Agobard, Magonia, Tempestarii And Medieval Aliens
Throughout the Middle Ages, accounts evoke contacts with creatures living "between angels and men" which some would describe as medieval aliens. One of the most famous texts is that of Agobard, archbishop of Lyon, in the first half of the 9th century.
The text, however, is not meant to accredit such stories. Rather, the Liber contra insulsam vulgi opinionem (The Book Against Stupid Prejudices of the People) is intended to combat what the Archbishop considered to be superstitions. It is in the part entitled "Of the hail and of the thunder", that Agobard rebels against the stories of "people of the airs" which run among the population of the region and that it attacks the ideas of its contemporaries concerning the climate.
Magonians in the sky of Lyon
Some peasants believe that natural phenomena, such as storms or hail, result from the action of sorcerers called tempestarii, who are in relation with beings originating in a mysterious country situated between earth and sky and called "Magonia". They would make pacts with them which would lead the Magonians, traveling on aerial ships (naves), to trigger disastrous bad weather for the crops. The two parties would then share the affected fruit and the struck down or drowned animals. To guard against such misdeeds, the peasants know only one remedy: they plant large poles loaded with magic formulas in the fields. Emperor Charlemagne forbade such a "superstitious" practice in his Capitularies. Agobard's text is part of the same fight.
However, the Archbishop of Lyon has good reason to know these beliefs: one day three men and a woman were brought to him whom the crowd accused of belonging to the race of air travelers and whom they wanted to lynch. Agobard ended up showing the Lyonnais their mistake and saved the lives of the prisoners. According to another version, which does not follow from Agobard’s testimony, the four "aerialists" were indeed killed and then thrown into the Rhône after being tied to planks.
Aerial beings or air elementals
Similarly, in many ancient texts, pagan or Christian, appear beings who, although superior to men, are not of divine essence since they are mortal like them. They are endowed with great science and know how to move in the sky, on their own or on "ships". In antiquity, a Plutarch believed in the existence of such beings: why would nature not have planned to fill the void that exists between mortals and divine immortals?
Later, in the 16th century, another author, Montfaucon de Villars, in his Conversations on Secret Sciences, relates an anecdote that he traces back to the early days of the Carolingian era: the intermediate creatures, which he himself calls Sylphs, decided one day to show their faces uncovered and came down to Earth in their air craft to prove that they were innocent of the crimes attributed to them. This experience was apparently useless, since the capitulars of Charlemagne and then of Louis the Pious fixed that fines would be imposed on any man or woman claiming to come from heaven and who would be captured. To convince the Terrans, of their existence and of their good intentions, the Sylphs would then have captured some of them and showed them the beauties of their homeland. Then they would have brought them back to Earth unscathed.
But the involuntary travelers would have been taken in turn for wizards or devilish creatures: arrested, tortured, they would have finally been executed.
The Lyon episode takes place in this context. The aerial beings, thereafter, seem to exercise more caution. The observations concerning them are less numerous, but they sometimes emanate from persons of high rank: thus King Charles the Bald recounts having one day been dragged by a creature of "dazzling whiteness" and provided with "a weapon throwing a extraordinary glow, like that of a comet ”(manuscript of the National Library, Paris). Few, like the skeptic Agobard, simply do not believe that such creatures can exist. The arguments of the Archbishop of Lyon are moreover themselves very astonishing for a modern mind: the impossibility of the phenomenon results, for the Christian author, from purely metaphysical arguments - the power of such beings would lessen that of God.
Anchors fallen from the clouds
Several texts from the early Middle Ages (Speculum Regale – The King’s Mirror - recounting the exploits of legendary Irish heroes, the Norwegian Konungs Skuggsia of 950, the Historia Brittonum of the Welshman Nennius of 826, or the Irish Mirabilia) contain the relation of an incident very similar to the one told by Archbishop Agobard.
On a feast day, an anchor attached to a cloud ship falls from the sky and gets stuck when it hits an obstacle. One of the aerial beings then descends "swimming" in the air and tries in vain to unhook the anchor. It narrowly escapes the rushing population and takes off towards the ship. The rope is cut, and it walks away. While the versions differ in minor details, all nevertheless recount roughly the same sequence of events. Even at the beginning of the 13th century, the Englishman Gervase of Tilbury, in her Otia Imperiala (Entertainment for the Emperor), reports a similar occurrence, which would have occurred shortly before.
These accounts would appear to be archaic legends if a similar incident, with minor details, to those recorded in them had not occurred in contemporary times. On April 26, 1897, an enigmatic airship appeared in Merkel, Texas. Its anchor accidentally falls and remains engaged on the ground; a "diver" descends to free the vessel ...
The story is making headlines across the country. However, it is very difficult to imagine that Texan peasants were influenced by the reading of Gervase of Tilbury or by that of the texts of the 9th and 10th centuries ...
