The text from Agobard does exist. But some researcher stated that it does not mention a spaceship but a mundane ship, a boat, and that the "cloudship" interpretation would come from a translation mistake.
Another point is that there is no crash here. The text refers to a contact, but no mention of a crash of the ship, whatever that ship might be, is made. In spite of this, very often, this case is cited as a valid case of "UFO crash".
On the other end, sovereigns of the time mention penalties against creatures that travel in aerial ships, because it happened so very often. Emperor Charlemagne's edicts also forbade the perturbing of the air, provoking of storms by magical means and the practicing of mathematics.
There is a second reference of the original story: a manuscript, "Annales Laurissenses" - A.D. 776, has allegedly some additional details on this incident: it narrates that the aliens came from a spaceship, and were accused by the mob of being emissaries sent by Grimoald, Duke of Benevento, to spoil the French harvests and vintage by their enchantments. The crowd killed them, because they had an "horrific appearance", and their corpses were fastened to boards and thrown into the rivers...
Unfortunately, there is no such mention in this text. It does mention a UFO event, but it has nothing to do with the Lyons affair: "Those watching outside in that place, of whom many still live to this very day, say they beheld the likeness of two large shields reddish in colour in motion above the church …"
The comment on Aliens exploring Earth in 840 is rather naive. Of course there is no problem there. What reason would there ever be that an alien society could only explore Earth in modern times?
SUBJECT: FRENCH MOB STONED FOUR SPACE ALIENS TO DEATH IN 840 A.D.:FILE: UFO2126BY MICKEY McGUIRE for WWNLyons, France - Space aliens made contact with the French during the ninth century - and got themselves stoned to death by an angry mob! Researchers said contact between spacemen and earthlings was made in the year 840, primarily here in Lyons, claims author Brad Steiger in his exciting book, The Fellowship. The French referred to the aliens as sky people because they descended from the upper reaches of the atmosphere in spacecraft, Steiger said. The locals called the spacecraft ships from the clouds. The UFOs were piloted by beings with large heads, pointed ears and bulging eyes. They told the French that their origin was a place called Magonia. The aliens even traded artifacts and coins with peasants and tradesmen. Unfortunately, Steiger wrote, an ugly dispute erupted and four of the aliens were seized and bound with chains. He said that after being held for several days, the prisoners were paraded before a mob, which suddenly went berserk and stoned them to death. He said he based his account on an ancient manuscript penned by Argobard, the Archbishop of Lyons. The Archbishop was an eyewitness to their execution, revealed Haden Hewes, who with Steiger co-authored the startling 1976 book, UFO Missionaries Extraordinary. Aliens could easily have been exploring Earth in the year 840, Hewes explained. If an alien society was only 1,000 years older than our own, it could easily have mastered space travel. Source: UFO BBS |
"The Archbishop of Lyons, Agobard, wrote, in his "De Grandine et Tonitrua," that he had stumbled upon an angry mob lynching three men and a woman. When asked why these people were to be hanged, the mob responded that they were people who landed from a "cloud ship" in Magonia. The Archbishop promptly freed the men and the woman who the mob thought were going to use magic to spoil the year's harvests.
No mention of aliens, UFO, spacships, pointed ears or large head here.
"Agobard, the archbishop of Lyons, is said to have freed three men and a woman who had come down from one of these "cloudships". Agobard's manuscript, which can be consulted at the National Library, mentions that the astronauts captured at Lyons were obviously foreigners and that "by an inconceivable fatality, these unfortunate people were so insane AS TO ADMIT THEY WERE WIZARDS."
Here we have the claim that accordng to Agobard, the 3 men and the woman were "obviously foreigner", which takes another sense as soon as the word "astronauts" is used by the site's author.
I easily found the solution to the mystery. All I had to do was to go back to the source, the text from Archbishop Agobard. It reads:
"We have seen and heard many men plunged in such great stupidity, sunk in such depths of folly, as to believe that there is a certain region, which they call Magonia, whence ships sail in the clouds, in order to carry back to that region those fruits of the earth which are destroyed by hail and tempests; sailors paying rewards to the storm wizards (tempestarii), and themselves receiving corn and other produce.
"Out of the number of those whose blind folly was deep enough to allow them to believe these things possible, I saw several exhibitions in a certain concourse of people, four persons in bonds - three men and a woman who said they had fallen from these same ships; after keeping them for some days in captivity they had brought them before the assembled multitude, as we have said in our presence to be stoned. But truth prevailed."
For those among us who studied latine, this text is not too complicated to translate:
1, 146: Plerosque autem vidimus et audivimus tanta dementia obrutos, tanta stultitia alienatos, ut credant et dicant, quandam esse regionem quae dicatur Magonia, ex qua naves veniant in nubibus, in quibus fruges quae grandinibus decidunt et tempestatibus pereunt, vehantur in eandem regionem, ipsis videlicet nautis aëreis dantibus pretia tempestariis, et accipientibus frumenta vel ceteras fruges. Ex his item tam profunda stultitia excoecatis, ut hoc posse fieri credant, vidimus plures in quodam conventu hominum exhibere vinctos quatuor homines, tres viros et unam feminam, quasi qui de ipsis navibus ceciderint: quos scilicet, per aliquot dies in vinculis detentos, tandem collecto conventu hominum exhibuerunt, ut dixi, in nostra praesentia, tanquam lapidandos. Sed tamen vincente veritate post multam ratiocinationem, ipsi qui eos exhibuerant secundum propheticum illud confusi sunt, sicut confunditur fur quando deprehenditur.
So, we learn that Agobard did not write nor think the four persons were aliens or had unusual aspects. Indeed the four persons claimed they have fallen from cloud ships, we have simply four hoaxers here, and the poorly educated crowd believed them but Agobard did not. They would have been stoned to death, if Agobard had not intefered and made the truth prevail.
Brad Steiger changed the story quite a lot in his book:
| "Large heads, pointed ears and bulging eyes" | No such mention in the source. |
| "Aliens" | The source clearly speaks of 3 men and a woman |
| "UFO" | No Unidentified Flying Object observation is mentionned at all in the source. |
| "French referred to the aliens as sky people because they descended from the upper reaches of the atmosphere in spacecraft" | There is no spacecraft, but "cloud ships". Claiming that people at the time would have said "cloud ship" for "space craft" is mere interpretation without demonstration. |
| "They said that their origin was a place called Magonia." | They said that they come from the region of Magonia. |
| "The aliens even traded artifacts..." | Use of twisted vocabulary: not aliens, strangers. Not "artifacts", things. |
The debunkers were wrong in that aspect that there is no translation error: the hoxers claimed to come from the clouds (nubibus) in "air ships" (nautis aëreis) and they really meant from the sky.
What we can learn from the affair is that "debunkers" do not care to refer to the sources and prefer to make up any explanation that suits their skepticism, and that some "ufologist" take advantage of trivial accounts to build up alien visit stories, and that the verification of both sides claims was possible for myself with a five minutes research.
