-or- The Four Ambassadors of the Sylphs
“The famous Kabbalist Zedequias, in the reign of your Pepin, took it into his head to convince the world that the Elements are inhabited by those peoples whose natures I have just described to you. The expedient of which he bethought himself was to advise the Sylphs to show themselves in the Air to everybody:
They did so sumptuously. These beings were seen in the Air in human form, sometimes in battle array marching in good order, halting under arms, or encamped beneath magnificent tents. Sometimes on wonderfully constructed aerial ships [“flying saucers” -B:.B:.], whose flying squadrons roved at the will
of the Zephyrs.
“What happened? Do you suppose that ignorant age would so much as reason as to the nature of these marvellous spectacles? The people straightaway believed that sorcerors had taken possession of the Air for the purpose of raising tempests and bringing hail upon their crops. The learned theologians and jurists were soon of the same opinion as the masses. The Emperor believed it as well; and this ridiculous chimera went so far that the wise Charlemagne, and after him Louis the Debonair, imposed grievous penalties upon all these supposed Tyrants of the Air. You may see an account of this in the first chapter of the Capitularies of these two Emperors.
“The Sylphs, seeing the populace, the pedants and even the crowned heads thus alarmed against them, determined to dissipate the bad opinion people had of their innocent fleet by carrying off men from every locality and shoing them their beautiful women, their Republic and their manner of government, and then setting them down again on earth in divers parts of the world. They carried out their plan. The people who saw these men as they were descending came running from every direction, convinced before- hand that they were sorcerors who had separated from their companions in order to come and scatter poisons on the fruit and in the springs. Carried away by the frenzy with which such fancies inspired them, they hurried these innocents off to the torture. The great number of them [“alien abductees” -B:.B:.] who were put to death by fire and water throughout the kingdom is incedible.
“One day, among other instances, it chanced at Lyons that three men and a woman were seen descending from these aerial ships. The entire city gathered about them, crying out they were magicians and were sent by Grimaldus, Duke of Beneventum, Charlemagne’s enemy, to destroy the French harvests. In vain
the four innocents sought to vindicate themselves by saying that they were their own country-folk, and had been carried away a short time since by miraculous men who had shown them unheard-of marvels, and had desired to give them an account of what they had seen. The frenzied populace paid no heed to their defence, and were on the point of casting them into the fire, when the worthy Agobard, Bishop of Lyons, who having been a monk in that city had acquired considerable authority there, came running at the noise, and having heard the accusations of the people and the defence of the accused, gravely pronounced that both one and the other were false. That it was not true that these men had fallen from the sky, and that what they said they had seen there was impossible. [note the benevolence of this seminal “debunker” -B:.B:.]
“The people believed what their good father Agobard said rather than their own eyes, were pacified, set at liberty the four Ambassadors of the Sylphs, and received with wonder the book which Agobard wrote to confirm the judgement which he had pronounced. Thus the testimony of the four witnesses was
rendered vain.”
–A.H. Clough, Introduction to Plutarch‘s “Lives”
from _Passport to Magonia_1969 by Jacques Vallee
Contemporary Books, Chicago, IL
ISBN 0-8092-3796-2