Confrontations: A Scientist's Search for Alien Contact

«Over the years, I confess—and indeed I take pride in the fact—that I have changed my mind about the meaning of UFO data.» — declara el cambio de posición en la introducción.

«In my earlier works, most notably in Dimensions» — remite al libro de 1988 para el argumento contra la hipótesis extraterrestre y declara que no lo repetirá aquí; en la fuente la palabra lleva pegada la llamada de nota.

«I believe that life and consciousness are manifested on distant worlds.» — sostiene la vida extraterrestre a la vez que niega que los ovnis lo sean.

«Some witnesses react to the phenomenon with a feeling of awe and fulfillment: for Whitley Strieber the outcome was communion and transformation. Yet for many others I have interviewed the experience is better described as confrontation.» — la glosa del título, construida por contraste con el prologuista de su libro anterior.

«For reasons that will become clear, I do not believe any more that UFOs are simply the spacecraft of some race of extraterrestrial visitors.» — el adverbio *simply* está en la fuente.

«My own private conjecture, which deviates considerably from the accepted dogma among UFO believers, is that we are dealing with a yet unrecognized level of consciousness, independent of man but closely linked to the earth.» — la enuncia como conjetura privada y declara que se aparta del consenso del campo.

«As an alternative to the extraterrestrial hypothesis, I propose to regard the UFO phenomenon as a physical manifestation of a form of consciousness that is alien to humans but is able to coexist with us on the earth.» — la formulación nueva de 1990.

«I think it constitutes both a physical entity with mass, inertia, volume, and energy, and a window toward another mode of reality.» — sostiene las dos cosas a la vez.

«Purists will point out that this form of consciousness might very well be extraterrestrial.» — Añade que si la realidad no se restringe a tres ejes de espacio y uno de tiempo, «the Visitors could be from anywhere and any time»; es una concesión que en 1988 no hay.

«The fact remains that a strong symbolic relationship seems to have existed since the dawn of history between these Aliens and humans on the earth itself.» — el límite que pone a esa concesión.

«It is time to acknowledge that the extraterrestrial theory (which assumes that UFOs are spacecraft piloted by beings from another planet who conduct a survey of the earth), a hypothesis that seemed the best avenue of research in the years following World War II, contradicts at least five major facts» — enumera los cinco de corrido en las pp. 116–117.

«The appearance of the UFO operators is overwhelmingly humanoid; they breathe our air and display recognizable emotions.» — segundo de los cinco hechos.

«it is difficult to find a culture that does not have a tradition of little people that fly through the sky and abduct humans» — cuarto de los cinco hechos, y añade: «Sexual or genetic interaction is a common theme in this body of folklore».

«Both the UFOs and their operators are able to materialize and dematerialize on the spot and to penetrate physical obstacles.» — quinto de los cinco hechos.

«It is time to restate the argument in its simplest terms: the UFO beings of today belong to the same class of manifestation as the entities that were described in centuries past, abducting humans and flying through the sky.» — la reafirmación del continuo folclórico, ahora como clase y no como identidad.

«I had shown in Passport to Magonia 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.» — remite a su propio libro de 1970 en vez de a las fuentes eruditas.

«I pointed out in Invisible College that the structure of abduction stories was identical to that of occult initiation rituals.» — adjudica la equiparación a su propio libro anterior.

«Archbishop Agobard of Lyons, France, in the ninth century, has left a very clear description of the four individuals who were about to be stoned to death as sorcerers because they came out of a "cloudship" from Magonia.» — Agobardo y Magonia son lo único del aparato de 1988 que sobrevive con nombre.

«The abduction stories began with Ezekiel on the shores of the river Chebar in 593 B.C. and never stopped.» — la frase arranca al pie de la p. 155 y cierra en la 156.

«The belief pattern that has been created around the UFO abductions is reminiscent of medieval theories of abduction by demons, pacts with Satan, and flights to the Sabbat, complete with the Mark of the Devil on the body of the witch.» — el mismo par que en 1988, repetido casi palabra por palabra.

«the only missing element is the familiar—the black cat or the owl that used to accompany the witches!» — lo adjudica al sociólogo francés Pierre Lagrange, que se lo señaló.

«There is a legend in the Acarau valley about a small being similar to the elves of Celtic folklore. This being is about four feet tall, and is called a Caipora.» — recoge la comparación en el trabajo de campo brasileño.

«Caipora is humanoid in shape and can go from one point to another instantly, without using his legs, in the manner of modern UFO entities.» — cierra la comparación con el rasgo del desplazamiento.

«the UFO experience is a very real trigger that releases powerful imagery we are all carrying in our "collective unconscious" (in Jungian terms)» — el vocabulario junguiano es el único resto explícito de Jung en el libro.

«As Bertrand Meheust has brilliantly proven, the symbolic display seen by the abductees is identical to the type of initiation ritual or astral voyage that is embedded in the traditions of every culture.» — adjudica a Meheust la equiparación con el ritual de iniciación.

«At close range, the UFO phenomenon acts as a reality transformer (or, in Bertrand Meheust's words, a reality exchanger), triggering for the witness a series of symbolic displays that are indistinguishable from reality.» — la fórmula *reality exchanger* la atribuye a Meheust.

«Like the technology of the cinema, the UFO technology is a meta-system.» — el símil del proyector, versión 1990; añade que «It generates whatever phenomena are appropriate at our level, at a given epoch».

«Meheust has thrown an extraordinary new light (along with buckets of cold water) on the entire question of abduction cases and his analysis should not be ignored.» — el único apoyo sin reservas del libro.

«The most interesting fact about the Belans abduction case is that it is a» — la frase cierra en la página siguiente: el caso resultó ser un relato de ciencia ficción escrito en 1930 por Ege Tilms.

«science fiction story written in 1930 by Ege Tilms. Entitled "Hodomur, Man of Infinity," it was first published four years later.» — el desenlace del caso Belans, tomado del material de Meheust.

«Abduction by alien beings constitutes a central theme of the science fiction literature of the early twentieth century.» — el anclaje nuevo de 1990: la historia de la literatura popular en lugar de la etnografía céltica.

«In Europe, to my amazement, Passport to Magonia had the opposite result. Some researchers embraced the idea that ufology was modern folklore and carried it to an extreme: everything was folklore and there was no physical reality behind the sightings at all.» — el adversario nuevo de 1990, que en *Dimensions* no existe.

«As late as 1988 Budd Hopkins summarily rejected the Magonia data as "folklore of obviously uncertain authenticity."» — objeta a Hopkins por el flanco contrario.

«Even the excellent and scholarly analysis of UFO abductions compiled by Thomas Bullard under the aegis of the Fund for UFO Research falls into the same trap with its very first sentence» — la frase objetada es que las abducciones sean «a recent phenomenon».

«that has never been considered seriously by American ufology, obsessed as it is with immediate facts and first-order explanations» — objeción al campo estadounidense; la frase arranca al pie de la p. 154 y cierra aquí.

«Hypnosis, which could be a very useful exploratory technique, unfortunately has become a fanatical obsession with American UFO researchers today. In the process, investigators untrained in clinical hypnosis have undoubtedly created false memories in their subjects» — objeción al método, mantenida desde 1988.

«A skeptic is entitled to the opinion that all of these people were lying or hallucinating, but I do not believe this explanation. Neither do I believe the literal interpretation of the UFO enthusiasts» — rechaza las dos lecturas a la vez.

«"You're not Condon!" he cried» — el sargento Herbert Schirmer ante un impostor que se hizo pasar por Edward Condon; la anécdota con que objeta al comité.

«The skeptics, who flatly deny the existence of any unexplained phenomenon in the name of "rationalism," are among the primary contributors to the rejection of science by the public.»

«Cults are driven by irrational beliefs, and they serve a psychological purpose in their members by providing a release from the confrontation with the unknown.» — Añade, remitiendo a su *Messengers of Deception* de diez años antes, que la ciencia, al negarse a estudiar el fenómeno abiertamente, empuja a los testigos sinceros hacia esos cultos.

«The belief in extraterrestrials, like any other strong belief, is an attractive vehicle for some mind control and psychological warfare activities.» — el argumento que en 1979 desarrolló en *Messengers of Deception*, aquí en una línea.

«Even if we disagree with skeptics like Mr. Klass, we must acknowledge the fact that after recording more than a thousand abduction reports … may have accumulated countless pages of very fascinating material but not be any closer to an understanding of the precise nature of UFOs» — concesión declarada a Philip Klass.

«Neither theory is completely satisfactory» — abstención entre las dos lecturas posibles del relato de abducción.

«What distinguishes this book from much of the UFO literature is that essential information was obtained (1) by the author himself, (2) from firsthand sources, and (3) at the site» — declara el criterio metodológico del libro.

«I have selected from my research files one hundred UFO events … Forty-seven of them are firsthand cases in which I met and interviewed the witnesses myself, generally at the site.» — Añade doce casos de heridas mortales en que la víctima sobrevivió menos de veinticuatro horas.

«I can unequivocally state three things about these cases: I was there; the witnesses exist; something happened.» — el alcance exacto de lo que afirma.

«1. Do the witnesses exist? 2. Is the actual site known? 3. Did an abnormal event happen?» — las tres preguntas con que ordena la casuística.

«There are no Vidals. The incident never happened.» — desenlace del caso Vidal, que fichó como falso.

«Occam must have had a beard.» — cierre del pasaje sobre «the uselessness of Occam's razor» en este campo.

«I have borrowed my own methods from the tools of technical intelligence, which are different from those of ordinary science.» — Añade: «Here we must assume that some of the data is misleading».

«All the medical data we gathered during our trip seems to be consistent with the conclusion that UFOs are able to focus on selected human subjects a beam of radiation that contains, among other things, pulsed microwaves that interfere with the central nervous system.» — la conclusión médica del libro, enunciada como compatibilidad con los datos.

«It is the entire phenomenology of UFO contact claims that will now have to be revised.»

«hostility, as manifested in Korea in 1951, or in Parnarama in more recent years, involves direct hits against people, injuries to the nervous system, and occasional deaths. Yet the beam does not seem effective as a weapon.» — la hostilidad de primer orden; la frase arranca al pie de la p. 192 con las palabras «First-order».

«Dr. J. Allen Hynek compared the effects suffered by Floyd and Michalak to what happens when a child puts two fingers into an electrical socket: one should not infer from the result, alarming as it is, that the utility company is hostile.» — adjudica a Hynek la lectura accidental de las heridas.

«These days of innocence and rationalization are gone; the witnesses of Parnarama and Colares were deliberately zapped by a superb, advanced technology that did not care whether its effects were lethal or not.» — Es con lo que marca distancia de Hynek.

«At least five people are said to have died near Parnarama following close encounters with what were described as boxlike UFOs equipped with powerful light beams.» — los *chupas* del Maranhão, en discurso referido.

«By the time the wave of sightings subsided in November 1977, Dr. Carvalho had seen no fewer than thirty-five patients claiming injuries related to the chupas.» — el dato clínico que recoge de la doctora de Colares.

«the chupas are "American prototypes" that take the blood of the victims to send it to the United States» — consigna el rumor local como rumor.

«if UFOs are spacecraft piloted by beings from another planet, why should the witnesses find themselves under unprovoked physical attacks by invisible entities?» — el argumento que le da el material médico contra la hipótesis extraterrestre.

«it is the careful documentation of the physical effects and their medical consequences that can provide new breakthroughs rather than the abduction cases that have become fashionable because of their sensational nature» — Conclusión: declara dónde pone la prioridad de investigación.

«Here are human beings who obviously need assistance; they present consistent symptoms that could not be self-inflicted or simulated.» — desliga la asistencia al testigo de la creencia en el fenómeno.

«Somebody in the United States owns a collection of records that contains the proof of the reality of the phenomenon.»

«Future progress will have to come from a few individuals with enough courage to go into the field themselves, to meet the unknown face-to-face.» — última línea del cuerpo.

«Her testimony indicated that the two victims were members of a "spiritualist" group, an occult society with unknown objectives. It was rumored that the group attempted to communicate with other planets.» — caso Morro do Vintém, Niterói; el testimonio es de la viuda de una de las víctimas.

«Meet at the designated spot at 4:30 P.M. At 6:30 P.M. ingest the capsules. After the effect is produced, protect half of the face with lead masks. Wait for the prearranged signal.» — la nota hallada junto a los cuerpos, reproducida.

«Or were they, more prosaically, taking part in a spiritualist experiment that went wrong?» — plantea las dos lecturas del caso sin elegir.

«an office worker and former engineering student with an interest in Rosicrucian traditions» — así presenta a Wellington Barros Wanderley, una de las víctimas.

«Accidental death of occultists attempting to contact "higher-level entities" is not rare. The English magician Dion Fortune, for instance, had a friend named Netta Fornario who died in 1930 under bizarre circumstances.» — el precedente ocultista que invoca, vía el biógrafo Alan Richardson.

«She was half-Italian and half-English, of unusual intellectual calibre, and was especially interested in the Green Ray elemental contacts» — cita a Dion Fortune en *Psychic Self-Defense* sobre Fornario.

«beatings by invisible agents; some of these incidents were witnessed by her superiors in the Church» — el caso de la religiosa Marie-Therese Noblet, en Papúa, tomado del Dr. Pierre Giscard.

«I feel privileged to have touched them, but I do not know what they mean yet.» — abstención con que cierra el capítulo del linaje folclórico.

«Because I cannot yet prove this relationship, I have decided not to burden the reader» — declara así por qué deja fuera las mutilaciones de ganado; el libro excluye además los cultos y la intervención gubernamental.

«We came away from this case without the key pieces of evidence that would have enabled us to resolve the issue» — sobre el caso Souza.

«the entire sequence suggests control and purpose» — dicho de un solo caso, no del fenómeno: es lo más cercano al sistema de control de 1988 que hay en este libro.

«In his thoughtful book The UFO Experience, J. Allen Hynek took a more careful approach, insisting that we should be interested only in those cases that remain unexplained after study by competent scientists» — toma de Hynek la definición operativa de ovni.

«It was a case in which two men had been found dead in circumstances the police had never been able to explain. It was widely believed that they had died while awaiting a signal from the sky, possibly communication from a UFO.» — abre el libro con el caso de Morro do Vintém como creencia difundida, no como hecho establecido.

«If such an event could be validated, we might get closer to a proof of the reality of UFOs. At the same time, however, many of our ideas about the phenomenon would have to be drastically revised. Gone would be the gentle visitors, the scientific explorers, the mischievous aliens that fill the pages of UFO books. Gone, too, the shining presences and the angelic visions of the “New Age.”» — fija el precio de validar el caso: no confirmaría la ufología amable, la obligaría a rehacerse.

«At a minimum we would have to enlarge the scope of our hypotheses. A more complex and dangerous picture would emerge.» — el mínimo que pide, enunciado como ampliación de hipótesis y no como conclusión.

«Unfortunately, everything I knew about the case had come to me secondhand through the UFO rumor mill or through the media, a notoriously unreliable source in Latin America.1 The only way to learn more about the precise circumstances of the event was to fly to Rio and climb that hill.» — declara de dónde venía su información y por qué no bastaba; la única salida que reconoce es ir al sitio. En la fuente el punto de *America* lleva pegada la llamada de nota.

«The skin of the corpses had a pinkish color and showed possible burns, but decomposition had progressed to the point where such a finding was not significant.» — lo que el examen de los cuerpos permitió y no permitió concluir, según el expediente que revisa.

«Indeed, the coroner, Astor de Melo, soon concluded that death was by natural causes (cardiac arrest) and closed the file.» — el desenlace oficial que consigna: el forense Astor de Melo cerró el expediente por causas naturales.

«The pathologist also looked for possible injection sites in the bodies, but the second autopsy revealed nothing new.» — resultado de la segunda autopsia, que buscó puntos de inyección.

«But this hypothesis did not explain the manner of death and the absence of a struggle.» — objeción con que descarta la hipótesis del robo: no explica el modo de morir ni la falta de forcejeo.

«The police found similar masks in a workshop in Miguel José Viana’s home, along with remnants of the lead that had been used.» — las máscaras no eran de origen desconocido: la policía halló el molde y el plomo sobrante en el taller de una de las víctimas.

«Elcio disclosed to the investigators that he had, indeed, conducted a number of “experiments” with the two victims, one in Manuel’s garden in Campos, and another time on the beach at Atafona.» — el tercer implicado, Elcio, reconoció ante los investigadores dos *experimentos* previos con las víctimas.

«But speculation was dampened when the families of the victims testified at the inquest: the devices used at Atafona and in Campos were only homemade bombs, they said, manufactured with pipes and wires.» — las familias declararon en la instrucción que aquellos aparatos eran bombas caseras; consigna la versión que desinfla la especulación.

«It was also disclosed that radiochemical experts at the Atomic Energy Institute in São Paulo had conducted a neutron activation analysis of the hair of the victims. The four elements measured—arsenic, mercury, barium, and thallium—were found at normal levels.» — el análisis por activación neutrónica del Instituto de Energía Atómica de São Paulo, con su resultado negativo para arsénico, mercurio, bario y talio.

«With that, the officer in charge of homicide cases, Romen José Vieira, closed the investigation and forwarded the dossier to the Ministry of Justice. The second phase of the lead mask case (the “in-depth analysis” phase) had just ended. It had failed to explain the facts, just as the first phase of plain detective work had.» — cierre del expediente por Romen José Vieira; el análisis científico fracasó igual que la pesquisa policial.

«The third phase, predictably, was characterized by wild speculation, silliness, and extreme measures born out of everyone’s frustration with the unexplained deaths of Miguel and Manuel.» — nombra tercera fase a la especulación pública, y la deriva de la frustración por lo no explicado, no de datos nuevos.

«Nobody took the revelations seriously, since there was no evidence that the men had died while running.» — por qué la versión canalizada no prosperó: no había indicio de que hubieran muerto corriendo.

«More interesting was the confession of a man named Hamilton Bezani, who was in jail for contraband and car theft. He gave police a complicated account of his participation in the murders of Miguel and Manuel, claiming that he had been hired to kill them.» — la confesión del preso Hamilton Bezani, que declaró haber sido contratado para matarlos.

«Neither Bezani’s confession nor the channeled revelations from Jupiter had explained the specific details of the murder.» — descarta las dos explicaciones rivales por lo mismo: ninguna da cuenta de los detalles.

«According to Professor Lago, the victims may have been engaged in a series of séances during which a paranormal entity was supposed to manifest itself.» — la lectura del perito en parapsicología Silvio Lago, médico llamado por el tribunal: una serie de sesiones para manifestar una entidad.

«Yet, remarked Detective Saulo Soares, they were willing to make a third attempt at contact with the entity in question: there must have been a higher-level person who remained in the background and whose instructions they trusted—possibly the person who gave them the orders written on the note.» — la hipótesis del detective Saulo Soares: alguien de nivel superior detrás, posiblemente el autor de la nota.

«As we reviewed these details at the scene of the tragedy, I noted that no vegetation was growing at the place where the bodies had been found. I asked whether the location was known with precision. The witness showed me the stake that enabled him to ascertain the exact spot.» — lo que observa él mismo en el sitio catorce años después, con el testigo señalando la estaca que fija el lugar.

«According to these messages, the deaths of the victims were an accident that resulted when “they started running forward [toward the saucer that was supposed to pick them up] before they were instructed to do so.”» — la explicación canalizada que circuló: un grupo de espiritistas brasileños decía recibirla de seres jupiterinos por canalización psíquica (p. 15).

«The channel also disclosed that the Jupiterians were females, one foot taller than the average humans, with vertical mouths and four fingers on their hands.» — el retrato de los jupiterinos que el mismo canal dio, consignado como parte del episodio y no como dato.

«We returned to Saulo’s concern that the two men had an “intellectual mentor” who manipulated the situation, a hypothesis supported by the wording of the notes.» — la hipótesis del mentor intelectual, que el detective apoya en la redacción misma de las notas.

«I spoke to a cousin of Miguel, who had tried to discourage him from taking the trip because it could not amount to any profitable business. Miguel answered: ‘Buying a car isn’t the real purpose of this trip. When I get back, I’ll tell you whether or not I believe in spiritualism.’» — lo que el detective le refiere de un primo de Miguel: la compra del coche era tapadera y el viaje se declaró como prueba sobre el espiritismo.

«It was a general text on spiritualism, a book by Bezerra de Menezes.”» — el libro hallado en Campos, según el policía: un texto general de espiritismo de Bezerra de Menezes.

«They had been hammered out of a lead sheet; they were obviously homemade, very crude.» — la factura de las máscaras según el mismo policía, contra la imagen de artefacto exótico.

«It was a return journey Manuel and Miguel had never made. Yet, Saulo told us he thought the men had intended to come down again.» — el detective sostiene que los dos pensaban bajar del cerro; es lo que le quita al episodio la forma de pacto suicida.

«He found it very strange that no vegetation was growing at the spot, fourteen years after the event. And he had no explanation for the hovering saucer.» — las dos cosas que el detective declara no poder explicar catorce años después.

«Clearly the observation of a large oval object by Mrs. de Souza was not an isolated incident in that region. Neither was the correlation between the sighting of the object and the unexplained physical and physiological effects—including those with tragic consequences for the witnesses.» — junta el avistamiento y las consecuencias físicas como correlación de la zona, no como caso suelto.

«the UFO literature is largely silent on such cases because they challenge both the skeptics and the believers in UFO reality.» — su explicación del silencio: los casos con daño físico incomodan a las dos partes del debate. La frase arranca al pie de la p. 18 con *Yet*.

«The time has come to set aside the old theories, to search for fresh evidence.» — con lo que cierra el prólogo.

«The note reads like a prescription dictated by someone else.”» — conclusión del detective Saulo Soares sobre la nota hallada junto a los cuerpos; la funda en que el vocabulario —ingerir las cápsulas, después de producido el efecto— no era el de las víctimas (p. 16).

«As a young student in France I grew up wanting to be an astronomer: I was convinced that UFOs were conventional phenomena because astronomers would report them if they were truly unknown.» — el punto de partida que declara haber tenido y por qué lo abandonó.

«But they reported very few, destroying in the process some of the most interesting or tantalizing data.» — lo que atribuye a los astrónomos: no solo callaron, destruyeron datos.

«In those days the extraterrestrial theory of UFOs seemed to be our best bet.» — sitúa la hipótesis extraterrestre como la mejor apuesta de entonces, no como error de origen.

«I have uncovered major contradictions between the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) and many UFO reports, including “abduction” cases. In my earlier works, most notably in Dimensions,1 I have enumerated the difficulties of the extraterrestrial theory and the concerns raised by the abduction reports. I will not repeat the details of the argument here.» — resume en dos frases el argumento de *Dimensions* y declara que no lo repetirá.

«Those among the scientific community who have been openly skeptical of the entire UFO phenomenon (and they are in the majority) must be excused for stating that the reported contact is so absurd, and the conclusions of the believers so preposterous, that the alleged object must be an aberration (physical or psychological) in every case.» — concede a los escépticos que la absurdidad del relato y lo desmedido de las conclusiones de los creyentes justifican su postura.

«And they increasingly point to the existence of a genuine technology pursuing its own hidden agenda.» — lo que sostiene que los datos indican: una tecnología genuina con agenda propia.

«My friends in the UFO research community have been puzzled by my disappearance from the scene between 1980 and 1987.» — declara y explica su retiro público de la escena ufológica.

«It was already clear that the study of abductions was hopelessly mired in the complexities and pitfalls of the use of hypnosis in the hands of believers who were subtly—or not so subtly—influencing the outcome of the interviews they conducted.» — la razón que da para apartarse: el estudio de abducciones atrapado en la hipnosis en manos de creyentes.

«Not for the data alone; heaven knows we have more data than we can process. So much that a complete catalogue of close encounter cases would encompass between 5,000 and 10,000 reports, depending on the criteria one used. The total number of unexplained UFO cases on record worldwide is well in excess of 100,000, yet we are fairly certain on the basis of opinion polls that only one witness in ten comes forward with a report. Faced with this deluge of data, we need appropriate methodology to classify and analyze the cases.» — el diagnóstico que hace del campo: sobran datos y falta método.

«I also discovered that I could expect no cooperation from most of the UFO believers, who were willing to help me only to the extent that my conclusions would support their preconceived idea that UFOs are extraterrestrial visitors to the earth.» — consigna la condición que le ponían los creyentes para colaborar.

«As one field investigator for a major U.S. group put it, his dream was to find a flying saucer and kick the tires!» — cita a un investigador de campo de un grupo estadounidense para ilustrar esa expectativa.

«The human brain loves to jump to conclusions on the basis of insufficient data.» — el defecto cognitivo que atribuye a las dos partes del debate.

«It turned out that working in the field alone, or with just a few discreet friends, was a blessing in disguise.» — reivindica el trabajo de campo en solitario o con pocos amigos discretos.

«It was bizarre, yet consistent; well patterned, yet terribly disturbing.» — cómo caracteriza el material que fue encontrando.

«These events come primarily from the United States, Brazil, France, and Argentina.» — la procedencia de los cien casos que presenta.

«This is a book about the hopes, the experiences, and the frustrations of a scientist who has gone into the field in search of proof for the elusive claims of the paranormal;» — la declaración de propósito con que abre la introducción; sigue —tras un guion de corte que el troceo une— llamándolo búsqueda de verdad de una clase muy especial.

«a story of my investigations into a bizarre, seductive, and often terrifying phenomenon reported by many witnesses as a contact with an alien form of intelligence.» — segunda mitad de la misma frase: lo que sus testigos reportan es contacto con una forma ajena de inteligencia.

«I am repelled by this material, yet the cultist temptation is definitely present among many witnesses and quite a few ufologists.» — declara su rechazo del material de los cultos y a la vez que la tentación cultista alcanza a testigos y a ufólogos.

«It is my view today—as it was when I wrote Messengers of Deception ten years ago—that science, by refusing to openly study the UFO phenomenon, drives many sincere witnesses into such cults.» — adjudica a la ciencia la responsabilidad de empujar a los testigos hacia los cultos, remitiendo a su *Messengers of Deception* de diez años antes.

«When a so-called expert tells them the object must have been the moon or a mirage, he is really teaching the public that science is impotent or unwilling to pursue the study of the unknown.» — lo que sostiene que la explicación fácil enseña de hecho al público.

«They may have a direct relationship to the UFO phenomenon.» — dicho de las mutilaciones de ganado: deja la relación abierta y en el condicional.

«It is not my business to interfere with such activities.» — sobre el monitoreo y las falsificaciones de avistamientos por los gobiernos: se abstiene de intervenir.

«I do not believe that any government has the answer to the UFO problem, although several governments must have the proof of its reality.» — separa dos cosas: ningún gobierno tiene la respuesta, y varios tienen la prueba de la realidad del fenómeno.

«Once these three domains—cults, mutilations, and government activity —are excluded, we are left with what I regard as the core of the UFO problem: a mass of bewildering data coming from sincere observers who have been confronted with an unexplained source of energy affecting them in their physical environment and in their spiritual outlook.» — define el núcleo del problema por sustracción de los tres dominios que excluye, y lo pone en una fuente de energía no explicada que afecta al testigo en lo físico y en lo espiritual.

«It will take many years, and more resources and skills than one man can assemble, to solve this problem.» — el plazo y los recursos que declara necesarios, por encima de lo que un solo hombre reúne.

«When I returned from my first trip to Brazil, it had become clear to me that the UFO problem was much more dangerous and much more technologically complex than the literature of the field had indicated.» — lo que le cambió el primer viaje a Brasil: el problema resultó más peligroso y más complejo técnicamente de lo que decía la literatura.

«What I did not know when I embarked on this enterprise was the depth of the impact it would make on me and the clarity of the final conclusions.» — declara no haber previsto ni el impacto personal ni la nitidez de las conclusiones.

«Any systematic work of scientific intelligence begins with physical data.» — el principio metodológico con que ordena la primera parte del libro.

«All of the cases examined in this volume were unidentified when I started studying them. Most of them are still unidentified after all the work my associates and I did.» — el estado de los casos antes y después de su trabajo, dicho sin atenuación.

«This observation should send us back into the field with better resources and a renewed sense of urgency.» — la conclusión que saca de que la mayoría siga sin identificar: volver al campo, no cerrar el expediente.

«The phenomenon of UFOs is so complex, it evokes so many archetypal images and so many dreams and conflicts; it is so powerful in its spiritual impact, that its ordinary physical manifestations are often obscured or forgotten.» — explica por qué empieza por lo material: la carga arquetípica y espiritual del fenómeno tapa sus manifestaciones físicas ordinarias.

«As with religious miracles and other so-called paranormal events, it is easy to be swept away by the potential implications of the perceived event before one has had time to ask detailed, critical questions about the mundane reality that surrounds it.» — pone el fenómeno junto al milagro religioso para nombrar el mismo riesgo de método: dejarse llevar por las implicaciones antes de preguntar lo prosaico.

«To establish clearly that we are indeed dealing with effects that are material, energetic, and that interact in powerful ways with the environment, I have assembled in the three chapters that compose Part One some of the cases from my files that address the physical characteristics of UFOs. These cases not only contain the testimony of the observers about such effects, but they also offer quantifiable parameters.» — declara el propósito de la primera parte y el criterio de selección de sus casos: efectos materiales y energéticos con parámetros cuantificables.

«No attempt has been made here to cover all physical characteristics of the phenomenon in an exhaustive way.» — acota el alcance de la primera parte: no pretende cubrir todas las características físicas.

«Although such effects have been present in the cases I have researched, I have not made a special effort to investigate them in their own context. Instead, I offer the records of these case studies as a first step in the application of technical analysis to the UFO enigma.» — reconoce que no investigó esos efectos en su propio contexto y ofrece los casos como primer paso del análisis técnico.

«It was during their layover in Fort-de-France one fine evening, by a dark sky and clear weather, that a large UFO arrived slowly and silently from the west, flew to the south, made two complete loops in the sky over the French vessels, and vanished like a rapidly extinguished light bulb.» — el avistamiento de julio de 1965 sobre los submarinos franceses en Fort-de-France, tal como lo reconstruye.

«All witnesses aboard the Junon, whose bow was pointing east, saw the object as a huge ball of light or a disk on edge arriving from the west at 9:15 P.M.» — la coincidencia de los testigos del Junon en forma y hora.

«He confirmed that it was neither an aircraft, nor a rocket, nor a meteor, nor a balloon, nor a disintegrating satellite, nor a plasma phenomenon such as globular lightning.» — lo que descarta el experto consultado, enumerado por exclusión.

«It is very difficult to say that such an observation never happened, or that it was a hallucination. The witnesses were competent observers who were dispersed over a wide area.» — el argumento que le da el caso contra la alucinación: observadores competentes y dispersos.

«They were trained in night surveillance (Michel Figuet had received particularly high marks for his ability on watch) and the sighting lasted long enough for my informant to go up to the conning tower, take the binoculars, and distribute them to other personnel.» — la competencia declarada de los testigos y la duración del avistamiento, según su informante Michel Figuet.

«An energetic man with a critical mind, which has given him something of a reputation as a “debunker” among the more enthusiastic French researchers, Figuet now lives in the south of France and clearly remembers the details of his observation.» — presenta a Figuet, su informante, con la reputación de *debunker* que le dan los investigadores franceses más entusiastas.

«Yet if we agree that there was an object, as the facts seem to dictate, then as scientists we have to face another kind of challenge. Specifically, if the object was ten kilometers away, as the witnesses estimated, then it represented a disk ninety meters in diameter, a formidable device indeed, given the remarkable maneuvers it exhibited.» — el paso que da a partir de las estimaciones de los testigos: a diez kilómetros, un disco de noventa metros.

«Furthermore, it is possible to compute the total energy output of the object based on the distance and luminosity estimates given by the witnesses. The resulting figure is 2.3 megawatts (MW).» — el cálculo de potencia que deriva de distancia y luminosidad.

«While the energy of a lawn mower is about three kilowatts (kW) and a car engine will range between 75 and 1,000 kW (or 1 MW), a commercial airliner will reach 50 to 150 MW; the energy of a nuclear plant is measured in thousands of megawatts.» — la escala con que hace legible la cifra, del cortacésped a la central nuclear.

«In the above calculation, however, we have derived the energy figure solely from the amount of light emitted by the object, and only in the visible part of the spectrum, which was seen by the observers. The phenomenon may be deploying energy in other ways—in microwaves or in radio waves.» — el límite del cálculo, puesto por él mismo: solo mide la luz visible, y el fenómeno podría desplegar energía en microondas o radio.

«If it has a material, physical structure it will require energy to overcome gravity, even if it uses extremely advanced propulsion techniques about which we can only speculate. For these reasons the figure we have computed can be regarded as a crude approximation.» — condiciona el gasto energético a que haya estructura material y llama a su cifra aproximación burda.

«This note of caution should be kept in mind as we review other reliably observed cases that can give us some insight into the physics of the UFO phenomenon.» — extiende esa cautela a todos los casos de la primera parte.

«Another remarkable observation made near Grenoble, France, on November 5, 1976, by a senior scientist is relevant here.» — presenta el caso de Grenoble del 5 de noviembre de 1976, observado por un científico de carrera.

«But there were two other remarkable characteristics: first, it was possible to establish the distance of the object with precision; second, the exceptional qualifications of one of the witnesses provided some physical parameters that have rarely been available in UFO cases.» — por qué le da peso al caso: distancia establecida con precisión y un testigo con calificación excepcional.

«I am indebted to GEPAN, the French government’s official UFO investigation task force (now known as SEPRA), for communicating to me the details of the case, which I have had the opportunity to discuss with them at length prior to visiting the site in 1988.» — declara su fuente: el organismo oficial francés GEPAN, hoy SEPRA, y su propia visita al sitio en 1988.

«The disk, according to Dr. Serge, was brighter than the full moon.» — el dato de brillo que toma del testigo al que llama Dr. Serge.

«Given these detailed, highly competent observations, it is possible to bracket the energy and speed of the object with some reasonable numbers. From a careful reconstruction of the sighting it was estimated that the object was flying at an altitude of 1,500 to 2,500 feet, which would give it a diameter between six and twenty feet and a speed approximating one mile per second, or 3,600 miles per hour, during the second phase of its trajectory. Assuming that the disk gave off as much light as the full moon, as observed by Dr. Serge, its energy in the visible part of the spectrum was a modest 15 kW.» — la cifra que deriva de esas observaciones, y la califica de modesta.

«It is also noteworthy that Dr. Serge, who serves as director of a nuclear physics laboratory, did not report the sighting to anyone and did not mention it to his colleagues.» — el silencio del testigo, director de un laboratorio de física nuclear, como dato del caso.

«As good as the Grenoble case was, said Poher, he did not succeed in bringing it to the attention of leading French scientists. To them it was just another UFO report, even if the main witness was one of their colleagues. They would not even take the time to meet with him to review the data because they felt UFOs had no place in a rational world.» — lo que le refiere Claude Poher, fundador del GEPAN: los científicos franceses ni siquiera aceptaban revisar los datos.

«To me it is not a single case that matters, but the accumulation of such cases.» — dónde pone el peso probatorio: en la acumulación, no en el caso aislado.

«Whether traditional science likes it or not, the public long ago accepted the notion that the UFO phenomenon exists.» — constata que el público ya dio por existente el fenómeno, con independencia de la ciencia.

«Our task now is to select the best-documented parameters among the accumulated data and to place them before our colleagues so that research can move forward, even if we do not have all the answers we would like about the nature and the origin of the objects.» — formula la tarea sin exigir resolver antes la naturaleza ni el origen de los objetos.

«The third case we should review in this study of energy levels associated with UFOs took place near Arcachon in France on June 19, 1978, and was also investigated in depth by GEPAN. While the Grenoble case was remarkable for the convergence and the high quality of the observations, the events we are going to relate introduce another exceptional parameter: the UFO triggered the photocells that control the lights for the whole town.» — el caso de Arcachon del 19 de junio de 1978 y el parámetro que lo hace excepcional: el objeto disparó las fotocélulas del alumbrado municipal.

«The GEPAN investigators were able to prevail upon these ufologists to temper their enthusiasm and to postpone their own interview with the witnesses, thus avoiding the kind of contamination we constantly see when UFO observers are bombarded with leading questions by amateurs and by the media.» — elogia del GEPAN la contención de los ufólogos aficionados, y nombra el defecto que evita: la contaminación del testigo por preguntas dirigidas.

«The series of measurements made in the field established (within the expected errors of human recall) that all the witnesses had observed the same object. There was agreement on time, duration, distance, trajectory, sound, and luminosity parameters. There were discrepancies, however, regarding the altitude and the apparent diameter of the object.» — lo que las mediciones de campo establecieron y lo que dejaron discrepante, dicho en el mismo párrafo.

«The manager of the town utility department was also interviewed. He showed the investigators the location of the photoelectric cells that control the street lights. Naturally, when these cells are exposed to a light that exceeds their threshold, they assume that daylight has arrived and they turn off the system. The results of the analysis bracket the distance between the cell and the UFO as 135 meters and 480 meters, or roughly between 400 and 1,500 feet. This yields an energy level between 160 kW and 5 MW.» — la cadena de medición del caso de Arcachon: fotocélulas del alumbrado, distancia acotada y el rango de energía resultante.

«It also gives some interesting insight into the UFO controversy and its treatment by academic scientists.» — para qué le sirve el caso además de la cifra.

«The teenagers had stopped on the side of the road to repair the turn signal of their car when all the lights of the town were suddenly switched off.» — la circunstancia del avistamiento de Arcachon según los testigos adolescentes.

«In fact, when the car came to a point about one mile from the source of the light, it suddenly brightened to a blinding white, washing out the headlights and casting sharp shadows.» — el caso estadounidense del Dr. G.: la luz lavó los faros del coche y proyectó sombras nítidas.

«Dr. Condon concluded in his published report that the case was “of interest,” and it remained as one of the many unidentified sightings in the University of Colorado project files. This fact did not stop Dr. Condon from also stating in his conclusions that the official study of the UFO phenomenon should be abandoned because no progress of knowledge could be expected from such research.» — consigna las dos cosas juntas: Condon dejó el caso sin identificar y recomendó abandonar el estudio oficial del fenómeno.

«All the trees at the periphery of the clearing exhibited a blackening or burning of the bark in a direction pointing to the center of the area, as if they had been exposed to an intense source of radiated energy.» — el rastro físico que describe en el claro, con el *como si* que él mismo pone.

«I have not been able to find a reliable analysis laboratory that would undertake a study of it.» — declara el muro que encontró: ningún laboratorio fiable quiso analizar la muestra de corteza.

«A more correct estimate is given by the subsequent investigation by Dr. G. and Mr. W., since the clearing is actually located 1,800 feet from the observation point.» — corrige la distancia del caso con la investigación posterior, y de ahí rehace la estimación de energía.

«It is even possible, if we follow some theories of what UFOs could be, that the light they emit is only a side effect of their propulsion mechanism, as carbon monoxide is a side effect in the exhaust of an automobile engine.» — abre la posibilidad de que la luz medida sea un subproducto de la propulsión y no su energía principal; el símil del monóxido es suyo.

«UFOs are observed and described in a consistent manner by reliable, highly competent witnesses. And the information they provide can allow a dedicated group of investigators to draw certain scientific conclusions. We are only at the beginning of this process; but it is already apparent that the UFO phenomenon is an opportunity to use science effectively. Notwithstanding the hasty conclusions of Dr. Condon, it may even be an opportunity to advance fundamental knowledge.» — cierra el capítulo contra Condon: llama apresuradas sus conclusiones y ve una ocasión de avanzar conocimiento fundamental.

«The failure of the University of Colorado to perform in a scientifically valid fashion during the Condon study from 1967 to 1969 can teach us an important lesson: it is not the amount of money expended that counts, or the notoriety of the scientists involved. It is the willingness to work in the field with imagination and diligence that match the complexity of the phenomenon itself.» — la lección que saca del estudio Condon: no decide el dinero ni la notoriedad, sino el trabajo de campo.

«It might not provide a final proof of the reality of UFOs, but it would be the basis for a fruitful dialogue among the various theorists.» — el alcance que le concede a la evidencia material: no prueba final, sí base de discusión entre teóricos.

«Not only is the cost of such an analysis significant (a few thousand dollars), but it is a complex task to determine what questions should be asked and what equipment should be used.» — los dos costos del análisis de una muestra: el dinero y la dificultad de saber qué preguntar.

«A fascinating book could be written about the mistakes made over the years in the handling of such samples, from careless labeling to outright destruction, as was the case in the first “analysis” of a Brazilian magnesium sample in the hands of the U.S. Air Force.» — el historial de manejo de muestras que denuncia, con el caso brasileño de magnesio destruido por la Fuerza Aérea estadounidense.

«It also taught me that after many hours of work, trips to distant laboratories, and considerable expense to use the finest in modern technology, one did not necessarily know much more than one did at the beginning.» — el resultado que declara de sus propios análisis de laboratorio, sin atenuarlo.

«Two students who were walking on the campus of the University of Bogotá one rainy night in 1975 or 1976 heard a strange sound overhead.» — el caso de Bogotá, en el campus universitario, fechado por los testigos entre 1975 y 1976.

«It is at that point, according to the witnesses, that spouts of liquid were ejected from the central disk.» — el momento del caso en que, según los testigos, el disco central expulsó chorros de líquido.

«The witnesses recovered two metal chunks, about four inches by one and one-fourth inches in size, after letting the material cool down for about ten minutes (plate 3).» — cómo llegaron a existir las muestras metálicas del caso, según los testigos.

«He concluded that the sample was an aluminum alloy with magnesium and tin. It was nonmagnetic and contained traces of materials that were not identified. He also stated that the metal was easy to cut and presented a very fine granulation.» — el primer dictamen, del ingeniero que examinó la pieza: aleación de aluminio con magnesio y estaño.

«Meticulous handling of physical items is required if it is to have legal validity. I therefore sealed the sample in an envelope and had Vilchez place his signature next to mine on the flap of the envelope.» — el procedimiento de cadena de custodia que aplica y por qué: la validez legal de la pieza.

«The envelope was not opened until arrangements had been made with a high-technology company whose executives provided access to the tools required for a detailed investigation. They witnessed that the original signatures were present on the intact envelope before extracting the sample.» — cómo mantuvo esa cadena hasta el laboratorio de la empresa que le dio acceso al instrumental.

«Our group noted that one side of the sample showed evidence of violent activity and bubbling, while the other side was flat, with some embedded material—possibly from the road asphalt.» — lo que su grupo observó en la pieza a simple vista, con el material incrustado atribuido al asfalto.

«The results of this test showed the sample to contain 93.7% aluminum, 4.8% phosphorus, 0.9% iron, and the rest in trace elements.» — el resultado cuantitativo del análisis de la muestra de Bogotá.

«The metallurgical specialists performing the analysis commented that the sample had been “melted through and through” and that nothing survived of the initial structure. Its appearance, in fact, was typical of an overheat and was consistent with the blowup of a machine.» — el dictamen metalúrgico de la muestra de Bogotá: fundida por completo, con el aspecto de un sobrecalentamiento y de la explosión de una máquina.

«This test surprised us because at first it showed no aluminum at all. Instead we found a surface layer of carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen. Beyond this unexplained layer we did find aluminum, as well as magnesium, potassium, sulphur, sodium, and silicium. Phosphorus and iron also showed up in trace amounts.» — el resultado inesperado de la segunda prueba: en la superficie no había aluminio, sino carbono, oxígeno y nitrógeno.

«I provide these results in detail in the hope that some of my readers may suggest ways to refine the analysis.» — publica el detalle del análisis pidiendo que se lo mejoren, no como conclusión.

«The most useful result of this work was to refine the methodology and to force me to think through the precautions to be taken for the preservation of a chain of evidence that would stand up in court.» — dónde sitúa el rendimiento real del trabajo: en el método de custodia, no en el resultado químico.

«However, I have not come to a final conclusion about the Bogotá sample. It could have come from a UFO, as the witnesses claim. But I have not been able to meet those witnesses in person, and the file that contains the initial interviews has been lost; we do not even know the exact year of the sighting. It is unlikely that we are dealing with a satellite reentry, given the testimony of the witnesses, and the composition and size of the metal piece. But we have not completely eliminated the possibility of a hoax.» — la abstención con que cierra el caso de Bogotá: podría venir de un ovni, no pudo entrevistar a los testigos, el expediente inicial se perdió, y el fraude no queda descartado.

«The combination could originate with numerous common aluminum alloys—according to the McDonnell scientists—but not prior to 1908.» — lo que los científicos de McDonnell le dicen del metal de Aurora, Texas: la aleación es común, pero no anterior a 1908 — lo que la desliga del incidente de 1897.

«Both military intelligence and the FBI concluded that the case was most likely a hoax: “Analysis of the fragments shows them to be from a Tacoma slag mill,” states an FBI teletype message dated August 5, 1947.» — el desenlace documental del caso de Maury Island, citado del teletipo del FBI.

«And no mention was made of the silvery material, although Kenneth Arnold, who saw it, described it as “aluminum foil.”» — lo que el informe del FBI dejó fuera, y cómo lo describió Kenneth Arnold, que lo vio.

«The hoax hypothesis had to be eliminated; there were too many independent witnesses, eleven in all.» — por qué descarta el fraude en el caso de Council Bluffs de 1977: once testigos independientes.

«Here I ran into a legal brick wall: NASA wanted to be released from liability if they examined the samples!» — el muro institucional que declara: la NASA le pedía eximirse de responsabilidad antes de analizar.

«Professor Peter Sturrock of Stanford University has in his custody a specimen from an object recovered by an Eskimo near Kiana, Alaska. It is silvery, light, and looks as if it had been poured in a molten state from a source close to the ground.» — la muestra de Kiana, Alaska, en custodia de Peter Sturrock, descrita por su aspecto.

«It left me very frustrated. To begin with, the sample was unusual in what it did not contain.» — declara su frustración con el análisis y localiza la anomalía en lo que la muestra no contiene.

«The absence of heavy materials and the absence of water were equally puzzling, and the oxy-carbide layer is still unexplained.» — lo que queda sin explicar tras el análisis: la falta de materiales pesados y de agua, y la capa de oxicarburo. La falta de fluoruro —subproducto normal del refinado del aluminio— la enuncia en la frase anterior.

«The recovered residue was analyzed at the Iowa State University laboratory and at the Griffin Pipe Products Company, leading to the determination that the metal was chiefly iron with small amounts of alloying metals such as nickel and chromium. Such composition would exclude meteoritic material.» — el dictamen sobre el residuo de Council Bluffs y lo que excluye: el origen meteorítico.

«An examination of the microstructure indicated that the material was a carbon steel that was cast, subsequently reheated to about 1,000°F, and cooled, so that it resembled wrought iron.» — el detalle microestructural del mismo residuo: acero al carbono colado y recalentado.

«This material, according to independent researcher Kenneth Behrendt, was collected after cooling and subsequently analyzed by a Brazilian government laboratory. It was determined to be tin, with other metals present.» — el líquido plateado brasileño, atribuido al investigador independiente Kenneth Behrendt y a un laboratorio del gobierno brasileño.

«According to the late Frank Edwards, a renowned journalist, Brazilian authorities found the silvery liquid to have splattered over a wide area, including roofs, streets, sidewalks, even clothes left outside to dry.3 An independent analysis by a private chemist, Dr. Risvaldo Maffei, revealed that the material was indeed mostly tin, but that it contained about 10% of other components.» — lo que atribuye al periodista Frank Edwards y al análisis independiente del químico Risvaldo Maffei; en la fuente la cifra del reparto lleva pegada la llamada de nota.

«The second Brazilian case concerns a sample at Ubatuba Beach near São Paulo. This sample first came to light in 1957, although its precise origin is still uncertain.» — presenta la muestra de Ubatuba de 1957 declarando de entrada que su procedencia sigue sin establecerse.

«According to Professor Sturrock and to Dr. Pierre Kaufmann of São Paulo, the specimen could be linked to an event that occurred as early as 1933 or 1934.» — la fecha alternativa que Peter Sturrock y Pierre Kaufmann proponen para el origen de la muestra de Ubatuba.

«The witnesses of the Ubatuba case stated that they had seen a disk plunging toward the ocean at very high speed.» — lo que declararon los testigos del caso, consignado como declaración.

«Dr. Barbosa concluded that the sample was composed of very highly pure magnesium.» — el dictamen de la doctora Barbosa sobre la muestra brasileña.

«According to Sturrock: After all these years, we still do not have a single reliable measurement of the actual impurities and impurity level of the Brazil magnesium.» — cita a Sturrock para decir que, después de treinta años, sigue sin haber una sola medición fiable de las impurezas.

«By contrast, the isotopic ratio has been measured at the California Institute of Technology and at the University of Paris at Orsay with high accuracy and with consistent results.» — lo que sí se midió bien —la razón isotópica, en Caltech y en Orsay— frente a lo que no.

«There is a curious parallel between the Ubatuba and Campinas cases, on one hand, and the strange explosion triggered at Atafona by Manuel and Miguel, the two victims of the Niterói tragedy. All three events occurred on a Brazilian beach; all three involved rumors of a “flying saucer” exploding or plunging into the ocean; and in all cases the examination of the residue was inconclusive.» — el paralelo que traza entre Ubatuba, Campinas y la explosión de Atafona del caso de Niterói: playa brasileña, rumor de platillo y residuo inconcluso.

«The Condon report states that there is no official confirmation, and the disposition of the sample is unknown.» — lo que el informe Condon dice del caso: sin confirmación oficial y con la muestra en paradero desconocido.

«I have not included in this survey the numerous cases of liquid, oil-like residues found at landing sites. Similarly, I have not considered the reports of manufactured objects alleged to have been recovered.» — declara dos exclusiones de su repaso de muestras: los residuos líquidos de sitios de aterrizaje y los objetos manufacturados supuestamente recuperados.

«In terms of UFO propulsion, unfortunately, these pieces of data do not mean very much.» — lo que concede sobre el rendimiento de todo el capítulo de muestras.

«If a superconducting rotating machine could fly, and it had some sort of breakdown, we would expect to recover either drops of mercury or various combinations of the above elements—for instance, an alloy with 76% gallium and 24% indium, or 78% potassium and 22% sodium.» — la predicción que deriva de la hipótesis de la máquina rotante superconductora, y que los hallazgos no cumplen.

«Although I am certain that UFOs are not imaginary, I will be disappointed if they turn out to be nothing more than advanced spacecraft.» — declara a la vez la realidad del fenómeno y su desinterés por que sea solo una nave avanzada.

«If your goal in life is to discuss UFOs with Phil Donahue, Oprah Winfrey, or Johnny Carson, you have to be either pro or con the extraterrestrial hypothesis.» — así describe la polarización mediática que obliga a tomar partido sobre la hipótesis extraterrestre.

«In purely scientific terms, it is becoming clear that the UFO phenomenon is not all nonsense; yet the evidence against the extraterrestrial theory has been mounting steadily in the last decade.» — separa las dos cosas que la polarización confunde: el fenómeno no es disparate y la teoría extraterrestre pierde apoyo.

«It is important to analyze such samples carefully, if only to refine our methodology for the time when a truly fantastic object may be discovered.» — la razón que da para seguir analizando muestras pese al rendimiento nulo: afinar el método por si aparece algo.

«If they are serious about contributing to this research and putting their case before the scientific community, they should poll their members to collect as many of these samples as possible. There may be as many as thirty specimens in the United States alone. The private organizations also should pool their resources to generate a catalogue of the most frequent components found in such samples, together with the dates and circumstances of the sightings. Even if the results were mundane, such a study would clear the underbrush.» — lo que le pide a los grupos privados de ufología: reunir y analizar las muestras que sus miembros guardan, aunque el resultado salga prosaico.

«The investigator should always ask himself or herself this question: if challenged by a court or a scientific committee, would I be able to prove that the sample that was analyzed was in fact the same one retrieved at the site? There are precautions that go a long way toward establishing due diligence in the handling of the specimen. A simple way to establish an error-reduced chain is to keep the specimen in sealed containers bearing the signatures of the witnesses; to open these containers only in the presence of others; to take pictures of the specimen lying on the front page of a daily newspaper, clearly showing the date, whenever it is transferred from one group to another; and to have the recipients again sign the new containers. These may not be absolutely foolproof methods, but they will place the investigator beyond any accusation of negligence.» — la pregunta con que resume la cadena de custodia, planteada desde el tribunal o el comité científico.

«As most people do not possess a Geiger counter, an alternate sensitive method for detecting radioactivity is simply to place the specimen, in complete darkness, over a photographic plate, to leave it there for a day or two, and to have the plate developed.» — el método casero que propone para detectar radiactividad sin contador Geiger.

«Unless the sample is extraordinarily small, you should keep most of the material after carefully sawing off or breaking off small pieces to be given to the analysts—before and after photographs are mandatory, so that anyone auditing the operation at a later date will be able to see where each fragment came from.» — el protocolo de fotografía y fraccionamiento que exige para que la operación sea auditable después.

«Although many universities have facilities for such work, they usually lack the funds and the time to run these analyses.» — el obstáculo material que declara en el acceso a los laboratorios universitarios.

«I am afraid my happy correspondent may be disappointed in the next part of my fieldwork, because it has to do with some of the physical characteristics of UFOs that are best measured on photographs—many of which are black and white, and very blurry indeed. Even when they are not blurry, as we will soon discover, they pose unusual challenges to the analyst.» — advierte de entrada lo que el material fotográfico da de sí, en contra de la expectativa del corresponsal que le escribe.

«The Costa Rican laboratory that first processed the photograph estimated the object’s diameter at seventy-one meters (about 220 feet); Spaulding reached a figure of forty meters (about 120 feet). He noted that “the trailing edge of the UFO is slightly lacking sharp resolution.”» — las dos estimaciones divergentes de diámetro sobre la misma foto costarricense, y la reserva de Spaulding sobre el borde del objeto.

«The analysis did not progress beyond this point.» — consigna hasta dónde llegó ese análisis, y no más.

«To date, the most complete analysis of a UFO photograph in the literature is found in an article by Dr. Richard Haines published in 1987 in the Journal of Scientific Exploration.1 The article reported an incident that took place on October 8, 1981, on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The techniques described in it represent the current state of the art. They would be adequate to detect most hoaxes. However, as sophisticated as they are, they cannot “prove” anything about the identity of the object shown in the photograph.» — toma el análisis de Richard Haines de 1987 como estado del arte y a la vez marca su techo: detecta fraudes, no identifica el objeto.

«I discovered the first case in Costa Rica, the second in Argentina. In my opinion both of them are genuine.» — declara su juicio sobre los dos casos fotográficos como opinión propia, no como resultado del análisis.

«Since the UFO does not cast a shadow on the ground, they suspected that the picture resulted from “a deliberate alteration of the original negative”—in other words, a hoax.» — la sospecha del primer examen sobre la foto costarricense, fundada en la falta de sombra.

«It appears to be a shallow cone with an axis of symmetry and a darker point or area at the tip of the cone.3 Noting that one side is in sharp “knife-edge” focus while the other side is diffuse and amorphous, he felt that the darker region might not be a shadow at all. It was possible that the disk was a source of light, with one side being brighter than the other for some unknown reason.» — lo que el segundo examen, dirigido por Richard Haines, lee en la misma imagen: cono somero, y la zona oscura quizá no sea sombra sino la otra cara de una fuente de luz.

«I did see a bright point,” he replied, “but I thought it was a star.» — lo que el fotógrafo argentino contesta al preguntarle si vio algo: un punto brillante que tomó por una estrella.

«It must be more sensitive than the human eye to ultraviolet or infrared light emitted by the object.» — la inferencia que saca de que la película registrara lo que el ojo no vio.

«the witnesses were not aware that they were photographing an impossible object, an image that would not provide any new evidence for the existence of UFOs but indeed would add to the complexity of the challenge.» — lo que a su juicio complica el caso en vez de resolverlo: la imagen no aporta prueba nueva y sí dificultad.

«The public, the military, and most scientists assume that if an alien craft happened to pose for the perfect photograph or simply dropped some metal residue on the White House lawn it would be a straightforward matter to take this evidence to a state-of-the-art laboratory, where it would be analyzed once and for all. My own experience with a number of such cases provides a radically different picture.» — el supuesto que atribuye al público, a los militares y a los científicos, contra lo que él ha medido.

«In the study of this phenomenon many apparent contradictions must be expected.» — cierra la primera parte contando la contradicción como algo esperable, no como señal de fraude.

«Laboratory analysts literally do not know where to start. The choices of investigative technique branch out to infinity, and there is little to provide initial goals. We do not even know what is significant: is it the presence of a particular element, or its absence, or its combination with others? Even in the Bogotá case, in which a sum of over $2,500 was expended on the investigation, we are left with more questions than answers.» — el problema de fondo del análisis material de una muestra ovni: ni siquiera está definido qué contaría como significativo. Lo contrasta con el satélite y el meteorito, donde sí se sabe qué esperar (p. 55).

«As we move from a consideration of the purely physical parameters to the investigation of more complex sightings involving multiple witnesses, the investigation of UFOs is certain to cure any lingering tendency to scientific arrogance: it quickly becomes a lesson in humility.» — de dónde sale el título de la segunda parte: el fenómeno cura la arrogancia científica.

«I placed before him the printed circuit board. Aimé picked it up, admired the slick colored devices on one side and the flat silvery connections on the other. Gingerly, he returned it to me and said, “Burn it, my son. It is the work of the Devil.”» — la respuesta de Michel en el papel de abad del siglo XV.

«Indeed there was no way a fifteenth-century scholar could ever imagine the purpose of such a device. Even if he had been able to analyze the material of which the transistors were made, what are the chances that he would have measured the impurities they contained? And even if he had measured the amount of impurities, what are the chances that he would have grasped this incredible concept: the impurities were introduced on purpose, in carefully calibrated quantities, to make the device fulfill its function? The only hypothesis that accounted for the phenomenon, given the culture of the time, was the one Aimé had proposed: it was the work of the Devil, fit only for burning.» — la moraleja que extrae: la única hipótesis disponible en aquella cultura era la del Diablo, y ni analizando el material se habría dado con la intención del artefacto.

«Even if we found consistent results from our analyses, it would be very foolish indeed to generalize too quickly. But it would be even more foolish not to examine the data.» — el doble límite que se pone: no generalizar deprisa, y no dejar de examinar los datos.

«This chapter has illustrated the fact that reliable UFO photographs are most often obtained by chance rather than design.» — lo que concluye del capítulo fotográfico: las buenas fotos son fortuitas.

«There is a definite need to systematically collect and analyze the few reliable UFO photographs we possess. If this collection were established under the auspices of a major research facility, the owners of the photographs might be willing to part with their negatives, and a truly scientific analysis might be launched.» — la propuesta institucional que hace: un archivo bajo el auspicio de un centro mayor de investigación.

«In the absence of such a collection I have tried to show how much could be done even with fragmentary data. In the drawers and in the albums of many families there are unusual pictures that have never been seriously analyzed. An effort should be made to collect them. If I had not gone to Costa Rica, to Argentina, and to Brazil myself, I never would have heard of the cases reviewed above.» — reivindica el rendimiento del dato fragmentario y el valor de haber ido en persona a Costa Rica, Argentina y Brasil.

«If it were my camera I would demand to be present in the darkroom so that the development process could be controlled from beginning to end.» — el procedimiento de calibración que propone para una foto de ovni.

«we do not enjoy such luxury in the case of a suspected UFO sample.» — el contraste con lo que sí se sabe analizar: un trozo de satélite, un meteorito o un aparato técnico que se desmonta para entenderlo (p. 55).

«I want you to assume that I am a fifteenth-century farmer,” I told him. “Pretend that I have just found a strange object while plowing my field.» — el experimento mental que le plantea a Aimé Michel en 1962 con una placa de circuito impreso en la mano; sigue pidiéndole que haga de abad letrado del monasterio local (p. 56).

«You have read the extant literature in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. You are familiar with all the scientific knowledge of the time. Now, dear Father, will you tell me what this is and what I should do with it?”» — el resto del encargo: alguien con toda la literatura y todo el saber científico de su época encima.

«Once you face the witnesses, once you stand on a lonely road or in an empty field or on a mountaintop with the wind in your hair and the rain in your eyes, it is not so easy to fool yourself and others with simple conclusions.» — lo que atribuye al trabajo de campo frente al de gabinete: estar en el sitio impide la conclusión fácil.

«Those are the questions you have to ask yourself, and you have to do it without antagonizing or criticizing the witnesses. After all, they were there; you weren’t. But even if they report truthfully and reliably on what they experienced, how do you know you are getting the full picture?» — la regla de trato con el testigo: preguntarse eso sin antagonizarlo, porque él estuvo allí y el investigador no.

«There is a story from Europe I regularly tell to myself in order to keep things in perspective, to maintain that essential humility.» — presenta la anécdota del tren en los Alpes como recordatorio de humildad.

«It happens aboard a train going through the Alps; in the compartment are four people: an army colonel, a young soldier, a pretty girl, and a little old lady. The train goes into a tunnel and the four protagonists are plunged into complete darkness for several minutes. Suddenly, an intriguing drama unfolds. One hears a passionate kiss, followed by a violent slap.» — el planteamiento de la anécdota: cuatro pasajeros a oscuras, un beso y una bofetada.

«The little old lady thinks: Good for her! This daring soldier kissed her, but she put him in his place. It’s good to see there are still some young people with fine manners. The pretty girl muses: This young soldier is cute. Why did he kiss that old woman when he could have kissed me? The colonel steams: That’s unfair. He kisses the girl and I’m the one who gets slapped! And the young soldier chuckles. Only he knows the complete truth. This really is a special day: I kiss the back of my hand, I slap my colonel, and I get away with the whole thing!» — las cuatro lecturas del mismo suceso; solo el soldado, que se besó el dorso de la mano y abofeteó al coronel, conoce la verdad completa.

«The moral of the story is that one can never trust appearances, and it is relevant to the investigation of UFO cases, a few of which will be described in this section.» — la moraleja que traslada a la casuística ovni.

«Some had all the earmarks of sensational events until I found that the facts were wanting and the evidence flawed. Others sounded vague and inconsequential on paper, but field research uncovered real phenomena of remarkable scope. Still others led to no final conclusion; at the end of the investigation we had accumulated heaps of facts, hours of testimony from genuine, sincere witnesses, and we still did not know any more than we did at the beginning. Was a real UFO involved? You will have to decide.» — clasifica sus propios casos en tres desenlaces —sensacional que se deshace, insignificante que resulta serlo, y el que no concluye— y deja la decisión al lector.

«Returning from these journeys, I felt considerable sympathy for judges and police detectives who must deal with the vagaries of witnesses and with elusive facts in their professional lives.» — con quién se compara al volver del campo: jueces y detectives, no físicos.

«This is a book about the scientific challenge of the UFO phenomenon, not about the unreliability of human testimony. But it is useless to deny that the two subjects are linked together.» — acota el objeto del libro y a la vez admite que no puede separarse de la falibilidad del testimonio.

«To keep some order in the massive amount of data that seems to have clustered around me over the years, I have given mnemonic code names to some of the most interesting files. These codes are not meant to serve any security or secrecy objective. They are simply designed to capture the aspects of each case that make it unique, and that can assist in recollecting other details without a lot of searching.» — explica por qué usa nombres en clave mnemónicos para sus expedientes, y descarta expresamente el propósito de secreto.

«Throughout this section I have changed the names of all main witnesses to protect their privacy, even when they had allowed publication of their identity in the newspapers.» — declara que cambió los nombres de todos los testigos principales, incluso los que ya habían salido en la prensa.

«That does not mean, of course, that such witnesses do not tell the truth. Much of the progress of modern science has been accomplished by cranks and loons.» — matiza el retrato del testigo excéntrico: que lo sea no lo hace mentiroso, y buena parte del avance de la ciencia moderna vino de ahí.

«Interesting as the case was, however, I did not jump to investigate it. When a report makes the newspapers, as this one did, the witnesses are generally swamped by all the private research groups wanting more data and by a good number of individuals eager to get in on the general excitement. I figured the witnesses’ telephones were going to ring off the hook for the next few weeks, even though they had been careful to keep their names out of the newspaper. In a small town like Healdsburg it would not be hard to track them down. So I waited, and I heard through my friends in the research community that initial excitement about the case had been premature: although Travis Air Force Base was aware of no “unusual airborne activity,” it turned out that the Air National Guard had been conducting maneuvers that evening.» — por qué no salió corriendo al caso de Healdsburg y qué le llegó primero: una explicación por maniobras de la Guardia Nacional Aérea.

«My interest in the case was revived in late January 1978, about six months after the event, in the course of a discussion with Mark Uriarte, a friend and local investigator. He had taken the initiative to pursue the case, and he reported that the National Guard explanation simply did not hold water. True, there were maneuvers that night, but they were taking place over the ocean, well off the coast of Bodega Bay, forty miles from Healdsburg.» — lo que le reporta el investigador local Mark Uriarte: hubo maniobras, pero a cuarenta millas y sobre el océano.

«The light was “much brighter than the high beams of a car at the same distance,” she told me. “It was like the light was in my head.” Jeff told me the same thing, although in his case, seated on the left side, he was shielded by the roof of the car.» — los términos con que la señora Cray y su hijo Jeff describen la luz.

«They stopped another vehicle, occupied by a couple who confirmed the sighting. The woman, in fact, became quite excited, but her husband merely asked the Cray family, “Don’t you think it’s rather dangerous to be parked here?”» — el testigo independiente que la familia consiguió en la carretera, con su reacción.

«They were now going south on Old Redwood Highway. And suddenly it happened: the road was flooded with light.» — el momento del encuentro cercano según el relato que recoge.

«Jeff felt fine the next day but did not eat normally until the day after.» — el efecto fisiológico menor que consigna en uno de los testigos.

«No significant damage had been reported. For the wine connoisseurs among my readers, I must point out that, in the interest of completeness in my research, I did purchase two bottles of that particular year.» — lo que averigua sobre los viñedos del sitio, con el chiste sobre las dos botellas de esa cosecha que compró.

«The coincidence of the sighting with the National Guard maneuvers bothered me.» — declara qué le incomoda del caso, y es la coincidencia que favorece la explicación convencional.

«There was no reluctance on his part to discuss the possibility that the objects seen over Healdsburg represented a genuine unknown phenomenon.» — lo que constata en el coronel Grant Pyle: ninguna resistencia a discutir un fenómeno desconocido.

«He said the lights developed three million candlepower. On a clear night, which this was, they would be visible one hundred miles away.» — los datos técnicos que le da el coronel sobre los focos de los helicópteros.

«Since the flight time to Hayward is forty-five minutes, the craft were in their training area from 8:30 to 9:15 P.M.—a time interval that overlaps precisely with the UFO observations.» — la coincidencia horaria exacta que él mismo establece entre el entrenamiento militar y el avistamiento.

«It would be irresponsible to suggest that the objects first observed by the witnesses on Fitch Mountain could not have been the National Guard helicopters: the compass bearings, the times, and the altitude all check precisely, within five degrees of arc and five minutes of time! In fact, it is extremely rare to get such good agreement between a group of observers and the trajectory of a known phenomenon, a fact that speaks highly for the reliability and the accuracy of the Cray family’s sighting.» — concede la explicación militar para la primera parte del caso y saca de ahí lo contrario de un descrédito: dice que la coincidencia habla a favor de la fiabilidad y la exactitud de los testigos.

«The sighting over the winery is a high-class, well-documented close encounter.» — separa la segunda parte del caso, el encuentro sobre la bodega, de la explicación por helicópteros.

«I wish there were a science of things seen at night, and of froglike silhouettes hunting peaceful families on lonely country roads.» — la fórmula con que reconoce que no tiene disciplina donde encajar la silueta de rana del caso Winery Frog.

«These people told the truth, and the implications disturb me today as much as their experience disturbed them ten years ago in Healdsburg.» — el juicio con que cierra el caso: veracidad de los testigos y perturbación no resuelta.

«The event had taken place between 9:05 P.M. and 10:10 P.M. on Wednesday, May 7, 1980. The witnesses reported the case to the police, who referred them to a private UFO organization; since I had been investigating other cases in the Redding area, I was asked to join in the work.» — cómo llega al caso Smoke Alarm, de Redding, el 7 de mayo de 1980.

«In fact, Linda commented, “It’s as if God had sent this cloud to us.”» — la lectura religiosa que una de las testigos hace del episodio, recogida como parte del caso.

«All witnesses agreed that the weather was perfect, the stars were bright, with excellent visibility and no clouds.» — el dato meteorológico que hace anómala la nube del caso.

«All of the spots and marks could be explained as insect bites or ordinary scratches.» — lo que concede sobre las marcas cutáneas de los testigos de Redding.

«The sighting of a UFO is a complex event that cannot be analyzed purely on the basis of the story told by the witnesses.» — el principio metodológico con que ordena la investigación de Redding.

«The Anderson story matched that pattern with a precision that was uncanny.» — lo que le llama la atención del relato: encaja demasiado bien en el patrón conocido.

«The road on which they were driving is precisely in line with and about two miles from the main runway at Redding airport.» — el dato de sitio que orienta su sospecha hacia una causa aeroportuaria ordinaria.

«Mrs. Anderson said they seemed to be “floating along.” When they emerged from the cloud, they looked back but could see no trace of it behind the car.» — lo que la señora Anderson refiere de la nube luminosa: la sensación de flotar y que al salir no quedaba rastro detrás del coche.

«It seemed to her that “time had stopped,” but the feeling was not negative.» — la percepción de tiempo detenido que recoge de la testigo, con la reserva de que la sensación no fue negativa.

«In the present case, however, we had to reject this idea: there are no scheduled landings at Redding airport after 8:30 P.M. and the tower closes at 10:00.» — descarta la explicación por aterrizajes de Redding con el horario del aeropuerto.

«One would have to assume that the pilot would have been late in his flight plan, that the Andersons would not have recognized the noise of the engine, and that they would have mistaken the spray for a cloud.» — enumera los tres supuestos que exigiría la explicación por fumigación agrícola, y por eso la deja como forzada.

«A call to the FAA disclosed that the weather that night was clear, visibility eighty-five miles, wind from the north at eighteen knots. The wind would have pushed the plume in the same direction as the car rather than making it appear to travel toward them. And the flashing light would still be unexplained, unless we assumed that a train happened to come by at the same time, with its powerful oscillating white headlight.» — los datos meteorológicos de la FAA y la explicación por tren que quedaría pendiente.

«We find ourselves in a frustrating position in which we lack the information either to accept or to reject the sighting on the basis of the physical conditions at the site.» — la abstención declarada sobre el caso de Redding: faltan datos para aceptarlo y para rechazarlo.

«Although these two currents are superficially opposed to each other, in practice they blend to produce the peculiar philosophy of many small communities in northern California. Mount Shasta, which looms majestically less than an hour by car north of Redding, is a major center for this kind of belief. One finds communities there that worship Jesus as an “Ascended Master” (along with Count Saint Germain) and groups that await the day when the Lemurians will emerge from the depths of the earth to board their spaceships.» — cómo describe la mezcla de sectas cristianas fundamentalistas y creencias ocultistas del norte de California, con el Monte Shasta como centro, Jesús y el Conde de Saint Germain como *Ascended Masters* y los lemurianos esperando sus naves.

«Against this spiritual background, the experience of the Anderson family takes on special meaning; every event in their life seems to assume providential proportion, evidenced by Linda’s statement that it was “as if God had sent this cloud to us.”» — usa ese trasfondo para leer el sentido providencial que la familia da a cada suceso.

«Two years before the cloudburst incident, in January 1978, Mrs. Anderson saw a dark brown object, with five black pipes protruding from it, in the sky.» — el antecedente de la propia testigo, dos años antes del episodio de la nube.

«The other witnesses appear to be embarrassed by this behavior and frequently try to change the subject.» — la reacción de los demás testigos ante ese comportamiento, consignada como dato del caso.

«The second example of exaggeration had to do with the medical record, in which a nurse had noted: Needs CBC and differential per suggestion Washington, D.C., official.» — la anotación de enfermería que documenta la exageración: el investigador convertido en funcionario de Washington.

«I saw this as evidence of a need for official validation and for ego gratification on the part of the witness, and as a signal that she was perhaps uncertain about the validity of her own experience.» — cómo interpreta esas exageraciones: necesidad de validación oficial y quizá duda de la propia testigo sobre lo suyo.

«It has taught me to ask questions at a much more detailed and critical level than I would have assumed to be necessary.» — lo que el caso le enseña de método.

«This pattern of intense beliefs about the paranormal and of exaggerations in statements made about the case should naturally make us cautious about the event, but it does not mean that the Andersons have invented the whole sighting. I came back from Redding with the opinion that they were not lying, that they had seen something unusual, and that I would probably never know what it was.» — la conclusión doble del caso: cautela por las creencias y las exageraciones, y a la vez que no inventaron nada; sale de Redding sin saber qué vieron.

«Certainly the spots on the skin are not supportive of any UFO involvement.» — descarta las marcas cutáneas como apoyo del caso.

«A hardened skeptic of UFO phenomena would have come back from Redding with a whole repertoire of ready answers. The so-called sighting could be a hoax. Perhaps something like a bag of plaster simply fell from the truck that Mrs. Anderson was follow ing, releasing a cloud of smoke or dust. She did not see the truck turn away or disappear, so it must have driven off while her car was engulfed in the so-called “fog.”» — reconstruye el repertorio que traería un escéptico endurecido —fraude, un saco de yeso caído del camión, la niebla que oculta su marcha— sin suscribirlo.

«A hardened UFO believer, on the other hand, would immediately have hypnotized the four witnesses, who were more than willing subjects. I have no doubt that it would have been easy to expand the testimony about scars, mysterious spots, and gunmen in gray into an elaborate drama featuring UFO occupants abducting attractive teenagers to subject them to medical examinations. The current UFO literature is filled with lurid stories retrieved under exactly such conditions from witnesses who are eager to cooperate in constructing cases of cosmic proportions.» — y el repertorio simétrico del creyente: hipnosis a cuatro testigos dispuestos y un drama de abducción construido sobre cicatrices y manchas.

«The most important component of this case may well be the social and psychological dimension. I have mentioned that Mrs. Anderson, the main witness here, was “very religious.” That first impression of mine turned out to be an understatement. The belief structure that surrounds the family is typical of a mystical obsession that borders on cultism. This obsession is widespread in the Redding area, where channeling, speaking in tongues, and other spiritual practices flourish under the combined impetus of fundamentalist» — dónde pone el peso del caso, y con qué diagnóstico del entorno de Redding: canalización, glosolalia y una obsesión mística rayana en el cultismo. La frase sigue en la plana siguiente nombrando sectas cristianas fundamentalistas y creencias ocultistas crecidas desde los años sesenta.

«It is a strange impression, coming back empty-handed after all that work, and feeling that I had somehow let down the Anderson family. Not only was I not the Air Force official of their dream, but I was not even sure they had seen a UFO at all!» — cómo describe el saldo del caso de Redding, con la sensación de haber defraudado a los testigos.

«The public is disappointed and angry at an expert who dares say, “I don’t know.” Yet I really don’t know what Mrs. Anderson and her daughters saw that evening in Redding. In all probability, I must accept the fact that I never will.» — reivindica el *no lo sé* contra la expectativa del público, y lo aplica al caso propio.

«It was big and I just saw it as it was going away…. I could see from the panel of all the lights to the top was triangularly shaped [sic].» — el testimonio del marido en el caso de Gilroy, con el *sic* que la fuente imprime.

«All four witnesses were very upset and Mrs. Smith kept saying, “Why me? Why me?” All four witnesses were of good moral character and did not seem to be drinking.» — la valoración de los testigos que recoge del informe, incluida la frase repetida de la señora Smith.

«It is at that meeting that I learned not only the details of the sighting but the experiences of the family at the hands of UFO enthusiasts, reporters, and crackpots.» — lo que aprende en la entrevista además del avistamiento: lo que la familia sufrió a manos de entusiastas, prensa y chiflados.

«The son put it succinctly. After their sighting was published in newspapers, along with their names and address, he said, “Everything went wrong and all the bullshit came out.”» — el resumen que hace el hijo de lo que siguió a la publicación de sus nombres y dirección.

«Even more harmful was an effort by two Bay Area representatives of a nationwide UFO organization to extract from Mrs. Victor every possible bit of information about her experience. They had brought with them an amateur hypnotist, who got down to business and placed Mrs. Victor in a trance. The hypnotic session quickly turned into a disaster. Mrs. Victor, a former nurse, reacted to some parts of the sighting and subsequent events with evidence of deep stress, and became very agitated; her body temperature dropped drastically, much to the alarm of the investigators who did not know how to bring her out of the trance. According to Mrs. Victor, she ran a serious risk of cardiac problems when the hypnotist finally woke her up.» — el episodio que denuncia: dos representantes de una organización ufológica nacional exprimiendo a la testigo, con riesgo cardíaco al despertarla.

«It was only two weeks before my visit that they had been reunited, a fact that reinforced my belief that when a sighting is highly publicized, the witnesses are best left alone for some time. Not only is it more ethical to proceed this way, but the quality of an investigation can improve once interest has died down.» — la regla de trato que deriva del caso: dejar en paz al testigo publicitado, por ética y porque la investigación mejora.

«They were hysterical, said Imelda, because they thought the object “was going to take everyone away.”» — lo que la hija refiere del pánico de la familia ante el objeto.

«The hypnotic session quickly turned into a disaster. Mrs. Victor, a former nurse, reacted to some parts of the sighting and subsequent events with evidence of deep stress, and became very agitated; her body temperature dropped drastically, much to the alarm of the investigators who did not know how to bring her out of the trance. According to Mrs. Victor, she ran a serious risk of cardiac problems when the hypnotist finally woke her up. Hurriedly gathering their tape recorders, he and his entourage flew out the door, leaving her in a fit of anguish. She feels that this traumatic treatment contributed to a family crisis.» — el desenlace de la sesión hipnótica según la propia testigo: un desastre que contribuyó a la crisis familiar.

«She felt very calm when she saw them. They communicated with her “telepathically,” asking her to “go up with them.”» — lo que la señora Victor refiere del segundo encuentro: comunicación telepática e invitación a subir.

«“Don’t worry about your friend,” one of the beings replied as he and his companion lifted Mrs. Victor by her elbows.» — el detalle del relato en que los seres la levantan por los codos.

«They floated inside the object through its “core” and followed a ramp that ascended through at least three levels. One of the beings stayed with her, leading her to a circular room with an emerald-green floor, illuminated with a milky white light. The walls were soft silver, with large round instruments. She had a sensation of intense beauty.» — el interior de la nave según la testigo: una rampa que asciende por al menos tres niveles.

«On May 15, 1978, another strange experience happened to Mrs. Victor, although it was not connected with a UFO sighting.» — marca expresamente que el ataque posterior a la testigo no venía con avistamiento.

«In their eagerness to obtain definite answers, or simply to validate their own preconceptions about the extraterrestrial nature of the phenomenon, many investigators rush in, demanding answers, where they should first try to attend to the trauma and the stress surrounding the witnesses—even if that means postponing the inquiry itself by a few days or a few weeks. The most simple considerations of ethics demand this.» — el reproche de método y de ética: atender primero al trauma del testigo, aunque haya que aplazar la indagación.

«In a case like the sighting by Mrs. Victor, hypnotic regression may be of considerable help. In the hands of a medical professional it could have relieved the mounting family crisis and provided useful details blocked by the witness because they were terrifying or challenged her sense of reality. Since future hypnotic sessions are generally conditioned by the very first regression, it is doubtful that the Victor case could be reopened. Although Mrs. Victor called me following my visit to say that she now felt ready to undergo hypnosis, my conclusion was that the shock of the first bungled attempt would bias any new results.» — concede que la regresión hipnótica bien hecha habría servido, y explica por qué ya no: la primera sesión condiciona las siguientes.

«The literature of religious miracles and the lives of mystics abounds with well-documented accounts of physical manifestations, including beatings, that are usually classified as possession phenomena or manifestations of so-called evil powers, although they generally do not cause permanent harm to the person. This body of literature should be diligently studied by those who are serious about investigating UFO sightings.» — manda estudiar la literatura de milagros religiosos y de vidas de místicos —con sus palizas por agentes invisibles— a quien investigue avistamientos en serio.

«Given the circumstances, however, this is another case in which the real truth may never be known.» — la abstención con que cierra el caso Gilroy.

«I have offered my own tentative conclusions; they are highly vulnerable to a revision in the investigation, or to new data that may come to light.» — declara sus conclusiones como revisables y expuestas a datos nuevos.

«The witness, Father Desnoes, described the events taking place one evening as he prayed near Marie-Therese, who was gravely ill: After a while, as she seemed about to doze off, a violent blow like a punch from a fist to her back sent her to the side of the bed. She did not utter any complaint, not even a sigh. She resumed her position quietly. After a while the same thing took place again. The priest heard a violent punch at the same time the nun’s body was projected forward, with the back bent by the assault.» — el caso de la religiosa Marie-Therese, en el relato del padre Desnoes que reproduce; en la fuente el nombre alterna con guion y sin él.

«I came away from my two trips to Gilroy with a feeling of anger and frustration. Witnesses like Mrs. Victor and her family should be helped, not thrown into further confusion by those who investigate the UFO mystery.» — el saldo del caso de Gilroy, y lo que le reclama a quien investiga el misterio ovni.

«Such phenomena occurred throughout the life of Marie-Therese, who frequently suffered visible bruises from such attacks. Similar effects abound in the lives of saints, mystics, and, of course, the subjects of exorcism.» — empareja el ataque invisible del caso de Gilroy con las vidas de santos, místicos y sujetos de exorcismo; el nombre va aquí sin guion de corte.

«Having met Mrs. Victor and her family, I reached the conclusion that an anomalous event did happen to them and that the sighting was authentic. The abduction experience, which took place one month later, could have been a source of extremely valuable insight if the data had been handled in a professional manner.» — lo que sí da por establecido en Gilroy: el avistamiento fue auténtico, y la abducción se perdió por mal manejo profesional de los datos.

«The three chapters you have just read, which constitute Part Two of this book, can be summed up in one recommendation: do not take anything for granted. This is a field where every statement should be verified, every assumption challenged. How to maintain this critical attitude while keeping an open mind is very difficult.» — resume la segunda parte en una recomendación, y admite la dificultad de sostenerla.

«Every serious UFO amateur knows about the Vidal case; it is one of the most important UFO incidents in Latin America. The Vidals left Buenos Aires one evening to meet some people for dinner in Mar del Plata. They never arrived. Their car ended up in Mexico. They had found themselves engulfed in a thick cloud of fog and had lost all sense of time.» — presenta el caso Vidal como uno de los más importantes de América Latina antes de desmontarlo.

«The police called the space research center, and investigators from GEPAN went to the site. They verified all the statements, ascertained the trajectory, and saw the dead fish. It seemed like a genuine UFO case with remarkable biological effects. GEPAN went one step further and ordered an autopsy of the fish. The biologists reported that the fish had died of poisoning! It was not a UFO event after all. An electrical phenomenon had traveled along a power line suspended above the pond, melting the insulating material that fell into the water and poisoned the fish.» — el caso francés que parecía ovni con efectos biológicos y resultó ser una línea eléctrica: la autopsia de los peces dio envenenamiento.

«The lessons are clear: one must not only pursue every possible lead but keep an open mind about the whole pattern.» — la lección doble que saca: perseguir toda pista y no cerrar el patrón entero.

«This doesn’t sound like much of an achievement, but it is more than can be said about the cases cited in many UFO books, which are based on hearsay or secondhand sources. Such books have their utility, of course. I have published a few myself, including the first catalogue of close» — sitúa su declaración mínima por encima de los libros ufológicos basados en oídas, y se incluye a sí mismo entre quienes los publicaron: la frase cruza a la plana siguiente, donde dice que de su primer catálogo de encuentros cercanos solo pudo verificar unos pocos casos y que su propósito era estadístico.

«obtaining maps at different scales; writing to the weather bureau to check the temperature, the cloud cover, the wind. If nothing else, this information enables an investigator to assess the validity and the accuracy of the recall by witnesses, and to ground the case in physical reality.» — el procedimiento de rutina que prescribe —mapas a varias escalas, oficina meteorológica— y para qué sirve aunque no explique nada: medir la exactitud del recuerdo y anclar el caso en lo físico.

«When I visited Argentina it was one of the first cases I inquired about. My Argentine friends laughed. They had spent years looking for the Vidals. They kept finding people who knew people who knew the Vidals, even a few people who personally claimed they knew the Vidals. But they never found the Vidals.» — cómo se deshace el caso Vidal en el terreno: gente que conocía a gente que los conocía, y nunca los Vidal.

«Perhaps the most important point to remember is to separate the physical parameters of the sighting from the testimony itself and the psychosociological characteristics of the witness and the environment. Each of these factors needs to be assessed independently of the others. Otherwise, the resulting synthesis is often invalid.» — la regla de método que llama más importante: evaluar por separado parámetros físicos, testimonio y contexto psicosociológico.

«Another important lesson from this experience concerns the uselessness of Occam’s razor. This expression is applied to a rule of thinking in science that states that one should never invoke a complex hypothesis when a simple one will fit. It all depends, of course, on what one means by “simple.” The theory of a spherical earth spinning around the universe with over fourteen different motions is incredibly complex when compared to the elegant theory of a flat, motionless earth, with the sun and the celestial bodies simple lamps carried around by angels.» — el argumento contra la navaja de Occam: qué cuente como simple depende del marco, y la Tierra plana con lámparas llevadas por ángeles es más elegante que la esférica.

«In UFO research, as in other fields of science, one is frequently forced to set aside Occam’s razor and to accept the frustrating complexity of the physical world—and the even more complex reality of the human beings within it.» — la consecuencia que saca: aceptar la complejidad del mundo físico y la más compleja de las personas.

«Until recently, every time I returned from yet another investigation, or simply from an interview with another witness, I would be more puzzled by the complexity and the subtlety of the phenomenon; I would find myself reduced to conjectures about the form of consciousness that stands behind it and about its motivation.» — cómo describe el efecto acumulado del trabajo de campo antes de formular su conjetura.

«This notion is too simplistic to explain their appearance, the frequency of their manifestations throughout recorded history, and the structure of the information exchange with them during contact.» — los tres motivos por los que llama simplista la hipótesis de la nave extraterrestre: las apariciones, su frecuencia a lo largo de la historia registrada y la estructura del intercambio de información en el contacto.

«Instead, I have argued that an understanding of the UFO phenomenon would come only when we expanded our view of the physical universe beyond the classic» — lo que exige a cambio para entender el fenómeno: ampliar la visión del universo físico más allá del modelo clásico de cuatro dimensiones del espacio-tiempo.

«Like other paranormal phenomena, UFOs seem to be able to operate outside of known spacetime constraints.» — los pone junto a los demás fenómenos paranormales por la misma propiedad: operar fuera de las restricciones conocidas del espacio-tiempo.

«In this sense, they provide science with an extraordinary opportunity to enrich its physical models and perhaps to give us a new picture of our relationship to the universe, a new avenue of communication with forms of consciousness we have not yet recognized, perhaps including undiscovered levels of our own human consciousness.» — lo que le concede al fenómeno como oportunidad: enriquecer los modelos físicos y abrir comunicación con formas de conciencia no reconocidas, incluidas las propias.

«While a full understanding of the structure of the UFO phenomenon is beyond our grasp, we do have not only physical but also biological data that can teach us something about the forms of energy it uses.» — acota lo que sí se puede saber hoy: no la estructura del fenómeno, sí las formas de energía que emplea.

«All biological systems are affected by close exposure to this phenomenon. The impact can range from simple transitory effects to permanent change or even death. In humans we are now able to categorize the types of symptoms that develop after close encounters.» — la generalización que hace del material biológico, con el rango que va del efecto transitorio a la muerte.

«Mrs. Kirk’s story was very straightforward.» — califica el testimonio del caso californiano de la nube anómala; *Kirk* es seudónimo puesto por él, no el nombre de la testigo.

«The cloud moved directly over her while the neighborhood’s dogs began barking. Mrs. Kirk could still see under and behind the cloud, but she observed no stars above it. She had a short spell of dizziness. Suddenly it started raining, and a forty-foot tree nearby bent as if whipped by some tremendous force, although the witness felt no wind. With that final display, the cloud disappeared. Instead of a cloud there were now two big lights in the sky: a steady green light and a steady red light, slowly moving north without any sound. Soon she could see only the red light; it was large and hovered. “It was bright red,” Mrs. Kirk said, “like the light of an ambulance, but bigger for that distance.” It moved to the top of a hill, in the direction in which the cloud had first appeared; it was still hovering there when Mrs. Kirk, feeling cold, decided to go back inside. The witness had felt nothing except the spurt of rain.» — el episodio según la testigo: la nube encima, los perros ladrando y ninguna sensación salvo el chorro de lluvia.

«My examination of the site did not reveal any natural factor that could explain accelerated growth of plants in that small area. There is a grassy patch some distance to the right where the washing machine empties, and there is a small vegetable garden to the left, but nothing special at the spot itself. Conditions returned to normal after three years and a follow-up visit in August 1979 found no unusual plants.» — el resultado de su propia inspección del sitio, y el seguimiento de tres años después que devuelve todo a la normalidad.

«An analysis by the regional center of agricultural research found an abnormal level of calcium at the site, according to the June 1987 issue of the Italian UFO Reporter.» — el dato italiano del calcio anómalo, con la publicación de la que lo toma.

«I am indebted to Jean-Jacques Velasco, chief of GEPAN in Toulouse, and to Professor Michel Bounias of the National Institute of Agronomy Research in Avignon for the details of their investigation, which was published by GEPAN in summary form in March 1983.» — declara la fuente del caso de Trans-en-Provence: el jefe del GEPAN en Toulouse y el profesor Michel Bounias del INRA en Aviñón.

«At that point, Mr. Nicolai, who was less than one hundred feet from the landing site, saw four openings about six inches in diameter on the underside of the object, from which neither smoke nor flames were emitted. The object had been on the ground for over ten seconds. Once the object was gone, the witness noticed a circular imprint six feet in diameter, with some abrasion areas clearly in evidence at several points in the circle. The object itself had a diameter of eight feet and a height of six feet, was metallic gray in color, and had a thick band around it.» — lo que el testigo Renato Nicolai describe del objeto a menos de treinta metros: cuatro aberturas sin humo ni llama, y las medidas del aparato.

«The gendarmerie in Draguignan came to the site the morning of Friday, January 9, took photographs, and collected soil samples.» — la intervención oficial inmediata en Trans-en-Provence, al día siguiente del suceso.

«In subsequent physical examinations, GEPAN found that the earth inside the ring had been compacted with a tough crust a quarter of an inch thick, predominantly composed of calcium, with very few traces of desiccated vegetation.» — lo que el GEPAN encuentra en el anillo: costra compactada de un cuarto de pulgada, de calcio.

«The summary of these analyses confirmed that strong mechanical pressure had been applied to the soil by a heavy weight, causing erosion, striation, and heating (not exceeding 600° C), and detectable traces of oxidous iron or grains of calcium, with minute quantities of phosphate and zinc.» — el resumen de los análisis del suelo: presión mecánica fuerte, erosión, estriación y calentamiento por debajo de 600 grados.

«These observations were consistent with advanced senescence; everything worked as if the aging of the plants had been accelerated by the proximity of the phenomenon.» — cómo lee las alteraciones de las plantas: envejecimiento acelerado, enunciado con un *como si*.

«However, the resulting effects are not consistent with nuclear irradiation, and Professor Bounias refused to speculate on the nature of the non-ionizing irradiation that could have been responsible for this acceleration of the aging process.» — la abstención del propio investigador: Bounias descarta la irradiación nuclear y se niega a especular sobre la no ionizante.

«But we will complete this chapter with another classic case that combines traumatic botanical observations with a well-defined physiological impact on the witness himself. VALENSOLE The Valensole case is the best-authenticated close encounter incident in continental Europe. It involved hard traces, botanical data, physiological data, and detailed descriptions of beings associated with the object. It was investigated on the very day of the event by French government agencies, which concluded that the witness was not lying or hallucinating.» — presenta el caso de Valensole por lo que junta —efecto botánico y efecto fisiológico— y consigna el dictamen oficial francés del mismo día.

«It took twenty minutes for the witness to regain control of his muscles.» — el efecto fisiológico central del caso: veinte minutos hasta recuperar el control muscular.

«His sleep patterns were drastically affected in the days following the event, and he underwent a significant change of behavior.» — las secuelas que consigna del testigo de Valensole.

«Although he has not reported his subsequent observations to the press or to the authorities, it is known that he has seen the object, or a similar one, on other occasions, and that he is in touch with other witnesses of close encounters in the region.» — lo que sabe del testigo pese a su discreción con prensa y autoridades.

«As for the plants, they were affected by the proximity of the phenomenon, and started to decay in direct proportion to the distance from the central column. The calcium content of the soil at the landing site was found to be much higher than in the soil taken from other places in the field.» — el gradiente vegetal según la distancia a la columna central, y el calcio elevado del suelo del sitio.

«He declined to discuss the “paralysis” he had felt at the time. As for religious interpretations of what he had seen, he rejected them completely. Mr. Masse did confide to us that he had seen an object again, at night, on his other property. He became enthusiastic and almost lyrical when describing it.» — el contraste de actitud del testigo: se niega a hablar de la parálisis y se vuelve casi lírico describiendo el objeto.

«It is also clear that Masse has never told the entire truth about his experience. From the beginning he tried to minimize its impact. He told the gendarmes that the two beings were in reality “like kids,” that they had hair, that only one of them was outside the craft.» — consigna que el testigo de Valensole ocultó parte de lo suyo y lo que sí dijo a los gendarmes.

«It is only the next day, when the secret became too heavy, that he burst into tears and told the truth: there were two entities, they had large bald heads, they were unlike anything he had seen before.» — el momento en que Masse dice lo que había callado: dos entidades de grandes cabezas calvas.

«He also told us that he no longer irrigated his field at night, implying that he did not care to see the object again.» — el efecto duradero en la conducta del testigo, dicho por él mismo.

«I was struck by the difference between this region, where the most remarkable sightings are kept as personal secrets by the witnesses who pride themselves on hiding significant parts of the experience from the police, the scientists, and the reporters, and the usual situation in the United States, where any reported sighting attracts hundreds of emulators, all clamoring for attention.» — el contraste que traza entre el testigo francés que guarda el secreto y la situación estadounidense donde el avistamiento atrae emuladores.

«José could see them for a long time, although he never reported them to anyone. When he came home, his wife commented that he was white as if the blood had drained from his face. He was unable to sleep that night. In 1977 José had another, even more striking experience in broad daylight and fine weather. He was driving his tractor, a John Deere diesel in excellent condition, when the engine died suddenly. His transistor radio, powered by batteries, stopped working as well. He then became aware of a sort of whirlwind or atmospheric vortex to his right. Although he could not see any object, there was a definite phenomenon that moved away from him and ascended along the ridge, twisting the tops of the pine trees violently as it moved up, scattering leaves from other tall trees.» — lo que el primo del amigo del testigo describe: rastros en el trigo y un fenómeno invisible que retuerce las copas de los pinos.

«But when I asked about the batteries, José told me that one of them was found completely dry a few days after the sighting.» — el dato material que él mismo va a buscar preguntando: una batería seca días después.

«If the UFO phenomenon involves not only the devices with which we have been familiar for many years, but invisible objects as well, then all our ideas about potential “evidence” have to be revised.» — la consecuencia que saca de un fenómeno sin objeto visible: hay que rehacer la idea misma de evidencia.

«Although he hints that he is now aware of some abilities he had never known before his sighting, Maurice Masse has not become mystical in his thinking.» — lo que sostiene de Maurice Masse: hay capacidades nuevas insinuadas y no hay giro místico.

«Here again, I do not pretend to draw an exhaustive picture of the biological effects that accompany UFOs, but only to rely on a few well-investigated cases with which I am familiar to build a base for future research.» — acota el alcance del capítulo botánico: unos pocos casos bien investigados como base, no un cuadro exhaustivo.

«Mr. Masse did confide to us that he had seen an object again, at night, on his other property. He became enthusiastic and almost lyrical when describing it. “It was beautiful,” he said, “with many colors, pretty colors, all whirling around.” The colors changed so quickly he could not see them clearly. “When you want to look at the blue, it’s already red.”» — el segundo avistamiento que el testigo le confía, con sus palabras sobre el cambio de color.

«reported in error: there were only four legs, he said, rather than six.» — la corrección que el testigo introduce sobre su propio testimonio, años después; la frase arranca al pie de la p. 89.

«Not only did the earlier condition disappear completely (although it had been tested and established without any doubt by military physicians), but Dr. X also had a subsequent spontaneous healing of an open fracture.» — el efecto médico central del caso: desaparición de una lesión documentada por médicos militares y curación espontánea de una fractura abierta.

«Aimé Michel suspected a psychosomatic effect because the witness had had a dream in which the object he had seen was associated with a triangular shape. But when the same shape appeared on the abdomen of the child, and when the same phenomena recurred in successive years, the psychosomatic explanation had to be discounted.» — la hipótesis psicosomática que Aimé Michel plantea y por qué él mismo la descarta: la marca triangular apareció también en el niño.

«He stated that the desquamation (dry skin) consisted of dead cells, but that he could not speculate on their probable origin.» — el dictamen del dermatólogo consultado, con su abstención sobre el origen.

«When I visited Dr. X and his family for the first time in May 1979, Aimé Michel and I spent the day reconstructing the events and the subsequent experiences reported by the witness, none of which have been published in the UFO literature.» — declara la procedencia del material: reconstrucción con Aimé Michel en mayo de 1979, inédito en la literatura ufológica.

«He suddenly heard a whistling noise “inside his head,” he told us, and “had the impulse” to go back to his hotel room. When he returned, the manager told him that someone was on the phone waiting to speak to him. The voice was that of a man who assured him vociferously that they would soon “meet in [the town where Dr. X lived] to discuss what you have seen.”» — el episodio telefónico del caso, en las palabras del testigo.

«The man astonished Dr. X when he began the conversation by apologizing for the strange happenings around his home; in fact, since the sighting, Dr. X and his wife had reportedly been plagued by poltergeist activity and by unexplained disturbances in the electrical circuits.» — lo que el testigo reporta del desconocido y de los fenómenos de casa: poltergeist y perturbaciones eléctricas.

«In subsequent meetings the man instructed Dr. X in various paranormal matters, causing him to experience teleportation and time travel, including a distressing episode with alternative landscapes on a road that “does not exist,” according to Dr. X, who has no explanation for these episodes.» — lo que el testigo refiere de aquellas instrucciones —teletransportación, viaje en el tiempo, un camino que no existe— y su propia falta de explicación.

«Although neither Aimé Michel nor I was in a position to verify the reality of these aliens, we did receive the proof of Dr. X’s unusual musical talent when he sat at the piano and gave an astounding rendition of the “Dies Irae” by Liszt.» — separa expresamente lo que no pudo verificar de lo que sí presenció: el talento musical del testigo al piano.

«But there is no indication that Dr. X is prone to such fugues.» — descarta la fuga disociativa como explicación del episodio de desaparición.

«The best indication that a genuine, unexplained phenomenon has affected Dr. X comes from the medical evidence itself.» — dónde sitúa la prueba del caso: en el expediente médico, no en el relato.

«The two objects moved slowly, got closer to one another, emitted small sparks between their horizontal antennas, and eventually merged into a single object that changed course and came toward him.» — el avistamiento de los dos discos en el caso del llamado Dr. X, noviembre de 1968.

«He computed the actual size of the disks: they had a diameter of two hundred feet and were about fifty feet thick.» — las dimensiones que el propio testigo calcula del objeto.

«Such episodes of fugues in otherwise normal, intelligent people are not rare: I know of such an episode in a leading computer scientist who disappeared completely (and innocently) for a week, much to the dismay of the major company that employed him and of the government agencies with which he held high-level security clearances. But there is no indication that Dr. X is prone to such fugues. His wife confirms the phone call from Paris.» — el precedente que invoca —un informático que desapareció una semana— y por qué no le sirve aquí.

«are well attested, and the recurrence of the triangular discoloration on his abdomen has been verified in successive years.» — el estado de la evidencia médica del caso; la frase arranca al pie de la p. 97 con la remisión de la herida de guerra y el hematoma.

«As recently as November 1984 my friend Jean-Yves Casgha, a radio reporter for France-Inter, observed and filmed the gradual appearance of the triangle (plate 8). He went further, and arranged for thermographic examinations to be made during the episode (on November 2) and when the skin had returned to normal (on November 16). Photographs were taken with and without cooling on both occasions (plate 10).» — la documentación posterior de la marca triangular por el reportero de France-Inter Jean-Yves Casgha, con examen termográfico en dos fechas.

«While a 1958 decision of Veterans Administration doctors witnessed a “motor deficiency of the upper right and lower right members with Babinski syndrome and paresthesia with prickling and numbing,” a medical report signed on January 8, 1985, concluded: The neurological examination is normal; one does not find any sign of Babinski syndrome or any deficiencies in the sense of balance.» — los dos documentos médicos que enfrenta —el peritaje de 1958 y el informe de 1985— como prueba de la remisión.

«On December 9, 1968 (five weeks after Dr. X’s sighting), a customs officer in Lima, Peru, reported that he had seen a UFO from the terrace of his house and that a purple beam had “hit” him in the face. He was astonished to discover that he no longer needed his eyeglasses, which corrected for myopia, and that his rheumatism was gone.» — el caso peruano de Lima, con el rayo púrpura y las curaciones que el testigo declara.

«An engineer named Emmano Manurio, who investigated the case for APRO, computed the distance of the object at approximately 1½ miles. The witness, he said, experienced a “paralyzing fear” that placed him in a state close to ecstasy for two to three minutes.» — los datos del investigador de APRO sobre el mismo caso: distancia calculada y el miedo paralizante próximo al éxtasis.

«In many cases pilots involved in close encounters suffered psychic damage of some obscure form and were transferred to other units.» — lo que recoge sobre pilotos tras encuentros cercanos, sin precisar la forma del daño.

«The peculiar geometrical skin discoloration is also not unique. A U.S. Air Force medical expert has reported to me the details of one case he investigated in Tyler, Texas, in 1979.» — sitúa la marca geométrica como recurrente y cita un caso investigado por un médico de la Fuerza Aérea estadounidense.

«He concluded that the akinesia triggered by the UFO experience acted on the central nervous system.7 Some experiments conducted with magnetic fields are also relevant here. Work by Hodgkin has shown that cells produce and absorb different ions when they release energy.8 A report authored by a French researcher of the “biological impact of electromagnetic installations” has explored the possibility for intense magnetic fields to influence the trajectories of these ions. A series of experiments conducted on mice by Guiot with fields ranging from 12,000 to 23,000 oersteds gave effects that included the inhibition of defensive reflexes, the inducement of sleep, the creation of a convulsive state, or even death.9 Other, more sophisticated models involving the direct action of pulsed electromagnetic radiation on muscle cells have been developed recently by French researchers, but I am not at liberty to publish the details of the work. It is noteworthy that microwave effects impacting the central nervous system could cause the witnesses to experience hallucinations, a fact that may be important in the interpretation of many close encounter cases or abductions with absurd factors.» — adjudica al mismo especialista la conclusión sobre el sistema nervioso central, y añade que un efecto de microondas ahí podría producir alucinaciones —lo que a su juicio importa para los casos con factores absurdos.

«Yet such a physical interpretation fails to account for the full range of the observations that are recorded in the literature.» — el límite que él mismo pone a la explicación física.

«In a careful review of the effects of UFOs upon people, James McCampbell has noted that the often-reported phenomenon of sunburns could not be due to ultraviolet radiation alone (since it often appears in areas of skin covered with clothing, which would stop ultraviolet waves) but is best explained by microwaves. At onecentimeter wavelength, people can feel definite warmth at less than one-tenth the energy flux from the sun. As noted by McCampbell, “Burns would naturally be caused by much higher intensities.”» — el argumento de James McCampbell contra la radiación ultravioleta: las quemaduras aparecen bajo la ropa, y eso apunta a microondas.

«The label paralysis really does not apply to this effect, which is more properly akinesia: the difficulty or the impossibility» — corrige el término con que se describe el efecto: no parálisis sino acinesia, dificultad o imposibilidad de iniciar el movimiento. La frase cruza el corte de plana.

«One medical specialist, Dr. Daniel Mavrakis, has noted that in such UFO episodes “the posture tonus is not affected, the subject keeps his balance and does not fall.» — lo que el especialista observa en estos episodios: el tono postural se conserva y el sujeto no cae.

«The clinical data that have been collected by serious investigators of the UFO phenomenon thus form an impressive body of empirical facts. Various explanations have been proposed, from magnetic fields to pulsed microwaves. They account for some of the effects, although no single explanation accounts for all the phenomena.» — el balance del capítulo clínico: cuerpo empírico apreciable y ninguna explicación única, ni por campos magnéticos ni por microondas pulsadas.

«Given the complexity of the reported observations, I propose to postpone the analysis of these effects, and to consider carefully the evidence from the most extreme cases: those that involve lasting injury or death.» — la decisión de método con que abre el capítulo letal: aplazar el análisis y ceñirse a los casos extremos.

«On my return from my first trip to Brazil, I decided to place a high priority on cases where encounters with the phenomenon had resulted in fatalities similar to the Niterói tragedy. My purpose in gathering this kind of information was twofold: I felt it was high time to bring these cases to the attention of forensic experts, and I wanted to carefully prepare a return trip to Brazil to continue fieldwork. I found that the list of such fatalities was more significant than the general UFO literature indicated. Furthermore, it was getting longer.» — por qué prioriza las muertes y qué encuentra: la lista es mayor que lo que la literatura ufológica dejaba ver, y sigue creciendo.

«The year was 1946 and two men, Joao Prestes Filho and his friend Salvador dos Santos, were returning from a fishing trip near the Brazilian village of Aracriguama. As they reached the village where they lived, they bade one another farewell and went their separate ways. The time was 7:00 P.M. An hour later Prestes showed up at his sister’s home with a strange story. A beam of light had hit him as he was reaching his front door. It stunned and blinded him. He fell to the ground, without losing consciousness. He managed to get up and make his way to her house. That same evening Prestes’s condition deteriorated rapidly. Witnesses said that his flesh literally detached itself from his bones. It was as if it had been boiled in hot water for a long time, so that his skin and the underlying tissue fell off. Prestes was not in pain but was understandably in an increasing state of terror. Soon he was unable to speak. The villagers placed him in a cart, intending to take him to the hospital, but he died en route, about six hours after having been hit by the beam of light. He remained conscious until the end.» — el caso brasileño de Joao Prestes Filho, 1946, según lo que le refieren los testigos; la grafía del nombre va como la imprime la fuente.

«When his body was brought back, the flesh had fallen off to the point where the corpse looked “decomposed.”» — el estado del cuerpo al volver a la aldea, y quiénes firmaron el certificado: vecinos sin formación médica.

«According to a private researcher, Harry Helms, Jr., Raimundo was interrogated by the local police chief, Lt. Wilson Lisboa, and by a priest, Father José Avila Garcia, who found no contradictions in the story and no indication of foul play.1 A psychiatrist, Dr. Joan Antumes de Oliveira, examined the boy and stated he was normal and “telling what he thinks is the truth.”» — quiénes examinaron al testigo del caso —el jefe de policía, un sacerdote y un psiquiatra— y el dictamen de este último, con su reserva.

«If accidents are included in the study, along with cases in which victims are directly exposed to a hostile light, the list of deaths related to UFO cases becomes significantly longer.» — la condición bajo la cual la lista de muertes crece: contar los accidentes junto a la exposición directa a una luz hostil.

«In the spring of 1959, according to Navy physicist Dr. Bruce Maccabee, a U.S. Air Force jet was ordered to intercept a stationary object that had been picked up on radar off the northeastern coast of Japan.» — el caso de intercepción aérea que atribuye al físico naval Bruce Maccabee.

«One of the most carefully investigated cases, which took place on October 21, 1978, over the Tasmanian Sea, has never been solved.» — el caso del mar de Tasmania de 1978, declarado sin resolver.

«She had claimed to receive messages from “a higher power” instructing her to await the arrival of a flying saucer.3 Landis was found in the front seat of a car, which had run out of gas a few hundred feet off the road. The autopsy showed that she had died of hypothermia, dehydration, and starvation.» — el caso de la mujer que esperaba un platillo por mensajes de una potencia superior, con la causa de muerte que dio la autopsia.

«We have not been able to locate the village and the witnesses, and given the fact that the case occurred over forty years ago it is unlikely that we will be able to confirm it.» — el límite que declara sobre el caso de Prestes Filho: sin aldea localizada ni testigos, y a más de cuarenta años no espera confirmarlo.

«According to neighbors and friends, Flach had become obsessed with the subject of UFOs; he was an intelligent, gentle man who “just changed his whole personality, his whole life in the past six to eight months.” He became convinced that he was receiving messages from a higher power through the channel of Landis. The most recent message had allegedly directed them to go to the end of Gunflint Trail and await further contact. Since no UFO was reported, I do not include this case in the tabulation of lethal effects, treating it purely as an accident. Cook County Deputy Sheriff Frank Redfield stated there was no evidence of foul play.» — el caso estadounidense de Flach, con la obsesión ufológica que le atribuyen vecinos y amigos y el dictamen del ayudante del sheriff.

«Since no UFO was reported, I do not include this case in the tabulation of lethal effects, treating it purely as an accident.» — declara por qué ese caso no entra en su tabulación de efectos letales.

«The police noted no signs of violence; the two men had not been robbed. They died with their arms outstretched. Were the two experimenting with drugs to induce an out-of-body experience to contact UFO beings on what occultists call the astral plane? Had they simply died from an overdose of the strangesmelling substance found in the bottles? Could a similar scenario explain the deaths of Manuel and Miguel in Niterói? But what about the sighting of the large luminous object above the mountain that day? Since no UFO was described in connection with the Grumari case, the incident does not seem directly relevant to the question of the lethal impact of UFOs, but it does provide an important indication of the social context of the phenomenon in Brazil, where UFO cases cannot always be separated from occult practices and beliefs.» — el caso de Grumari: lo excluye de la casuística letal y lo retiene como indicio del contexto social brasileño, donde lo ovni y lo ocultista no siempre se separan.

«Dion Fortune herself commented in her book Psychic Self-Defense: She was half-Italian and half-English, of unusual intellectual calibre, and was especially interested in the Green Ray elemental contacts; too much interested in them for my peace of mind, and I became nervous and refused to cooperate with her…. She was not a good subject for such experiments, for she suffered some defect of the pituitary body.» — cita a Dion Fortune en *Psychic Self-Defense* sobre Netta Fornario y los contactos elementales del Rayo Verde.

«Whether she was the victim of psychic attack, whether she merely stopped out on the astral too long and her body, of poor vitality in any case, became chilled lying thus exposed in mid-winter, or whether she slipped into one of the elemental kingdoms that she loved … who shall say?» — la abstención de la propia Fortune ante la muerte de Fornario, que él reproduce sin resolverla.

«Stories of UFO-related deaths have also come from the African continent. In June 1954, eleven-year-old Laili Thindu told authorities in Nairobi that he had seen strange lights coming from the direction of Mount Kenya and flying near his village of Kirimukuyu. The lights hovered over a neighboring village where drums could be heard, celebrating a marriage ceremony. The objects sent down rays of light, and the drums became silent. The next morning the boy was told that the entire population of that village and the livestock had been “burned to death” by the light rays.» — el episodio africano que recoge, con la mortandad de una aldea entera atribuida a los rayos de luz.

«I was called by the family at 9:00 A.M. on July 12. I arrived at 11:00 A.M. and found Arcesio Bermudez suffering from vomiting and diarrhea; the pulse was almost unnoticeable, his face was pale. I gave him 2 centigrams of “emetina” because the liver was inflamed, and I also gave him a tonic for the heart (drops of a preparation containing a digitalis tincture). I returned to the house at 6:00 P.M. and found him worse; I could not find any pulse and the temperature was below normal.» — el parte del médico colombiano en el caso de Arcesio, reproducido en primera persona.

«Since gastroenteritis is the third leading cause of death in Colombia, the diagnosis was accepted and Arcesio was buried.» — por qué el diagnóstico se aceptó sin más y el cuerpo se enterró.

«One of the doctors commented later, “If I had known of his experience, I would have performed more tests.” I have in my files a copy of a letter from Dr. Luis E. Borda to John Simhon of the APRO research group, in which he states: I was called by the family at 9:00 A.M. on July 12. I arrived at 11:00 A.M. and found Arcesio Bermudez suffering from vomiting and diarrhea; the pulse was almost unnoticeable, his face was pale. I gave him 2 centigrams of “emetina” because the liver was inflamed, and I also gave him a tonic for the heart (drops of a preparation containing a digitalis tincture). I returned to the house at 6:00 P.M. and found him worse; I could not find any pulse and the temperature was below normal. I suspected a state of food gastroenteritis and I asked him what he had eaten last. He answered with difficulty: “sardines.” Later I understood that the whole family had eaten sardines and sausages. Antecedents: About a year ago he suffered from a kidney problem, with blood in the urine, and was cured. Otherwise, Arcesio Bermudez was a healthy man. I also have a copy of a statement by Dr. Cesar Esmeral Barros of Bogotá reporting on two clinical observations, the first one by Dr. Borda at 10:00 A.M., the second one by himself at 7:30 P.M., both made on July 12. Dr. Esmeral gave the following details: The victim’s temperature had dropped to 35° C. The cardiopulmonary system exhibited pericarditis, asphyxia, cough, painful thoracic oppression, slow pulse. The digestive system was affected by bloody diarrhea, black vomit, dry mouth, painful abdomen, especially on the right side. Mental faculties and nervous system: normal. The skin was dry, pale, cold, dehydrated. Arcesio received emergency treatment (antidiarrheal drugs, analeptics, antihemetics) and died at 11:45 P.M. on July 12, 1969. The physician noted at the bottom of his report: “Two days after the death there was news that this gentleman had been a witness to extra-natural phenomena.”» — las dos declaraciones médicas posteriores, incluida la anotación al pie del informe.

«In most cases the witnesses reported rectangular objects (sometimes compared to ice boxes) flying over the treetops and shining a beam toward the earth. The chupas are said to make a humming sound like a refrigerator or a transformer, and this sound does not change when the object accelerates.» — la descripción recurrente de los *chupas* según los testigos: objetos rectangulares comparados con neveras, un haz hacia el suelo, y un zumbido que no cambia al acelerar.

«It is noteworthy that most incidents have taken place in such remote locations, away from modern medical facilities and cut off from communication with the rest of the world.» — el patrón geográfico que señala en los casos letales: lugares remotos, sin medicina moderna y sin comunicación.

«Given the remote nature of this region there was no follow-up by private researchers, except for a U.S. tabloid that sent a reporter to speak with some of the witnesses.» — la única cobertura que hubo de la ola brasileña: un tabloide estadounidense, y ningún investigador privado.

«The object does not seem large enough to contain a human pilot.» — el rasgo que le importa de los *chupas*: el tamaño no da para un piloto humano.

«Muldoon and Richman quoted the mayor of Parnarama as confirming the cases, and the chief of police, Geraldo dos Santos Magela, as stating that he had examined two of the bodies, finding that the blood had been “sucked from them.” Ribamar Ferreira described a light coming over him and his friend Abel Boro: it was so bright that it turned night into day, he said.» — lo que los reporteros Thomas Muldoon y Gary Richman citan del alcalde de Parnarama y del jefe de policía Geraldo dos Santos Magela, y el testimonio de Ribamar Ferreira.

«This does not mean that the body has been drained of blood, as witnesses often assume.» — corrige la lectura de los testigos sobre la sangre succionada.

«The interviews with witnesses conducted at the site by my architect friend confirmed only some of these reports, which until then had been based on public rumor; understandably, these interviews also enabled him to fill in many details and to correct some mistakes.» — lo que aporta el trabajo de campo de su amigo arquitecto frente al rumor público: confirma solo una parte y corrige errores.

«Since Brazilian authorities waited two months after the deaths were reported to visit the site, official information is sketchy and unreliable. The mayor and the police chief have changed. Officials now decline to discuss the subject.» — por qué la información oficial no vale: dos meses de demora en visitar el sitio, y ahora nadie quiere hablar.

«However, I found little consistency in the descriptions of the beam itself. One witness compared it to an electric arc. On an interview tape another witness said he remembered a “bad smell” like an electrical odor (ozone?) and saw a blinding light, with pulsating colors inside, a description consistent with many I have heard in France and in the United States. He felt heat at the same time. Several people reported being exposed to the chupas in late 1982 as they were lying in their tree hammocks. At the time of the interviews a year later, they still complained of headaches and general weakness. They had lost their previous vitality. A forty-three year-old man who “used to be afraid of nothing” now lives in constant fear. He is “scared of things that are not part of my experience.” Another victim who had shot a deer early in the night and had gone to sleep in his hammock, intending to retrieve the animal at dawn, was awakened by a chupa but felt nothing unusual at the time. Later he became ill; at first his legs could not carry him. He was very thirsty, seemed to become “hysterical,” jumped around and tore at bushes. He developed blotches on his skin. Why have these people never been examined by a competent doctor?» — lo que él mismo no encuentra en los relatos, y la pregunta que deja abierta sobre la ausencia de examen médico competente.

«He heard that two physicians, a Dr. Enrique and Dr. Nicolao Waquin Neto, had investigated the deaths, indicating a rising level of official interest, but he was not able to contact them.» — el rastro médico que no pudo seguir: dos facultativos que habrían investigado las muertes.

«A theory among local people is that the chupas are attracted by the flashlights, come over the hammocks, and strike the victims with their concentrated beam.» — la teoría local sobre por qué los *chupas* atacan a los cazadores: los atraen las linternas.

«A local rumor claims that the chupas are “American prototypes” that take the blood of the victims to send it to the United States! But when I tried to find out how the so-called bloodless character of the corpses had been documented, it was clear that the assertion was not supported by careful observation.» — consigna el rumor de los prototipos americanos y a la vez declara que la falta de sangre en los cuerpos no está documentada.

«He stated, however, that the link to UFO activity was “tenuous” at best in both reports.» — la reserva de Bob Pratt sobre los casos que documenta.

«Barros, who was fifty-two at the time, gradually recovered; he reported that two hours before daybreak he had seen a large luminous object that projected a beam in his direction. Here again, the victim’s health soon deteriorated: he suffered from nausea, diarrhea, and headaches. He was seen by his physician, Dr. Moreira Megalhes, in Quixada. The medicine he was given did not help. Other specialists were consulted. They diagnosed a brain lesion and sent him home. In the following months Barros’s health continued to worsen. He no longer told his story, because no one believed him other than Dr. Megalhes and his wife. Dr. Megalhes himself was ridiculed by his colleagues for taking the report seriously. In three months the victim’s speech deteriorated, and his hair turned white; six months later he had regressed to the level of a one- or two-year-old child. Pratt, who met with Barros in 1986, found him staring ahead, apparently seeing nothing. However, Dr. Megalhes showed him that Barros had control of his arms and legs and had not suffered a stroke.» — el caso de Luís Fernandes Barros y lo que el médico que lo atendió sostiene contra sus colegas: no fue un derrame.

«At first she discounted these reports as a popular myth, perhaps related to local sorcery. When every day started bringing a new patient she realized that the complaints were serious; she conducted a more thorough study of the lesions exhibited by the victims, notably burns that resembled radiation injuries.» — el recorrido de la doctora Wellaide Cecim Carvalho de Oliveira: del mito popular y la brujería local al estudio de lesiones parecidas a las de radiación.

«There was no pain, only a slight warmth. One also noticed small puncture marks in the skin. The victims were men and women of varying ages, without any pattern. One day Dr. Carvalho found a woman waiting for her when she arrived at the dispensary at 7:30 A.M. The woman was very agitated, and she said that she had been hit by a chupa. Opening her blouse, she revealed extreme reddening of the skin on her left breast; again, there were two puncture marks. “I tried to calm her down,” related Dr. Carvalho when she was interviewed in 1985. “I told her it was nothing serious, that she should not let it impress her.» — el cuadro clínico en las palabras de la propia doctora, reproducidas en primera persona.

«This official diagnosis totally ignored the data that Dr. Carvalho had forwarded along with the patient. The physician became suspicious, and since the authorities remained silent about the whole situation, she stopped sending statements about such cases. In fear and frustration she even destroyed a thirty-page document she had compiled about her clinical observations, which included blood test results and biochemical analyses.» — lo que consigna del desenlace institucional: el diagnóstico oficial ignoró los datos y la doctora destruyó por miedo su expediente de treinta páginas.

«Like most of the private investigators of this phenomenon, I would like to be able to conclude that any injuries sustained by human witnesses in connection with UFOs are accidental—perhaps the result of careless approach to a source of energy that has proven unpredictable in its manifestations. Unfortunately, the reported facts do not support this idea. On the contrary, they seem to betray intelligent behavior on the part of the objects.» — declara lo que le gustaría concluir —que las heridas son accidentales— y por qué no puede: los hechos apuntan a comportamiento inteligente de los objetos.

«The Brazilian military, which has been engaged for many years in one of the most serious investigations of the phenomenon conducted anywhere around the world, took the 1977 events around Belém very seriously indeed.» — el juicio que hace de la investigación militar brasileña.

«The UFO phenomenon deserves serious objective study. 2. All possible information and witness reports about the phenomenon must be gathered. 3. Public statements about the events must be avoided.» — las dos consignas del documento militar brasileño que reproduce: estudio serio y silencio público.

«Both theories, naturally, make the unstated assumption that the UFOs are spacecraft piloted by aliens with perfectly anthropomorphic motivations.» — el supuesto tácito que denuncia en las dos lecturas rivales —accidente y hostilidad— sobre las heridas.

«Forensic pathologists who have reviewed the above data at my request offered only tentative recommendations.» — el estado de lo que los peritos forenses consultados pudieron decir.

«What UFO witnesses describe as “light” may, in fact, be a complex combination of ionizing and non-ionizing radiation. Many of the injuries described in Brazil, however, are consistent with the effects of high-power pulsed microwaves.» — la hipótesis física que propone para la luz de los casos brasileños: combinación de radiación ionizante y no ionizante, con microondas pulsadas de alta potencia.

«Only such interaction can allow us to determine which of the leading theories of the phenomenon is correct, or even if the theories should be superseded by more innovative concepts.» — el argumento por el que pide pasar de la observación pasiva a la interacción.

«It is not necessarily true that the progress of science demands such active experimentation. In astronomy, for instance, researchers are reduced to observation and analysis with no opportunity to interact directly with stellar or galactic phenomena.» — la objeción que él mismo se pone, con la astronomía como contraejemplo.

«As an illustration of the latter scenario, Janine and I recall spending two days in the summer of 1964 with Betty and Barney Hill, Dr. Benjamin Simon, John Fuller, and several other ufologists in a large meadow in New Hampshire, where it was thought a UFO might land. I set up a Questar telescope on a folding table next to a vast chalk circle in the grass, and we entertained ourselves all night while spraying each other with mosquito repellent. The major discovery I made on that occasion was that John Fuller had a wonderful repertoire of very funny stories, many of them involving his numerous trips to France. We did see a large number of anomalous lights in the surrounding woods that turned out to be fireflies,» — el intento rudimentario de 1964 con los Hill y el doctor Benjamin Simon en un prado de New Hampshire, y lo que resultaron ser las luces anómalas.

«My strong recommendation to anyone wishing to repeat our experiment in New Hampshire in summer would be to set up strong bug-killing lights at the corners of the perimeter, if only as a courtesy to the expected Visitors.» — el consejo con que remata la anécdota; el sarcasmo es suyo.

«A more realistic approach involves the development of permanent magnetic or gravitational anomaly detectors that are triggered by the proximity of a UFO. It is then hoped that an alert can be given, allowing trained teams to be dispatched to the site in an effort to initiate contact. Many such instruments have been designed and built. Under the impetus of the group Lumières dans la Nuit, a French network of magnetic detectors was set up in the 1960s, which led to some interesting sightings. Similar results are occasionally reported in the United States.» — la línea que sí le parece realista: detectores permanentes de anomalía magnética o gravitacional, como la red francesa de Lumières dans la Nuit.

«Perhaps the most publicized project of this type was designed by UFO researcher Ray Stanford in Texas. It used a sophisticated set of electronic sensors, including radar, to trigger computer-controlled reaction sequences, with an instrumented van as the key component of the expected contact. My major concern with the project is that it used a fixed location, while UFO waves are known to vary widely in their geographical patterns. The approach used by Brazilian Intelligence in 1977, packing teams of experts into trucks and dispatching them to the center of the sighting cluster, seems more promising to me.» — compara el proyecto fijo de Ray Stanford en Texas con el despliegue móvil de la Inteligencia brasileña de 1977, y prefiere el segundo.

«We are naturally hampered in this effort by the lack of an adequate model of the phenomenon.» — nombra el obstáculo de fondo antes de enumerar los cinco hechos contra la hipótesis extraterrestre.

«The total number of close encounters far exceeds the requirements for a sophisticated survey of our planet.» — primero de los cinco hechos.

«Not only does this make an extraterrestrial origin very dubious, but it implies that the operators are not making use of genetic engineering to optimize a space mission, as interstellar travelers presumably would under the extraterrestrial hypothesis model.» — la consecuencia que saca del aspecto humanoide de los operadores: ni siquiera hay ingeniería genética optimizando una misión espacial.

«The patterns of close encounters, contacts, and abductions are not specific to our century, contrary to what most American ufologists have assumed.» — tercero de los cinco hechos, y con quién polemiza al enunciarlo.

«When the object we call a UFO is visible to us in the reality of everyday life, I think it constitutes both a physical entity with mass, inertia, volume, and energy, and a window toward another mode of reality. In this alternative reality the witnesses describe psychic manifestations reminiscent of our own dreams. We can consider these reports as a source of important symbolic meaning, or we can ignore them. But like our dreams, they may also shape our lives in ways that we do not fully understand.» — el estatuto doble que le da al objeto y lo que sigue de él: manifestaciones psíquicas como sueños, que pueden dar forma a la vida sin que se entienda cómo.

«It is against this backdrop that the next three chapters should be read. They represent an attempt to take UFO research out of a passive mode and a few steps closer to the phenomenon it tries to study.» — declara el programa de la cuarta parte: sacar la investigación del modo pasivo.

«Chapter 10 reviews the characteristics of the beings seen in connection with UFO cases. Again, I have used only firsthand reports I have personally investigated at the site. The purpose of this chapter is to extract the essential characteristics that might make interaction possible.» — el criterio del capítulo de perfiles: solo informes de primera mano investigados por él en el sitio.

«Chapter 11 summarizes a remarkable cluster of cases in Happy Camp, California, where abductions had taken place and where a team of investigators tried to see the phenomenon. Finally, chapter 12 is an account of another complex case, called Copper Medic, where we developed new instrumentation and attempted to catch the phenomenon in the act. From these efforts can be drawn some useful lessons for any future project involving an active response to the UFO mystery.» — lo que anuncia de los dos capítulos siguientes, Happy Camp y Copper Medic, y para qué los da: lecciones para una respuesta activa.

«I classify this report as a typical sighting in the MA3 category—a maneuvering object with a being on board.» — cómo cataloga el caso Dillon en su propia taxonomía.

«There was no effect on the car, no sound or smell, no unusual taste. There was no physical evidence, no change of color in the object, no static electricity, no lights of any sort. The really remarkable thing about this case is the date: the event took place in 1928. The car was a Model T Ford. In his letter to me dated April 6, 1978, the witness insisted that he “was not on booze or dope”; he did not even smoke cigarettes. He added that he “wasn’t a bit afraid of the ship.” And he stated his personal beliefs as follows: I’ve always been interested in astronomy ever since I was a small boy of nine or ten. I believe that there are many planets in the universe that support life…. I didn’t mention [the sighting] to anybody until about twenty years ago…. People just don’t believe anything that they don’t understand.» — la ausencia total de efectos físicos en el caso, y lo que el testigo dice de por qué calló.

«The really remarkable thing about this case is the date: the event took place in 1928.» — el dato que le da valor al caso: es de 1928, muy anterior a la ola moderna.

«The man seen by Dillon, who “could have passed for an Italian,” does not match the extraterrestrial stereotype, the bald-headed, bug-eyed dwarf popularized in recent American books and movies.» — lo que el caso rompe: el operador descrito no encaja en el estereotipo del enano calvo de ojos grandes.

«Mr. Dillon, who was very calm throughout our discussion, displayed an active, curious intelligence and a willingness to consider various theories about what he had seen, although he has accepted the idea that the “man” he saw came from another planet.» — distingue la actitud del testigo de la conclusión del testigo: abierto a teorías y a la vez convencido del origen planetario.

«The case became known when Amos confided in broken English to a local farmer that every summer for the last few years he had seen a strange “airplane” land on the ranch.» — cómo llega el caso del rancho de los hermanos Amos, descendientes de la tribu Cortina.

«They stopped their truck but could hear no sound, even when the engine was turned off.» — el silencio del objeto en el tercer avistamiento, verificado apagando el motor.

«To this day, my friend regrets having obeyed the bizarre impulse to put down his camera.» — el impulso que su amigo investigador obedeció y lamenta, consignado como dato del caso.

«The lesson we must draw from such cases is a straightforward one: the UFO entities do not follow a simple pattern, as many ufologists would like us to believe. They are not always gray beings with bald heads and large eyes, or robot-like monsters.» — la lección que saca del capítulo de perfiles, contra el patrón único que atribuye a los ufólogos.

«Instead, we are facing a complex phenomenon, and we do not understand its relationship to the witnesses and to human society at large. We do not know how much of the event is generated by an external phenomenon and how much is supplied by the human mind.» — el reparto que declara no saber hacer: cuánto del suceso viene de fuera y cuánto lo pone la mente.

«It would be nice to be able to follow the skeptics who, like aerospace writer Philip Klass, have already jumped to the conclusion that all close encounters are imaginary.» — concede el atractivo de la salida escéptica de Philip Klass antes de rechazarla.

«Since the story had been written over a year before, it clearly antedated the abduction of Betty and Barney Hill and their subsequent hypnosis. In their later correspondence, Sambrot and the editors of Look magazine, who had published the Hill case, expressed their mutual puzzlement.» — el hallazgo del relato de William Sambrot: escrito más de un año antes del caso Hill y de su hipnosis.

«Remarkably, Sambrot’s astronaut had been given a series of geometric tattoos during his abduction by the UFO operators; the story anticipated both the Hill case and the experiences of Dr. X (see chapter 8).» — lo que ese relato de ficción anticipa: los tatuajes geométricos del caso Hill y las marcas del Dr. X.

«I believe these observations by clearly sincere witnesses cannot be understood in the everyday reality that both the ufologists and the skeptics have taken as their standard.» — el paso que da: los relatos no caben en la realidad cotidiana que dan por norma ufólogos y escépticos por igual.

«It is time to accept the fact that the UFO phenomenon is able to act upon the minds of human beings, to induce thoughts and images that are similar to those described by people who have had near-death or out-of-body experiences and even to medieval witnesses of demons and elves.» — lo que atribuye al fenómeno: obrar sobre la mente e inducir imágenes como las de la experiencia cercana a la muerte o las de los testigos medievales de demonios y elfos.

«While the UFO research community has embraced literal interpretations of the close encounter and abduction cases, and has run into a massive brick wall in the process, the vast amount of information that exists on psychic realities experienced at death or during certain altered states has rarely been examined in this context.» — el reproche al campo: interpretación literal de las abducciones y desatención al material sobre realidades psíquicas en estados alterados.

«Yet these psychic realities are just as real as the reality of the everyday investigator who is looking for a flying saucer in hopes of “kicking the tires,” as a San Francisco ufologist of the nuts-and-bolts persuasion once described to me as his lifelong ambition.» — iguala en realidad lo psíquico y lo del investigador de tuercas y tornillos, con la frase del ufólogo de San Francisco.

«The next two cases may help to illustrate this point for most of my readers, although I have given up explaining to the UFO enthusiasts that there was such a thing as psychic reality and that it did not contradict the physical world. But then, there are still many people who have never accepted the fact that light has both the nature of a wave and the nature of a particle.» — declara la analogía con que sostiene la coexistencia de las dos realidades: la dualidad onda-partícula de la luz.

«It is one of the wonders of human existence that a person can live a long and happy life without once becoming aware of the reality of consciousness and its ability to transcend the immediate physical level.» — cómo enuncia lo que la mayoría nunca llega a advertir sobre la conciencia.

«Any active measure directed at interaction with the UFO phenomenon will have to take into consideration its ability to take control of the witnesses’ perceptions and to alter their psychic reality.» — la condición que impone a cualquier programa de interacción activa: contar con que el fenómeno controla la percepción del testigo.

«When I went to Venado Tuerto in April 1980, I found a rural area of very flat land with some modern estancias, many swamps, and lagoons. We met with several members of CIC, an Argentine investigation group, who, with Fabio Zerpa and his wife, took us to the actual site of the boy’s sighting.» — cómo llega al caso argentino y con quién: el grupo CIC y Fabio Zerpa.

«The boy lost control of Cometa; his horse bolted and galloped madly toward the wire fence, where Oscar barely managed to stop it. His father, Don Felipe, scolded him for not bringing back the other horses. “Father,” he said, “in the field I found a big, round thing.” The father did not want excuses, and he sent the boy back into the fog.» — el episodio del caballo y la reacción del padre, en el relato del caso.

«He was over seven feet tall and was wearing long gloves and a cylindrical helmet. This being, who seemed to be tethered to a breathing apparatus linking it to the object, invited Oscar to come inside.» — el ser descrito por el niño, con el aparato de respiración que lo unía al objeto.

«Oscar’s family showed very little interest in his breathless story, although Don Felipe admitted to having heard a “strange humming sound, like the flame of a torch moving rapidly through the air.” The parents also reported that during the following days the boy had no appetite and frequently woke up at night screaming. According to Oscar, “I dreamed I was inside the saucer and they took me and did things to me.” At the spot on Oscar’s arm where the giant had pricked him a small line developed, two inches long. It started itching that night, and he washed it with water and soap. Two or three days later the ends healed, and he was left with a small depression in his skin. In addition to this mark he experienced a series of spots resembling psoriasis, which were thought to be “of nervous origin.” Six days prior to the sighting, Oscar’s father had found a dead cow on the property; the hindquarter and the ribs were missing. This was very puzzling to him. He told the investigators from CIC, “If it had been thieves, they also would have taken the hide.”» — el desinterés de la familia y lo que sí admite el padre: un zumbido extraño, y su argumento contra la hipótesis de los ladrones.

«The time of the sighting is estimated at 6:45 A.M., but this is only an approximation for the simple reason that nobody on the estancia wears a watch, as we were able to verify.» — por qué la hora del caso es aproximada, comprobado por él mismo: en la estancia nadie usa reloj.

«Nobody seems to know where the water is coming from.» — el detalle del entorno inundado del caso argentino que nadie explica.

«It is noteworthy that hypnosis was not used in this case and that all recall by the witness comes from conscious memory.» — subraya lo que hace fiable el caso a sus ojos: sin hipnosis, todo el recuerdo es consciente.

«The witnesses are sober, sincere individuals who are not seeking publicity or financial gain from their experiences.» — el juicio que hace de los testigos de los casos de primera mano que no puede explicar.

«These displays, which frequently begin with a bewildering series of blinking colored lights of extraordinary intensity, induce a state of intense confusion for the subjects who are vulnerable to the insertion of new thoughts and new visual experiences. The response of the ufologists to the confusion of the abductees has been disastrous.» — cómo describe el mecanismo del despliegue simbólico —confusión que abre paso a pensamientos e imágenes insertadas— y el juicio sobre la reacción de los ufólogos.

«These false memories may satisfy the ufologists’ craving for a simple, factual explanation of the reality of UFOs as interplanetary spacecraft, but they are only spurious results.» — lo que los falsos recuerdos satisfacen y lo que no.

«When he checked the location, however, he noticed that the lights came from the windows of a saucer-shaped object hovering above the highway.» — el caso del sargento Schirmer, en el momento en que las luces resultan ser ventanas de un objeto.

«When it is used carefully by a professional trained in its use, hypnosis can provide some valuable insights into the experience, but it does not explain it.» — lo que concede a la hipnosis bien usada y el límite que le pone.

«Hypnotic regression of abductees is not the sort of active measure we need.» — descarta la regresión hipnótica como la medida activa que reclama el libro.

«The clinical psychologist noted that the Rorschach responses often related to “saucer” and “rocket,” a fact he interpreted as an echo of the boy’s experiences.» — lo que el psicólogo clínico lee en el Rorschach del niño: respuestas de platillo y cohete como eco de lo vivido.

«scientific committee realized that the trick they had used to get the officer to come and to be tested threatened to be exposed. So, Sergeant Schirmer told me, they introduced someone else to him as Professor Condon. Schirmer was no fool. During the ensuing conversation somebody came into the room and addressed “Professor Condon” by a first name which had no resemblance to Ed or Edward. Schirmer confronted the scientist. “You’re not Condon!” he cried, and a very embarrassing scene followed.» — el engaño del comité de Colorado con el sargento Schirmer, según lo que el propio testigo le contó; la frase arranca al pie de la p. 140.

«From that point on, the credibility of the University of Colorado project was very close to nil in the eyes of the witness. When he was shown inkblots and was asked to say what he saw there, he stated the obvious: he saw inkblots.» — el efecto del engaño sobre el testigo, y su respuesta a las manchas de tinta.

«“Doctor, I’m a law enforcement officer,” Schirmer replied. “I’m not supposed to imagine things. I am trained to report on things that are real.” Schirmer told me he was afraid that if he started seeing butterflies or copulating elephants in inkblots, the scientists would quickly conclude that here was a nut case who could just as easily see flying saucers where there was only a cluster of clouds.» — el razonamiento del testigo para no imaginar figuras en el test: temía que lo tomaran por un chiflado.

«At the time of the experience the witness felt a “tingling” in his body for a few seconds and local pain behind the base of the ear (he showed me the precise location), as if a needle had been inserted there. A red welt with tiny holes developed at that spot. For three years after the sighting he experienced throbbing headaches that lasted two hours and were not alleviated by aspirin. For the first three weeks following the sighting these headaches would actually wake him up.» — los efectos físicos del caso Schirmer: hormigueo, dolor tras la oreja como de aguja, y tres años de cefaleas.

«I also inquired about his dreams, and I learned that they included a vision of a landscape with three mountain ranges, strange domes, and UFOs. Dr. Sprinkle noted that after the sighting the witness drank two cups of hot, steaming coffee “like it was water”; he often experienced a “ringing, numbness and buzzing in his ears before going to sleep, and other violent disturbances during his sleep.”» — los sueños del testigo y lo que el psicólogo Leo Sprinkle anotó de sus perturbaciones del sueño.

«Schirmer recalled being taken out of the patrol car, unable to use his radio or his gun. He was given a tour of the saucer. The operator asked him, “Are you the watchman over this place?” And when they reached the top of the craft the man told Schirmer, “Watchman, some day you will see the Universe!”» — el contenido del recuerdo bajo hipnosis, con las dos frases del operador.

«At the time of our meeting, many years after the event, his dialogue with the operator stood out as the most significant event in Schirmer’s life.» — lo que constata muchos años después: el diálogo con el operador quedó como el suceso mayor de la vida del testigo.

«UFO encounters are complete frameworks into which the personality of the witness becomes projected. Like a movie that terrifies you, makes you cry, laugh, or perspire in anguish, the experience becomes part of the witness’s reality. The ufologists behave like social researchers who, trying to understand the phenomenon of the cinema, would randomly interview people coming out of theatres and take their testimony at face value; like the UFO witnesses, these people are not lying. Some of them have seen Godzilla, others have seen Bambi. The experience, in every case, was real to them.» — el símil del cine: el ufólogo que toma el testimonio al pie de la letra es como el investigador que entrevista a la salida del cine, donde unos vieron Godzilla y otros Bambi.

«But the reality we should inquire about, the reality UFO researchers are often ignoring, is the movie projector high up in a small, dark, locked room near the ceiling. In that room is the technology that will give you both Bambi and Godzilla, Star Wars and, yes, even Close Encounters.» — dónde sitúa la pregunta que importa: no en la película sino en el proyector, la tecnología que produce cualquiera de ellas.

«Steve recalls choking as if the air were too heavy to breathe, “like in a sauna or steam bath where the air is heated up, only much worse.” Helen White compared it to having pressure on the chest. Steve thought they had been gassed. The group retreated in panic, chased down the mountain by a glowing red object.» — los efectos que los testigos describen y la huida, en el relato del caso.

«The mica, when analyzed, turned out to be common isinglass of the type used in old woodstoves.» — el análisis que rebaja la mica hallada en el sitio a isinglass de estufa vieja.

«What they did not expect was a set of glowing silvery eyes in the bushes and a sirenlike sound.» — lo que el grupo no esperaba encontrar en el cañón.

«While I would not approve of this method, I must admit it could have been effective in flushing out any hoaxers or joking outsiders lurking among the madrone and manzanita.» — lo que concede del método de disparar al matorral, sin aprobarlo.

«Sergeant Schirmer presented me with a detailed pencil drawing of one of the “operators” of the craft as he remembered him under hypnosis. It shows a stern-looking man with a piece of dark clothing covering the head. The opening for the face has an ogival shape that gives it a very Gothic appearance. The forehead is wrinkled.» — el dibujo del operador que el testigo hace desde el recuerdo hipnótico, con el aspecto gótico. La descripción sigue en la plana siguiente con las pupilas alargadas, un dispositivo con antena sobre la oreja izquierda y una insignia de serpiente alada al hombro derecho.

«In the canyon, however, they found an area of heavy fog that forced them to turn back, and they became very confused about subsequent events.» — el punto del caso de Happy Camp donde el relato se vuelve confuso.

«Helen recalls being lifted inside a room, but she is confused about the time sequence. One occupant had a dialogue with her, in the course of which he described a transparent object as being made of gold. Helen answered that she knew what gold was like, and it surely was not transparent. The being answered simply, “There is such a thing as gold that you can look through. It’s in your Bible.”» — lo que la testigo Helen White recuerda del interior y la frase del ocupante sobre el oro transparente.

«In the fall of 1977 two people on Benjamin Creek Road saw a Douglas fir being snapped in two while an unknown force dragged their pickup in reverse around a bend for fifty feet. The top eighty feet of the large fir tree was thrown about sixty feet away, while a glowing white sphere moved over the area. One of the witnesses, deeply upset by the incident, refuses to return to the spot.» — otro incidente de la zona: un abeto partido y una camioneta arrastrada en reversa, con el testigo que ya no vuelve al sitio.

«The disk-shaped object seen by Helen, Stan, and Steve had hovered over bushes near a sharp turn in the road. At this site, as in many other locations we visited, there was in evidence a strong element of violence that clashed with the almost pristine beauty of the forest. There were spent shells in the grass, and many road signs had been shot so full of holes that they were unreadable.» — lo que encuentra al inspeccionar el sitio, incluidos los casquillos y los carteles acribillados.

«The night of the incident had been quiet, with no thunderstorm or violent weather. We also visited the abduction site itself, taking the dirt road that leads into the canyon. There is indeed a sharp cliff on the west side, from which boulders can fall on the road and the area below.» — los dos datos con que acota el incidente del árbol partido: no hubo tormenta, y hay un acantilado del que caen rocas.

«The top section, however, was still resting in a ravine across the road.» — el detalle del árbol que él mismo verifica en el terreno.

«Although our hopes were high that we had hit on a common element in cases involving entities, subsequent microscopic inspection, which I entrusted to a forensic laboratory, revealed that the material was not unusual.» — el resultado del análisis forense de las fibras plateadas, contra la esperanza declarada de haber dado con un elemento común.

«She wanted to take something away as proof and was given permission; yet later the beings forbade her to keep anything, and she wailed at them in frustration, “You lied to me.”» — el episodio de la prueba negada en el relato de la testigo, con su reproche a los seres.

«Although aeronautical engineers will scoff at this bizarre remark, the topologists among my readers may be as intrigued as I was by the possible interpretations it opened. If there are more than four dimensions, as many theoretical physicists now suspect, it may be interesting to speculate: a hypercraft capable of topological inversion into our spacetime continuum could indeed be larger on the inside than on the outside.» — la especulación topológica que abre sobre la nave mayor por dentro que por fuera, dicha como interpretación posible y no como tesis.

«Several highway patrolmen have been followed by strange lights in the area but have made no official report.» — la cifra oculta de la zona: patrulleros seguidos por luces extrañas que no presentan informe.

«The witnesses we interviewed at length confessed to us that there were many unreported incidents.» — lo que los propios testigos le admiten sobre lo que no se reporta.

«She felt herself bathed in light as she rose into the object.» — el momento del relato de la testigo de Happy Camp.

«It was 11:15 P.M. when we saw it. It was just a very bright light, white with a tinge of red, and it lasted no more than ten seconds. The light was straight ahead, several miles away across the valley, on the slope of China Peak, at a site where no vehicle would likely be. But the sighting was too brief for us to stop and set up Tom’s telescope.» — lo que el propio equipo de investigación observa en el sitio, y el límite del avistamiento.

«The Happy Camp events encompass abductions, suffocating fog, large birds, small beings with welder helmets, chases by jets, poltergeists, gravity anomalies, and broken trees. Coming from an isolated town that does not even have a movie house, this concentration of cases is remarkable.» — el inventario de fenómenos del racimo de Happy Camp y por qué le llama la atención la concentración.

«He wore a bizarre sort of shirt and no coat, although it was the middle of winter. He smiled constantly at people in a strange, forced grimace. Among the peculiar things he did during his extraordinary dinner was a brave attempt to drink Jell-O out of his glass.» — el episodio del hombre extraño en el caso, con el detalle del Jell-O.

«Starting with the Hill case of 1961, researchers have frequently noticed that UFO witnesses failed to remember some key features about their sighting and even experienced amnesia between the moment when they had their close encounter and their return to normal reality. The missing period was measured in hours or even days. To many investigators, hypnosis appeared as an ideal tool for the recovery of missing memories. Indeed, whenever it was applied to the UFO abduction cases it opened the floodgates to a veritable torrent of new material. Not only did witnesses suddenly describe in great detail the inside of the UFOs, but they gave precise data about the occupants, their behavior, their actions, and the dialogue with them.» — cómo se instaló la hipnosis en el campo: la amnesia notada desde el caso Hill y el detalle que la técnica parecía devolver.

«More mundane, but more reliable, is the data retrieved from their subjects by two assiduous researchers: Wyoming psychologist Leo Sprinkle and New York City artist Budd Hopkins, who has published two books on the subject. Both are strongly convinced that the phenomenon is due to the intervention of extraterrestrial visitors.» — sitúa a Leo Sprinkle y a Budd Hopkins como los recopiladores más fiables y a la vez declara su convicción extraterrestre.

«Those reported by Hopkins, on the contrary, are sinister and even sadistic, performing outrageous operations on the bodies of their victims, especially women. Fetuses are removed, needles are inserted in helpless bodies, devices are implanted for future tracking. Both Sprinkle and Hopkins are convinced that such operations, bizarre as they may seem, are necessary for the aliens to pursue their systematic program of scientific analysis of our planet. In recent years Sprinkle and Hopkins have been joined by other researchers who have used hypnosis specifically to perform regressions of abductees. Among them is Dr. David Jacobs, a history professor at Temple University.» — el contraste entre los seres benévolos de un investigador y los siniestros de Hopkins, y la incorporación de David Jacobs.

«The majority follow Sprinkle, Hopkins, and Jacobs, although they do not necessarily buy all their conclusions, while a minority questions the validity of the hypnosis technique and the preconceptions that seem to propel the whole research into the extraterrestrial framework.» — el reparto del campo: mayoría con ellos y minoría que cuestiona la técnica y los supuestos que la empujan al marco extraterrestre.

«First, a very creative series of experiments conducted by Alvin Lawson and several hypnotists in Los Angeles has shown (under admittedly contrived conditions) that imaginary abductees, who had never seen UFOs but were asked to imagine that they did, came up with stories practically indistinguishable from those of true abductees.» — el experimento de Alvin Lawson con abducidos imaginarios, con la reserva sobre lo artificial de las condiciones que el propio texto trae.

«Second, UFO skeptic Philip Klass has raised the important question of “pseudo-memories” that can so easily be planted in a subject’s mind under hypnosis. In a 1979 paper entitled “The Use and Misuse of Hypnosis in Court,” Dr. Martin T. Orne cited experiments showing the possibility for fabrication and elaboration of evidence even under deep trance, and reminded the reader that the patient’s fantasies and the unconscious pressure exerted by the hypnotist commonly introduced false memories.» — la cuestión de las pseudomemorias, apoyada en el trabajo de Martin T. Orne sobre hipnosis en tribunales.

«As usual, Mr. Klass uses such well-observed critical material as a springboard to deny the existence of the entire UFO problem.» — acepta el material crítico y rechaza el uso que Klass le da.

«I have emerged from these experiences with a healthy respect for the complexity of the human mind and a great deal of skepticism regarding the methods used by some ufologists.» — el saldo doble que declara: respeto por la complejidad de la mente y escepticismo sobre los métodos de algunos ufólogos.

«One psychiatrist whose help I tried to enlist in a particular case declined to be involved because he did not feel that he had enough recent clinical experience with hypnosis.» — la escrupulosidad ajena que consigna: un psiquiatra declina por no tener práctica clínica reciente en hipnosis.

«At the end of the evening we agreed that we could not ethically continue the process without a therapy contract with the witness and funding to take future sessions as far as they needed to be taken.» — la condición ética que se impone para seguir: contrato terapéutico con el testigo y financiación para llevar las sesiones hasta donde haga falta.

«Unanimously, they considered it unethical for anyone who had already reached a strong personal conclusion about UFOs to interrogate a witness under hypnosis.» — el juicio unánime de los profesionales que consultó sobre quién no debe hipnotizar a un testigo.

«This sense of commitment is especially strong in Dr. Sprinkle, who stated in 1988 that he had been abducted by aliens as a child and regarded himself as having a “mission” on their behalf.» — el caso extremo de ese compromiso, con la declaración de Leo Sprinkle de 1988.

«Even when they are careful to avoid leading questions and blatant contagion, their belief system is already obvious to their subjects and it can only be strengthened by the hypnotic process—not to mention possible telepathic contamination.» — por qué a su juicio el cuidado no basta: el sistema de creencias ya es visible para el sujeto.

«What Dr. Meerloo calls “mental induction” is a communication phenomenon that is enhanced by hypnosis.» — el concepto que toma de Joost Meerloo para nombrar esa transmisión.

«I cannot agree with Philip Klass’s conclusion that the witness is making up the whole episode. The abduction experience is real, even if the “missing time” is filled in after the fact with fictitious material.» — separa dos cosas contra Klass: la experiencia de abducción es real aunque el tiempo perdido se rellene después con material ficticio.

«Given an interval of one hour, as measured by the watch of an outside (reference) observer while a close encounter witness is “abducted,” it is not necessarily true that time is passing at the same rate within the region of space occupied by the phenomenon. Some theories of UFOs, whose authors I respect, would, in fact, demand relativistic effects under which the abductee might spend only a few minutes or a few seconds inside the phenomenon during the full hour of “reference time.”» — la salida física que explora para el tiempo perdido: el tiempo no tiene por qué correr igual dentro del fenómeno.

«The mind of the witness, to retain its sanity, might later fill itself with an imaginary overlay drawn from collective unconscious material or personal fantasies to account for the discrepancy. Even if time inside the object flows at the same rate as reference time, an altered state of perception might be created that would also demand such an imaginary overlay.» — de dónde saldría entonces el relato: una superposición imaginaria tomada del inconsciente colectivo o de la fantasía personal, para dar cuenta del desfase.

«When the experience is over, subsequent hypnosis would retrieve and amplify the overlay rather than “what really happened.”» — la consecuencia que saca contra la hipnosis: recupera y amplifica la superposición, no lo ocurrido.

«Abduction researchers raise a valid objection against the idea that many recollections are fantasies. Not only do hypnosis subjects remember certain patterns, but witnesses who recall the whole episode consciously (like Oscar in Venado Tuerto) describe similar patterns.» — concede la objeción de los investigadores de abducciones: testigos que recuerdan todo conscientemente describen los mismos patrones.

«Yet current research on memory, and especially research on the recollections of crimes by witnesses in court, should make us very cautious on this point. An article in the October 14, 1983, issue of Science magazine tested the validity of the forensic use of hypnosis.» — el contrapeso que trae de la investigación sobre memoria y testimonio judicial.

«As for lie detector tests, which are routinely used by ufologists and the media to “prove” that UFO abductees are “telling the truth,” their effectiveness is practically nil, as a long list of scientific references would show. Most recently, the University of California’s Wellness Letter pointed out that such devices are “a good example of pseudo-science in action.”14 The Congressional Office of Technology Assessment has concluded that the tests were highly flawed, and a recent Harvard Medical School study has shown that truthful people flunked polygraph tests more often than actual liars. A possible explanation is that innocent people react to the stress of the test, while the guilty do everything in their power to remain calm.» — desmonta el polígrafo, con la OTA del Congreso y un estudio de Harvard: los honestos suspenden más que los mentirosos.

«And the ufologist should only be in the room at the request of, and under the control of, the therapist. Any other procedure, in my opinion, is unethical and unprofessional. Besides, it runs the risk of polluting the delicate, complex abduction database with fantastic and spurious material. It can drive UFO research over a very dangerous cliff.» — la regla que propone —el ufólogo solo en la sala a petición y bajo control del terapeuta— y los dos riesgos que ve en lo contrario.

«None of the abductees have provided verifiable information on their origin and purpose.» — el saldo que hace de mil informes de abducción.

«By ignoring this other aspect, we reduce considerably our chances of understanding the entire question.» — lo que se pierde al desatender la continuidad histórica del fenómeno.

«Reaction to the publication of these facts was curious. In the United States, many ufologists simply denied or ignored them. As late as 1988 Budd Hopkins summarily rejected the Magonia data as “folklore of obviously uncertain authenticity.”» — la reacción que su material de Magonia provocó, con el rechazo de Budd Hopkins.

«Perhaps the least controversial generalization about abductions is to say that they are a recent phenomenon. Most UFO events have a prehistory reaching back through ghost rockets, ghost fliers (etc.). Among those few novel exceptions are abductions. Since they went public with the … revelation of the Barney and Betty Hill case, abductions have built up a substantial literature of their own as the most spectacular aspect of the UFO phenomenon. Such a statement ignores not only the repeated invitations by 1897 airship occupants to take human witnesses on aerial trips, but the persistent stories of abductions by dwarfish creatures throughout the folklore of every culture.» — la frase de Thomas Bullard que objeta y con qué: las invitaciones de los tripulantes de las aeronaves de 1897 y los raptos de criaturas enanas del folclore.

«In other words, in every case there is much more than scientific curiosity involved: although working with the best intentions, the hypnotist is already committed to a particular conclusion» — el sesgo que atribuye al hipnotizador aun trabajando con la mejor intención.

«This gave rise to a series of psychological exercises tending to explain UFOs by various psychic mechanisms where the actual material facts of the case were now completely ignored.» — lo que reprocha a la escuela psicosocial europea: ejercicios psicológicos que ignoran por completo los hechos materiales del caso.

«If my research into this aspect of the UFO enigma was perceived as heretical, later research by experts like Bertrand Meheust was even less welcome.» — sitúa el trabajo de Bertrand Meheust como todavía menos bienvenido que el suyo en el campo.

«In his diligent, painstaking research, Meheust has found new material that had been missed by all of us.» — lo que le concede a Meheust, incluido a sí mismo entre quienes no lo habían visto.

«Typical of his case material is the following abduction report, involving Mr. Belans, a Belgian who suffered missing time and amnesia following an encounter with a flying craft. The incident occurred at dusk, as he was walking in an isolated area of Brabant where suspicious traces—notably crushed vegetation—had been noticed by farmers in their wheat fields. At the site he saw a man dressed in black waiting for something under a tree. Intrigued, Belans stopped and watched. Soon a strange feeling of tiredness came over him, as if another entity had taken control of his actions. He heard a buzzing sound, soon followed by a very bright light, as an elongated craft landed near him. A door opened over a faintly luminous rectangle, and the man in black climbed into the object. A force impelled Belans to follow. He found himself in a room that was evenly lit but without any observable source of light. A faint vibration was felt and the craft took off. An opening then became visible in the wall of the room and a very tall man entered. He seemed to “guess” Belans’s every thought and was able to answer him in French. He revealed that he came from a faraway star.» — el caso Belans tal como Meheust lo presenta, resumido por él antes de dar el desenlace.

«“Why don’t you establish open contact?” asked Belans. “Because we do not wish to force the rapid evolution of elements that are foreign to our own civilization,”» — el diálogo del caso Belans, con la razón que el tripulante da para no establecer contacto abierto.

«What attracted the interest of local ufologists to the case wasn’t so much the repeated sighting of a small, egg-shaped UFO on the Chapins’ property as the strange material they claimed to have recovered at the site.» — por qué el caso de la mina Mary Hazel atrajo a los ufólogos locales: no el objeto, el material recogido.

«The Chapins invited me into their trailer and we spoke for four hours, seated at the breakfast table.» — la circunstancia de su propia entrevista con los Chapin.

«Jane suffered dizzy spells and was primarily preoccupied with warning everybody that UFOs existed and that they were hostile to humans.» — la posición de la testigo, que él consigna sin suscribirla.

«There were no physiological effects reported in connection with this episode.» — acota lo que ese primer episodio no trajo.

«The latter observation seems to contradict the Chapins’ statement about overcast skies. However, these official readings are for Red Bluff, which is a significant distance from the canyon where the mine is located.» — cómo maneja la discrepancia entre el parte meteorológico oficial y el testimonio, sin resolverla a favor de ninguno.

«A local physician dismissed the symptoms as “old age nervousness.” She and Cliff went to other doctors, insisting that the cause of their illness was probably the presence of the “strange rock” next to their trailer.» — el desenlace médico del caso y la atribución que los propios testigos hacían a la piedra extraña.

«I was placing a higher priority on physical evidence then on the details of the close encounters themselves.» — declara su propia prioridad de entonces, que es también un sesgo de su investigación.

«He concluded that the glass and sintered silicate were not natural products.» — el dictamen del doctor Edward Zeller sobre el material del sitio.

«The problem with your sand is that it’s not sand.” “What do you mean, it’s not sand?” I exclaimed. “It looks like sand to me.” “Perhaps it looks like sand to you, but it’s not alluvial sand or stream sand or beach sand or mine-tailing sand or any kind of naturally formed sand.» — lo que el geólogo del USGS le dice de la supuesta arena.

«The “organic material” that was duly noted by NASA might very well have come from Jane’s trailer. When I visited her, she overturned the bottle of mystery sand on her kitchen table and gathered up some of the stuff for me—hardly the sterile conditions required by precision work. I suspect the sample that had reached NASA had been obtained under similar circumstances. I would not be surprised if they found bread crumbs and chocolate chips in it.» — la reserva que él mismo pone sobre el material orgánico detectado por la NASA, con ironía.

«If they had invented the whole story, I do not doubt that Jane would have come up with something more imaginative and more colorful than an oval-shaped object with pockmarked skin.» — el argumento con que descarta la invención: el relato es demasiado pobre para ser inventado.

«An investigator for one of the civilian research groups, who had done an extensive analysis of the case, reported in print that the object “rose up off the ground a few feet, then took off like a shot up the canyon, swaying but not striking small trees as it went.” Jane gave me a different story: the object had flown off into the trees, passing through them as if they did not exist. “Why didn’t you tell that to the UFO investigators?” I asked her. “I could see they wouldn’t believe me if I told them the truth.» — la discrepancia entre la versión publicada por otro investigador y la que la testigo le da a él, con la razón que ella misma alega para haber callado.

«Jane said they were probably enemy devices from Russia or China. Clint disagreed with this; he thought they came from inside the earth, a theory he had» — las dos explicaciones que los propios testigos manejan, ninguna extraterrestre.

«Clint remembered seeing an object shaped like a half-egg standing up, which took off rapidly.» — el avistamiento del 30 de octubre de 1969 en la memoria de uno de los testigos.

«Both saw how the object lifted up, paused for a brief moment, then disappeared at an amazing speed.» — lo que los dos testigos coinciden en describir del despegue.

«Although I was slowly gaining the old couple’s confidence, I still had the feeling that some details were withheld from me, as they were from other investigators.» — lo que sospecha de sus propios testigos y no oculta al lector.

«Yet they did not especially seek or enjoy attention. Early in February 1978 the case became public knowledge through what I thought was rather irresponsible action on the part of local ufologists, who gave the story to the newspapers and sent reporters to the site. The results were predictable: a sketchy, inaccurate report was printed and the Chapins became quite upset. However, they did not associate me with the leaking of their story. They continued to correspond with me and to welcome my visits, which centered increasingly on the medical parameters of the case. At my request, Jane gave me a list of the doctors she had seen and allowed me to write down the medications she was taking. I obtained an independent assessment of her condition through medical specialists who took a private interest in the case. I offered expert attention to her and to Clint, at no expense to them. But Jane, always suspicious, misunderstood my questions.» — distingue el carácter de los testigos de su reacción ante él.

«I became increasingly frustrated with the case, now christened Copper Medic, which had grown into a three-inch file. Here was a site where, if we believed the witnesses (I did believe them, and still do) extraordinary phenomena had recurred time and time again at the same location.» — el balance del caso Copper Medic, con la creencia en los testigos declarada entre paréntesis y en presente.

«In July 1978 I had even obtained clearance from the state of California to install equipment on top of a mountain that overlooked the whole area, but we were not ready with our equipment. Two other reasons discouraged us from using Happy Camp as our first test site: we did not have anyone locally whom we could trust to monitor the equipment and it took an entire day for us just to drive up to the location.» — por qué Happy Camp no fue el sitio de prueba: sin equipo listo, sin nadie de confianza en el lugar y a un día de camino.

«Between August 1978 and August 1980 we developed the capability to take photographs of remote sites in the field using an automatic camera camouflaged as an ordinary rock. The device drew power from a separate buried battery unit. Our camera took sixty exposures during a six-hour period each day, then went to sleep for eighteen hours, starting again at the same time the next day.» — la instrumentación que desarrollan: una cámara automática camuflada de roca, con su ciclo diario.

«Although the cameras I bought were of a standard type used in military reconnaissance projects, they were designed to take film at twenty-four frames per second, giving an exposure time of one-fiftieth of a second. We began by replacing the lens with a 25mm Berthiot lens that could be set from f1.9 to f16, and we decided to use the slowest possible daylight film.» — el detalle técnico del aparato: cámaras de reconocimiento militar reacondicionadas con óptica Berthiot de 25 mm.

«The decision to take pictures in daylight was guided by the fact that the sightings by the Chapins had occurred between 10:00 A.M. and 11:00 A.M.» — el criterio con que fija la ventana horaria: la hora de los avistamientos de los testigos.

«Yet I saw it as my job to document every element, every detail, from weather reports to records of their mining claim.» — el alcance que le da a su propio trabajo de documentación.

«She thought that if I probed into the nature of their symptoms it was because I doubted their story.» — el malentendido con la testigo: indagar en los síntomas se lee como dudar del relato.

«Our friend, Bill Murphy, who lived in Redding at the time, was enthusiastic about the project and shared our frustration with the case.» — quién lo acompaña en el proyecto de vigilancia.

«It is one thing for such a device to work in the lab (it took pictures of our street through the living room window for a whole month without failing) and it is another to package it so that it will function when it is buried in the hillside, where it runs the risk of being found by picnickers or hunters, dislodged by a frightened deer, obscured by spiders and wasps who find the lens convenient, or bitten by a field mouse.» — la distancia entre el laboratorio y el terreno, enumerada con todo lo que puede estropear el aparato enterrado en la ladera.

«Our only problem was to locate our camera each time because it was so well camouflaged that it really did blend into the landscape.» — el problema práctico que resultó del camuflaje.

«Late in 1979 I gave up on Copper Medic, only occasionally staying in touch with the Chapins. I offered to return to Jane the rest of the samples.» — cómo termina el experimento: abandonado, sin ovni fotografiado, y con la devolución de las muestras.

«These key questions have never been adequately researched. Equipped with the data we have reviewed in the last few chapters, we can now return to this problem.» — cómo abre la quinta parte: las preguntas sobre realidad y hostilidad del daño siguen sin investigar.

«One of these patterns is the “law of the times,” which states that the peak in probability for a close encounter is reached between 1:00 A.M. and 3:00 A.M. The second law states that close encounters are likely to happen in areas of very low population density, isolated regions with poor communication with civilization, in sites located away from dwellings.» — las dos leyes empíricas que enuncia: la franja horaria de 1 a 3 de la madrugada y la baja densidad de población.

«Our return trip to Brazil validated these two laws with great accuracy, and it also illustrated one of the fallacies of UFO research. Most ufologists live in big cities and work from newspaper clippings mailed to them or from interview reports by local volunteers. They may verify this information over the telephone, but they rarely travel in person to the site of the events they write about.» — lo que el viaje confirma y lo que denuncia del método ufológico: recortes de prensa, teléfono y ninguna visita al sitio.

«Thus most of the arguments about some of the key cases in this field are conducted on a purely intellectual level, unpolluted by contact with reality, and without anyone having actually spoken to the witnesses at the remote site where the event took place.» — la consecuencia que saca: la discusión sobre los casos clave se hace sin contacto con la realidad.

«There are maps of the Interior, but they are generally unreliable. It is bad enough that place names do not correlate with surface features (Brazilian mapmakers, like American ufologists, like to stay in air-conditioned offices in Brasilia and Rio, overlaying aerial photographs on older maps bearing location names that are out of date), but political hyperbole sometimes dictates that straight modern highways be drawn over wide stretches of territory when only the plan for the highway exists.» — cómo describe el problema cartográfico del interior brasileño, con su propio sarcasmo sobre los cartógrafos y los ufólogos.

«His name was Jorge Pereira and his experience had taken place in the fall of 1984. One dark night, he was hunting near the hamlet of Povoada Saco. He was waiting for game in his hammock strung between two trees. Suddenly, everything was lit up from above. “I had a good rifle,” he told us, “and I thought, well, it’s either him or me. But after a few seconds I thought better of it. I climbed down from the tree, making a solemn promise to God: if He allowed me to get out unharmed, I would not kill any more deer.» — el testimonio de Jorge Pereira, con la promesa que hizo al bajar del árbol.

«Many witnesses came to us spontaneously to tell of their experiences. Others reported things they had heard about. None of these sightings had ever been discussed in the press or outside the community.» — lo que constata en la zona: testigos que se acercan solos, con avistamientos nunca discutidos fuera de la comunidad.

«We quickly realized that we had very limited time in which to document the observations that have accumulated in the Parnarama region, which probably number about five hundred. Given these limitations, we decided to concentrate on the specific incidents that involved medical injuries.» — el criterio de selección que impone el tiempo: unas quinientas observaciones acumuladas y solo los casos con lesión médica documentados.

«In 1988 I returned to Brazil with Janine to assess and analyze the numerous medical claims that seem to have concentrated in that part of the world.» — el propósito del viaje de 1988 con Janine: evaluar los numerosos casos con daño médico concentrados en esa región. Lo precede la declaración de haberse retirado de los casos estadounidenses corrientes para priorizar los datos físicos y biológicos.

«This two-week investigation, during which we interviewed fifty» — el alcance del trabajo de campo de 1988: dos semanas y cincuenta testigos entrevistados; la frase cruza el corte de plana y añade que no habría sido posible sin la ayuda de varios amigos estadounidenses y brasileños.

«Cosmo had lost the use of one of his knees several years before in an accident that fractured the articulation. The injury was never corrected properly, and he has to walk with a cane. It must have been difficult for him to clamber up the embankment to warn his son of the danger.» — un detalle del testigo que él mismo verifica y que hace verosímil la escena.

«The light was about sixty feet above the bank, illuminating a large area. Again, Cosmo went back toward his son, who was at the foot of a tree. They got down low on the ground to watch the object as it periodically expanded and receded, sometimes shrinking to a starlike point. It behaved that way until about 10:00 P.M.; by then they had moved, and they watched it from the shelter of an overhanging rock, at the edge of the water. At 10:00 P.M. the light moved to a different place on the bank, down the river on the path they would have to follow, and it seemed to wait for them. Then it moved to the other side of the river, where other fishermen were located. It changed to a bright red color and danced, oscillating over the water. Cosmo heard the fishermen yell and saw them run away. The object remained at the same spot until 4:00 A.M., when it rose about 70° above them, making a sound “like the dynamo that generates current on a bicycle.”» — el objeto del caso de Cosmo según su relato: altura, cambio de color, oscilación sobre el agua y el símil del dinamo de bicicleta para el sonido.

«We had covered ourselves with palm leaves. It landed in the sand above us. We heard something like a car door slammed shut. We also heard voices, but we could not discern the language. At 6:00 A.M. it went away, and we found large footprints where it had landed.» — lo que el testigo dice haber oído y encontrado: voces en lengua indiscernible y huellas grandes en el sitio.

«When the beam of light hit him he couldn’t open his eyes, and he felt intense pain. He became dizzy. He has not experienced any eye trouble, or any change in sleep patterns. However, the pain has not gone away in the last four years. It comes over him every day, starting with the head, then the legs and the hips; when this happens he has to stop working. He gets numbness in his fingers, pricklings.» — los efectos que el testigo reporta cuatro años después: dolor persistente, adormecimiento y hormigueo en los dedos, sin trastorno ocular ni del sueño.

«We left his cabin convinced that he was telling the truth and helpless to alleviate his pain.» — el saldo de esa entrevista: convencimiento y ninguna capacidad de aliviar.

«Manuel is a forty-six-year-old prospector, a rugged outdoorsman who stays alone in the wilderness for weeks or months at a time. He was forty at the time of the incident, in the fall of 1982. He was not in Parnarama when we visited the area, but we were able to speak at length with his wife and his children, who remember vividly the event and its aftermath.» — el perfil del segundo testigo y de quién obtiene su historia: la esposa y los hijos, porque él no estaba.

«He had been forced to change his mind about the existence of UFOs, and the experience had scared him out of his wits. He sold his collection of guns and has never gone back to hunt. Seated in Manuel’s spacious house in the middle of town, surrounded by kids and neighbors, I started asking for more details about the incident. “What happened to the gun?” I asked his wife. “It stayed there, in the hammock. And the dead deer stayed there too. Local people went and got them.” “How did he describe the light?” “It was bigger than the moon, mercury-white, so bright he could not look directly at it.» — el cambio de creencia del testigo y su descripción de la luz.

«When Manuel announced that he was going out hunting, his wife tried hard to make him change his mind:» — la escena previa al encuentro, con la advertencia de la esposa que el testigo desoye.

«Manuel only laughed at her, claiming with typical Latin machismo that he did not believe in such tales.» — la razón que el propio testigo da para desoírla, en los términos con que el autor la describe.

«He did not hesitate for a minute to take aim and to fire at the lights. Seeing that this had no effect, he jumped down from the tree and started running; one of the objects stayed in hot pursuit, shining the beam in his direction as he staggered through the underbrush. Everytime the light hit him he felt weak and fell. He also smelled a foul odor. He managed to run to a cave, crawled in, and expected to find shelter there.» — lo que el testigo hizo al ver las luces: disparar y refugiarse en una cueva.

«Manuel attributed his survival to the fact that he had torn off a piece of his shirt to cover his nose, so that he did not breathe the ill-smelling gas expelled by the chupa.» — a qué atribuye el testigo haber sobrevivido: taparse la nariz con un trozo de camisa para no respirar el gas.

«No, but he assumed it must be sending out bursts of gas because of the smell.” “What did he feel at the time?” “He felt heat and burns.” “Did you observe any unusual reactions or effects on his body when he returned home?” “He had marks on his shoulders, arms, neck, and on his back and chest.” “When did they develop?” “The day following the incident, when he was still at Lagoa de Dentro.” “What did these marks look like?” “They were red to purple, round; they did not hurt.” “Can you describe the edges?” “They were sharp, with the contours a deeper shade than the center. They were round, not irregular. One to two inches in diameter.” “Were the marks flat or raised?” “The skin was raised somewhat.” “Were there any puncture marks?” “None. I looked closely.” “Could you compare it to a hematoma?” “No, it looked more like a steam burn.” “What happened if you pressed it?” “It turned white where my finger touched the skin, then the color came back.” “How did the marks go away?” “They stayed the same color but got more and more clear until they disappeared in ten days.” “Was there any blister, any peeling of the skin?” “None whatsoever.” “What about his eyes?” “They were red the first day he came back. Since then he has only been able to read very close, and his eyes get tired quickly.” In the ensuing discussion, which became very personal, we established that Manuel had suffered no hearing loss as a result of the incident, but started drinking more than usual, a fact that may account for the slight tremor in his hands. In the whole incident, which Manuel calls “the worst thing in his life,” it was the smell that affected him the most. It was penetrating, like burning sulphur, and it made his nose run.» — el interrogatorio directo al testigo sobre las marcas cutáneas y el olor: círculos rojo-púrpura indoloros que blanquean a la presión y desaparecen en diez días, y un olor a azufre quemado.

«But we were not able to definitely tie his demise to the action of a lighted object, so that the cause of death must remain as a possible heart attack until more evidence can be obtained.» — la abstención sobre el caso de Ramón: sin más pruebas, la causa de muerte sigue siendo un posible infarto.

«One of his companions had seen a very bright light in the sky that night, but it was not known whether it was in the vicinity of Ramon or not.» — lo que no pudo establecer del avistamiento asociado al caso.

«The answer was yes. He took out the pill (which Pedro insists was simply aspirin, not a heart medication) and swallowed it with some water.» — el detalle de la pastilla, con la precisión que el testigo Pedro insiste en hacer.

«He told us that he disagreed with the idea that Ramon suffered a simple heart attack. He confirmed that Ramon was prostrate and already dead when he arrived on the scene with Ze Zinho. He noticed the round, red-purple, smooth marks on the neck, about one and a quarter inch in diameter. “I have seen many bodies,” he told us, “but never anything like this.” He traveled along with the corpse back to town, and on arrival he noticed that the marks had turned a deeper shade of purple. He suggested that an autopsy be performed, but the family did not authorize it.» — la discrepancia del testigo Eugenio con el diagnóstico de infarto, y la autopsia que la familia no autorizó.

«That night, according to Eugenio, the sky had been illuminated from 10:00 P.M. to midnight by a light that reminded him of the glow of a city. We returned to Ramon’s house armed with this information, and we interviewed his children again. His son, who is twenty, confirmed that Ramon was only forty when he died, that he had never had any problem with his heart, and that he was not taking any medication on a regular basis.» — los dos datos que refuerzan la duda: el cielo iluminado como el resplandor de una ciudad, y un muerto de cuarenta años sin problemas cardíacos ni medicación.

«he had not in fact seen the bodies, contrary to what the tabloid had reported in typically hyperbolic fashion.» — la corrección que impone al tabloide estadounidense sobre lo que el oficial declaró: no vio los cuerpos.

«According to Lieutenant Magela, Raimundo Souza, forty, was a professional hunter and was in good health. He was waiting for game one night in August 1981 when he struck a match to light a cigarette. His hunting companion, Anastasio Barbosa, believes that the light of the match revealed their position to an object that rapidly came over them and aimed a beam at them. Seeing this, Barbosa dropped from his hammock, crept under the bushes, and watched the object as it circled above before leaving. Scared, he remained in the underbrush until daylight, when he discovered Souza’s body. It was lying on the ground where he had fallen from the hammock, breaking one arm, and it bore several purple marks. These marks were on the upper torso, the arms, the whole body, but not on the face. There were no puncture wounds anywhere.» — el caso de Raimundo Souza tal como Magela lo reconstruye a partir del testimonio de su compañero de caza.

«Lieutenant Magela, who was in charge of this criminal investigation, took testimony from Barbosa and a dozen other people who had attended the victim. He is certain of the report’s credibility. The marks were circular and smooth like a bruise, ranging in size from one inch to two and a half inches.» — la base testimonial de la investigación criminal y la descripción de las marcas.

«No autopsy was done, but the entire body was carefully examined. The marks did not change between the time of death and the time of burial. In the absence of an autopsy, Magela agrees there is no evidence that the light of the UFO inflicted the fatal injuries. Instead, it is possible that Souza died of heart failure when he felt the beam hitting him and panicked, falling from the hammock. The marks on the body are consistent with those observed in other cases in which the victims survived. Given the evidence, Barbosa was not suspected of having killed his companion.» — la reconstrucción alternativa que Magela acepta —fallo cardíaco por pánico ante el haz— y la falta de evidencia de que la luz causara las heridas mortales.

«The above is only a selection of the most relevant injury cases among the many firsthand accounts we heard in Parnarama. In many other cases men observed UFOs and were exposed to the light while riding horses. In one incident in 1983 the horse was frightened and fell, but there were no subsequent ill effects. In a remote fazenda, workers told us they often saw the light, which made the ground so bright one could see a needle as if it were daylight.» — declara que lo publicado es una selección de los muchos relatos de primera mano recogidos en Parnarama.

«They led us to the main house, where a rancher told us that he “had never believed those stories,” until one night, as he was fishing» — el ranchero que declara no haber creído nunca en esas historias hasta que le pasó.

«A fifty-two-year-old man named Almundo Marie Araugo told us that during the winter of 1979, around midnight, he and his companions saw three objects behind them, each the size of the full moon, as they hunted armadillos.» — otro testimonio del valle de Acarau, con la luna llena como medida del tamaño.

«An old man we interviewed at the Santa Rita Fazenda told us that he knew people who were alive today who had seen the Caipora.» — lo que le dicen del Caipora en la hacienda: no es leyenda antigua, hay quien lo ha visto.

«He not only took numerous witness accounts from people who saw the objects, but he himself saw a light as big as the full moon and an object shaped “like the cupola of St. Peter’s.”» — lo que el teniente Magela le aporta como investigador y como testigo, con la cúpula de San Pedro como término de comparación.

«He had himself observed flying luminous objects, including red lights rotating around the television installations on the summit of the Serra de Tarantide.» — los avistamientos que el propio oficial declara haber tenido.

«The activity in the Parnarama region has not stopped: The Sunday before our arrival (which would have been July 24, 1988) Antonio José Carvalho, while fishing in the Parnaiba, saw a blue light accompanied by a steady white light. He was not scared by it, until the object flew overhead and disappeared suddenly. He told us that he gave up his fishing activity» — el caso más reciente, del domingo anterior a su llegada; la frase cruza el corte de plana y termina diciendo que el testigo abandonó la pesca y volvió deprisa a casa.

«Back in the village we spoke to forty-five-year-old Antonio Gomes, who, in July 1987, saw two blinding red lights above him as he was fishing in the Acarau River. He took cover at the foot of a tall tree as the lights moved together above him, apparently connected to a single, solid object. Aiming his long-barrel gun between the two lights, he fired at the dark rectangular shape and heard a ping sound as the shot hit metal.» — el testimonio del pescador del río Acarau, con el sonido metálico del disparo.

«She was afraid and chronically nervous after this, but her daughter told us that she suffered no burns, no marks, and no ill effects.» — lo que consigna del caso de María: miedo persistente y ningún efecto físico.

«We heard of many such UFO cases in the region of Sobral and Santana, but there were no reports of medical injuries—a fact that enabled us to better calibrate the sightings in Parnarama and those we would later investigate in Belém.» — para qué le sirve la zona sin lesiones: calibrar por contraste los casos de Parnarama y Belém.

«I am used to people saying, “You will think I am crazy, but I saw this object,” or simply withholding key information, admitting to paranormal events only as a last resort.» — lo que espera del testigo urbano, y que en el interior brasileño no encuentra.

«During the long drive back from the valley of the Acarau we tried to come to grips with the nature of the evidence. Was someone testing an exotic weapon over the vast Interior of Brazil, where communications are almost nil and where chances of observation are small? This hypothesis could explain some cases, but it quickly runs into a logical contradiction: what kind of sophisticated weapons system would need to chase an easy target like Manuel for seven hours through the underbrush without once getting a clean shot?» — la hipótesis del arma exótica y la contradicción lógica con que la desmonta.

«We already have helicopters that give off no light and make no sound, and we have many Rambo types who would have nailed Manuel between the eyes with one bullet from a rifle with an infrared scope before he had made a single move to leave his hammock. The evidence, once again, seems as incontrovertible as it is absurd.» — el argumento técnico del mismo descarte, con la conclusión sobre el estatuto de la evidencia.

«And local legends are rising to meet this level of absurdity: some people believe the chupa sucks the blood of its victims to take it to the moon.» — consigna la leyenda local que se acomoda a ese absurdo, como leyenda.

«If you look at the map (figure 4) you will see that the region we crisscrossed in our investigations ranges from French Guiana to Natal; in other words, from the European spaceport at Kourou, where new launching pads are being prepared for the Ariane V rocket, to the Brazilian space facility at Barrera do Inferno. But the main concentrations of sightings are in primitive areas, away from the technology centers.» — el marco geográfico del recorrido, de Kourou a Barrera do Inferno, y dónde se concentran los avistamientos: lejos de los centros tecnológicos.

«There is a single correlation with surface features, and it concerns large bodies of water: the Parnaiba, the Acarau, the vast bays at São Luís. And, of course, as we found out at the end of our trip, the ocean near Belém.» — la única correlación geográfica que encuentra: los grandes cuerpos de agua.

«Nobody has ever ridiculed these people. Their intelligence has never been insulted by the pundits of the New York Times or the arbiters of rationalism of Le Monde. They speak in simple, direct ways about what they saw. They admit to being scared, and when they speak about illness and death it is in the same calm, even voice with which one speaks about» — por qué el testigo del interior brasileño habla distinto: nadie lo ha ridiculizado ni desde el New York Times ni desde Le Monde. La frase cierra en la plana siguiente diciendo que habla de la enfermedad y de la muerte con la misma voz serena con que se habla de los misterios de alrededor.

«It is in the islands around Belém, where the waters of the Tarantins and the Amazon majestically come to meet the ocean one degree south of the equator, that the 1977 Brazilian wave culminated; and it is there that for the first time the proof of the reality of the phenomenon was obtained. More specifically, as Daniel Rebisso Giese has revealed, the culmination took place over a three-month period from July to September 1977 on the island of Colares and on the beach of Baia do Sol, on the island of Mosqueiro.1 We found fishermen there who had witnessed the objects, and a doctor who had ministered to the medical needs of dozens of people hit by the light from the chupa.» — sitúa la culminación de la ola brasileña de 1977 en Colares y Baía do Sol, según Daniel Rebisso Giese, y declara sus propias fuentes en el sitio.

«Ground truth: there was no denying the wave of 1977. It started in June near Cape Gurupi, north of the town of Vizeu, and it moved in both directions along the coast: toward São Luís to the east and toward Belém to the west during June and July; it reached a peak in September and October. The reason the phenomenon could not be denied was very simple: every evening the UFOs appeared, coming from the north.» — por qué el fenómeno no se pudo negar allí: se repitió todas las noches.

«They came over the islands at low altitude and circled; they descended as if to land; they made loops and accelerated suddenly; they hovered over houses and probed the inside with beams. They even emerged out of larger objects and reentered them. And this happened on schedule, every evening for three months. The panic on the island of Colares, according to a firsthand witness who lived through the ordeal, was hard to imagine. All the people who were able to leave, including the dentist and the school teachers, abandoned their posts. People who had family on the mainland left. The sheriff fled. The objects were never alone. On numerous photographs taken by journalists they are seen accompanied by smaller probes.» — el repertorio de conductas del objeto en la ola de Colares, y las sondas menores que aparecen en las fotos de los periodistas.

«There was nothing elusive about these objects. They were not the fleeting phenomena so often described in the American literature or the dreamlike manifestations experienced by the contactees, which become even more dreamlike under hypnotic regression.» — lo que distingue esta ola de la casuística estadounidense: nada elusivo, nada onírico.

«There was a superior technology at work over Colares, and all the observers could do was to film it and watch in awe.» — su juicio sobre lo que operaba en Colares y lo único que los observadores pudieron hacer.

«They range in size from starlike objects to things as big as two 737s end to end.» — el rango de tamaños que consigna.

«Perhaps they knew that the Brazilian Air Force had issued confidential orders directing air traffic away from the area.» — la conjetura que deja abierta sobre las órdenes confidenciales de desvío de tráfico aéreo.

«They all told the same story: They had been resting in their hammocks when the light hit them from above. They were immediately immobilized, as if a heavy weight pushed against their chest. The beam was about three inches in diameter and white in color. It never hunted for them but hit them suddenly. When they tried to scream, no sound would come out, but their eyes remained open. The beam felt hot, “almost as hot as a cigarette burn,” barely tolerable. After a few minutes the column of light would slowly retract and disappear. The beam never hit the victims on the hands or the arms, always on the neck and torso.» — el patrón constante de las víctimas de Colares: hamaca, haz de tres pulgadas y blanco, y siempre en cuello y torso.

«There were several exceptions; in one case a forty-eight-year-old woman was seriously hurt. She had awakened during the night and had started to crochet to pass the time, when the light suddenly hit her chest. After it withdrew, she went to military doctors, who gave her a simple tranquilizer (Somalium) and five milligrams of Diazepan, which made her sleep. In the morning she came to the health center seeking treatment, but she never fully recovered, and she has continuing symptoms of dizziness and weakness to this day. In another case, a thirty-two-year-old male victim suffered a similar fate. And one woman, as stated in chapter 9, died the day after her exposure to the light, which seems to have aggravated a preexistent cardiac condition.» — las excepciones al patrón, incluida la muerte que atribuye a un agravamiento cardíaco.

«Ground truth: when the wave of reports and medical injuries reached the town center, people panicked. They did not sleep for fear of night attacks. Only the priest, the mayor, and the doctor remained behind when the pillars of the community made their getaway. The buses were crammed with people leaving. At night, fishermen refused to go out. Soon there was nothing to eat; the people had to resort to canned food and whatever could be brought over from the mainland. People drank coffee throughout the night to stay awake. When they saw anything unusual flying overhead, they set off fireworks and beat on pans to scare it away. The federal government eventually sent a military team with strict orders to observe but not to interfere.» — el pánico de la población y la orden del gobierno federal: observar sin intervenir.

«Ground truth: we asked Dr. Carvalho to tell us about her own sighting, which occurred one day at 6:00 P.M., and she told us it was the most beautiful thing she had ever witnessed.» — el propio avistamiento de la doctora de Colares, en sus términos.

«How ironic, that we are hoping to communicate with alien beings when we cannot even communicate among ourselves; that military and civilians cannot agree on the reality of the phenomenon; that data cannot be shared among doctors, among investigators, among countries.» — la ironía con que resume el estado de la investigación: militares y civiles sin acuerdo y datos sin compartir.

«They were from southern states and had grades up to captain.» — el detalle que consigna del equipo militar enviado a Colares.

«It could also create long-term behavioral effects, changes in sleep patterns, even delusionary episodes and hallucinations.» — los efectos a largo plazo que atribuye al haz, incluidos los episodios delirantes y las alucinaciones.

«The evidence that has now been obtained by the major powers is so valid and it has such devastating implications for future military systems that the decision has been made to keep it under lock and key, and to entrust its study only to highly specialized teams with selected, compartmented access. In my opinion, the work of these teams is doomed to failure, as it has been since 1953, in spite of all the resources behind it and in spite of the absurd disinformation operation that surrounds it to keep it secure.» — la doble afirmación con que cierra la quinta parte: la evidencia está bajo llave, y ese secreto está condenado al fracaso desde 1953.

«Ground truth: what happened at Baia do Sol can happen again anywhere, tomorrow. I detest the thought that it will find us unprepared.» — la advertencia con que cierra el cuerpo del capítulo.

«The material gathered in this book represents only a portion of the cases I have personally investigated and a very small percentage of the data compiled by other researchers and by official agencies. The realization that none of this material has ever been seriously examined by professional scientists is staggering. Strictly in terms of the sociology of science, the refusal to consider the facts of the UFO phenomenon is a remarkable statement about the narrow limits within which our society authorizes the serious pursuit of knowledge. My hope is that, in some small way, this report on my own fieldwork will help change this situation.» — acota el alcance del libro dentro de su propio archivo y declara lo que le parece asombroso: que nadie lo haya examinado en serio.

«I think I have shown that the time has come to take a wider view of the problem and to conduct a new, objective assessment of the accumulated material.» — lo que declara haber mostrado, en términos de programa y no de resultado.

«In these cases, the decision to help the witnesses should not be based on whether we believe in UFOs or reject the idea.» — desliga la asistencia al testigo de la creencia en el fenómeno.

«It is remarkable that we found our greatest concentration of injury cases in Brazil, one of the few areas of the world that remains of difficult access for scientists and also combines remoteness, large expanses of uncharted, unpopulated land, and access to immense amounts of water.» — el rasgo que le llama la atención de la concentración brasileña: acceso difícil, tierra despoblada y agua en cantidad.

«At one time, in fact, the Brazilian Air Force and Navy Intelligence speculated that actual UFO bases might exist somewhere between the mouth of the Amazon and the São Luís area.» — consigna la conjetura que en su momento manejaron la Fuerza Aérea y la Inteligencia Naval brasileñas.

«Hostility, as I have pointed out, can be taken at two levels.» — el reparto en dos niveles con que ordena la cuestión de la hostilidad.

«We have noted that silent helicopters equipped with the tools of modern anti-guerrilla warfare could have done away in minutes with the isolated Brazilian hunters.» — el argumento con que descarta el arma terrestre convencional en los casos brasileños.

«An obvious biological effect of microwaves is that they heat tissue. Brain temperature changes of only a few degrees have been shown to cause convulsions, unconsciousness, and amnesia in rats. Even weaker microwave pulses, too weak to heat animal tissue, can have serious effects by disturbing cell membranes. Howard Wachtel and his colleagues at the University of Colorado have shown that the activity of nerve cells could be temporarily altered by a single microwave pulse.2 They have also observed “a brief depression in the electroencephalograms of rodents exposed to similar pulses,” and they add that “the effects of such pulses on humans is unknown.”» — el apoyo experimental que trae para el efecto de microondas sobre el sistema nervioso, con la reserva de los propios investigadores sobre lo que se ignora en humanos.

«Dr. Keith Florig, an expert on policy issues involving ionizing and non-ionizing radiation, notes that “HPM weapons that merely stun the nervous system temporarily seem, like short-acting chemical agents, to be more humane than lethal force…. HPM weapons that blind, burn or bake people to death are likely to be viewed as an abhorrent addition to the arsenal.”» — cómo se leen socialmente las armas de microondas de alta potencia según el experto en política de radiación Keith Florig.

«Interestingly, Dr. Florig remarks that “the difference between a disabling and a lethal (force) is largely one of range. So it would be hard to show that a weapon intended to disable could not be lethal at short range.”» — la distinción que le importa del mismo experto: lo que separa desactivar de matar es el alcance.

«The power requirements of beam weapons are such that they will be deployed initially either on land or on large ships. It is difficult to conceive, in our present state of technology, of a pulsed microwave beam carried aloft by anything as small as a chupa. But perhaps a weapon designed only to disable humans on the ground would not need to be heavy and large.» — la objeción técnica que se pone a sí mismo sobre la miniaturización del arma, y la salida que deja abierta.

«Here again, the UFOs seem to represent an alien force that anticipates our own scientific development by decades, mocking our efforts to identify its nature and its long-term intentions. Understandably, the military establishment does not feel comfortable with the disclosure of our weakness any more than the scientific establishment feels inclined to confessing its ignorance.» — el balance con que cierra la conclusión: una fuerza ajena que se adelanta décadas, y dos establecimientos incómodos con lo que tendrían que admitir.

«The infinite variety of phenomena that somehow make their way into the UFO literature is so bewildering that the scientist finds few handles to begin a rational study.» — el problema que el apéndice viene a resolver: la variedad del material impide asirlo racionalmente.

«Consider also the abduction reports: in most cases, the witnesses state that they were stopped on a lonely road and that beings took them inside a UFO, where they were examined. Yet this scenario, which has been presented in many recent books, is by no means universal. There are reports of abductions where the body of the abductee never left the car, while his or her consciousness was said to be lifted into a hovering object. There are also many cases of abductions that do not involve a UFO at all. In other words, the witnesses report leaving their body and going to another realm. In some instances there were people present who can swear that the body of the witness did not leave the earth, although the authenticity of the interaction, as perceived by the subject, must be seriously considered.» — acota el escenario típico de abducción y consigna los casos en que hay testigos de que el cuerpo no se movió, sin descartar la interacción tal como el sujeto la percibe.

«For those scientists who have not been completely nauseated by this exercise and have had the patience to apply their critical abilities to the phenomenon, the UFO is simply “any sighting that is puzzling to the observer,” as the Condon Report put it. But this definition errs in the opposite direction; it is much too vague and too broad, because anything will sooner or later be puzzling to somebody.» — la definición del informe Condon y por qué no le sirve: cualquier cosa acaba desconcertando a alguien.

«Although this situation is frustrating, it is not unique in science. Similar problems are found in pure mathematics. An excellent example is provided by prime numbers. For many centuries the finest minds in mathematics have tried to come up with a direct characterization of prime numbers: there is no formula that will automatically generate the nth prime number, or all the prime numbers, to the same extent that we have formulas that will generate all the even numbers and all the odd numbers. We know that five is a prime number because it can be divided only by one and by itself, but what about 21,637? The only way to find out is to try all possible prime factors.» — la analogía con los números primos: tampoco allí hay caracterización directa y hay que probar los factores uno a uno.

«We do know that even numbers like 232 cannot be prime because we can always divide them by two. Some odd numbers cannot be prime either; for example, those ending with five.» — el criterio negativo que sí funciona en la analogía, y que traslada a los ovnis.

«Twenty-five years ago, in Anatomy of a Phenomenon, I proposed to apply the same construct to a definition of UFOs. The first part of an updated definition would state: UFO phenomena are to be found among reports of objects, lights, beings, or physical effects that are regarded by the witnesses as anomalies because of their appearance or behavior. The second part of the definition would be an empirical recipe that could be used to determine if a given report of such an anomaly belongs to the UFO phenomenon or not. But aren’t we right back to Hynek’s problem? Since we can test the genuineness of a UFO only by eliminating what it is not (not a helicopter, not a plane, nor a bird, etc.), where are we going to find the group of wise experts who can be relied upon to apply the same body of specialized knowledge to all the cases? Fortunately, there is now a good answer to this question, an answer that did not exist twenty-five years ago.» — remite a su propio libro de 1965 para la construcción de la definición, y anuncia la respuesta nueva a la objeción del consenso.

«When you see one you recognize it, because it’s round and it has lights on it.» — la definición popular del ovni que recoge para desmontarla.

«I have seen some UFO celebrities pointing at distant street lamps, passing headlights, and flickering fireflies as evidence of alien craft observing them.» — lo que él mismo ha visto señalar como prueba de nave alienígena: farolas lejanas, faros de coche y luciérnagas.

«Hynek’s definition of a UFO is insufficient because it assumes that there is a group of wise, technically capable people somewhere who can always reach a consensus to decide, for example, whether a particular light in the sky could, or could not, be a reflection from the wings of a distant aircraft.» — la objeción a la definición de Hynek: supone un grupo de personas técnicamente capaces que siempre alcanza consenso.

«It is not operational, since it relies on an arbitrary group of “technically capable persons” to do the screening.» — por qué esa definición no es operativa: el cribado queda en manos de un grupo arbitrario.

«Another problem with the definition is that it leaves out many phenomena that most ufologists find relevant to their work. For example, it does not leave room for reports of beings seen by themselves, independent of “an object or light,” and it does not encompass cases in which a pattern of unusual physical effects was observed, suggesting a UFO phenomenon,» — lo que la definición deja fuera: los seres vistos solos y los patrones de efectos físicos aunque no se viera objeto ni luz alguna.

«In spite of the current progress in artificial intelligence, most computer scientists agree that no expert system can replace human judgment.» — el límite que pone al sistema experto que propone.

«A program like OVNIBASE should eliminate at least 50% of all UFO reports, otherwise it is not very useful as a screening tool, but it should not eliminate more than 75% of them, or it will enter an area where human judgment should be able to intervene.» — los dos umbrales del programa de cribado: por debajo del 50 % no sirve, por encima del 75 % invade el terreno del juicio humano.

«To my knowledge, the first classification system for UFO phenomena grew out of my work in 1961 and 1962 with Aimé Michel and with Dr. Pierre Guerin in Paris.» — declara la genealogía de la primera clasificación: su trabajo de 1961 y 1962 con Aimé Michel y Pierre Guerin.

«It may be hard for the modern reader to realize that until the late Sixties American ufology did not admit that such reports even existed.» — el estado del campo que recuerda: hasta finales de los sesenta la ufología estadounidense negaba que hubiera informes de aterrizaje.

«It is a source of puzzlement to me that these reports have practically disappeared from the scene. I am unable to speculate about a reason for this change.» — la abstención declarada sobre la desaparición de un tipo entero de informe.

«Hynek was well aware that this division was arbitrary, and he remarked himself that the categories “may not be mutually exclusive.” The major contribution in Hynek’s classification was the clarity with which landings were now defined: CE1 was the class of objects seen on the ground or at short distance to the observer. CE2 was the class of close encounters in which physical effects or traces were present. CE3 was the class of close encounters that involve “entities” or “occupants,” a category from which he excluded repeated contact. These categories have withstood the test of time and continue to be useful today.» — lo que le concede a la clasificación de Hynek y el límite que el propio Hynek le puso.

«Serious problems arise, however, when one tries to use Hynek’s categories of nocturnal lights, daylight disks, and radar-visual cases, especially when the screening process works from a computerized database, as it will need to do in any sophisticated effort to attack the UFO problem in the future. Not only do those categories overlap, as Hynek had noted, but many reports cannot be placed within any of the classes. Examples of the former problem are provided by the numerous cases of disks seen in daylight and tracked on radar at the same time. If they are placed into the RV category, the statistics on DD cases are amputated by one potentially important data point, and vice versa. An example of the latter deficiency is Whitley Strieber’s observation of a dark disk flying between him and the field of the stars at night: this was neither a daylight disk nor a nocturnal light.» — los dos defectos que le encuentra —solapamiento y casos inclasificables— con el avistamiento de Whitley Strieber como ejemplo.

«The work we have done with computer-based expert systems in the last three years has suggested new, more practical, solutions to these remaining problems, although it must be recognized that no classification system is perfect.» — presenta su propia solución sin reclamarle perfección.

«It is the rule, rather than the exception, to find significant UFO sightings preceded or followed by other anomalies, notably of the poltergeist variety. For that reason, I have found it useful to begin with a classification of anomalies into four groups that parallel Hynek’s close encounter categories:» — el hecho que justifica su taxonomía nueva: los avistamientos vienen acompañados de otras anomalías, sobre todo del tipo poltergeist.

«AN1 are anomalies that do not have lasting physical effects, such as amorphous lights or unexplained explosions.» — primer nivel de su taxonomía de anomalías.

«I see no reason to change anything to the classification of close encounters which is in current use, from CE1 to CE4, although Hynek himself was not responsible for creating the CE4 category and was not especially happy with it.» — lo que conserva de Hynek y la salvedad que introduce sobre la categoría CE4, que no era suya.

«In recent years the need has become acute for a new category, CE5, which will encompass cases of close encounters in which the witnesses have suffered permanent injuries or other physiological effects.» — la categoría nueva que reclama el material del libro: encuentros cercanos con lesión permanente.

«Accordingly, I have found it useful to introduce two general categories called MA for “maneuvers” and FB for “flyby.”» — las dos categorías generales con que subdivide los avistamientos distantes.

«MA2 includes those cases that give rise to physical effects in addition to a discontinuous trajectory: the episode in Arcachon, described in chapter 1, in which an object triggered the photocell for the whole city, fits in the MA2 category. MA3 contains the cases of objects with discontinuous trajectories when beings are observed on board. Some of the “airship” cases of the late nineteenth century were in this category, as well as the famous 1959 sighting by Father Gill in New Guinea. MA4 covers instances of maneuvers accompanied by a sense of transformation of reality for the percipient. MA5 is a maneuver as a result of which the witnesses suffer permanent injury or death.» — cómo aplica la escala a sus propios casos, del disparo de fotocélulas en Arcachon a la lesión permanente o la muerte.

«The reader will note in the index beginning on page 242 that I have also placed under MA5 the case of Dr. X, in which we do not have permanent injuries but permanent healing.» — la excepción que declara en su propia tabla: el caso del Dr. X entra en MA5 por curación permanente, no por lesión.

«No classification system is complete without a way of assigning credibility or “weight” to an observation. While such a procedure is an integral part of any intelligence evaluation task, UFO researchers have rarely bothered to apply it in support of their own work. One exception is the “quality index” proposed by Spanish researchers Ballester and Guasp, but it is so detailed that I have found it difficult to apply in practice.2 While acknowledging such efforts, it is important to implement a system that is simple enough to be applied quickly and with enough mnemonic value that it does not require constant reference to a user’s manual or a set of tables.» — por qué añade una escala de credibilidad y por qué descarta el índice de calidad de Ballester y Guasp: demasiado detallado para aplicarlo.

«In my own work I now use a three-digit code to indicate the weight of a UFO case. Each of the three digits has a value from zero to four, as follows:» — el código SVP de tres dígitos con que pesa cada caso.

«In the present book, seventy-one out of the one hundred cases cited have a rating of 222 or better (meaning that each of the three digits is two or higher), indicating events reported through a reliable source in which a site visit has been made and where a natural explanation would require the» — el saldo que declara de sus cien casos según esa escala.

«FB1 is a simple sighting of a UFO “flying by” in the sky, the category most frequently reported. FB2 is a flyby accompanied by physical evidence. FB3 is a flyby of an object accompanied by the observation of beings on board. Although rare, this type of observation is reported occasionally. FB4 is a flyby where the witness experienced a transformation of his or her reality into the reality of the object or its occupants. FB5 would be a flyby as a result of which the witnesses would suffer» — la escala paralela para el sobrevuelo, de la simple observación al caso con lesión permanente; el último nivel cierra en la plana siguiente con el caso Cash-Landrum de Texas.

«The growing body of information retrieved from the minds of abductees has been tabulated statistically by Thomas Bullard under a grant from the Fund for UFO Research.6 It has been found to be exceptionally consistent and robust, a fact cited by most UFO researchers today as evidence that we are indeed visited by aliens from outer space. Only a few exceptional cases do not seem to fit. For example, the experiences of Whitley Strieber, as described in his best-selling books Communion and Transformation, do not follow the standard template.» — concede la consistencia estadística del corpus de abducciones tabulado por Thomas Bullard, y a la vez señala las excepciones: los casos de Whitley Strieber en *Communion* y *Transformation*.

«Yet the entity did not look like the wise, benign being on the cover of Communion. Instead, he had a prominent nose and long hair.» — usa la portada de *Communion* como referencia visual de lo que el testigo argentino NO describió.

«A reader of Dimensions wrote to me enthusiastically: “Thank you for not including blurry black and white pictures of alleged UFOs.”» — la carta de un lector de su libro anterior con que abre el capítulo fotográfico.

«More than twenty years ago, in our book Challenge to Science: The UFO Enigma1 we uncovered the basic patterns in close encounter cases.» — remite a su libro de 1966 con Janine Vallée para las dos leyes empíricas del encuentro cercano.

«Confrontations: A Scientist's Search for Alien Contact Copyright © 1990, 2008 by Jacques Vallee» — la página de derechos de nuestro ejemplar: reimpresión de Anomalist Books sobre el copyright de 1990, con portada de Sven Geier y diseño de Seale Studios.

«This book is dedicated to Aimé Michel, who thirty years ago inspired me to search beyond the superficial appearances of reality and who taught me to "shake the pear tree" of science.» — dedicatoria.

«To Ned Leavitt at William Morris and to my editor, Joe Blades, at Ballantine, whose guidance made the publication of this work possible.» — el aparato editorial que nombran los agradecimientos es el de la edición Ballantine de 1990, aunque el ejemplar procesado sea la reimpresión de 2008.

«To Emery Reiff, who had the patience to decipher and process the manuscript for this book.»

«Professor Agobar Oliveira at the University of Fortaleza» — figura entre los colaboradores agradecidos; no es el arzobispo Agobardo de Lyon, que aparece en la p. 155.

«I especially treasure warm and informative exchanges with Mimi Hynek, Gordon Creighton, John Keel, Jenny Randles, Pierre Lagrange, Bertrand Meheust, Whitley Strieber, Hilary Evans, Antonio Ribera, Salvatore Freixedo» — los agradecimientos nombran, entre otros, a los dos que el cuerpo del libro trata como interlocutores teóricos.

«To the memory of pioneers of UFO research who are no longer with us: Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Dr. Olavo Fontes, Jim and Coral Lorenzen, Dr. James McDonald, Donald Keyhoe and Charles Bowen»

«PART THREE: THE PRICE OF CONTACT 7. Botanical Data 8. Clinical Data 9. Lethal Impact» — el índice declara el eje médico del libro; las otras partes son «A PARADE OF PARAMETERS», «LESSONS IN HUMILITY», «STALKING THE INTRUDERS» y «THE HEART OF THE MATTER».

«Pierre Giscard, Mystique ou Hysterie? (Paris: La Colombe, 1953).» — pie de imprenta tal como lo trae la sección de notas, sin acento en el título.

«Bertrand Meheust has summarized his extensive work on UFOs, folklore, and science fiction in two well-researched books, both published in Paris by Mercure de France» — la nota que da la referencia bibliográfica del único linaje desarrollado del libro.

«This is especially true when the research topic lies beyond the recognized boundary of conventional science.» — los agradecimientos declaran la condición del trabajo: el tema queda fuera de la frontera reconocida de la ciencia convencional, y por eso depende de una red de colegas.

«They are too numerous for all their names to be mentioned here; many of them wish to remain anonymous for personal or professional reasons.» — consigna que buena parte de la red de colaboradores queda sin nombrar por decisión de ellos; es un límite declarado de la trazabilidad del libro.

«To protect the privacy of the witnesses, most of the names have been changed, even when the individuals had been quoted in the press at the time. UFO witnesses have been subjected to so much harassment and vandalism that such a procedure seems to be the only ethical way to deal with the cases.» — la nota que declara el criterio de anonimato del libro y su motivo: el acoso y el vandalismo sufridos por los testigos.

«The Aurora case was first described in the literature by Hanlon and Vallee in “Airships over Texas,” Flying Saucer Review 13,» — la nota que adjudica la primera publicación del caso Aurora, con su propia firma junto a la de Hanlon.

«The Dr. X episode was first published by Aimé Michel in Flying Saucer Review (Special Issue no. 3, September 1969): 3, with a follow-up in FSR 17, no. 6» — la nota que sitúa la publicación original del caso del Dr. X en la revista de Aimé Michel.

«The camera type was RMK 15/23, the film was Kodak Plus X, ASA 80, the exposure time was 1/500 second and the f-stop was 5.6.» — el detalle técnico que las notas dan de una de las fotografías analizadas.

«Jacques Vallee and Janine Vallee, Challenge to Science: The UFO Enigma (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1966; New York: Ballantine).» — pie de imprenta de su propio libro de 1966, escrito con Janine Vallée.

«Allen J. Hynek, The UFO Experience (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1972), page 10.» — pie de imprenta de la obra de Hynek de la que toma la definición operativa de ovni.

«The report concluded: “The fibers are straight and of uniform diameter (9-10 microns) and cross-section.» — el dictamen del laboratorio forense sobre las fibras de Happy Camp, citado en las notas.

«V. J. Ballester and M. Guasp, “Standards in the Evaluation of UFO» — la referencia del índice de calidad español que declara demasiado detallado para usarlo; el título de la contribución se corta con la plana y sigue en la 214, en *The Spectrum of UFO Research*, editado por Mimi Hynek.

Magonia (la región de donde vienen las naves de las nubes) — El nombre sobrevive de 1988 en un solo pasaje: la nave-nube de Agobardo de Lyon, y el rechazo de Budd Hopkins a esos datos por folclore de autenticidad incierta.

Iniciación (recepción por grados / metamorfosis del ser) — Adjudica a su propio *Invisible College* la equiparación entre la estructura del relato de abducción y el ritual de iniciación ocultista, y a Bertrand Meheust la del despliegue simbólico con el ritual o el viaje astral de cada cultura.

Ocultismo (occultisme) — Aparece siempre como material de caso, no como adscripción: el grupo espiritista de Morro do Vintém, la muerte de Netta Fornario, y la mezcla de fundamentalismo cristiano y creencia ocultista del norte de California.

Secreto (lo que se jura no fijar por escrito) — Lo predica de tres sujetos distintos: el testigo francés que oculta parte de lo suyo, la orden militar brasileña de no hacer declaraciones públicas, y la evidencia bajo llave de las grandes potencias con acceso compartimentado.

Imaginación (phantasia) — El fenómeno actúa como transformador de realidad y dispara imágenes del inconsciente colectivo en términos junguianos; y el experimento de Alvin Lawson con abducidos imaginarios da relatos indistinguibles de los reales.

Transvection (el traslado corporal por seres demoníacos) — La creencia armada alrededor de las abducciones se declara reminiscente del rapto por demonios, el pacto con Satán y el vuelo al sabbat, con la marca del Diablo en el cuerpo de la bruja.

Crítica de fuentes (criterios de inclusión y descarte) — Ordena la casuística con tres preguntas —si los testigos existen, si el sitio se conoce, si ocurrió algo anómalo—, exige cadena de custodia que aguante en un tribunal y declara que su libro se distingue por el dato de primera mano tomado en el sitio.