The Myth and Mystery of UFOs

«A psychosocial idea is the premise of this book: UFOs—as we think of them, understand them, find meaning in them—owe most of their public character to a cultural version, to what human belief puts into them rather than to what observation or scientific study reveals.» — la premisa, nombrada por su nombre.

«An orientation toward cultural aspects means this book is less about sights in the sky or the people who see them than about the thoughts and expressions that represent UFOs» — declara su objeto.

«it emphasizes collective knowledge, the accounts, beliefs, theories, speculations, and imaginings that comprise the ufological literature» — la unidad de análisis es el corpus, no el individuo.

«Such an approach runs counter to the goal of ufology to understand the phenomenon and also to current research practices into narrative behavior that concentrate on individual and interpersonal processes rather than the isolated product.» — admite ir a contrapelo de su propia disciplina.

«A conviction underlies this book that comparative study of long-running cultural themes and patterns reveals an important shaping influence on the way people think and talk about UFOs.» — su justificación.

«this book will maintain another, equally important premise—that individual, social, and cultural factors do not tell the whole story, and this story requires an experience with properties of its own for completion.» — el límite que le pone a la premisa anterior, en la página siguiente.

«A narrow approach that sees only human influences or only nuts-and-bolts spaceships loses sight of the problem as an interlocking whole.» — la frase con que justifica no fundir las lecturas.

«UFO information comes with a caveat—various sorts of human intervention always mediate the truth of this information.» — regla de procedencia aplicable a cualquier cita.

«Anthropology, psychology, religious studies, and especially folklore scholarship will prove useful.» — declara de qué disciplinas toma el marco.

«This scholarship into the dynamics of traditional narratives, their processes of variation, disputation, stereotypical ordering, and inclusion of fantastic elements, provides a useful framework of understanding for UFO accounts.» — Qué les pide exactamente.

«Comparison of UFO stories with types of narratives not directly associated with UFOs can reveal continuities of human thinking, but useful indications must consist of significant patterns rather than mere isolated likenesses.» — el umbral que se impone para no ver parecidos donde no los hay.

«If the same themes form similar complex patterns in various contexts with different content, this recurrence betrays a cultural origin.» — su regla de inferencia.

«This book will attempt to show that these patterns are not just afterthoughts attached to a factual base but active organizing principles, cultural tools of thought that reshape observational facts to conform to established meanings.» — los patrones no son adorno.

«Few individuals are likely to subscribe to all the elements of popular ufology, but its broad scope prescribes the content of the field without value judgments» — adopta la «ufología popular» por criterio documental, no valorativo.

«delineating the popular trends of the field requires only consultations of its literature as a matter of record» — la razón: es definible en términos objetivos.

«One of the most valuable barometers of the state of affairs in ufology is the annual symposium of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON).» — nombra su barómetro documental, con cuarenta años de actas.

«This identity does not pass judgment on the reality of the phenomenon but proposes that UFO thinking follows a distinctive strategy for the construction of understanding» — desactiva por adelantado la lectura peyorativa de «mito».

«The term to recognize this entirety is “myth,” even though for many reasons—overuse, banality, multiple definitions, and pejorative connotations, among others—it is in many ways a regrettable choice; yet no alternative will serve half as well.» — reconoce la incomodidad del término antes de definirlo.

«A dictionary-style definition identifies myth as a traditional genre of sacred narratives that explains origins of the cosmos, mankind, and the moral order.» — la definición heredada que expone.

«shifts from myth as textual product to myth as social process, from a story that satisfies curiosity to a master plan for living» — el desplazamiento funcionalista del centro de gravedad.

«A myth is, at heart, a narrative text about events.» — atributo 1.

«As a mode of expression myth exchanges an idiosyncratic for a collective representation.» — atributo 2.

«making myth is creative, artistic work rather than a reporter's job» — corolario del atributo 2.

«Myths function to create meanings, express values, and serve social or personal needs.» — atributo 3.

«Myths grow by association of ideas and tend toward inclusiveness, where scientific theory excludes any term not connected by causation» — atributo 4: describe cómo crece un corpus.

«The primary texts about events and the secondary texts of interpretation interconnect to form a system of knowledge.» — la trabazón entre relato e interpretación.

«A mythic system tends toward a wholeness of meanings—that is, the system comes to represent a possible world so dense and well integrated with its own facts and truths that they become self-referencing» — el estado final del sistema.

«In creating a belief world, mythmaking sacrifices some part of literal truth for a more coherent and desirable fiction.» — atributo 5, con la figura del diamante que sigue.

«Mere facts are real but not necessarily important, while the fictions of myth are better» — Añade que se las ha llamado «realer than real», falsas a la verdad literal pero fieles al mundo que debería ser.

«The subject matter is not necessarily false—after all, the Titanic disaster really happened—but something is usually suspect about the treatment.» — atributo 6.

«If similar elements turn up in historical, news, or experiential accounts, good reason exists to question the literal accuracy of these accounts.» — criterio de sospecha aplicable a cualquier relato.

«One inescapable property of myth is that it is “only a myth” to someone, and if that “someone” speaks with the authoritative voice of science, any opposing claim about the natural world holds the official status of an untruth.» — atributo 7: el estatus disputado.

«But a subject like UFOs remains mythic so long as its truth status depends on social negotiations rather than incontrovertible proof» — la condición de permanencia del carácter mítico.

«It has the stiffness of abstract language, whereas myth flows with the ease of vernacular, an everyday language akin to the bricolage of Lévi-Strauss» — contrapone las dos maneras de pensar.

«Mythic thinking favors analogy, metaphor, and magical causation to associate ideas that by stricter standards seem unrelated.» — cómo asocia el pensamiento mítico.

«Folklorist Stith Thompson's Motif Index of Folk Literature catalogs the minimal basic units that persist in tradition and manifest some unusual or striking quality» — adjudica a Stith Thompson la unidad de análisis, el motivo.

«Certain narrative types recur as fundamental or simple forms (einfache Formen), structural containers for human expression with similar narrative patterns and social functions.» — la forma simple; la nota adjudica el término a Kurt Ranke.

«One such form is the legend, a narrative that centers on the events that befall people in stories often concerned with inexplicable occurrences or supernatural confrontations.» — definición de leyenda.

«the narrative casts protagonists as victims rather than heroes, ordinary people going about ordinary business when some out-of-the-ordinary occurrence threatens them» — lo que distingue la leyenda del cuento heroico.

«The legend universe is often amoral, the occupants not punished for any crime or sin but simply unlucky, in the wrong place at the wrong time» — el universo de la leyenda no reparte castigos.

«that element of a brush with the inexplicable, that transgression of boundaries when the extranormal breaks momentarily into the everyday world» — lo que sobrevive incluso en el avistamiento simple.

«belief starts, at least in theory, with a firsthand account or memorate.» — el primer eslabón de la transmisión.

«The hypothetical future of the initial report is successive retelling by others until it becomes a third-person, friend-of-a-friend legend, or fabulate» — el segundo: la fabulata.

«this straightforward lineage grows tangled as narrators appropriate the third-person story and recast it as a first-person experience» — advierte que el linaje se ensucia.

«In the 1920s Cambridge psychologist Frederic C. Bartlett experimented with the transmission of American Indian narratives» — adjudica a Bartlett el experimento fundacional.

«Bartlett proposed that subjects altered the text to suit their established schemata of understanding in a sacrifice of accuracy to gain coherence and meaning» — los esquemas, sacrificando exactitud por coherencia.

«repeated transmission led to leveling, the concentration of accounts into more concise form; sharpening, a selective emphasis on limited details; and assimilation, the shaping of the message into a form consistent with the presuppositions of the tellers» — las tres deformaciones, tomadas de los estudios sociológicos del rumor.

«Linda Dégh describes legend transmission as a self-organizing system based on a process of natural selection.» — adjudica el modelo de transmisión a Dégh, folclorista de Indiana University; la frase arranca al pie de la p. 310.

«A conduit of believers takes shape as people preserve and transmit the believers' version over time and space.» — el conducto; y el escéptico se forma igual.

«Such confrontations stake out social boundaries between “us” and “them” and promote solidarity within the opposing factions.» — el corolario social del conducto.

«Uncertainty provides the necessary medium for stories of extranormal experience, a state of intellectual disequilibrium that assures controversy as long as people continue to disagree over a claim.» — la incertidumbre como medio, adjudicado a Dégh.

«explained it in terms of transmission—that similarities happen because narrators borrow from one another—or polygenesis—that comparable stories arise independently out of the psychic unity of mankind» — los dos modelos clásicos del folclore.

«theories of polygenesis work more credibly for larger issues of consistency than for the small details» — su reparto de competencias entre los dos.

«Legend is the loose-lipped drunkard of folk narratives.» — la formulación memorable de la variación.

«Around its core idea reels a swarm of variants, each a part of the legend and no one of them any more the “true” version than any other.» — ninguna variante es más verdadera que otra.

«the legend reveals itself not as a specific text but what Bill Ellis, Pennsylvania State University professor of English and American Studies, calls “a social impetus to create new narratives in the shape of the old.”» — adjudica a Ellis la leyenda como impulso, no como texto.

«A notion of cultural script is misleading, since it implies that a story is written down for actors to read verbatim.» — objeta la metáfora del guion cultural, que es el argumento psicosocial estándar.

«The performers are more likely to ad lib their lines with more attention to personal preference and creative license than fidelity to an ideal version.» — Propone el modelo alternativo.

«The garrulous nature of legends, their socially motivated and inevitable multiplicity, heaps doubt on the truthfulness of their truth claims and confirms variation as so characteristic of their kind that unless a truth-claiming narrative varies, it probably is not folklore.» — el criterio de demarcación, y la frase más útil del libro para este corpus.

«Why would stories that depend on cultural sources and fantasy without a factual anchor nevertheless display the inhibition apparent in UFO reports?» — el argumento invertido, que es su aporte propio.

«A taleteller faces opportunities for creative freedom, not the ball and chain of obligatory compliance.» — la premisa del argumento anterior.

«In contrast to accounts of satanic ritual abuse, abduction reports repeat one another to the point of monotony.» — la contraprueba que usa: el abuso ritual satánico sí varía.

«The devil inspires an individualistic relationship, whereas encounters with aliens are impersonal and rigid» — la diferencia entre los dos corpus.

«When multiple narrators adhere to a supposed script down to the obscure details, that same invariance is a clue that they cling to firmer ground than cultural ideas can provide.» — la conclusión que extrae de la ausencia de variación.

«Finnish folklorist Lauri Honko voiced the standard response of his field when he attributed experiential claims to a subjective combination of psychology and tradition.» — expone la hipótesis de la fuente cultural que su libro va a matizar.

«this conclusion belongs to what folklorist David Hufford terms a ‘tradition of disbelief,” where a negative belief comes to appear true simply by being repeated often enough.» — adjudica a Hufford la «terms a ‘tradition of disbelief»; las comillas mezcladas son de la capa de texto.

«The evidence made a compelling case that tradition does not always give rise to experience; rather experience sometimes returns the favor and gives rise to tradition.» — el giro de Hufford: la inversión de la dirección causal.

«a fundamental reason that spiritual beliefs have been able to resist the enormous social pressures toward secularization is that they are, in part, rationally founded on experience (that is, empirically grounded).» — cita textual de Hufford, no de Bullard.

«He broke with folklorists' accepted emphasis on cultural acquisition and proposed an experience-centered approach to understand experiential claims from the standpoint of the claimants.» — consigna la ruptura disciplinar de Hufford.

«As much as one-fourth of the population may undergo the experience at least once in a lifetime.» — la cifra de Hufford sobre la Old Hag.

«Hufford generalized supernatural assault accounts under the term of “Mara attack”» — la categoría con que Hufford generaliza.

«As William James argued in 1902, volumes of theological reasoning or abstract understanding of natural order does little to create religious faith; rather it grows from the bottom up out of individual religious experiences and their resultant feelings and intuitions.» — adjudica a James el mismo movimiento en estudios de religión.

«Pennsylvania State University-College of Medicine professor James McClenon has researched anomalous experiences around the world and found considerable cross-cultural similarity in their reported phenomenology.» — A McClenon los «wondrous events».

«Folklorists and other scholars have long recognized that stereotypical formulations rewrite the life histories of saints, heroic leaders, and wonderworkers.» — la generalización de la que parte.

«In The Myth of the Magus, Cambridge professor of German E. M. Butler delineated a distinctive biographical pattern for the sage or magician.» — adjudica el patrón a E. M. Butler.

«The magus has a supernatural or mysterious origin and a birth announced by signs.» — primera estación del patrón.

«Perils menace his infancy, while he later undergoes an initiation and undertakes a faraway journey. He engages in a magical contest and then may face a trial or persecution, leading to a farewell scene before a violent or mysterious death followed by resurrection or ascension.» — el patrón completo.

«Butler applied this formula to the lives of Zoroaster, Moses, Solomon, Pythagoras, Apollonius of Tyana, Simon Magus, Christ, Merlin, and Doctor Faust,» — la lista a la que Butler lo aplica, que es casi entera nuestro corpus.

«The occultist Margaret Storm preserved supernatural implications of the magus with modern equivalents by identifying Tesla as a visitor from Venus in her book Return of the Dove (1959).» — la vigencia moderna del patrón, con el caso Tesla.

«Nothing like credible evidence supports these fantasies, but they attest to the extraordinary potentials for legend formation inherent in Tesla's extraordinary life.» — su lectura del expediente Tesla, en verbo de decir.

«again and again they assumed the archetypal shape of the hero's journey of initiation, moving from symbolic death to transformation and rebirth» — sobre el relato de cautiverio indio de los siglos XVII a XIX.

«Two scholarly articles identify UFO abduction narratives as the latest incarnation of the pattern.» — consigna la adjudicación sin firmarla él.

«The Prodigy Tradition.— Historical literature of ancient, medieval, and Reformation times attributed anything strange in the sky, anything remarkable on land or sea, to a divine message for mankind.» — nombra la tradición del prodigio.

«The Romans' broadest term for such events was “prodigy.” It covered extraordinary appearances indicative of a disturbance in the relationship between the human and divine realms.» — la taxonomía romana.

«Portents and signs were public appearances directed at the state, while omens applied to individuals.» — la distinción terminológica.

«Pliny the Elder included prodigies in his natural history, and historians like Livy and Dio Cassius recorded them as integral elements of the historical record.» — los transmisores antiguos, por su nombre.

«Julius Obsequens, an obscure writer of the fourth century A.D., collected the wonders from Livy's history into a separate book, Prodigiorum liber» — el primer coleccionista.

«Cicero mounted the most systematic attack against signs and portents to survive from antiquity in De divinatione.» — Los escépticos antiguos, también por su nombre.

«he made clear his opinion that prodigies held only the significance an interpreter read into them» — la posición de Cicerón, adjudicada.

«A great beacon traversed the heavens, lighting up the land far and wide some time before the day dawned.» — Gregorio de Tours, 584; el pasaje cierra adjudicando el prodigio a la muerte de Gundovald.

«Typical of these heroic biographies of saints and martyrs are the stock supernatural motifs scattered throughout the life of Saint Columba» — la hagiografía como cantera de motivos.

«a manikin-like being of terrible aspect appeared before me from the direction of the foot of the bed» — la intrusión demoníaca del monje Rodolfus Glaber, siglo XII, citada entera por la obra.

«Conrad Lycosthenes, a Basel theologian and humanist scholar, undertook a grandiose project to cull prodigies from every available historical source and list every strange event from the creation of the world to the present as evidence that the Second Coming was truly nigh.» — el coleccionista de prodigios que sí es de nuestro corpus.

«Published in 1557 as the Prodigiorum ac ostentorum chronicon, his collection filled hundreds of pages with monstrosities, earthquakes, fabulous animals, and aerial wonders.» — pie de imprenta y contenido.

«An English cleric, Stephen Bateman, or Batman, translated Lycosthenes into English in 1581, under a more fearsome title of The Doome Warning All Men to the Judgemente.» — el traductor inglés; la doble grafía del apellido la da el propio autor.

«Bateman also entered into the spirit of the project by updating the chronicle and interpolating prodigies from English sources unavailable to the Swiss collector.» — el traductor que además continúa la crónica.

«Martin Luther and most other Reformation theologians accepted prodigies as signs of the Second Coming, but these leaders also deplored popular preoccupation with wonders.» — la postura de los reformadores.

«John Calvin stressed that too much interest was tantamount to doubting divine providence.» — la de Calvino, adjudicada.

«did not reach the goal of confirming a miracle a day, but he took satisfaction in finding about two per week» — sobre el anónimo de Mirabilis annus, 1660–1662.

«Their authority suffered when the finger of God began to favor political factions in the English Civil War» — data el fin de la edad de oro del prodigio y lo adjudica a causa política, no epistémica.

«with both Increase and Cotton Mather collecting “illustrious providences” in New England» — la supervivencia americana del género.

«A series of Marian apparitions at Fatima, Portugal, in 1917 reached its climax on October 13 when 50,000 people watched the sun turn pale, spin on its axis, and seem to tumble out of the sky.» — Fátima entra por la aparición mariana, no por una categoría teórica.

«Even without a conceptual framework for meteors, the witnesses provide a creditable account without any evident contamination from prior expectations or beliefs.» — sobre la crónica de Juan de Worcester, 1130 o 1131: el contrapeso que impide leerlo como desprecio a la fuente antigua.

«the scarcity of crosses in the sky before the rise of Christianity and their subsequent frequency attest to the influence of belief» — la prueba de influencia que extrae del material de cruces aéreas.

«Camerarius read allegorical meanings into each event so that a red fire betokened war and bloodshed» — sobre la compilación de Joachim Camerarius de los prodigios alemanes de fines de 1560.

«A real and recognizable event occurred that night in 1560, but the choices of Camerarius both preserve and distort the record.» — el caso de estudio metodológico de la sección.

«In his selection of data, descriptive terminology, and strategy of interpretation, he stands at the normative center of his historical setting» — Por qué Camerarius no es excéntrico sino normativo.

«He speaks nothing more or less than the accepted truth of his era, but a truth that riddles the observational record with cultural distortions.» — el cierre del caso Camerarius.

«Said to be the lost souls of pagans and sometimes led by Wotan or Thor, this host may swoop down to kidnap a passerby to join the troop.» — sobre la Cacería Salvaje o Furious Host del folclore aéreo popular.

«the corpse candles of Wales, small lights floating above the ground that foretell a death» — una de las luces populares que enumera, junto con Brown Mountain, Marfa, el Min-Min y el Dragon Lantern.

«Occult groups like the Theosophists and the“I AM” movement included communication with extraterrestrials as part of their mythology,» — su único puente al esoterismo moderno, hecho de pasada; el espaciado es de la capa de texto.

«Short humanoid aliens predominate in UFO encounters, just as diminutive supernatural beings dominate the fairy population.» — la equivalencia poblacional que traza.

«Eight potential episodes characterize most abduction reports in the literature—capture, examination, conference, tour, journey, theophany, return, and aftermath.» — los ocho episodios que aísla.

«Few reports include all eight possibilities, but those episodes that appear follow this order with surprising consistency.» — La constancia del orden.

«the abduction story repeats the initiatory pattern of separation from this world to an alien environment, where the subject undergoes an ordeal and teachings, then returns a changed person with special knowledge and powers» — la forma general que reconoce.

«An angel, fairy, divine guide, or helpful spirit accompanies the traveler through the otherworld environment» — la figura del psicopompo, nombrada por su término técnico.

«The commonplace motif of supernatural flight manifests when a dreamlike lightness of body allows the shaman to fly, when a human captive sweeps through the air with trooping fairies, or when witches ride their broomsticks to the Sabbat.» — el vuelo sobrenatural, con las tres formas juntas.

«An ordeal comprises a key episode in shamanic initiations as unfriendly demons dismember the candidate.» — el desmembramiento iniciático como paralelo del examen.

«Friendly spirits then reassemble the torn body according to a different plan, with magical powers built into the bones and organs or magical objects like rock crystals inserted into the head» — La reconstrucción con cristales.

«fairies also need human help to give birth, interbreed with humans, and replace human children with changelings» — el paralelo reproductivo, con el cambiado.

«The penis of the devil is said to be sharp and cold, again anticipating the metallic devices of aliens» — el paralelo instrumental.

«Fairy magic often depends on glamour, an ability to create illusions such as gold coins from dry leaves or a rich banquet from dirt and ordure.» — el glamour como ilusión.

«Shape-shifting is a common practice among demons and some tribes of fairies» — la metamorfosis.

«Much folklore reaches the verdict that otherworld beings are not trustworthy.» — la sentencia folclórica sobre la fiabilidad de los seres del otro mundo.

«The beautiful crystalline architecture of the Celtic otherworld returns in Betty Andreasson's descriptions of alien glasslike towers and a forest made of crystal.» — la arquitectura del otro mundo.

«Visitors to fairyland suffer no loss of memory but return to earth, where tens or hundreds of years have passed in a day» — aquí corta el paralelo: el «the “supernatural lapse of time” in fairyland» no es el «missing time».

«A break in the continuous and universal flow of time characterizes both situations, but they diverge on the nature and consequences of that break.» — la formulación exacta del corte: hay analogía, no identidad.

«He observed ... a brilliant meteor passing through the air, which was followed by a ring or hoop of fire, and within the hoop stood a man and woman of small size, handsomely dressed» — la memorata galesa de «Big David», publicada en 1896, que la obra da como paralelo mejor.

«Though Big David went his way thinking he had watched the scene for no more than a few minutes, three hours of earthly time had slipped by.» — Su desfase temporal.

«Perhaps no other premodern UFO leaves an impression as convincing as the “Robozero Marvel” of August 15, 1663.» — el mismo documento que trae `vallee-ufo-chronicles-soviet`, analizado aquí por camino independiente.

«The Russian town of Robozero lies about thirty miles southwest of Belozersk, in Vologda Province» — grafías `Robozero` y `Belozersk`, donde Vallée transcribe `Roboziero` y `Bieloziero`.

«At noon, a large ball of fire came down over Robozero, arriving from the clearest part of the cloudless heavens.» — el cuerpo del suceso, en su traducción.

«The writer of this account, Ivachko Rievskoi, had interviewed a farmer who witnessed the event and contacted some priests who also confirmed it.» — el mismo notario que nombra Vallée.

«It was published in 1842 by the St. Petersburg Archaeographic Commission.» — la cadena de custodia documental.

«No contamination by current UFO belief is possible because no one would hear of flying saucers for more than a century.» — su argumento de no contaminación, distinto del de Vallée.

«Almost free of theory and interpretation, devoid of commonplace stereotyping, distinctive from any other report of its era, this account would do credit to UFO reporting in any age as a straightforward narrative of a remarkable event.» — su juicio sobre el documento.

«The Robozero Marvel crisscrossed the town and hovered over the lake to make clear on many counts that this giant object differed from the typical prodigies of 1663, but it far better compares to some of the UFOs that appeared three centuries later.» — Lo reusa como ejemplo del criterio 6, el de la desviación.

«that same evidence meets the lower preponderance-of-evidence standard and surely deserves a hearing on those grounds alone» — el estándar probatorio que reclama, nombrado.

«The alleged event fulfills basic authenticity requirements.» — primero de los siete criterios.

«With the heavy hand of belief always ready to stretch a report toward conformity, the report gains credit as evidence if some signs of independence defy the cultural norms.» — el criterio 6, que da valor probatorio a la desviación.

«Historical accounts like the meteor in John of Worchester's chronicle demonstrate a precedent for accuracy» — grafía `Worchester` tal cual: ver Notas de carga.

«These rules of thumb are far from airtight, and ufologists like Jacques Vallee have proposed more rigorous systems to classify the strangeness in UFO claims» — acota el alcance de sus propios criterios y remite a Vallée.

«the purpose here is no more than to draw a bottom line, a threshold of credibility» — el alcance declarado del umbral.

«Even allowing for human fallibility and self-deception, a genuine mystery seems to be left over.» — lo que dice quedar al final del descarte.

«For the sake of truth in advertising and to warn the reader of possible conflicts of interest, I will step out from behind the curtain of scholarly anonymity and declare where I stand.» — declaración de posición, en primera persona.

«I have never seen a UFO or had any sort of anomalous experience.» — lo primero que declara de sí.

«I was fortunate to have my old interest and more fortunate still that the Indiana University Folklore Institute supported research into such a dubious subject.» — su formación e institución.

«I have been a member of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) and the British UFO Research Organization (BUFORA), and I serve on the board of the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) and the Fund for UFO Research (FUFOR).» — sus afiliaciones, declaradas; antes cita NICAP y APRO desde los sesenta.

«In the end I side with the believers. My conclusion is not based on personal preference but on familiarity with the evidence.» — su conclusión, en primera persona.

«ufology is a fine mess, crowded with charlatans, true believers, gullibility, and unsubstantiated claims» — Sin ceder en el juicio sobre el campo que integra.

«I will not hazard an explanation for UFOs or insist they come from Zeta Reticuli» — se abstiene de adjudicar identidad al fenómeno.

«I do not intend to treat UFO evidence in depth or campaign in favor of particular identities for the phenomenon» — De tratar la evidencia en profundidad.

«The practices of ufologists do more to discredit than support their cause.» — se distancia del propio campo.

«Where UFOs are concerned, the proper agnosticism of science has hardened into an atheistic consensus, a certainty that nothing unconventional is involved.» — su objeción al consenso científico, en el mismo párrafo donde invoca a Hufford.

«Psychosocial theory is powerful but not airtight.» — objeta al psicosocialismo fuerte desde dentro de la premisa psicosocial.

«Psychosocial critics mistake these similarities for a verdict when they are only diagnostic tools» — Le fija su función: herramienta de diagnóstico, no veredicto.

«As things now stand, the appealing myth and the unsettling experience of UFOs continue to trouble the mind's eye and the physical eye alike.» — cierre del libro entero.

«Why, wonders Thomas Bullard, don't such persistent sightings command more urgent attention from scientists, scholars, and mainstream journalists?» — solapa del sobrecubierta, escrita en tercera persona sobre el autor. No es voz de la obra.

«In his trailblazing book, Bullard views those efforts through the lens of mythmaking, discovering what UFO accounts tell us about ourselves, our beliefs, and the possibility of visitors from beyond.» — misma solapa, misma advertencia: es prosa de la editorial.

«Bullard shows how ongoing grassroots interest in UFOs stems both from actual personal experiences and from a cultural mythology that defines such encounters as somehow “alien”—and how it views relentless official denial as a part of conspiracy to hide the truth.» — la tercera frase de la solapa, y la que el material heredado adjudicó a Bullard dos veces.

«Bullard, Thomas E. (Thomas Eddie), 1949-» — ficha CIP de la Library of Congress; identifica al autor y data el sello.

«© 2010 by the University Press of Kansas» — pie editorial.

«I owe especial thanks to Jerome Clark and David M. Jacobs for reading the manuscript and devoting efforts above and beyond the call of duty to whip my unruly writing into shape.» — los lectores del manuscrito, nombrados en los agradecimientos; el editor es Michael J. Briggs.

Los agradecimientos nombran además a Mary Castner, Mark Rodeghier y Michael D. Swords por CUFOS, a James Carrion por MUFON, a Phyllis Galde por *Fate*, a Janet Bord por la Fortean Picture Library y a Richard F. Haines.

«A procession of the damned,' he wrote to introduce his subject. “By the damned, I mean the excluded.» — voz de Charles Fort, citada por la obra; el apóstrofo espurio es de la capa de texto.

«Thayer founded the Fortean Society in 1931, and Fort, the true iconoclast, refused to join» — dato de recepción sobre la Fortean Society y su boletín *Doubt*.

«Jung called flying saucers a “modern myth of things seen in the sky,' even though he accepted that they might be extraterrestrial spaceships.» — posición de C. G. Jung, expuesta por la obra, no suscrita.

«Real or imaginary, they symbolized an archetype of wholeness in visionary rumors now emerging from the collective unconscious.» — la lectura junguiana, en exposición.

«Jacques Vallee sees conditioning of consciousness through exposure to strangeness as the purpose behind UFOs, fairy encounters, and other types of anomalous experience but externalizes the collective unconscious into a cosmic control system» — posición de Vallée, expuesta y no suscrita.

«John Keel also adopts an external controlling force as responsible for multiple anomalous manifestations.» — posición de John A. Keel.

«I pointed out... that the structure of abduction stories was identical to that of occult initiation rituals ... that contact with ufonauts was only a modern extension of the age-old tradition of contact with nonhuman consciousness in the form of angels, demons, elves, and sylphs.» — cita textual de Vallée reproducida por Bullard, con aprobación.

«According to religion scholar John Saliba, UFOs adapt equally well to a traditional language of signs and demonic activity or to a technological language where sacred terms translate into ancient astronauts.» — posición de John A. Saliba.

«Jodi Dean, assistant professor of political science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, argues that modern society inhabits a virtual reality created by the media and Internet» — posición de Jodi Dean, desde estudios culturales.

«Harvard astronomer Donald H. Menzel spoke of UFOs as “the modern myth” and “a major myth of the space age” throughout his skeptical career.» — el uso peyorativo del término, adjudicado a Menzel.

«Aviation historian Curtis Peebles follows this tradition when he casts the UFO myth as imaginative stories that provide meaning and satisfaction in times of social crisis.» — posición de Curtis Peebles.

«Religious qualities like a sense of mystery, the idea of superior beings, and a form of salvation that comes by wresting knowledge from a demonized government accumulate around Roswell.» — lectura de Benson Saler y Charles A. Ziegler, antropólogos de Brandeis.

«By repeating age-old accounts of encounters with supernatural beings in technological terms, abductions restore the credibility and relevance of long-standing mythic patterns.» — lectura de Terry Matheson, University of Saskatchewan.

«Keith Thompson sees UFOs as subjects for allegories, dualistic narratives with a surface story as well as deeper, hidden meanings» — posición de Keith Thompson, «independent scholar and journalist» al pie de la p. 61, que no es Stith Thompson.

«Philosopher Michael Grosso sees UFOs as bearers of the profound symbolic truth characteristic of myth.» — posición de Michael Grosso.

«the UFO phenomenon is merely the modern variant of a range of paranormal encounters and visitations by supernatural others.» — síntesis de la premisa psicosocial firmada por David Sivier en la revista *Magonia*, citada en bloque por Bullard.

«Despite their technological trappings, modern UFO sightings are merely the scientistic expression of deep religious and mystical impulses from within the human psyche» — continuación de la misma cita de Sivier.

Mito — Sistema de conocimiento que crece por asociación y tiende a la totalidad, con siete atributos enumerados; su identificación no juzga la realidad del fenómeno

Leyenda — Forma simple cuyo protagonista es víctima y no héroe, en un universo amoral; su rasgo definitorio es la variación

Motivo — Unidad mínima que persiste en la tradición y manifiesta alguna cualidad inusual, adjudicada a Stith Thompson

Memorata Fabulata — El relato de experiencia en primera persona y su reformulación en tercera; el linaje se ensucia cuando el narrador reapropia

Conducto — Cadena social que preserva una versión; hay conducto de creyentes y conducto de escépticos, adjudicados a Linda Dégh

Prodigio (prodigium, portentum, ostentum) — Categoría romana para lo extraordinario como mensaje divino; portento y signo van al Estado, el augurio al individuo

Mago — Patrón biográfico del sabio o mago —origen misterioso, iniciación, viaje, certamen mágico, muerte y resurrección—, adjudicado a E. M. Butler

Hada — Población diminuta del otro mundo, con glamour, cambiados y lapso sobrenatural del tiempo; el paralelo con la abducción se corta en la memoria

Chamanismo — Iniciación por desmembramiento y reconstrucción con cristales, puesta en paralelo con el examen de abducción

Psicopompo — Guía que conduce al viajero por el otro mundo, con el término técnico dado

Iniciación (recepción por grados / metamorfosis del ser) — Separación, ordalía, enseñanza y regreso transformado, como forma general de la abducción y del relato de cautiverio