20 August 2012

INTCAT RETURNS

Those Magonia readers who have been with us since the early days of the print magazine, when we were still called MUFOB might remember that most issues contained an insert on coloured paper, which was Peter Rogerson's INTCAT listing of what were then called 'Type-I' reports, using Jacques Vallée's classification system. Peter's catalogue was begun as an extension of the catalogue which Vallée published as an 'appendix' to the American first edition of Passport to Magonia. 
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The first part of the catalogue appeared in MUFOB, volume 5, number 5, published in March 1973, when the magazine was still the Merseyside UFO Bulletin, and printed on a classic old Gestetner stencil duplicator. As the magazine transformed to MUFOB per se, with no geographical connotation and then on to Magonia, INCAT pushed on through the decades. The final entries were published in Magonia in 1982, "at which time" in Peter's words, "it was felt that it no longer reflected the ethos of what was then Magonia."

The problem with attempting a catalogue based on Vallée's scheme was the vagueness of some of the criteria for classification, which depended a great deal on subjective estimates of height and elevation. In revisiting INTCAT Peter has decided to concentrate on cases which have a clearer characteristic: the appearance at some point in the account of an 'entity'. 

There were over 5,000 cases in the original INTCAT, which compares to 925 cases in Vallée's catalogue. Clearly the editing and transcribing of these is a huge task but a great deal has already been done, and I am now able to start publishing sections of the catalogue for Magonia Online.

The sections posted so far cover the very earliest reports, from 1901 to 1951. Of course 1952 marks the first big 'wave' of entity reports in France and the number of cases from this point on increases massively, and many of the original reports and records are incomplete. It will be some time before the following years will appear. However the catalogue from 1964 onwards is now virtually complete and I will start posting these a year at a time. Gradually the years 1952 - 1963 will also be filled in (although maybe not in strict chronological order

But enough from me; you can read Peter's own introduction to the project and the first entries here:

1 comment:

Ross said...

Thank you. An absolutely wonderful resource. A great way to get high.