Greetings From Magonia

"All that we saw was owing to your metaphysics."

—William Blake  The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Magonia is the name of the cloud realm whence felonious aerial sailors were said to have come according to the polemical treatise by Carolingian bishop Agobard of Lyon in 815, it is featured within the research of Jacques Vallee's book Passport to Magonia, which explores the link between modern UFO visitations and reports from antiquity of contact with these "space beings" where he quotes Agobard's description.

An Initiation

On November 4th, 1990 at approx. 1 am, I was getting ready to go to bed for the evening. My then husband, children, and my sister who was visiting, had already turned in for the night. I had been watching an "Elvira Mistress of the Dark" movie with my brother-in-law, when I looked up at the clock. Realizing it was way past my bedtime (I had small children at the time) I got up to lock the sliding glass doors to our balcony.


At the time we were living on the 10th floor of a condo building, and as I had young children it was my habit to make sure those doors were always locked. I will also mention that this apartment had a SSE exposure with a clear view of Lake Ontario, and the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station. As I went to lock the glass doors I observed a large, red, glowing orb.

It was like nothing I had ever seen before.

In my pajamas I stepped out onto the balcony. I noted that the "orb" seemed to be in the vicinity of the nuclear power plant. My mind raced with all the possibilities, a plane, a search light, quickly discounting each.

I yelled out for my brother-in-law who was at my side within seconds.

I was yelling "what is it, what is it"? He started yelling back, "it's a UFO!” He had grabbed my arm, and I remember I glanced down to see my own goose-flesh.

Almost immediately after he said that it was a UFO, the full moon-sized orb, began to pulsate. And for some inexplicable reason, for which I cannot fathom I said, "they know we can see them."

After pulsating, the UFO, which appeared octagon in shape imploded in on itself, turning into a speck, and shooting straight up. At this point my brother-in-law's memory and mine differ slightly. He says he saw the orb implode, but not shoot up into the sky.

I clearly remember that I looked down towards the street and I saw a single car driving eastward. I remember thinking we cannot be alone in seeing this. We went inside, and sat up in the kitchen discussing everything within our own experiences that we could to rationally try to explain what we had witnessed (despite my strange comment of a "them"). We were up until about 4 am. and I ran back to the sliding glass doors a few times that night to see if the orb had returned. It didn't, not that night nor in the many nights after that I would sit out on the balcony looking for it.

My brother-in-law and I failed to report our sighting immediately. We both were afraid of nor wanted to put up with ridicule. We also did not know who we should have reported this experience to. In those days there was no internet or easy way to locate a UFO investigative group.

I did pick up a UFO book from the library and sent a letter to CUFOS in Chicago, which was listed as a place people with these experiences could contact, but the letter was returned to me as undeliverable.

Eventually many years after the fact I was able to report the experience to MUFON (Mutual UFO Network). They were able to piece together quite a bit of information and based on the fact I could give them an accurate time frame as Elvira had been on the television.

Despite never answering the question of what we saw that night with any degree of certainty, I learned there were thoughtful and intelligent people who were looking into these extraordinary experiences without prejudice, and we were not alone in that regard. This in turn inspired me to follow suit and eventually towards the establishment of my own research interests.

It was an experience that has radically shaped the course of my life, and continues to do so through other UFO events I have had since.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
—Arthur C. Clarke

I was 23 at the time of the experience in 1990, 23 being an important number throughout my life, but I will save that for another future blog.  I had, had a childhood filled with odd events, and as I grew up I would try to put them down to imagination solely. As an example I was plagued by what I thought were wee little ghosts or dwarfs and these frightened me, until a large talking wolf appeared to me one day and became my protector against these day/nightmares. When I was in my late teens I had figured out that I was the wolf, and that I was in fact empowering myself in a highly creative way.

In 1990, however, that experience as an adult and with another witness directed me towards a way of thinking and being that otherwise would likely have not come. I recall so vividly in my mind's eye, what we saw that night red, and octagon much like a stop sign with an equally forceful message that through a lot of deep introspection I believe I was eventually able to at least partially decode.

I feel that these experiences guide me, and much like a dream where the content is not always reflective of the message I see the UFOs as symbolic and on a personal level very meaningful to important and crucial points in my life. My life took on the framework of UFO experience, and I consider it my true life's work.

I experience much synchronicity within these encounters, and they have also assisted in shaping my own spirituality as well through the emergence of the "Cosmic Witch" (Pagan Divine Feminine) which I am strongly self identifying with.

Carl Jung, Jacques Vallee, and J. Allen Hynek have all played significant roles in progressing my thoughts and ideas.

Recent books that have also greatly influenced my thinking on the subject include:

The Hyperspace of Consciousness by Massimo Teodorani PhD  Elementà June 2015

The Trickster and The Paranormal by George P Hansen Xlibris 2001

Illuminations: The UFO Experience as a Parapsychological Event by Eric Ouellet PhD Anomalist Books August 2015

For Illuminations I provided some of the research and edited the manuscript. Eric and I continue to work on innovating new models based on scientific parapsychology that allow us to look at UFOs with fresh lenses.

I was recently honoured to be included in a compilation of original essays exploring alternative perspectives on UFOs and how we might more usefully study the phenomenon in the 21st Century.

UFOs: Reframing The Debate 

White Crow Publishing 2017

I am currently conducting a series of independent experiments based in part on the work of the late mathematician, Dr A.R.G Owen and psychotherapist Dr. Joel Whitton that will be the focus of a planned future book on UFOs, social PSI, and Magick.

You can read more on my research if you are so inclined through my website:

Out of My Mind's Eye
http://www.susanstclair.com/