The Ancient Alien Question

by Philip Coppens

  Could the “visions” of Ezekiel, which some scientists have argued might be due to temporal lobe epilepsy, be real? That idea is precisely the conclusion reached by Blumrich, a man of science. He is absolutely convinced that what happened to Ezekiel was physically real: He was taken onboard a spaceship, and what he described in his vision were technical details that we are only able to interpret correctly because by the second half of the 20th century, we had the proper framework: the capability to build spaceships.

  Giants and Hybrids

  One of the most intriguing references in the Bible, at least when it comes to anomalous sightings, is chapter 6 of the Book of Genesis, with its references to “giants,” which are clearly nonhuman, but somehow were able to sexually liaise with human women.

  1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,

  2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

  3 And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

  4 There were giants [Nephilim] in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

  This is the very passage that set Sitchin on his quest, and it is indeed one of the truly enigmatic passages of the Bible. Taken literally, the Bible states that in those days there were giants on our planet, and it was also at that time that the “sons of God” introduced themselves to “the daughters of men,” and had children with them. It clearly reads that this was a meeting of two species, the “sons of God” being clearly not human, but somehow able to create offspring with humans.

  The Nephilim are sometimes translated as “giants,” sometimes as “fallen,” and are therefore sometimes identified as the fallen angels. The story goes that when Lucifer rebelled against God, he was allowed by God to take up residence on Earth and many other angels followed. The Nephilim were present on Earth before the Flood, and one interpretation suggests that God caused the Flood to rid the Earth of the Nephilim, as well as the hybrid creatures the “sons of God” had created with humankind. However, the Bible also suggests that the Nephilim were present on Earth after the Flood.

  The translation of Nephilim as “giants” comes from the Greek Old Testament, where Nephilim was rendered as “gegantes,” which looks like giants, but would actually be Titans. Not coincidentally, the titans were the supernaturally powerful offspring of the union of gods and humans.

  The union of “sons of Gods” and women is indeed not unique to the Hebrew Bible. There are hundreds of examples in Greek mythology of a Greek god falling madly in love with a woman. Zeus, the king of the Greek pantheon, married six times and had numerous affairs with mortal women, including Semele, the outcome of which was the famous Dionysus. Another of Zeus’s divine affairs was with Alcmene, resulting in the birth of Hercules. According to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, her labor lasted seven days and she had great difficulty giving birth to such a large child.

  The Greek myths are usually taken as allegorical, whereas the Bible is often used for more literal interpretations. The Nephilim, as “fallen,” have been identified with the Greek Grigori, or the Watchers of Book of Enoch fame, and have led scholars to argue that the Nephilim/Watchers/Grigori/sons of God are fallen angels—otherworldly creatures that ended up living on planet Earth after a dispute with God (or someone who went down on paper as God, but might not have been the Almighty).

  There are other interpretations of this passage, such as the one held by St. Augustine in the fourth century, which argued that “sons of God” referred to the line of Seth, while “daughters of men” referred to the line of Cain—two biblical patriarchs. Still others interpret “sons of God” as meaning a line of priests—men in the service of God.

  Other parts of the Bible also suggest there were indeed giants living on the Earth. Genesis 14 and Deuteronomy 2 speak of two tribes, the Rephaim and the Anakim. The Anakim were directly connected with the Nephilim, and were said to be descended from a giant named Anak. In Numbers 13:33, it is said that this tribe was so tall that spies who were sent in felt like “grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.” Moses is said to have killed Og, king of the Rephaim and “the last of the remnant of the giants,” according to Deuteronomy 3. Og had a bed nine cubits long, which, depending on which cubit was used, measured between 13.5 and 15.5 feet. And we are all familiar with the story of David fighting Goliath, who was about 9 feet tall. In 2 Samuel 21:20 and 1 Chronicles 20:6 we read of “still another battle, which took place at Gath,” where “there was a huge man with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot—twenty-four in all,” showing that these giants were clearly described as being largely human, but having a much larger size, plus extra fingers and toes. But the giants were clearly of flesh and blood, as many episodes of the Old Testament detail how the Israelites came upon many of these giants in Canaan and killed most of them, thus claiming the land of Israel as their own.

  In isolation, the passage from Genesis 6 could indeed mean anything, and could be interpreted literally or symbolically. But placed in a larger context, it is clear that references to nonhuman or superhuman creatures breeding with human women is a common theme throughout many myths and legends. One can argue that all of these should be seen in a symbolic manner, but it is equally valid to argue that they should be interpreted literally.

  Biblical Longevity

  One of the more intriguing aspects of the Bible is the list of prediluvian patriarchs and their ages. Methuselah, for example, was said to have lived to the impressive age of 969 years, though “the First Man,” Adam, lived for a solid 930 years—respectable for any prototype.

  Detailed recordkeeping of people’s dates of birth and death is a relatively recent—and still largely Western—practice. But from the available records, it is clear that humankind’s age limit seems to lie somewhere between 115 and 120 years—however few attain it. The oldest attested person on record is the French Jeanne Calment, who lived to be 122 years and 164 days, born as she was on February 21, 1875, and dying on August 4, 1997. Interestingly, this outside limit is on par with what is said in Genesis 6:3, “his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.”

  The list of biblical patriarchs as given in Genesis 5 goes as follows:

  Adam: 930 years; begetting a son at the age of 130.

  Seth: 912 years; begetting a son at the age of 105.

  Enos: 905 years; begetting a son at the age of 90.

  Cainan: 910 years; begetting a son at the age of 75.

  Mahalaleel: 895 years; begetting a son at the age of 65.

  Jared: 962 years; begetting a son at the age of 162.

  Enoch: 365 years before walking with god; begetting a son at the age of 65.

  Methuselah: 969 years; begetting a son at the age of 187.

  Lamech: 777 years; begetting a son at the age of 182.

  Noach: 950 years; begetting a son at the age of 500.

  Faced with these superhuman ages, the faithful are often encouraged to accept the veracity of these life spans that far exceed modern man’s life expectancy as well as anything that the archaeological record have uncovered. For Martin Luther, these patriarchs had a better diet and sounder bodies, and experienced a less developed impact of sin on the physical creation, hence allowing them to live longer. Others have proposed that there was a different climate prevalent on Earth that would have allowed for these extended life spans. For those who turn to the Bible for every answer, on this point, it does not provide an explanation as to why these patriarchs lived so long. As to a “less developed impact of sin,” the Fall happened during Adam’s lifetime, so the fact that his descendents still lived long does not seem to have a logical explanation. The Bible furthermore does not attribute anything special to these people—e
xcept a long life, and living before the Deluge.

  Others, in the quest to understand and make the biblical account acceptable, have tried to reduce these hard-to-imagine life-spans to more mundane possibilities. One of these interpretations is a lunar solution. This would mean that to obtain the “real age,” as we calculate someone’s life-span today—by solar years—their ages need to be divided by 12. This would make Methuselah just shy of 81 years old when he died. Suddenly, the impossible seems not only possible, but likely.

  This therefore offers an appealing solution to the problem. However, as soon as one mystery seems solved, a new problem arises: the age at which these people fathered children. The eldest, Methuselah, waited until he was 187 years old to have a child, which in solar years would be 16 years. No real problem there. But the youngest dad, Mahalaleel, would have been just shy of 5 years old when he became a father—rather young, and apparently not an exception, for his father and grandfather had started at roughly the same time! And that makes the “most logical solution” hard to accept.

  When we take the Bible out of its isolation, various parallels once again become apparent. In ancient Egypt and Sumeria, there are known lists of kings. Several of these begin with a series of kings who ruled before a flood or, in the case of Egypt, before the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt. Some of these deities lived even longer than Methuselah, to several thousands of years. In Sumerian accounts we read that the kingship descended from heaven to Eridu. In Eridu, Alulim became king and he ruled for a staggering 28,800 years. It seems that if Alulim had heard that Adam had died at the age of 930, he would have said he died in his infancy.

  Here is the Sumerian list:

  Alulim of Eridu(g): 8 sars (28,800 years).

  Alalgar of Eridug: 10 sars (36,000 years).

  En-Men-Lu-Ana of Bad-Tibira: 12 sars (43,200 years).

  En-Men-Ana: This name is not present on all lists.

  En-Men-Gal-Ana of Bad-Tibira: 8 sars (28,800 years).

  Dumuzi of Bad-Tibira, the shepherd: 10 sars (36,000 years).

  En-Sipad-Zid-Ana of Larag: 8 sars (28,800 years).

  En-Men-Dur-Ana of Zimbir: 5 sars and 5 ners (21,000 years).

  Ubara-Tutu of Shuruppag: 5 sars and 1 ner (18,600 years).

  Zin-Suddu: This name is not present on all lists.

  It’s no wonder that these kings were seen as gods. That is precisely what authors such as Zecharia Sitchin have argued: We should take both the Bible and these lists of kings at face value; they show a reality—namely that we are face-to-face with alien beings.

  A lot of ink has gone into puzzling out the purpose of Genesis 5, with some researchers noting that the list of patriarchs functions merely as a bridge between one narrative and the rest, largely there to fast-forward the story a few millennia. They argue that the Sumerian King List may have served as inspiration for this exercise, for during their Babylonian captivity, the Jews would definitely have stumbled upon it, and they may have decided to incorporate this information into their own creation myths.

  The Sumerians had a different system of counting, based on the number 60. Some have tried to align Genesis 5 with the information of the Sumerian King List, while the Jewish exegete Cassuto suggested that the figures in Genesis 5 (and 11) were “multiples of five with the addition of seven.”3 An earlier attempt noted that the figures for the antediluvian patriarchs could be computed by 39 times 42 years, and the period of time from creation to Abraham’s entry into Canaan by 6 × 7 × 7 × 7, or 42 times 49 years. It is clear that we are coming perilously close to a Bible Code, in order to “explain” something that we cannot take, or don’t want to take, at face value.

  In this interpretation, we are midway between a literal interpretation and the atheist viewpoint, which is that the Bible as a whole is a literary invention, and hence pure fiction. But if fiction, why not make it more believable, or at least give a moral or logical explanation why characters who had hard-to-believe life-spans were inserted into the story?

  Elsewhere, in China, we find that the first dynasties are referred to as those of the Five Monarchs, which confusingly involved nine rulers, whose combined reigns lasted from 2852 to 2206 BC—or an incredible 70 years each! In Vedic accounts, it is related that until circa 3000 BC, the human life-span was roughly 1,000 years.

  In the late 1800s, theologians sought ways to make the Bible conform to the claims of Darwinian evolution and uniformitarian geology. One novel way was to offer the idea that the names of the patriarchs were used to refer to entire dynasties, clans, or tribes, and not to actual individuals. This would mean that when the Adam clan had exercised dominion for 130 years, a person was born in the Adam clan who eventually either ruled or was the progenitor of the Seth clan. The Adam clan continued to be powerful for an additional 800 years, and then the Seth clan took over. This idea doesn’t sound too logical, and would be a nightmare from a legal point of view within tribal matters: having to go back 800 years within a clan to find out who could succeed whom?

  Others have suggested an astronomical interpretation. For example, Michel Barnouin proposed that the life-spans were actually the synodic periods of the planets—the time required for a body within the solar system to return to the same position relative to the sun as seen by an observer on the Earth. The life-span of Lamech, 777 years, would be related to the cumulative synodic periods of Jupiter and Saturn; 962, the life-span of Jared, would be the cumulative synodic periods of Venus and Saturn.

  Another astronomical inroad is the possibility that each patriarch was assigned a star “kingdom”—a distance from one star to another. Their age would then be the number of days to be calculated between the rising and setting of certain stars. For example, Seth is born to Adam and Eve after the birth of Cain and Abel, which have been linked with Castor and Pollux in Gemini, when Adam is 130 years. If the left lower corner star of the Great Square is the heliacal rising star at dawn, it takes 130 days until Sirius—named Sothis in Egypt, and which could be the Seth of the Jews—is the dawn’s rising star. Continuing in this scheme, from the star Sirius (Seth), it is 912 days—its life span—to the star Altair in Aquila. The star Altair sets as the star Sirius rises—coinciding with the notion of “dying.” From this foundation, the entire series of kings in Genesis 5 and 11 has been linked to certain prominent stars and constellations.

  As calculated by William Walker III, this system of identifying patriarchs with star regions only applies at around 42.5 degrees latitude—the Black Sea—thus identifying that area as the likely origin of this system.

  This “third alternative” thus sits in the middle of the two standard theories: one asking for total faith in the Bible, the other skeptical, arguing that the Bible is fiction. It argues that the Bible is true, but that the patriarchs are not mortal men, but gods—stars. Their “ages” are correct, and they are even life-spans, but of stars and their visibility in the night’s sky. Hence, the Bible is correct—but so are the skeptics.

  Of course, there is a fourth possibility, which is that the patriarchs did indeed live hundreds of years, but that their ages were then adjusted to incorporate astronomical knowledge, which would mean that the Bible is not truly factually correct, but an amalgamation of various, diverse knowledge, woven together.

  But taken as a whole, it is clear that the Bible does suggest that something strange was going on: There are numerous, quite straightforward references to giant beings living in Canaan, which the incoming Israelites had to fight and defeat before they could reclaim the land. The Israelites named these creatures “Nephilim,” and it is clear that wherever they came from, they were clearly not “human,” as in Homo sapiens. As a whole, Jewish and other legends spoke of how these beings were linked with the gods. The central question is: Were they Gods, or gods?

  Cargo Cults

  Could it be that nonhuman, but nevertheless not divine, entities were mistaken for or labeled as gods? The answer to this question is a simple yes, because there are numerous examples o
f that “mistake” having been made.

  The natives of Tanna, an island of Vanuata, in the South Pacific Ocean, developed a cult around John Frum. Local legend has it that the king of a far-off nation called America visited Tanna and lived among the natives. His name was John Frum. He gave the natives coin and paper money, a helmet, and other objects, including a photograph. He explained lightning to them, as well as sound, wind, and the constellations, and he spoke in a strange language. The people have tattoos on their skin that read “USA.”

  The religion practiced by the people of Tanna is what is known as a “cargo cult,” a religious cult that has appeared in many traditional, pre-industrial tribal societies in the wake of interaction with more technologically advanced cultures. The cults normally focus on obtaining the material wealth—the “cargo”—of the advanced culture. Many of these cargo cults emerged around World War II, when many of the islands in the South Pacific suddenly saw 300,000 American troops pouring in from the skies and seas. These “gods” indeed brought the locals what seemed to them to be endless supplies of food and goods—including Jeeps, washing machines, radios, canned meat, and candy—so much so that they believed it was all summoned by magic. After all, none of it was made locally, so where did it come from?