In
this introductory chapter, Keel starts to describe the reaction
of people to the unknown. In the same way Point Pleasant people
reacted strangely to the presence of strange beings in the skies,
in their property, by the roads they travel everyday, Keel too was
a stranger in a strange place. Sometimes with a humorous tone, others
in a bitter one, the author writes, summarily, about some of his previous
incursions into the unknown, as if he was trying to prepare the reader for what is yet
to come.
He also takes the time to characterise himself as a pursuer of the
unknown, underlining the fact that it is hard to discern what is,
in fact, the absolute truth, since a witness will always compensate
the memory lacks with his/her own subjectivity.
Those
of us who somewhat sheepishly (2)
spend
our time chasing dinosaurs, sea serpents, and little green men in
space suits are painfully aware that things often are not what they
seem; that sincere eyewitnesses can -and do - grossly misinterpret
what they have seen; that many extraordinary events can have disappointingly
mundane explanations.
Later
on, he introduces (most of) us to a new concept that he finds to
be interesting in order to justify many of the cases he will write
about in the following chapters: the Tibetan concept of tulpas,
as a form of projection originated from the powerful minds of the
past that remained until our days. He questions himself if all these
ghosts, monsters and UFOs aren't, in fact, only visual remnants
of our ancestors. He adds: (...) unidentified
flying objects have been present since the dawn of man (...) they
are described repeatedly in the Bible, but were also the subject
of cave paintings made thousands of years before the Bible was written.
As far as I can say, the tulpas concept is an interesting one, and,
as so many other explanations, has its plausibility, although it
seems to be an undeveloped concept that does not have enough scientific
basis to be considered.
As Daniel Webster (3)
would put it,'There is nothing so powerful as the truth, and often
nothing so strange'.
Judging
from the author's biography and works, one may find that this initial
chapter is written in a way more appropriate to an adventure than
to a novel made out of facts. Nonetheless we can but apologise
Keel, since his real motive is to captivate the reader by writing in
an "old school" story-telling manner.
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