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During the drive between Burford and Stratford I had some startling and, to me, novel insights into what I can only describe as the Nature of Reality. They were connected in some way to this shining disk, and have had a profound effect on me, causing what is commonly known as a personality change. I won't try to explain what those insights were since almost all the religions of the world have tried to do this and have failed. The central question posed by the UFO phenomenon is this: What happens to the witnesses who have a close encounter? Are the "abductions" real? And, if so, where do these people go? Here again it is udeful to take the stories out of the twentieth-century North American context and to relate them to the larger universe of reports from other times and other places. The Secret Commonwealth, after all, already took ordinary folks away. So did the denizens of Magonia, and the sky people of American Indian lore. Part Two of this book is concerned with the direct interaction between humans and these alleged 1 ua toa 1 rr ws wat beings — with what we know of their physical reality and their impact on us. As we progress from chapter to chapter in this search, the reader will see the outline of a major fact towering above the haze of human theories and fragile dreams. This is not simply a case of a few tales relating encounters between a few humans and strange creatures from the sky. This is an age- old and worldwide myth that has shaped our belief structures, our scientific expectations, and our I do not use the word myth here to mean something that is imaginary, but on the contrary something that is true at such a deep level that it influences the very basic elements of our thoughts. There are four components to the myth: an emotional component, examined in Chapter Four, which takes the form of cosmic seduction, including some stories of sexual encounters that may seem shocking or outrageous but form a significant part of the total problem. Next, in Chapter Five, we find the celestial component that encompasses the heavenly signs, the claims of contact with angels and with the creatures of other planets — in other words, the entire tapestry of outside intervention in human affairs. I am careful to use the quaint word celestial here instead of the more precise and convenient extraterrestrial because of the unfortunate misconceptions the latter term now carries in u our culture. In Chapter Six we examine the most difficult topic of UFO research: the psychic component in the sightings. It is an aspect of the phenomenon that all the official studies, and most of the private ones, have tried to avoid, but it is there, and we can no longer close our eyes and minds to it. Ordinary logic does not apply to the paranormal. I have coined the word metalogic to describe the internal consistency of the experience, which often involves observations that are, on the surface, ce | a. ee logically absurd. Finally, in Chapter Seven, we come to the most powerful and frightening aspect of the UFO myth: the spiritual component that has given us what I have termed a "morphology of miracles." From the Pillar of Fire and the Burning Bush to apparitions of the Virgin at Fatima and Joseph Smith's visions of Angel Moroni, all the major miracles recorded in human history fit under the mythical framework we have erected. Far from finding it satisfying, I react to this observation with a mixture of awe and humility before the very dimensions of the problem we are attempting to describe with limited human understanding, with scientific resources that have not been tempered by the fiery tricksters of the underworld or brushed by the inspired guidance of the wings of archangels. PART TWO: ANOTHER REALITY Letter to the author from a UFO witness view of ourselves.