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.

«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.

«Being compelled to rely upon such meager information as your committee could gain from terrestrial observation, inquiry and the truthful reports of the newspapers ... we are led to the conclusion that the phenomenon is not an hallucination caused by too frequent and deep porations from mundane schooners. ... That while the aerial visitation may be regarded as a mote to trouble the mind’s eye, it should not necessarily cause great apprehension or serious alarm.» — epígrafe de la introducción, tomado del Davenport (IA) Daily Leader del 13 de abril de 1897; es voz del periódico, no de Bullard.

«When United Airlines workers reported a UFO at O'Hare Airport in November 2006, it was met with the typical denials and hush-up that usually accompany such sightings.» — solapa del sobrecubierta, escrita en tercera persona sobre el autor. No es voz de la obra.

«But when a related story broke the record for hits at the Chicago Tribune’s Web site, it was clear that such unexplained objects continued to occupy the minds of fascinated readers.» — misma solapa; el dato de los récords de visitas es de la editorial.

«The answer, in part, lies in Bullard’s wide-ranging survey of the mysterious, frustrating, and everevolving phenomenon that refuses to go away and our collective efforts to understand it.» — misma solapa; nombra a Bullard en tercera persona y le adjudica el barrido del fenómeno.

«He also describes how UFOs have catalyzed the evolution of a new but highly fractured belief system that borrows heavily from human history and mythic themes and that UFO witnesses and researchers use to make sense of such phenomena and our place in the cosmos.» — cuarta frase de la solapa; el sistema de creencias fracturado es formulación de la editorial, no del autor.

«I would like to thank Mary Castner, Mark Rodeghier, and Michael D. Swords for CUFOS, James Carrion for MUFON, Phyllis Galde for Fate magazine, Janet Bord for the Fortean Picture Library, and Richard F. Haines, whose help in providing illustrations for this book is greatly appreciated.» — agradecimientos por las ilustraciones, en primera persona pero fuera del cuerpo del libro.

«Public pronouncements of military officials ever since the 1950s have dismissed UFOs as posing no defense risks, while prominent civilian scientists like astronomers Donald H. Menzel and Carl Sagan proclaim that witnesses misidentify mirages, aircraft, meteors, and other conventional sights.» — posición de los militares y de los astrónomos Donald H. Menzel y Carl Sagan, expuesta por la obra, no suscrita.

«For the organized community of skeptics (represented by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, formerly the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, or CSICOP), belief in UFOs is not merely mistaken but dangerous, a pseudoscientific faith that misleads the public and promotes irrationality.» — posición del comité de escépticos CSICOP, hoy Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, expuesta por la obra.

«Deaf to the evidence presented, a writer for TV Guide commented, “Jeers to Peter Jennings for squandering his journalistic gravitas on a two-hour report examining the phenomenon of UFOs.» — voz de un redactor de TV Guide reprendiendo a Peter Jennings por su documental de 2005, citada por Bullard.

«Carl Sagan wondered why aliens would converse about religious philosophy but not prove their intelligence with something indisputable like an elegant proof for Fermat's Last Theorem.» — objeción de Carl Sagan, reproducida por Bullard dentro de su lista de razones del rechazo.

«Condon defined a UFO as “the stimulus for a report ... of something seen in the sky ... which the observer could not identify as having an ordinary natural origin, and which seemed to him sufficiently puzzling that he undertook to make a report of it.» — definición de Edward U. Condon, citada textualmente por Bullard.

«Hynek’s definition takes a UFO to be “the reported perception of an object or light seen in the sky ... which is not only mystifying to the original percipients but remains unidentified after close scrutiny of all available evidence.» — definición de J. Allen Hynek, citada textualmente y contrastada con la anterior.

«The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, and these are of them. —Shakespeare, Macbeth We dont see things as they are; we see things as we are.» — los dos epígrafes del capítulo primero, de Shakespeare en Macbeth y de Anaïs Nin; el segundo va sin apóstrofo por la capa de texto.

«Skeptic Martin Kottmeyer points out how unlikely it would be for them to reconfigure their spaceships according to popular expectation, yet how natural for fantasies and errors to reflect a novel and exciting cultural belief.» — argumento del escéptico Martin Kottmeyer, expuesto por Bullard.

«Kottmeyer argues that taken as a critical test, the 1947 wave demonstrates the direct causative influence of a journalistic error and proves that flying saucers took shape in inner rather than outer space.» — la conclusión de Kottmeyer sobre la ola de 1947 como prueba crítica, expuesta y no suscrita.

«one-half mile by a half mile and is the largest man-made object in the sky. It is a small human planet made for the purpose of destroying the present world of the enemies of Allah. ... The finest brains were used to build it. It is capable of staying in outer space six to twelve months at a time without coming into the earth's gravity. It carried fifteen hundred bombing planes with most deadly explosives—the type used in bringing up mountains on earth. The very same method is to be used in the destruction of this world.» — cita en bloque de Elijah Muhammad, 1965, sobre la Mother Plane; es su voz, no la de Bullard.