One of the most ambitious works of paranormal investigations of our time, here is an unprecedented compendium of pre-twentieth-century accounts of mysterious aerial objects by two leading investigators of unexplained phenomena.

In the past century, individuals, newspapers, and military agencies have recorded thousands of UFO incidents, giving rise to much speculation about flying saucers, visitors from other planets, and alien abductions. Yet the phenomenon did not begin in the present era. Far from it. The authors of Wonders in the Sky reveal a thread of vividly rendered – and sometimes strikingly similar – reports of mysterious aerial phenomena from antiquity through the modern age. These accounts often share definite physical features – such as the heat described by witnesses – that have changed little over the centuries. Indeed, such similarities between ancient and modern sightings are rule rather that the exception.

In Wonders in the Sky, respected researchers Jacques Vallée and Chris Aubeck examine more than 500 selected reports of sightings from biblical-age antiquity through the year 1879 – the point at which the Industrial Revolution deeply changed the nature of human society, and the skies began to open to airplanes, dirigibles, rockets, and other opportunities for misinterpretation represented by military prototypes. Using vivid and engaging case studies, and more than 75 illustrations, Vallée and Aubeck elucidate that unexplained aerial objects had a major impact not only on popular culture but on our history, on our religion, and on the models of the world humanity has formed from deepest antiquity.

Sure to become a classic in the field of anomalous phenomena, Wonders in the Sky is the most ambitious, broad-reaching, and intelligent analysis ever written on premodern aerial mysteries.