Well, it isn’t the ancient world, but it still fits the kind of thing I’m doing on PaleoBabble. I keep getting links and emails related to the “compelling” evidence for UFOs in Renaissance art, so my annoyance meter has passed the tolerable level.
The UFOs in Renaissance art nonsense primarily extends from Matthew Hurley’s website. An informed rebuttal to this has been out on the web for some time, but it apparently hasn’t been widely discussed or circulated — likely due to the fact that most of it isn’t in English.
Art historian Diego Cuoghi (yes, a real art historian) has a website devoted to analyzing the paintings on Hurley’s website. Sorry, they aren’t extraterrestrials and space ships. The main site is here, but it’s in Italian. But Parts 1 and 5 have been translated into English. I highly recommend them – very interesting and informative, but not for those who are fundamentalist ETH’ers (ExtraTerrestrial Hypothesis).
You definitely need high speed for all these images, too.
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Im very open minded and look at things from every angle before I choose sides. Some of your arguements just don’t add up. Ancient aliens were here. The evidence is too great, and actually much more plausible then the theories you have
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MSH Reply:
July 20th, 2010 at 11:36 PM
so…what is the evidence for ancient aliens? It doesn’t appear that you’ve read through much of this blog, or my http://www.sitchiniswrong.com site. You might want to do that first and then return here.
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You seem like just another sun venerating Christian nut on SUN-day looking to justify your own brainwashing, no different than people who believe everything Sitchin says. You all have an agenda to “prove”, one way or the other, notice the quotations around “prove” because you don’t “prove” anymore than Sitchin does.
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MSH Reply:
August 26th, 2010 at 5:58 PM
thanks for the reply — I love it when such coherent, tightly-reasoned responses things like this get posted because they will live forever on the site.
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Sarcasm really is the lowest form of wit and I find it absolutely astounding how poor your grammar is , considering you claim to be a linguistic scholar . I have studied this site , its categories , blogs and your other site , Sitchiniswrong . All religions are nothing but spiritual theosophy born out of mans’ fear of the unknown, the world we inhabit and an ingrained inferiority complex. Sitchin and Eric Von Daniken and all other proponents of the ancient astronaut THEORY are doing nothing but offering an alternative to the story of the zodiac , on which all religions lean heavily on , for systems of social , agricultural and moral control .
You pick holes in the translation of aramaic and hebrew texts by pointing out grammatical errors , which you seem to think can dispel the theories of others . Yet in your above post you clearly have a problem with sentence construction in the English language . Does this invalidate all your work ?
We live in an age were text speak is common place and proper grammar has all but been forgotten. Do you think in 5000 or 10,000 years , scholars of that age will be studying the conjugation of our verbs and sentence structure, taken from our current communication systems (which also vary by locale ) and be able to translate verbatim and grasp completely the times we now live in ?
The ancient astronaut theory has no greater merit than the New Testament , the Talmud , the Koran or the Egyptian book of the Dead but it certainly has no less .
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MSH Reply:
September 12th, 2010 at 10:36 PM
I’m not writing for publication, but for speed. If that’s what you’ve got, it’s pretty hollow.
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Here is a quote from the Srimad Bhagavatam book of India , ” … tells of a demon race which invaded the three planetary systems. Opposing the demons was the Hindu god Shiva , who possessed a powerful weapon that he fired at the enemy airships from his own . ”
There are thousands of similar references to be found throughout sacred holy texts the world over . Stichin IS wrong in his translation when he states nephilim means ” those who came down ” as the correct translation would be ” those who were cast down ” .
Whether one takes this to refer to aliens , angels or simply a metaphorical analogy , the ambiguity of the text and mans’ never ending search for enlightenment ensures we will always have more questions than answers . However, I would always question the motives of someone who pours scorn on others search for the truth , yet offers no truth of their own .
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MSH Reply:
September 12th, 2010 at 10:36 PM
is this supposed to prove aliens in any way? That an ancient people believed in supernatural entities is hardly news.
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louis Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 10:57 AM
In Hebrew Nephillim is related to the word nephal, nephalti – I fell. So Nephillim is correctly
meams The Fallen Ones – those who have fallen.
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MSH Reply:
February 14th, 2012 at 5:01 PM
no, not really. See the Nephilim link at http://www.sitchiniswrong.com.
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Pingback: PaleoBabble » Recent YouTube Video Debunking “UFOs” in Ancient and Medieval Art
yesenope
Thats a non-argument. Surviving ancient texts would have been too important to quickly scribe paying no attention to grammar, in fact I always assumed writing was reserved for matters of high importance. Meaning, scholars should not fear coming across a spelling mistake or misrepresentation when studying ancient art or text. This web site may well be poorly edited, but there is enough scientific evidence here to show that the ancient summarians did not concern themselves with planet x.
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An honest intelligent and clear minded person does not need a PHD to prove their research, what they do need is funding and support, peer review and an opportunity to substantiate their claims. To often “fringe” science is scoffed at and ignored because it threatens to rewrite the social norm. The fact of the matter is that none of us have a definite answer for what the ancients were getting up to back then, we only have small fragments that have survived the ages and limited understanding based on SOME real scientific research and the rest based on socioeconomic(more like sociopathic) and cultural biases. As long as scientists are limited by funding and the opinions of the establishment then only half the story will be told. It is very true what Yesenope said about validity of interpretations:
“The ancient astronaut theory has no greater merit than the New Testament , the Talmud , the Koran or the Egyptian book of the Dead but it certainly has no less.”
What exactly is hoped to accomplish by justifying a specific stance on something based solely on credulity? Meaning that credulity is waved around in the form of a degree. I could go get a doctorate in Evolutionary Biology and then go tell the world about my theories on Creation Science. I could also be someone like Nikola Tesla, Jacque Fresco, Willhelm Reich, *Gasp* Erik Von Daniken or thousands of other researchers (with and without degrees) who have time and time again been able to show validity to their case, Then shunned, ignored, thrown to the maze of scientific bureaucracies, left to run into walls at every turn, or even shut down and had technology and research stolen from them or “confiscated” because some poor fool thought that money and power was more important than discovery and understanding. The fact of the matter is that you are just as reliable if not less than any other researcher, linguist, archeologist, whatever. Oh yea I checked out the art website, it was interesting, but his ideas were simply that, just ideas, just like Sitchin or any other researcher. Again, the only thing science has going for it is the inherent ability towards self correction, meaning that as a scientist, if you can’t conclusively prove something with repeatable tests, you still have a lot more riddles to solve. “Ancient Astronaut Believers” and so called “Scientists” are in the same boat, we are all looking for answers, and you would have to be an idiot or a tool not to think that some of the ancients might not have been talking only about cultural and mythological interpretations of celestial, biological and geological events. Most people who follow Sitchin or UFO’s, the Ancient Astronaut hypothesis, Different Interpretations of Ancient History and Symbology, people doing Consciousness Research Etc, Etc, Etc, are not a bunch of irrational, lazy or stupid people, we are people who realize that the nature of science is ever changing and that the scientific establishment has proven itself to be only half reliable half of the time. Physicists can’t even “equate” a unified theory for Relativity and Quantum Mechanics? Dr. Zahi Hawass equates the Bolivian Pyramids to piles of rubble. And unfortunately, you and your art critique friend are attempting to use classical interpretations of history to disprove a hypothesis that has validity, needs more research and is simply incomplete.
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MSH Reply:
February 2nd, 2012 at 11:58 AM
the guy had his career before the UFOs in art nonsense came along. And data are data.
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Hi, I read with great interest Diego Cuohgi’s blog on art and ufos. It was very interesting, and indeed it broke down a lot of misconceptions i had on the subject.
However there is one picture that still defies my understanding, this picture is not religious, but rather journalistic, it is a ethching representing an event, a small text seems to be linked to it.
you will easily find a link to the etching by typing “april 4th 1561″ in google
Do you have an opinion on it?
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MSH Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 4:55 PM
Based on the work of Vallee and Aubeck (Wonders in the Sky) I would expect that those who reported this scene (like reports of “flying shields” for example) were seeing atmospheric or meteorological phenomena (with variegated colors) and using the best language they could to describe it. Vallee and Aubeck have this one in their book (#194) as “unidentified” (no secure way to know what was seen). For my review of Aubeck and Vallee’s book, see:
http://michaelsheiser.com/UFOReligions/2011/04/appreciative-but-not-amazed-by-wonders-in-the-sky/
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thank you for the reference.
do yo know any other book refering to this event or the event of the same kind (not art)?
Basel 1566, Hamburg nov 4th 1697, Angelo de Tummulillis 1465, England 18th august 1783?…
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MSH Reply:
February 23rd, 2012 at 9:16 PM
I’d have to look these up for bibliography, but I’d recommend getting Vallee and Aubeck’s book. It’s so-so when it comes to bibliography, but it’s very handy.
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@null
I did what you requested and searched for “april 4th 1561″ in google. The first link is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_dog
Doesnt wiki explain the occurances in the artwork your referring to?
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MSH Reply:
February 23rd, 2012 at 9:18 PM
I don’t know. I try to avoid Wikipedia for research.
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@Anon
Well it is weird,
Indeed the link you shown appares as one of the first result, but because of a [4] and another date (april 1535) , the part in bold for the lin description in google.
But no reference to the date. there is simply a small quote on wiki on the events of that year
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1561
plus it is not artwork, but a journalistic etching, like a journalist article.
set the search to “images” in google to find the pic.
@MHS
You are right, wiki is not perfect, but is a good start in most of the cases.
and thanks again for th Vallee & Aubeck book.
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MSH Reply:
February 29th, 2012 at 10:54 AM
you bet; it’s worth reading.
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Hi!
This is loosely connected to the main article and is in regards to the April 4, 1561 event:
For those interested, a link to a Wikipedia page with a digital reproduction of the original Flugblatt aus Nürnberg (Leaflet from Nuremberg). The image is too small for me to read, but as far as I can read the very first line it says “Anno M.D.LXI Am den XIIII. tag Aprillis zu morgen…”, which translates to “In the year of 1561 on the 14th day of April in the morning…”.
Hopefully the link will work properly:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Himmelserscheinung_%C3%BCber_N%C3%BCrnberg_vom_14._April_1561.jpg
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