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measure. But the phenomenon does appear to have a real effect. And a peculiar feature of this mechanism is that it affects equally those who "believe" and those who oppose its reality in a 1 1 physical sense. For the time being, the observation can be made that it is possible to make large sections of any population believe in the existence of supernatural races, in the possibility of flying machines, in the plurality of inhabited worlds, by exposing them to a few carefully engineered scenes the details of which are adapted to the culture and symbols of a particular time and place. Could the meetings with UFO entities be designed to control our beliefs? Consider their changing character. In the United States, they appear as science fiction monsters. In South America, they are sanguinary and quick to get into a fight. In France, they behave like rational, Cartesian, peace- loving tourists. The Irish Gentry, if we believe its spokesmen, was an aristocratic race organized somewhat like a religious-military order. The airship pilots were strongly induvidualistic characters with all the features of the American farmer. Now consider the following case, which illustrates the same point. The date is October 23, 1954, and the place is near Tripoli, Libya. About 3:00 A.M. an Italian farmer saw a flying craft land a few dozen yards from him. It was shaped like an egg laid horizontally. The upper half was transparent and flooded with very white light; the lower half appeared to be metallic. The fore part had two side ports; the central part had an external ladder. The hind part had two vertically disposed wheels, one above the other, and two cylindrical protruding tubes. While descending, the craft made a noise similar to that of a compressor "like those used for inflating car tires." No propeller was visible. The fuselage was surrounded by two antennae, one behind the other, and bore a kind of undercarriage with six wheels (two pairs in the fore part of the craft, one pair behind). The machine was about six yards long and three yards wide. Inside it were six men in yellowish coveralls wearing gas masks. One of them took his mask off in order to blow into a sort of tube. His face appeared to be that of a aa 1 normal human being. When the witness got close to the object and put a hand on the ladder, a strong electric shock threw him to the ground. One of the occupants made gestures as if to warn him, for his sake, to keep away from the craft. Another occupant pulled out a wheel and again put it back where it formerly was. Then, pushing a button, he caused a kind of half-container to cover the wheels. Inside the cockpit, a kind of radio set, complete with wires and operated by a man with earphones, was visible. All six pilots were busy on their instrument panels. The incident lasted about twenty minutes. The object silently took off and reached an altitude of fifty yards. Then it went east at a dizzying speed. The imprints left by the undercarriage's wheels on the soft ground have been photographed. They resembled those of normal rubber wheels. Their length was only about two feet. If it were possible to make three-dimensional holograms with mass, and to project them through time, I would say this is what the farmer saw. And with that theory we would explain many of the apparitions. In numerous UFO cases and in some religious miracles, the beings appeared as three- dimensional images whose feet did not actually touch the ground. But what about the other physical actions, such as the electric shocks? tat - ears 1 . te, o : nS coe As we read the account of the Libyan landing case, it is tempting to assume that the farmer, far from witnessing by chance the maneuvers of interplanetary visitors, was deliberately exposed to a scene designed to be recorded by him and transmitted to us: hence, the gas masks, the instrument panels, and the radio set "complete with wires." The same is true with the following Italian case, which took place in Abbiate Buazzone, near xr A TNA AAA At about 10:00 P.M. Bruno Facchini heard and saw sparks which he attributed to a storm, but he soon discovered a dark mass hovering between a pole and a tree two hundred yards from his house. A man dressed in tight-fitting clothes and wearing a helmet appeared to be making repairs. There were three other figures working around the huge craft. This work being over, a trap through which light had been shining was closed, and the thing took off. Varese, on April 24, 1950: