China: Feathered guests from the sky — Circa 1766 BC
”The Xian were immortals capable of flight under their own divine power. They were said
to be feathered, and a term that has been used for Taoist priests is yu ke, meaning ‘feathered guest’. The fei tian, which might be translated as ‘flying immortals’, also add to the numbers of airborne beings in the Chinese mythological corpus.” “The Chinese tales of fei che, flying vehicles, exhibit the first understanding, perhaps, that humans would fly only with some kind of technological apparatus.”
Source: Dr. Benjamin B. Olshin, Mechanical Mythology: Private Descriptions of Flying Machines as Found in Early Chinese, Korean, Indian, and Other Texts (from extensive quotes available online). Circa 1515 BC: Egypt: The infamous Tulli papyrus Shiny objects “brighter than the Sun” flew south and left a foul odor, according to an ancient Egyptian document found among the papers of Alberto Tulli, a director of the Egyptian museum at the Vatican. The text appeared in 1953, in Issue 41 of Doubt, journal of the Fortean Society, when novelist and co-founder of the Society, Tiffany Thayer (1902-1959), published the hieroglyphic translation of what would soon be known as the “Tulli Papyrus.” Accompanying the transcription was a letter from its translator, an amateur Egyptologist of Russian-Italian descent, Boris de Rachewiltz. This letter explained that the papyrus ha® been passed on to Tulli’s brother Gustavo, a priest. Rachewiltz had been sent the hieroglyphic transcription for translation. Rachewiltz explained to Doubt that the papyrus had been longer, and indeed we must assume the unpublished part referred to an incident during the reign of Thutmosis III because the fragment we have provides no sign of this. Several versions of the translation have been published, but the following is the first, as it appeared in Doubt. “In the year 22, third month of winter, sixth hour of the day (…) The scribes of the House of Life found it was a circle of fire that was coming in the sky. (Though) it had no head, the breath of its mouth (had) a foul odour. Its body one ‘rod’ long and one ‘rod’ large. It had no voice. Their hearts become confused through it: then they laid themselves on their bellies (…) They went to the King (…?) to report it. His majesty ordered (…) has been examined (…) as to all which is written in the papyrus-rolls of the House of Life. His Majesty was meditating upon what happened. Now, after some days had passed over those things, Lo! They were more numerous than anything. They were shining in the sky more than the sun to the limits of the four supports of heaven. (…) Powerful was the position of the fire circles. The army of the king looked on and His Majesty was in the midst of it. It was after supper. Thereupon they (i.e. the fire circles) went up higher directed to South. Fishes and volatiles fell down from the sky. (It was) a marvel that never occurred since the foundation of this Land! Caused His Majesty to be brought incense to pacify the hearth (…to write?) what happened in the book of the House of Life (…to be remembered?) for Eternity.” Fig. 40: The Tulli papyrus hoax If the Tulli papyrus is authentic, the objects it describes must indeed be classified as UFOs. Their shape, luminosity and silent movement in the sky are familiar. The text quickly became a classic in books of the genre, used first by George Adamski and Desmond Leslie in their Flying Saucers Have Landed (1953) and later by popular writers such as Harold Wilkins in Flying Saucers Uncensored (1956). We could devote many pages to the evolution of this document during its first 50 years of life in ufology. However, space allows us only to outline the reasons we have not included it in the maitf body of this book. First of all, the whereabouts of the Tulli Papyrus are completely unknown. Not even Boris de Rachewiltz knew where the original was kept. Later correspondence with Rachewiltz revealed he had only ever received the Egyptologist’s personal notes, not the papyrus itself, and that even Albert Tulli had only made his transcription during a visit to the house of an antiquarian in Cairo in 1934. Reportedly, the papyrus had been too expensive for him to purchase at the time. Secondly, the hieroglyphics Rachewiltz received, and which Doubt published, were not the characters on the original document. Tulli copied them down in hieratic - a kind of ancient Egyptian shorthand - and another Egyptologist, Etienne Marie-Felix Drioton (1889-1961), converted these into hieroglyphic symbols. We have no way of checking the accuracy of that conversion. Finally, the contents of the papyrus seem somewhat too convenient a find for the editors of Doubt magazine. In one stroke the text combines flying saucers - a hot topic in the early 1950s - with rains of fish and other animals, a staple of Fortean research since the phenomenon was famously popularized by the Society’s founder, Charles Fort. The fact that Rachewiltz was a member of the Fortean Society and a friend of Tiffany Thayer, also gives us cause for questioning the document’s authenticity. Case: W456