Demythologizing the "989ADsighting"

[ChrisPerridas]

I started picking through Vallee's Passport to Magonia. As soon as I saw this one, I had some misgivings. Plus, I like a good history detective mystery. The paucity of data made me suspicious, so I dug pretty deep. You couldn't pick a much more obscure era for a UFO sighting. In fact in research, I discovered Charlemagne (speaking of French people) would be a much richer place to see UFOs. They were all over the place, and he decreed execution if anyone else told him they'd seen another one.

This is what I uncovered, which leads me to be very suspicious this was a "real report" or if it was, a "real UFO".

I tried to find the French copy of Christian Piens, Les Ovni du Passee, and when I found snippets online, there was no reference where he obtained the story. I don't think there are any French forum participants, but I have a Lovecraft colleague in France I could ask.

If anyone has more details, I sure would appreciate it.
_____

The references of the "story".

"One of the more spectacular sightings happened on August 3, 989 when three round objects of high brilliance were seen in the sky and later merged together. "

This is listed as happening on 3 August 989 in Japan. It is item 73 in Wonders of the Sky: Unexplained Aerial Objects from Antiquity to Modern Times, Jaques Vallee and Chris Aubeck.

"73. 3 August 989, Japan, exact location unknown, Three objects became bright, in extraordinary fashion, and met at the same point of their trajectory. Source, Christian Piens, Les Ovni du Passee, Paris, Marabout, 1977, page 41.'

This is listed in Passport to Magonia, Jacques Vallee, page 6, "On August 3, 989, during a period of great social unrest, three round objects of unusual brilliance were observed; later they joined together."

The likely original French from Les Ovni du Passe was "Japon ( 3 août 989 ) Les trois objets brillèrent d'une façon peu ordinaire et se réunirent en un même point de leur trajectoire.", or "Japan (August 3, 989) "The three objects flashed an unusual way and gathered at one point of their trajectory. "

This event is as yet untraceable. However, it may not be a coincidence, that if the month and year is correct, 989 AD, the record of the Itidaiyoki is interesting. "In the 3rd year of the Epoch Eien (= 1st year of the epoch Eiso), on the 12th day of the 7th month (15 August), there was a comet in the east. Its length grew to about 5 feet after a few nights." In addition, the Nihonkiryaku, volume 9, lists, "On the 1st day of the 6th month (6 July) there was a comet (it is not clear whether one or more is meant) in the eastern and western heavens. // On every night from the 10th to the 20th of the 7th month (13-23 August) a comet (or comets) was seen in the eastern and western heavens. These passages are derived from pages 130,131 of the March 1910 "Halley's Comet in Japanese History". The Observatory, Vol. 33

(link: 1910Obs....33..130H Page 130)

(link: 1910Obs....33..130H Page 131)

What Japanese unrest in "989 AD"? This coincides exactly with the rise of one political dynasty headed by the Japanese nobleman (Fujiwara clan ) Fujiwara Michinaga (966-1027), He became one of the most powerful statesmen in the Heian period. A number of deaths and exiles consolidated his power. Specifically in the Eiso era, commencing in 989, Fujiwara no Kaneie fell ill, and his son, Fujiwara no Michitaka, was chosen as regent, This happened during the 5th month. Kaneie died on 26 July 989 AD – the 7th month. However this is controversial, and listed as July 990 AD in many historical websites. It would be easy to see why Halley's comet and other celestial events would be important during these few years.

_____

So bottom line, if this was a 989 AD event in Japan, it likely had more to do with omens than UFOs.

[starman2003]

Three round objects of "high brilliance" don't sound much like comets. You can't dismiss a report just because Halley's was there.

[ChrisPerridas]

"three round objects of high brilliance" ain't aliens either. who said it, when?

this ufo stuff is great, you can say anything and it is aliens.

I may start playing the game.

"Hey. A guy in 239 BC saw a flying sphere fall into the Mediterranean. Three days later a strange body washed ashore, and no one had ever seen anything like it before."

All I need is for three people to post it online, and a guy to put it in his next UFO book, and it is proof.

sheesh.

[ChrisPerridas]

Adding to the "proof" of UFOs ...

[Carol Nistri]

Snort!

[ChrisPerridas]

sorry for the hyperbole, Carol.

and I'm sure that Vallee meant well, but I expected a notable scientist like him to give some additional details of where some of these stories originate. I'm going to investigate as many of these as time will allow me.

[starman2003]

Originally Posted by ChrisPerridas

"three round objects of high brilliance" ain't aliens either. who said it, when?

this ufo stuff is great, you can say anything and it is aliens.

I may start playing the game.

"Hey. A guy in 239 BC saw a flying sphere fall into the Mediterranean. Three days later a strange body washed ashore, and no one had ever seen anything like it before."

All I need is for three people to post it online, and a guy to put it in his next UFO book, and it is proof.

sheesh.

Far from proof, in either case, but evidence, albeit not strong.

[Antrikshaadmi]

Originally Posted by ChrisPerridas

Adding to the "proof" of UFOs ...

I liken skeptics demanding proof who hear physicists like Dr. Michio Kaku mention Type II civilizations being immortal and Type III civilizations having mastered the Planck energy which gives them mastery of space-time(who are gods for lack of a better description) to flat earth atheists who decide to not believe that gods exist because the paradigm they wish to impose on reality is not coinciding with what they want that reality to be.

Flat Earth Atheist - Television Tropes & Idioms

Cognitive dissonance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As can be seen with the UFO and alien phenomenon, anything that doesn't fit in to a Western monotheistic paradigm, such as a multiverse with an infinite amount of aliens which are gods for lack of a better description inhabiting an infinite amount of parallel universes, is simply disregarded because of cognitive dissonance. Therefore, the skeptics on the matter of aliens are rather amusing to me, try as they may to make reality what they want it to be there are an infinite amount of aliens even if it doesn't coincide with what they want reality to be. I'd be a polytheist if it were possible to count the number of gods there are.

edit

I'd like to clarify, there are an infinite amount of aliens in the multiverse. Some are Type II and above, which makes them immortal and nothing known to science can destroy them. However, it is patently absurd to suggest that the gods concern themselves at all with the affairs of mortals, otherwise they'd answer the prayers of men and we'd all be dead.

"If God listened to the prayers of men, all men would quickly have perished: for they are forever praying for evil against one another." ~ Epicurus

"I pray to God that Islam should soon disappear from the world. O God, accept this prayer of mine. O God, destroy Islam." ~ John Alexander Dowie

"O God, strengthen Islam and Muslims, protect Islam, destroy Islam's enemies and all tyrants and corrupters, close Muslims' ranks, and give wisdom to their leaders. O God, help the mujahidin in Palestine promote justice. O God, destroy the tyrant Jews and protect us from their evil." ~ Shaykh Usamah Bin-Abdallah Khayyat

The gods are immortal and blessed and men who ascribe any additional qualities that are alien to immortality and blessedness are, according to Epicurus, impious. The gods do not punish the bad and reward the good as the common man believes. The opinion of the crowd is, Epicurus claims, that the gods "send great evils to the wicked and great blessings to the righteous who model themselves after the gods," when in reality Epicurus believes the gods do not concern themselves at all with human beings.

Yes, I believe in "gods" which would technically make me a polytheist. Do I worship them? The answer is no, there are much less futile ways of wasting my time.

[dr wu23]

Originally Posted by ChrisPerridas

"three round objects of high brilliance" ain't aliens either. who said it, when?

this ufo stuff is great, you can say anything and it is aliens.

I may start playing the game.

"Hey. A guy in 239 BC saw a flying sphere fall into the Mediterranean. Three days later a strange body washed ashore, and no one had ever seen anything like it before."

All I need is for three people to post it online, and a guy to put it in his next UFO book, and it is proof.

sheesh.

I'm not sure what your point is in 'demythologizing' old sightings. First they were so long ago as you pointed out that it's next to impossible at this point to know what the event really was and Vallee for one is not saying they were aliens...just a reported ufo showing that even in the distant past people reported such things.
His intent in Passport to Magonina and Wonders is to show that these events go back a long ways in mankinds history and that what we call ufos today also were seen in similar ways back then but interpreted as religious events/omens since that was the paradigm then. He is not saying they are aliens or even interdimensional craft but asking questions about what we might or might not be experiencing over the centuries.
Are these real objects, misidents, unknown natural phenom or some thing else that we haven't figured out yet....?

Daniel, our old member who was from a Christian background like you, would say you are playing the role of a material deconstructionist who at the same time believes in the supernatural.
An interesting stance.

[ChrisPerridas]

Before I went bombastic, my points were going to be:

(1) I was surprised that a scientist like Vallee did not reference his antiquarian sightings better. The one reference to 989 was no reference at all, just a French writer who did not reference his source. I had to do the leg work to come close to his obscure reference. I think I did pretty good. This one example, if it represents his overall work in Magonia, distresses me. Is his work reliable? Did he just pick the first set of random old reports he could find with no concern about truthfulness, or if they represented his final hypothesis? But I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt. I checked three more, and they were worse to locate than this one. I am concerned about the integrity of his work now.

(2) Even given that we could locate the original context of the events, my first impression is that the first ones I looked at do not represent paranormal events of any kind. They may represent expressions of events that were meaningful in some mythic or anthropological sense, but not paranormal. And not Fortean, like a frog falling from the sky, or a UFO over Cleveland, or a Jason and Grant ghost. Not that kind of paranormal.

Dr Wu, I am beginning to understand a little about your theory and want to investigate it further, but I am beginning to be a little disillusioned with Vallee's work as I look deeper into it. Only because you highly respect him, am I continuing to read.

On the other matter, feel free to criticize my inconsistencies as you please. That's fair. But there is a nuance between a supernatural belief and a paranormal belief. One is not better than the other, philosophically, but they are recognized as different among scholars.

And remember, I agreed that I would set aside my personal bias as much as possible, Yes I am using a material deconstructionist approach to UFOs. In the religious thread, I used the same approach for debate purposes even though I don't accept that as necessarily the truth. It is a methodology that elicits useful information. It is a recognized scientific approach. As Crossan said about Ehrman, Ehrman only uses the deconstructionist approach when it suits his purposes, so I am not unique in this respect. But I am working hard to maintain objectivity with UFOs. I'd love to find ONE case that holds water.