airport when he saw a point of light approaching from the horizon. As it neared he saw it was an elliptical object with transparent windows.

Sex, Science and Salvation. Notes Towards a Revisionist History of Abductions – Part 3:

Peter Rogerson

Magonia 49, June 1994

In the autumn of 1966 the abduction narratives emerged from the cosy world of the ufologists with the almost simultaneous publication of the Hill story in the Saturday Evening Post and in book form as Interrupted Journey, and the publication of the Villas-Boas (ABV) story in Coral Lorenzen’s Startling Evidence. This was an update of her 1962 title, The Great Flying Saucer Hoax, aiming to cash in on the massive increase of interest in UFOs in mid-sixties America.

Fairyland's Hunters: Notes Towards a Revisionist History of Abductions. Part Two

Peter Rogerson
Magonia 47, September 1993

A study of the literature, even at my fairly superficial level, shows that far from being a unique event, the Hill abduction was just one of a number of such stories to have emerged in the early 1960s. The best publicised case before the publication of the Hill and Villas Boas stories, and the one which softened up the UFO community for the Hill story was the disappearance of Rivalino Mafra da Silva in August 1962, a story resonant with motifs of taboo and vengeful fairies.