A fresh report is due.
Among Solomon’s many gifts to the Ethiopian queen was a car which travelled through the air.
The king’s son secretly removed the ark from Jerusalem, with Solomon’s tacit consent. It was hidden outside the city for a week. When he departed it was put on a cart and covered with old rags and rubbish.
Not until they were far away from Jerusalem was the ark transferred to a new cart. This cart flew a cubit or the span of a man above the ground. The cart must have been quite large, for horses, mules and camels were ‘raised up’, as well as men. The chronicle expressly mentions one cart, whereas there were many carts in the retinue on the outward journey.
The king’s son had thought of everything in his plan. He left the big flying cart—obviously the king’s gift to his mother—some days’ journey from Jerusalem, under a military guard. Then he arrived in Jerusalem like an ordinary traveller, stole the ark, departed and loaded it on the flying cart. The cart could travel fast and was not held up by the miserable roads. Pursuers had no chance of catching up with the caravan.
These assumptions are confirmed in the chronicle.
The temple priests in Jerusalem discovered the theft and told King Solomon. They urged him to assemble troops to follow the Ethiopians without delay. Solomon could not refuse their demands, but neither could he admit that his son had his secret approval to remove the ark.
Even Solomon’s fast cavalry could not find the route taken by the Ethiopians. No wonder, for they had flown to Egypt and their aerial journey had caused considerable havoc. The Egyptians told the Israelite reconnaissance troops:
‘And the men of Egypt said unto them, “Some days ago certain men of Ethiopia passed here; and they travelled swiftly in a wagon, like the angels, and they were swifter than the eagles of the heavens.”
‘And those who were in the cities and towns were witnesses that, when these men came into the land of Egypt, our gods and the gods of the king fell down, and were dashed in pieces, and the towers of the idols were likewise broken into fragments.’ —Kebra Nagast, Chaps. 58 and 59.
It is all most remarkable.
A flying wagon that knocks obelisks (towers) over? On which there was room for horses and riders and camels? A product of extravagant oriental imagination?
Enormous flying objects are also described in the Indian epics Mahabharata and Ramayana. One of them, left behind by the gods, was ‘as big as a temple and five storeys high’. The Ramayana mentions flying machines ‘which (make) the mountains tremble when they take off amid thunder and burn up woods, meadows and the tops of houses’. We should confidently accept the Egyptians’ horror story as fact.
Obviously the messengers from King Solomon’s blitz troop did just that when they made their report. The king did not give up easily. He put himself at the head of a squad of chosen men and asked the Egyptians when his son Bayna-lehkem had left. This is what he was told:
‘He left us three days ago. And having loaded their wagon none of them travelled on the ground, but in a wagon that was suspended in the air; and they were swifter than the eagles that are in the sky, and all their baggage travelled with them in the wagon above the wind. As for us, we thought that thou hadst, in thy wisdom, made them to travel in a wagon above the wind. And the King said unto them, “Was Zion, the Tabernacle of the Law of God, with them?” And they said unto him, “We did not see anything”.’ —Kebra Nagast, Chap. 58
Solomon realised that his own son had made a fool of him. He understood that he could never recover the ark and its precious contents. Solomon and his priests wept in secret, mourning for the loss of the ark. In secret, because the king realised at once that the theft could not be made public. Now that Israel was no longer in possession of the ark, hostile kings might suddenly feel strong enough to attack Israel. Hence Solomon’s strict orders to the priests not to let a word about the loss of the ark leak out to the public:
‘And Solomon answered and said unto them, “Cease ye, so that the uncircumcised people may not boast themselves over us, and may not say unto us, ‘Their glory is taken away, and God Hath forsaken them.’ Reveal ye not anything else to alien folk. Let us set up these boards, which are lying here nailed together and let us cover them over with gold, and let us decorate them after the manner of our Lady Zion (the ark). And let us lay the Book of the Law inside it.”’ —Kebra Nagast, Chap. 62
Solomon was forced to cover up the theft of the ark and to order the priests to decorate the false ark with genuine symbols. But his end was near. We read in Kebra Nagast that he lived for another 11 years, but turned from God and devoted himself to a hectic love life.
What happened to the ark of the covenant once it was in Bayna-lehkem’s possession?
When the king’s son and his men had flown across the Ethiopian frontier, he gave the order to land, and, like King David before him, danced for joy around his booty:
‘And the King rose up and skipped about like a young sheep and like a kid of the goats that bath sucked milk in abundance from his mother, even as his grandfather David before the Tabernacle of the Law of God. He smote the ground with his feet, and rejoiced in his heart, and uttered cries of joy with his mouth. And what shall I say of the great joy and gladness that were in the camp of the King of Ethiopia? One man told his neighbour, and they smote the ground with their feet like young bulls, and they clapped their hands together, and marvelled, and stretched out their hands to heaven, and they cast themselves down with their faces to the ground, and they gave thanks unto God in their hearts.’—Kebra Nagast, Chap. 53
Mother Makeda handed over the throne to her successful son, who was known as King Menelik from then on. He became the founder of the new Ethiopian dynasty.
The Ethiopian constitution of 1955 still says in Article 2:17
‘The royal dignity shall stem from all eternity from the same family line which runs uninterruptedly from the dynasty of King Menelik the First, son of the queen of Ethiopia, the Queen of Sheba, and King Solomon of Jerusalem.’
The Negus of Abyssinia, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, banished in 1974, traced his dominion back to Menelik. The Ethiopian monarchs sometimes called themselves King, sometimes Emperor, sometime King of Kings, convinced that they were superior to all other rulers and under the protection of almighty God, thanks to the invincible power of the ark of the covenant.
During my search for the trial of the ark of the covenant, I remembered an experience I had in Srinagar, in the highlands of India, in 1976. Professor Hassnain, an archaeologist, took me to visit a mountain called Tahkti Suleiman. A temple, which is a Mohammedan sanctuary, stood on the summit of the steep mountain.
I asked what Tahkti Suleiman meant. Professor Hassnain answered at once: ‘Solomon’s Mountain!’
I thought it was rather ridiculous to call a mountain in the Indian highlands after a Hebrew king. I asked more questions and was given this explanation by the Professor:
‘King Solomon is revered by both Mohammedans and Hindus. This is his mountain and this is the king’s temple! It was built here, because tradition has it that King Solomon flew here in a flying machine and personally arranged for its construction.’
At the time this was double Dutch to me. I didn’t believe a word of it, but concealed my scepticism because Professor Hassnain is a practising Mohammedan.
Since I have read Kebra Nagast, I believe that King Solomon the Wise could have flown all over the world. In the Old Testament Solomon is always reputed for his wisdom; perhaps it should have been for his technological knowledge.
Unfortunately we do not know, nor shall we ever find out what kind of a flying machine he had built. Did the Sons of Heaven, of whom the antediluvian prophet Enoch speaks, leave a shuttle ship behind?
Was there a specially trained priesthood, a secret technical guild, which knew how to work the monster? Big questions which cannot be answered. All we know for sure is that—according to Kebra Nagast—Solomon presented the queen of Ethiopia with
a flying machine, which later played a decisive role in the theft of the ark of the covenant.
The first stage on King Menelik the I’s flight was the Ethiopian town of Waqerom. Then he flew to the capital, which was called Dabra Makeda:
‘And the King came with great pomp unto his mother’s city, and then he saw in the height the heavenly Zion sending forth light like the sun. And the Queen . . . threw up her head and gazed into the heavens, and thanked her Creator; and she clapped her hands together, and sent forth shouts of laughter from her mouth and danced on the ground with her feet; and she adorned her whole body with joy and gladness with the fullest will of her inward mind. And what shall I say of the rejoicing which took place then in the country of Ethiopia, both of man and beast, from the least to the greatest, and of both women and men. And pavilions and tents were placed at the foot of Dabra Makeda on the flat plain by the side of the good water, and they slaughtered 32,000 stalled oxen and bulls. And they set Zion (the ark) upon the fortress of Dabra Makeda, and made ready for her 300 guards who wielded swords to watch over the pavilions of Zion.’—Kebra Nagast, Chap. 85
I should mention that in Old Testament commentaries the view is repeatedly put forward that King Solomon was visited by the Queen of Sheba, not the Ethiopian queen. (The kingdom of Sheba was in present-day Yemen.)
It is not absolutely clear from the texts whether the Queen of Sheba also visited Solomon, or whether Queen Makeda was monarch of Sheba as well as Ethiopia.18
On the other hand it is clear that the ark of the covenant was taken to present-day Ethiopia. Kebra Nagast gives an exact flight path for the Ethiopians’ return. It went from Jerusalem along the coast of the Mediterranean to the Nile, which is mentioned as the ‘brook of Egypt’. Menelik’s crew used the Nile as a navigational aid, but the Egyptians could not harm the Ethiopians, because they had flown on. Besides the Egyptians knew that the aviators had the dangerous ark with them. This frightened them, because they knew from many reports that the machine was fatal to anyone who tried to take it. It says in Kebra Nagast that the ark was as radiant as the sun. Uncanny things went on up there in the flying machine. Were death rays directed at the enemy? Did the flying machine gleam in the rays of the sun? There is no conclusive answer.
The ark of the covenant was not taken to the Yemen across the Red Sea from Upper Egypt or Ethiopia. The boundaries of the Kingdom of Ethiopia were clearly defined:
‘And thus the eastern boundary of the kingdom of the King of Ethiopia is the beginning of the city of Gaza in the land of Judah . . . and its boundary is the Lake of Jericho, and it passeth on by the coast of its sea to Leba and Saba . . . and its boundary is the Sea of the Blacks and Naked Men, and goeth up Mount Kebereneyon into the Sea of Darkness, that is to say, the place where the sun setteth . . .’—Kebra Nagast, Chap. 92
The ark travelled through the country. It found its final resting place in the north Ethiopian town of Axum, which was once the capital of the kingdom and is reputed to have been founded by one of Noah’s grandsons.
On 24 October, 1970, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung reported:
‘Nearly 3000 years ago, Menelik I, son of Queen Makeda of Sheba and King Solomon the Wise, is supposed to have taken the sacred ark of the covenant from Jerusalem to Axum, where it presumably still is today in the custody of the priests of the Cathedral of Mary. Axum owes its possession of this holy relic to its position as the religious centre of Coptic Christianity.19
Are the ark of the covenant and its mysterious manna machine really still in Axum? Axum, situated about 180 km south of the Ethiopian provincial town of Asmara, has become a tourist centre. The tourists can see temples and tombs, and a reservoir, which is called ‘the Queen of Sheba’s Bath’. They marvel at gigantic steles, the biggest of which stood 33.5 m high before it collapsed. There are supposed to be graves under the steles. But no one knows for sure.
Who can tell if the ark is still in Axum? After the second Italian-Ethiopian war of 1935/36, Ethiopia and Eritrea came under the sway of Rome. Would the Italians have missed the chance of secretly removing the ark to Rome as a trophy? A bold speculation, admittedly. The ark may even be preserved in the Vatican today, thanks to an act of homage by the Fascists. But that is something we do not know, and even if it is true, we shall never find out. It is quite a dangerous idea.
Yet another status report:
Does the theft of the ark of the covenant by the Ethiopians explain why there is no mention of it in literature for centuries? Did the priests obey Solomon’s order not to tell anyone about King Menelik’s deceit.
A particularly arresting idea is that the prophet Jeremiah hid the false ark 400 years after the event! We know that the king’s son had a fake chest with genuine symbols placed in the chamber, indeed he even put the tablets of the law in the ark for the sake of authenticity. There was nothing to show Jeremiah that it was a fake. He lived about 600 B.C., i.e. nearly 300 years later than Solomon, who died in 933 B.C. So the prophet would have acted in good faith in saving the fake from the Babylonians.
This assumption would contradict my previous speculation that extraterrestrials warned Jeremiah against the Babylonians because of the ark. But it is possible that the extraterrestrials had absolutely no idea of its removal to Ethiopia, for there is no evidence of their presence during the period between Moses and Jeremiah and Ezekiel. They had no information about what happened in the interim.
This leaves two possibilities:
Jeremiah saved the genuine ark from the Babylonians. If so, it must still be in some cave or grotto near Jerusalem.
The genuine ark was taken to Ethiopia by Bayna-lehkem and is hidden somewhere in that country, perhaps in the holy city of Axum.
We still have to clear up the peripheral question of what happened to the flying machine:
‘But the King . . . and all those who obeyed his word, flew on the wagon without pain or suffering, and without hunger or thirst, and without sweat or exhaustion, and travelled in one day a distance which (usually) took three months to traverse.’ —Kebra Nagast, Chap. 93
King Menelik used the ‘flying carpet’ when waging war. Clever of him, as none of his enemies had such a machine and he was superior to all of them. I can hear my critics muttering: all right, show us this flying machine! Nothing would remain of it after 3000 years; it would be corroded and overgrown with vegetation. It could also have crashed in other countries, places where no traditions were recorded. May I point out that even today aircraft crash without being found? No, we shall never find the royal gift again. But the chances of getting on the trail of the ark of the covenant are definitely greater.
Why?
We know from the chronicles that the ark and the mysterious apparatus inside it emitted rays, that they were dangerous. The rays must have been powerful, for people who even approached the ark were killed, while others became seriously ill. Effects like that are not caused by reflected sunlight!
The part of the apparatus that produced energy must have been very small. I have already mentioned a mini-reactor of the kind in use today.
What kind of rays can have been a) as strong and b) as long-lived as the accounts of the ark state? Plutonium would be a possibility. It has a half life of 24,360 years. This means that half the original radioactivity still remains after 24,360 years. The signal, the ‘clock’ that still ticks today, is as accurate as that!
Present-day technological methods could be used to pinpoint such rays. It is quite simple; all that is needed is a helicopter with sensitive detectors on board to fly over the potential territories. If plutonium was the substance, it would still be radioactive today.
And the ark would still be giving off rays if a different radioactive material was used to power the mini-reactor. The chance may be slender. Admittedly. But it is a chance and today we willingly hand out millions of pounds for projects where the chances of success are much less. Why don’t we invest in research into our past for once? We should win the future. If we were successful i
n our search for the ark of the covenant (and the manna machine), we should at least know that:
Extraterrestrial forms of life, superior to us, exist.
Extraterrestrials visited the earth.
They guided groups of earlier inhabitants of the earth in a specific direction.
Signs of the Gods? Page 4
