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sky to be of religious import. During wartime, such objects were regarded with suspicion as possible weapons of the enemy. And in this present era, when space flight is the national goal of two major nations, there is a strong tendency to accept unidentified flying objects as extraterrestrial visitants. Many of the Egyptian and Biblical accounts are supported by other histories written during the same period. Early Greek and Roman histo- rians dutifully recorded many strange things seen in the sky. A light ‘“‘so bright it seemed to be full day” descended over the temple in Jerusalem during the Feast of Unleavened Bread in A.D. 70, and Josephus describes a ‘‘demonic phantom of incredible size” that appeared in that same year on May 21. Before sunset on that date ‘‘there appeared in the air over the whole country [Jerusalem] chariots and armed troops coursing through the clouds...”’ Livy reported ‘‘phantom ships” in the sky in 214 B.C., and Pliny, the most notable of ancient historians, recorded several instances in which “‘three suns” were seen in the sky at one time. A ‘‘flaming cross” appeared over the heads of Constantine and his army in A.D. 312, and the army of Alexander the Great was thrown into a panic when two shining silvery ‘‘shields” spitting fire around the rims buzzed their encampment. Scholars and researchers have now uncovered hundreds of ancient UFO accounts. Pick out any century and you will be able to find several good reports of disks, fireballs and cigar-shaped objects in the sky. Historian W. R. Drake has unearthed references to ‘“Magonia,”’ a strange country that was a legend among the peasants of medieval France. They believed that the Magonians rode about in ‘‘cloud ships” and frequently raided their crops. Agobard, Archbishop of Lyons, wrote that one of these ships is supposed to have fallen from the sky around A.D. 840, and its occupants, three men and a woman, were stoned to death by the angry farmers. Italian ufologist Alberto Fengolio uncovered another intriguing “touchdown” story, which is supposed to have occurred near Alencon, France, at 5 A.M. on June 12, 1790. A police inspector named Liabeuf was sent from Paris to investigate, and his final report has been preserved. The witnesses, a group of French peasants, told him that an enormous globe had appeared that morning, moving with a rocking motion, and that it crashed into the top of a hill, uprooting the vegetation. Heat from the object started grass fires, and the peasants rushed to put them out before they spread. The huge globe was warm to the touch. “The eyewitnesses of this event were two mayors, a physician, and 66 / Operation Trojan Horse