11. The former losers, now absolute rulers and therefore
gods
, found that the progress and evolution of the human race was too slow. They knew perfectly well that the beings created by them were “like gods,” but they wanted more rapid progress (Genesis i, 6: “. . . this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.”). The gods were often hot-tempered in their impatience; they were quick to punish and wipe out the malcontents and those who did not follow the biological laws laid down, “pour encourager les autres.” The gods had no “moral” feelings about such radical cleaning up operations for they felt that they were responsible, as creators of men, for their future development.
12. But men were afraid of the gods and their punitive expeditions, especially once the gods were no longer first generation gods, i.e. when they were their sons and daughters to whom men believed they were already assimilated (proof: mythologies of the families of the gods).
13. Then whole groups of men began to dig themselves underground hideouts out of fear of divine judgment. Perhaps these groups of men still had tools available that they had made under the gods’ guidance—tools with which they could perhaps work stone more easily than archaeologists can imagine today.
14. It is a fact that today more and more gigantic underground dwellings that are not identical to the tunnel systems in Ecuador and Peru are being discovered annually all over our globe. The subterranean human cities which are constantly being discovered are obviously the work of many hands; they were not made with sophisticated technical equipment such as the thermal drill. Such subterranean shelters, which men built out of fear of “destruction from the cosmos,” can be found, for example, at:
San Agustin, Colombia: underground sanctuaries with connecting passages.
Cholula, Mexico: underground temple with connecting passages. (Not to be confused with the passages stretching for kilometers installed by archaeologists.)
Derinkuyu, Anatolia, Turkey: underground cities with several-storied “houses” and large assembly rooms.
15. If men, namely our ancestors, built safety bunkers underground by hand, with the expenditure of tremendous effort, they did not do so for pleasure, nor for protection against wild animals, nor to the glory of their religious ideals. Nor did they do so out of fear of some alien conquerors. Such excavations using simple tools and crude physical strength would have taken years. Alien conquerors would have had no difficulty in forcing these crazy defenders to surrender. They had only to sit down outside the cave entrances and starve the inmates to death.
16. I say that there was only one reason for the underground caves built by human hands and that was fear of attack from the air! But who could assail men from the air? Only those whom they knew by tradition, those gods who had once visited them long, long ago.
I know I am offering my head on a platter to every critic because of this daring speculation. But I am used to that by now.
Criticism and odium could not rain down on me more fiercely than they did after I quoted Ezekiel in
Chariots of the Gods?
I must recapitulate! It says in Ezekiel:
“Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were opened . . . And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the color of amber, out of the midst of the fire. Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man. And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings. And their feet were straight feet; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf’s foot: and they sparkled like the color of burnished brass . . . Now as I beheld the living creatures, behold one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures . . . The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the color of a beryl: and they four had one likeness: and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel. When they went, they went upon their four sides: and they turned not as they went. As for their rings, they were so high that they were dreadful: and their rings were full of eyes round about them four. And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them: and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up . . . ‘Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee.’ . . . and I heard behind me a voice of a great rushing . . . I heard also the noise of the wings of the living creatures that touched one another, and the noise of the wheels over against them, and a noise of a great rushing.”
Using this passage from Ezekiel, reproduced in abbreviated form here, I formulated some questions based on knowledge of current space travel technology. It was so obvious: it was so unmistakable. But the criticism and mockery I had to suffer for my modern exegesis!
On March 28, 1972, I had a conversation with Joseph F. Blumrich in Huntsville, USA. Blumrich, an engineer born in Austria, has been working for NASA for 14 years. He is head of the department in which future space stations are planned on the drawing board and worked out in detail. For example, Blumrich was engaged on the construction of the last stage of Saturn V and is now planning the future orbital stations in which several astronauts will stay in space for weeks. In July, 1972, Blumrich was awarded the NASA Exceptional Service Medal for his work on Saturn and Apollo—an honor received by very few NASA personnel.
“You have made a detailed study of the
visions
of the prophet Ezekiel in your spare time. First of all, how did a man in your position come to do this?”
“To put it quite bluntly—as a protest! I read your book
Chariots of the Gods?
with the superior attitude of a man who knew in advance that it was all rubbish. From the wealth of material supplied by you, I found, when I came to the description of the technical characteristics of Ezekiel’s visions, a territory where I could join in the conversation, so to speak, as I have spent most of my life on the construction and planning of aircraft and rockets. So I got out a Bible to read the complete text, feeling sure that I would refute and annihilate you in a few minutes. You could not, you simply ought not to be right! After a careful perusal of the text, my conviction was rapidly undermined and the few minutes became a long period of intensive spare-time research, during which I worked out in detail and proved what I had found out in the first few hours.”
“Did you take into account the prophet Ezekiel as a person?”
“Naturally. From three points of view: in relation to his personality in general, his quality as a reporter and lastly his participation in the events described. His personality influences the broad general evaluation of his report. As a reporter he possessed an outstanding gift of observation. As a participant he helps us to answer the question: was he the center of the occurrence? Since he was not, the next question arises: why not?”
“Previously the encounters between God and man in the Old Testament, which were always accompanied by secondary phenomena such as smoke, noise, fire, lightning and earthquakes, were called ideograms. Do you consider it possible after your Ezekiel studies that a meeting between the prophet and an alien intelligence can actually have taken place? If so, what indications do you base your findings on?”
“The answer to your first question is an unequivocal yes! But I don’t agree with the word ‘indications.’ The general appearance of the spaceship described by Ezekiel can be winkled out of his account Then an engineer can set aside his report and reconstruct a flying machine with the same characteristics. If he then shows that the result is not only technically possible, but also practical and well thought out in every respect, and moreover finds details and processes described in Ezekiel’s account that tally perfectly with his own conclusion, you can no longer call them merely indications!”
“I know that you have written a book about your reflections and your calculations based on the prophet Ezekiel’s data.* According to your calculations, was it possible to give data concerning comparative dimensions and technical know-how?”
* Blumrich’s book,
The Spaceships of Ezekiel
, is published by Corgi Books.
“To my surprise it was possible to do so fairly accurately. Because of the vagueness in the prophet’s original account, the mathematical side of the investigation was carried out parametrically, i.e. a series of variables were tried step by step. Naturally an extrapolation over and above the present-day state of technology that was partially based on theoretically known possibilities and partially on estimated values was also necessary. I found out that
Ezekiel’s spaceship has very credible dimensions and belongs to a stage of technology which modern man will not reach for some decades!”
“I have no desire to pirate the results of your investigations before they are published, but I am naturally curious to know whether any questions are still left unanswered. Can you name two of them?”
“With pleasure. One concerns two rather similar possibilities. Does the account contain a mixture of visions and actual events or does it mention solely real observations? The second is what was the actual site of the temple to which Ezekiel was flown. Jerusalem cannot really be fitted into the two possibilities suggested. Obviously it would be of the highest importance to establish the actual site.”
“Mr. Blumrich, do you realize that you’re going to shock the Old Testament scholars—and others as well—with your logical calculations and reflections?”
“Undoubtedly a shock is unavoidable. Nevertheless, I hope to be able to reduce the duration of this shock to a minimum, because my book will contain all the technical data that I used for my calculations and reconstruction. It is all there in black and white. Anyone who doubts can check my work himself or have it checked. It doesn’t take long and once it has been checked, the biggest shock should already have been overcome. There is no other way out. Naturally a longish time will have to elapse before my conclusions are adapted for use in different fields.”
Errare humanum est!
Sophocles (497-405 B.C.) makes Antigone say: “Is it then so difficult, is it shameful to give up positions which, by tomorrow at the latest, will no longer be tenable?”
Who or what installed the stars in outer space?
Who or what controls the “lever” in cosmic space and amuses himself by making stars collide, suns explode and whole galaxies crash into one another?
Who or what “breathed the breath of life” into the first form of life?
Who or what wanted intelligent life to come into being, wanted us to become the way we are?
If everything that is was created by the one and only God, then that God must be righteous, omnipotent and good, for everything is created according to his will.
Why does this almighty God let wars take place, let blood and tears flow?
If this God wants all men to “serve” him, as the religions put it, why does he allow on a single planet 20,000 religions and sects who indulge in bloody conflicts with each other in his name?
How can the war material of two enemies be blessed for victory in the name of this God, who, religions say, was once a man and so must understand men in happiness and sorrow? Ought not the omniscient God to confer His blessing only on the party which is actually fighting in His name, at His bequest and will?
Why can knaves and rogues, assassins and false judges enjoy the same happiness as the good creatures under God’s sun?
How can a wise and good God allow the rich to get richer and the poor poorer, when they are all His children?
What meaning has this one God decreed for intelligent life?
In his book Monod names the three stages which made all life possible:
1. The formation of the mainly chemical components of living beings on earth: the nucleotides and the amino-acids. (Nucleotides are compounds of phosphoric acids, nucleic bases and carbohydrates which are found especially in the cell nuclei. Amino-acids are organic acids which are important in the building up of albumen.)
2. The formation, on the basis of these materials, of the first macromolecules capable of replication (macromolecules are those consisting of 1,000 or more atoms).
3. Around these infinitely repeatable structures is formed the teleonomic apparatus, a system that is complete in itself; it leads to the original cell.
Monod summarizes the most recent work on molecular biology and genetics. Billions of years ago certain simple carbon compounds (such as methane) entered the earth’s atmosphere and the earth’s crust. Later water and ammonia formed. From these simple compounds many substances originated, including nucleotides and amino-acids, which were finally combined into the first organism, the first cell, and consequently the first life, in the prebiotic primordial soup. In other words, that was a time when chemical and physical processes were not yet dependent on the presence of living beings. (
Gods from Outer Space.
) The “short step” to the evolution of
homo sapiens
ostensibly comes into the theory of evolution in a peaceful development without revolutionary intervention.