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and lay in an untidy heap on the floor. Alas for the Virgin's careful arrangement!
But Juan's confusion over this mishap was nothing to what he felt immediately after it.
Inside of seconds the Bishop had risen from his chair and was kneeling at Juan's feet, and
inside of a minute all the other persons in the room had surged forward and were also
kneeling.
The bishop was kneeling before Juan's tilma, and, as Ethel Cook Eliot remarks, "Millions of people
have knelt before it since," for it has been placed over the high altar in the basilica of Our Lady of
Guadalupe in Mexico City. The tilma consists of two pieces, woven of maguey fibers and sewn
together, measuring sixty-six by forty-one inches. On this coarse material, whose color is that of
unbleached linen, a lovely figure can be seen, fifty-six inches tall.
Surrounded by golden rays, it emerges as from a shell of light, clear-cut and lovely in every
detail of line and color. The head is bent slightly and very gracefully to the right, just
avoiding the long seam. The eyes look downward, but the pupils are visible. This gives an
unearthly impression of lovingness and lovableness. The mantle that covers the head and
falls to the feet is greenish blue with a border of purest gold, and scattered through with
golden stars. The tunic is rose-colored, patterned with a lace-like design of golden flowers.
Below is a crescent moon, and beneath it appear the head and arms of a cherub.
Juan's uncle was cured. As he was awaiting the priest, too weak even to drink the medicine his
nphew had prepared, he saw his room suddenly filled with soft light. A luminous figure, that of a
young woman, appeared near him. She told him he would get well and informed him of Juan
Diego's mission. She also said, "Call me and call my image Santa Maria de Guadalupe" or so the
message was understood.
In the six years that followed the incident, over eight million Indians were baptized. In recent times,
some fifteen hundred persons still go to kneel before Juan Diego's tilma every day.
This case reminds us of several important aspects of the many tales of fairies we have reviewed: the
mysteious, sweet music announcing that the fairy draws near; the flowers (roses once again) that
grow in an impossible place; and the sign given to the human messenger, which changes nature as
he goes away, like the coals that changed to gold given to human midwives by the gnomes; the
numerous similar symbols found in countless tales. Indeed, we cannot help but recall here the word
of Hartland in his Science of Fairy Tales: "This gift of an object apparently worthless, which turns
out, on the conditions being observed, of the utmost value, is a commonplace of fairy transactions.
It is one of the most obvious manifestations of superhuman power." A final aspect is the cosmic
symbolism, the crescent moon under the Virgin's feet, as in the lines of Revelation:
And there appeared a great sign in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon was
under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.
The Functioning Lie
What does it all mean? Is it reasonable to draw a parallel between religious apparitions, the fairy-
faith, the reports of dwarf-like beings with supernatural powers, the airship tales in the United
States in the last century, and the present stories of UFO landings?
I would strongly argue that it is for one simple reason: the mechanisms that have generated the
various beliefs are identical. Their human context and their effect on humans are constant. The
observation of this very deep mechanism is crucial. It has little to do with the problem of knowing
whether UFOs are physical objects or not. Attempting to understand the meaning, the purpose, of
the so-called flying saucers, as many people are doing today, is just as futile as was the pursuit of
the fairies, if one makes the mistake of confusing appearance and reality. The phenomenon has
stable, invariant features, some of which we have tried to identify and label clearly. But we have
also had to note carefully the chameleon-like character of the secondary attributes of the sightings:
the shapes of the objects, the appearances of their occupants, and their reported statements vary as a
function of the cultural environment into which they are projected.
As we have seen with the airship stories in Chapter Two, a good number of bearded characters
alighted in the Midwest and elsewhere in 1897 to request water from a well, bluestones, or other
similar things. The stories witnesses told were believable, if somewhat astounding, to American
farmers of the time. The airship itself corresponded to the popular concept of an elaborate flying
machine: it had wheels, turbines, wings, powerful lights. There is only one detail not yet dealt with:
the fact that the airship, though believable to the witnesses of 1897, is no longer credible to us. We
know that the device as described could not possibly fly, unless its outside appearance was designed
to decieve potential witnesses. But if so, why? And what was it? What was the purpose of such a
simulacrum?
Perhaps the airship, like the fairy tricks and the flying saucers, was a lie so well engineered that its
image could sink very deep into human consciousness and then be forgotten as UFO landings are
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