Whirling Wheels: Visitors From Other Planets in The Bible

While searching for certain documents on the FBI records website, I recently came across an interesting article by Reverend John Miller about potential visitors from other planets in the remote past. His pamphlet (link, p. 124-130) dates back to the mid 1950s and focuses on correlations between holy scripture and close encounters experienced by mankind in biblical times.

Although I'm aware of the fact that biblical UFO references are not too popular on ATS, I believe that Miller's work still deserves a thread of its own. Now, the main effort of this post is that I transcribed the poorly scanned and hardly readable FBI version of the document in order to present a revamped version (incl. some loosely associated public domain images). Since the document is freely available 'online' via the FBI website (and due to the fact that the original was not distributed by a publisher), I assume it's legitimate to post the content in full length within this thread.

The downloadable & reworked PDF version is available here, but I also intended to make the text available using inline images in this post, so here we go:









It's probably noteworthy to mention that Miller drafted this pamphlet prior to Erich v. Däniken's "Chariots of the Gods" and I would actually contend that he therefore belongs to those who helped establish the Ancient Astronauts Theory.

Needless to say, that this document was created in the wake of the 1950s flap of UFO sightings and was probably inspired by publications like "Flying Saucers Are Real" and Project Blue Book. So, to some degree, it reflects the public and national interest in UFOs back in the day and it's obvious that Miller leaves no doubt he's convinced that flying saucers exist. But he also presents essential bible quotes that IMO seem to match the reported phenomenon rather well.

Personally, I think this is nevertheless an interesting and important essay on a possible UFO-Bible connection and I very much look forward to your thoughts on this!




Sources & Links:
-----------------------------------------------
1. PDF Document: "Whirling Wheels" (Online Viewing & Download)
2. Original Document, via the "FBI records: The Vault" (p. 124-130)
3. Additional Link with Comments on Miller's work
4. The Spaceships of Ezekiel
5. Further Resources and Biblical UFO References

a reply to: jeep3r

He is just one. There are many books by others than him on this. One is "UFO's and the Bible." "Gods of Eden"...another is "God drives a Spaceship"...all still available. Youll have to search yourself.

Reminds me of this guy who apparently summoned a ufo on the news by praying for it to appear.

originally posted by: mysterioustranger
a reply to: jeep3r

He is just one. There are many books by others than him on this. One is "UFO's and the Bible." "Gods of Eden"...another is "God drives a Spaceship"...all still available. Youll have to search yourself.

This is certainly not the find of the century and I know that topics like this are not popular on ATS. But here we're dealing with a text that predates other authors that wrote about the Ancient Astronauts Theory and I further noticed that a comprehensive thread about Miller's work was missing on this board.

Also, I think it's interesting how Miller suggests to replace the same 3 terms in his quotes with equivalent, but more modern words:

space = heaven
spacemen = angels
spaceships = flying clouds/horses/chariots

Just to see how much more sense some bible passages make all of a sudden. Apart from that, this has been pointed out by a reverend who probably dealt his whole life with holy scriptures and related interpretations.

Of course, it's somehow amusing to see how he takes flying saucers for a fact without further questioning the phenomenon. But yet, I found this text to be quite remarkable and certainly worthy of an own thread, especially when presented in a more readable and enjoybale version (as opposed to the poorly scanned original of the FBI archives).

a reply to: jeep3r

seems the further that is perceived the harder it is to see past the fudge and smudge, ide love to cast an eye back to the dark ages ,see the kind of other jiggery pokery that was going on, other than the violent/enforced kind.

ahh that burn hole again

interesting thread Jeep , I was too amazed at the pdf in page presentation to read it after ive finished crooning ill get around to it

funBox

a reply to: funbox

Yes, I think the religious context might have distorted whatever it was that really went on in those days. If people back then were lacking the right terminology to describe ET (or something similar) what would they come up with? Words like heaven, angels and god certainly come to mind and would IMO be a good match ... and wasn't it forbidden to depict god directly? I wonder why?

If you have the time, yes, go ahead and download that PDF, I'd give it a try. I found Miller's thoughts to be quite entertaining and well written!

Ezekiel describes the Throne of God. He knew what he was describing, as did his contemporaries.

Examples:

"I kept looking Until thrones were set up, And the Ancient of Days took His seat; His vesture was like white snow And the hair of His head like pure wool. His throne was ablaze with flames, Its wheels were a burning fire. 10 "A river of fire was flowing And coming out from before Him; Thousands upon thousands were attending Him, And myriads upon myriads were standing before Him; The court sat, And the books were opened.…

Daniel 7:9,10

Also:

1In the year of King Uzziah's death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. 2 Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.

Isaiah 6:1,2

There are other examples.

Ezekiel knew what he was describing, and knew his readers knew it. it wasn't a UFO.

Harte

a reply to: Harte

I know you're the "voice of reason" on this forum & the ALC board and I respect your opinion.

But I shall have mine, too. Ezekiel most likely saw a UFO and your references actually support the theory. Just let me know in case you want me to challenge your sources with a more detailed response.

From an academic perspective, though, I admit that ultimate evidence for this discussion is not available. But the fact remains that holy scripture points to numerous events and accounts that make a visitation scenario very likely.

My suggestion: let's keep an open mind and deny ignorance!

a reply to: jeep3r

interesting read , had a good old think about it this last few, plausible certainly, highly likely in my eyes

I see it like this, if god is like the bible describes, the creator of the universe and all that lays within, then gods one warped sense of humour in intiating so many religions on the planet , and was strangly geologicaly locked with his ideologies .. sounds like a mind screw to me , ha go spread my word for me cause I cant be arsed, I created all this in 7 days and that's me done, the rest... work out for yourselves , but don't touch that tree... mind %

petulant child springs to mind

the picture of the past looks more to me like its had a few different brushes daubed into it, Chinese mythology is also one to look into in regards to accession and descent , their gods treated earth like a waystation :d bringing all sorts of gifts of knowledge, music being one of the greatest gifts, even their creator, I forget the name, had to bugger off to go and tend to family matters " didn't even stick around long enough to enjoy her newly created sand based species :d

fickle aliens eh

funBox

a reply to: funbox

Some strange events there, indeed. But all of them were apparently significant enough to be noted down in our most important historical records.

... and along the way 'they' introduced monotheism, which must have been a to-do item on their hidden agenda!

a reply to: jeep3r

maybe additional focus was sought .. or bullys came into town

frightened all the other gods into silence , barred from talking to mankind. banished from the solar system..

but why be hidden , in the same breath the religions may cause this at this present time , well mainly one or two , no names mentioned but they maybe creating a bit of a untenable situ for openness

or the new masters may not be very nice at all ..hmmm
ill put my money on the later

funBox

a reply to: jeep3r

"To be wrapped in a cloud means to be surrounded by an object. In other words, this space-man was piloting a spaceship"

I fail to follow that logic. Really...

a reply to: Chazam

think of a cloud passing in front of the sun ,

but then if it had an appearance of cloud maybe the material surrounding had translucent properties or seemed to move and shift , like a meta material would today,

metaphors and similes

from a time of smaller vocabularies
to be expected really

funBox

originally posted by: Chazam
a reply to: jeep3r

To be wrapped in a cloud means to be surrounded by an object. In other words, this space-man was piloting a spaceship. I fail to follow that logic. Really...

Well, this could refer to an object 'producing' a cloud or the cloud representing the object itself (as the best comparison they could come up with). What's really important is the distinction between a normal cloud (see Miller's text) and what is mentioned as being like a cloud.

One doesn't even need that much imagination to see what was possibly meant, here go a few examples of objects 'wrapped' in a cloud (occasionally on pillars of clouds and fire, also see Exodus 13:21):



Image Sources 01 | 02 | 03

If you read on (the whole text) it should become much clearer and even more logical what Miller was referring to.

originally posted by: jeep3r
a reply to: Harte

I know you're the "voice of reason" on this forum & the ALC board and I respect your opinion.

But I shall have mine, too. Ezekiel most likely saw a UFO and your references actually support the theory. Just let me know in case you want me to challenge your sources with a more detailed response.

From an academic perspective, though, I admit that ultimate evidence for this discussion is not available. But the fact remains that holy scripture points to numerous events and accounts that make a visitation scenario very likely.

My suggestion: let's keep an open mind and deny ignorance!

For myself, I don't find it in the least odd that a culture with a belief in an immortal all-powerful god would have stories and traditions about that god appearing on Earth in a glorious throne accompanied by minions.

Humans invent religion, right? They don't need ET to enable them to invent a religion, right?

That is, we know of several different religions invented without reference to any god(s) in the sky, don't we? Or, will you claim that animism (for one example) is also somehow based on ETs?

The point is, Ezekiel, though more detailed in his prose than predecessors, was following an established tradition when he wrote that (assuming Ezekiel ever lived at all, and assuming he wrote [or at least told] the story we read today.)

Harte

originally posted by: Harte

originally posted by: jeep3r
a reply to: Harte

I know you're the "voice of reason" on this forum & the ALC board and I respect your opinion.

But I shall have mine, too. Ezekiel most likely saw a UFO and your references actually support the theory. Just let me know in case you want me to challenge your sources with a more detailed response.

From an academic perspective, though, I admit that ultimate evidence for this discussion is not available. But the fact remains that holy scripture points to numerous events and accounts that make a visitation scenario very likely.

My suggestion: let's keep an open mind and deny ignorance!

The point is, Ezekiel, though more detailed in his prose than predecessors, was following an established tradition when he wrote that (assuming Ezekiel ever lived at all, and assuming he wrote [or at least told] the story we read today.)

Harte

Ezekiel's visions, encounters, ect were to simply establish provenance for his communications with the nation of Israle and some other locals as well as personal introductions. These parts of Ezekiel should never be separated from the whole communication. That's where the meat really is. Taken as a whole there is really nothing like Ezekiel in all of literature religious or fantastic otherwise world wide.

keeping sensible about the Ezekiel account...

He had a 'vision' ... which is very different from an actual, wide-awake, physical object(s) being eye witnessed in actual real-time reality.

this 'vision' was of a spiritual nature.... not a material, solid object which existed in the time of Ezekiel

I think that the 'Vision' may even have been a look into the future of Earth civilization and was not a portal to the Heaven Dimension which exists beyond this Cosmos/Universe/Dimension


see: www.biblestudy.org...

Gods balls of Fire an Light.

And look, Gods pointing to a destroyed city.

originally posted by: Harte

For myself, I don't find it in the least odd that a culture with a belief in an immortal all-powerful god would have stories and traditions about that god appearing on Earth in a glorious throne accompanied by minions.

A throne for itself could well be metaphorical. But a flying throne that came down from the heavens, with smoke and clouds as well as flashes of light that sped back and forth is a completely different matter, IMO. If one saw the objects below (or something similar) in biblical times, would they not have been described as flying thrones or chariots?

Humans invent religion, right? They don't need ET to enable them to invent a religion, right? That is, we know of several different religions invented without reference to any god(s) in the sky, don't we? Or, will you claim that animism (for one example) is also somehow based on ETs?

Absolutely, and that would be the normal scenario, I suppose. In this case, though, I was rather referring to monotheism on a very large scale. While it may be debatable whether or not monotheism was a great leap for mankind, the fact that it preceeds our modern technological era is astonishing in its own right.

So IMO an ET intervention, however likely or unlikely, is a real possibility that shouldn't be swept under the rug given the numerous related accounts we find in the bible.

The point is, Ezekiel, though more detailed in his prose than predecessors, was following an established tradition when he wrote that (assuming Ezekiel ever lived at all, and assuming he wrote [or at least told] the story we read today.)

The astonishing amount of technical details he mentions IMO make it very unlikely that he was daydreaming or simply making up this vision. It's probably his best effort at describing a technology that was absolutely 'magical' to the people of the time.

And I think he did a pretty good job because today we seem to have a very good comparison for what was probably seen by the prophets back then. How much more detailed would a description have to have been in order for us to realize and recognize the presumed spacecraft that landed in front of him?

originally posted by: jeep3r

originally posted by: Harte

For myself, I don't find it in the least odd that a culture with a belief in an immortal all-powerful god would have stories and traditions about that god appearing on Earth in a glorious throne accompanied by minions.

A throne for itself could well be metaphorical. But a flying throne that came down from the heavens, with smoke and clouds as well as flashes of light that sped back and forth is a completely different matter, IMO. If one saw the objects below (or something similar) in biblical times, would they not have been described as flying thrones or chariots?

I don't see anyone sitting on one of those.

originally posted by: jeep3r

Humans invent religion, right? They don't need ET to enable them to invent a religion, right? That is, we know of several different religions invented without reference to any god(s) in the sky, don't we? Or, will you claim that animism (for one example) is also somehow based on ETs?

Absolutely, and that would be the normal scenario, I suppose. In this case, though, I was rather referring to monotheism on a very large scale. While it may be debatable whether or not monotheism was a great leap for mankind, the fact that it preceeds our modern technological era is astonishing in its own right.

During Ezekiel's time monotheism was the exception, not the norm. And it wasn't unprecedented. See Bel Marduk and Akhenaten.

Harte