The Cloud Ships of Magonia
In the 9th century, people near Lyon believed ships sailed through the clouds from a land called Magonia, to carry away crops knocked down by storms.
What was reported
Agobard, Archbishop of Lyon, wrote a short book around 815 attacking the superstitions of his flock. Many people, he said, believed in a land called Magonia, from which ships came sailing in the clouds. Weather-makers on the ground summoned storms, and the sailors loaded the fallen grain and fruit and took it back to Magonia, paying the weather-makers in return.
Agobard told of a crowd that had dragged three men and a woman before him, saying they had fallen from the cloud ships. He set them free.
Explanations offered
Agobard wrote to show such beliefs were nonsense, and his account is the only source. Twentieth-century writers on UFOs seized on it as an early abduction story, and Magonia gave its name to a well-known magazine about strange phenomena.
- When
- Around AD 815
- Where
- Lyon, France
- Witnesses
- Townspeople, recorded by Archbishop Agobard of Lyon
- Status
- Legend
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.
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