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From behind the object, two beings appeared. They were three and a half to four feet tall. They looked joyfull. Their smiles displayed white and very thin teeth. They were wearing gray coveralls and reddish leather helmets similar to those used by military drivers. They had what seemed to be a "convexity" at the center of their foreheads. Speaking an incomprehensible language, the two closed in on the woman, and one of them took the pot containing the flowers. Mrs. Lotti-Dainelli now tried to get her property back, but the two beings ignored her and returned to their craft. The witness started to scream and ran away. She returned to the spot with other witnesses, including policemen. Too late. Not a trace of the object was left. But it seems that other people saw the craft in flight, 1 1 aad leaving a red and blue trail. These stories would be amazing and nothing more if it were not for one fact known to students of folklore: a constant feature of one class of legends involving supernatural creatures is that the beings come to our world to steal our products, our animals, and even — as we shall see in a later chapter — human beings. But for the moment, let us concern ourselves only with the sample- gathering behavior of these beings and their requests for terrestrial products. In an Algonquin legend embodying all the characteristics of an excellent saucer story, a hunter beholds a "basket" that comes down from heaven. The basket contains twelve young maidens of ravishing beauty. The man attempts to approach them, but the celestial creatures quickly reenter the basket, which ascends rapidly out of sight. However, witnessing the descent of the strange object on another day, the same hunter uses a trick to come close to it and succeeds in capturing one of the girls, whom he marries and by whom he has a son. Nothing, unfortunately, can console his wife for loss of the society of her sisters, who have gone away with the flying vehicle. One day she makes a small basket, and according to Hartland, having entered it with her child she sang the charm she and her sisters had formerly used, and ascended once more to the star from whence she had come. Thy son wants to see his father; go down therefore, to the earth and fetch thy husband, and tell him to bring us specimens of all the animals he kills. The Algonquin story offers a complex mixture of themse. Some of them are present in modern-day UFO stories; others derive from traditional concepts, such as the exchange of food. The new elements are: (1) the desire expressed by the celestial beings to recieve specimens of all the animals the hunter kills, and (2) the idea that sexual contact between the terrestrial and the aerial races is possible. So far, we have seen our visitors stealing plants and requesting various items. But have they actually killed animals themselves? Have they taken away cattle? If we are to believe the stories told by many witnesses, they have. But the interesting fact is that, here again, we find a trait common to both the ufonauts and the Good People. Crowds of elves have been seen chasing cows and horses. And in the same conversation with Walter Evans-Wentz, recorded before 1909, the storyteller, "Old Patsy," told the following story about a man "who, if still alive, is now in America where he went several years ago": In the South Island as night was coming on, a man was giving his cow water at a well, and, as he looked on the other side of a wall, he saw many strange people playing hurley. When they noticed him looking at them, one came up and struck the cow a hard blow, and turning on the man cut his face and body very badly. The man might not have been so badly off, but he returned to the well after first encounter and got four times as bad a beating. She had been back in that heavenly country two years when she was told: She did so. And the hunter ascended with his wife, saw his son, and attended a great feast, at which the animals he brought were served.