UFO Religions

A couple days I paid a visit to AREA-51 (for real . . . at least as far as they let you go). It was fun (and of course there was a research benefit). Along the way my wife took a picture at the Extraterrestrial Highway sign that pilgrims encounter along the way.

The last stop often made before you retrace your steps just a bit to make the 8.5 mile drive to the southern guard post (where things get serious if you don’t obey the signs) is the famous Little A’Le’Inn at Rachel, Nevada. My wife and in-laws had lunch there. Pat, the owner and hostess, was as nice as internet lore has her.

If I had to choose one word to describe the location of Little A’Le’Inn and the Groom Lake entrance it would absolutely be “remote”. Frankly, the word doesn’t even begin to describe the location. Maybe this picture (not my photo) gives you an idea:

Since it’s the only place out there, anyone on the road can stop at the Little A’Le’Inn without threat of lethal force (and since the food was good – the Alien Burger is great . . . tastes like chicken) Pat does a good business.

Anyway, the guard post had signs that photography was prohibited, so we didn’t take any pictures . . . at least until we were about 100 yards away. My father-in-law decided to take the chance. The picture’s not great since it was at a distance on a smart phone. Here’s a better one from the web:

In case anyone wants to make the trip, these directions were helpful – but make sure to stop at the A’Le’Inn so that you get there . . . and get back.

Technorati Tags: alien, AREA 51, Facade, portent, rachel

I recommend this UK Telegraph article to anyone interested in how (“big C”) conspiracists think: “The 9-11 Conspiracy Theorist Who Changed His Mind.” It’s about the conversion, so to speak, of a formerly high-profile 9-11 Truther. Very interesting, and certainly applicable to the same thought patterns of UFO religionists.

Technorati Tags: 911, alien, conspiracy, UFOs

In another excellent piece on the UFO Trail blog, Jack Brewer takes the issue of the use of hypnosis in alien abduction research head-on. The post is another example of why, if you care about thinking clearly about matters ufological, you should be reading his blog. A couple of Jack’s summary points should be enough to get my own readers interested:

- An inherent challenge to ufology, and particularly alleged alien abduction, is that its followers do not seek information that provides a balanced and objective point of view. Actually, they are often quite unaware of the current mental health paradigm, symptoms of emotional traumata, relevant physiological circumstances and similar subject matter, the absence of which substantially obstructs their abilities to form objective and more complete understandings of what became known as the abduction phenomenon.

- If researchers want to be accepted by academia, they must adhere to rules and practices, i.e., peer review, proper recognition of standards of evidence, accept hypnosis is not a reliable memory retrieval tool, etc., that are established by academia, else stop claiming their work to have scientific merit. Equally important would be members of the UFO community learning to more accurately identify misrepresentations of scientific merit.

Technorati Tags: abductee, abduction, alien, hypnosis, integrity, Jacobs, method, regression, science

I wasn’t sure where to post this piece of wackiness – here or at Paleobabble. This audience won (or lost) since the subject matter is so often associated with UFOs.

Something interesting popped in my blog reader this week from the Cryptomundo blog – a post by Craig Woolheater relaying a question from a Dr. Matthew Johnson. Dr. Johnson (uncertain of his field) wrote the following:

There are many theories circulating around in the Kingdom of Bigfootdom. The predominant theory is that the Bigfoot are descendants of “Gigantopithecus” which they have a fossil record for in China (i.e., Essentially, a partial jawbone and one tooth).

Another theory circulating around in the Kingdom of Bigfootdom is the idea that the Bigfoot are actually the “Nephilim” mentioned in the Old Testament. Allegedly, the “Nephilim” are supposed to be the offspring of Fallen Angels who mated with Female Humans. However, I might add that there are many other Biblical interpretations pertaining to who might be the parents of the “Nephilim” mentioned in the Old Testament.

HERE’S MY QUESTION AND I WOULD REALLY LOVE TO HEAR YOUR ANSWERS:

If the Bigfoot are really the “Nephilim” mentioned in the Old Testament (i.e., Children of Fallen Angels and Female Humans), wouldn’t that actually mean that all of God’s Angels are really Apes with wings in order to create a sentient-being who appears to be half-man and half-ape?

I’d like to answer Dr. Johnson’s question.

Yes, according to Gen 6:1-4, celestial beings (“sons of God” following the Hebrew phrasing) cohabited with human women before the flood. At least that is one reading of the passage (the most straightforward one). There are others, but we’ll stay here to answer your question.

Biblical Nephilim are certainly described as unusually tall (cp. Numbers 13:30-33; Deut 2:10-11) but they are never described as hairy or ape-like. The Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) has a word for “apes” or “monkeys” (qoph; plural = qophim; see 1 Kings 10:22; 2 Chron 9:21). Semitic scholars consider it a loanword from Egyptian. No passage in the Old Testament uses this word to label any of the giant (Nephilim) clans, of which there were several.

More succinctly, Nephilim were not Bigfoot (or is it Bigfeet?).

Ordinarily I’d consider this sort of topic too absurd even for this blog, but I know that this idea is out there. It’s totally bogus and void of any biblical support. Not only is this clear from the above, but members of the giant clans are also described as “people” (Hebrew, ʿam) in the Old Testament (Emim, Anakim – see Deut 2:10-11; Deut 9:2) and as “men” (Hebrew, ‘adam; see Arba in Josh 14:15). Since these verses collectively tell is that Arba was a man, and Arba was one of the Anakim, and the Anakim descended from the Nephilim, the Nephilim were not Bigfoot/Bigfeet. Both of these Hebrew terms are used hundreds of times in the Old Testament of human beings.

Let me add a brief word to the Christian UFO community, some of whom say things like the above, thereby giving Dr. Johnson pause:

Can we stop the madness now? This isn’t rocket science. Though I have one, you don’t need a PhD in Hebrew Bible to discover any of this. A Strong’s Concordance will do it for you.

Technorati Tags: Bible, bigfoot, Genesis, nephilim

In the latest twist to the Steven Greer disclosure shell game (hat tip to BK), Greg Newkirk of the Who Forted? blog and Lee Spiegel of the Huffington Post (photo credit for the image below) have produced evidence that Robert Ripley of Ripley’s Believe it Or Not fame had found a 6.5-inch “alien” he called “Atta-boy” (Ripley’s specimen was from Peru, not Atacama, the region from which Greer’s “alien” hails, so the phonetic similarity is coincidental).

Ripley of course believe the specimen to be a mummified human. That’s still where my money is, since the 91% of the DNA that is identifiable to this point is human (and again, DNA testing of ancient specimens like this rarely produce completely identifiable genomes — that’s why there’s more than one way to DNA test such things).

The mummification thing keeps coming up. Readers know this is what I suggested at the beginning. I didn’t do that because I’m clairvoyant. Rather, I read things like scholarly journal articles on mummification like this one (the Atacama region is referenced on pp. 258 and 260). The abstract states in part:

This essay explores the idea that arsenic poisoning was the impetus for the origin of the oldest mummification practice in the world. The Chinchorro people artificially mummified fetuses and infants starting 7000 years ago, but we do not know why.

It stands to reason that mummification might have something to do with this (these) specimen(s) and thus account for anomalies (were the process known).

Incidentally, Atacama is also a region of Chile known for “cranial modification” — just like certain Peruvian regions. Cranial modification refers to deliberately shaping of the *human* head to a conical form (sorry, folks, those pictures you see on the internet are neither mysteries nor nephilim skulls). I can’t provide links to full articles on that due to copyright laws, but here you go:

Christina Torres-Rouff, “Cranial Vault Modification and Ethnicity in Middle Horizon San Pedro de Atacama, Chile,” Current Anthropology 43:1 (Feb 2002).

Christina Torres-Rouff, “The Influence of Tiwanaku on Life in the Chilean Atacama: Mortuary and Bodily Perspectives,” American Anthropologist 110:3 (Sept 2008): 325-337.

Technorati Tags: alien, atacama, Atta, Attaboy, chile, Greer, Ripley, Sirius