-Caveat Lector- UFOs in the Bible? By Jim Marrs Date: 10/12/2000 URL: http://www.alienzoo.com/features/m/200010120001.cfm In the Bible, the foundation of Western thought and philosophy, there are many accounts which seem to describe events with decidedly UFO characteristics. The Book of Genesis describes how Jacob, founder of the 12 tribes of Israel, camped while on a journey from Beersheba to Haran. After bedding down for the night, Jacob dreamed he saw a "ladder set up on the Earth, and the top of it reached to heaven" and he saw "the angels of God ascending and descending on it." At the top of the ladder stood a being who proclaimed himself "Jehovah, the God of Abraham" who told Jacob his descendants would proliferate and spread to the four corners of the Earth like "dust." While most Bible scholars see this story as an allegorical dream, some believe Jacob may have seen ancient astronauts exiting a UFO. The beginning of Psalms 104 seems to be an account of flight, stating, "O Lord my God . . . Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment; who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain: Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters; who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind . . ." Zechariah 6:1-7 (Living Bible) also can be interpreted as an observation of flying machines on a reconnaissance mission when it states, "Then I looked up again and saw four chariots coming from between what looked like two mountains made of brass. The first chariot was pulled by red horses, the second by back ones, the third by white horses and the fourth by dappled-greys. `And what are these?' I asked the angel. He replies, 'These are the four heavenly spirits who stand before the Lord of all the Earth; they are going out to do his work. The chariot pulled by the black horses will go north, and the one pulled by white horses will follow it there, while the dappled-greys will go south.' The red horses were impatient to be off, to patrol back and forth across the Earth, so the Lord said, 'Go. Begin your patrol.' So they left at once." Another familiar Bible story with UFO-visitor overtones concerns the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah in the year 2024 B.C. Some progressive Bible scholars tend to explain the fire and brimstone destruction of the twin cities as the result of some natural disaster such as a volcanic eruption or earthquake which was interpreted as an act of God. But the evidence denies this view. The Biblical account is quite clear that the devastation was known in advance since Abraham, a direct descendant of Noah and the first Hebrew patriarch, was warned and even managed to bargain with his God, revising the number of righteous persons for which the cities might be spared down from 50 to 10. According to the story, Abraham’s nephew Lot met two men at Sodom’s gate whom he somehow recognized as being very special for he bowed down to them. The Bible calls them "angels," although the original Hebrew word Mal’akhim actually means "emissaries". This pair apparently appeared quite human since Lot brought them to his home and fed them fresh bread. Later that night when a crowd of Sodomites demanded that the pair be given to them for sexual pleasure, Lot protected them, even offering his own virgin daughters in exchange. Undeterred, the men attempted to force their way into the house only to be temporarily blinded by the two strangers. Following this incident, the strangers revealed to Abraham that the cities would soon be destroyed. Lot tried to warn his neighbors but none would listen. The next day, the two strangers told Lot it was urgent that he and his family leave immediately, indicating that a specific time frame for the destruction was in motion. "Escape for thy life," Lot was told. "Look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest they be consumed." The two strangers then accepted Lot’s proposal that he flee only as far as the small nearby city of Zoar rather than the mountains. Once Lot was in Zoar, "Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. But Lot’s wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt." Ancient document scholar Zecharia Sitchen argues that the literal meaning of the term Netsiv melah (pillar of salt) should be "pillar of vapor". Thus, Lot’s wife was vaporized by the explosive destruction of the cities, seen miles away by Abraham as "columns of smoke and fumes, as from a furnace, rising from the cities there." As some writers have pointed out, this account sounds eerily like those of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings. But is there any anything to support this idea? According to Sitchen, archeologists have found evidence that communities near the southern end of the Dead Sea - thought to be the site of Sodom and Gomorrah - were suddenly abandoned in the 21st century B.C. and not reoccupied for several centuries. Furthermore, one report claimed that contaminated water in the area contained harmful amounts of radioactivity. This, plus the claim of a Soviet scientist that fused silicone or glassy sand was discovered in the region, indicates an atomic blast may well have leveled Sodom and Gomorrah. Apparently such destruction was not limited to the Middle East. In the early 1990s, it was reported that workers on a housing development project west of Jodhpur, India, discovered the ruins of an ancient city buried in a layer of radioactive dust. Radioactivity in the small community of Rajasthan, an area long known for its high rate of cancers and birth defects, was so high that Indian officials closed off certain areas, according to the report. Archeologists estimated the size of the ancient city may have exceeded a half-million persons. The ruins were dated from 8,000 to 12,000 years old. Investigators believed the city was destroyed by a nuclear bomb estimated to be about the size of the ones dropped on Japan in 1945. Further evidence supporting the atom bomb theory came from an ancient text called the Mahabharata, which described "a single projectile charged with all the power of the universe . . . An incandescent column of smoke and flame as bright as 10,000 suns, rose in all its splendor . . . it was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death which reduced to ashes an entire race." Was the devastation of Sodom and Gomorrah as well as the ancient Indian city deliberate acts? Was the destruction the result of warfare between ancient astronauts? Is the story of grand destruction at Sodom and Gomorrah simply a fanciful religious tale concerning the consequences of immorality or were the cities destroyed by nuclear fire? Or could it have been a crippled UFO whose nuclear power went critical and exploded? <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. 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