Ancient Anomalies and Aliens - Part 1: Art

Originally posted by Wide-Eyes

Originally posted by Harte

Originally posted by Wide-Eyes
The one that always gets me going is the 'Baptism of Christ'.

If that ain't a flying saucer, I don't know what is!

Apparently, then, you don't know what is.
Nor are you willing to try to find out - even though the relevant material exists right here at ATS:
Cicada's post on "The Baptism of Jesus" by Aert DeGelder

Harte

Well no disrespect to Cicada, but I disagree with him. This may come as a shock to you Harte but what Cicada said in that thread is not actual fact.

Unfortunately for you, it is.

It is based on the historical use of exactly such imagery in many other paintings, some of which (as was mentioned in another current thread) were written about at the time they were painted.

Dream some other dream. This one don't cut it.

Harte

reply to post by Giovannetti44


Ok, well can you show me a piece of art that even looks like it slightly depicts aliens? Because nothing in this thread shows that. Why are you assuming such ridiculous things? I can't get through to you people because you are so into this belief. It's like arguing with an evangelical Christian as to why not to take the bible as a historical document.

You all are really so lost that it's sad. Deny Ignorance people

i would say that some of these sculptures look weird & uncanny

with flag two hundred i salute thee....!
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it just might be a duck once in a while....

Hey,

Great thread!

I think that this is a fantastic example of strange objects in art:

Antonio Campi - Passion of the Christ

Originally posted by CHA0S
reply to post by aew14

 

honestly, this is not even an issue of debunking. Most of this is not legit. Ask any art historian, who's profession it is to study this, and they will tell you how foolish most of it is.

So I assume you've asked some all knowing historians about most of these pictures then? Not legit you say? Ooo...yeah, it's CGI dude...move along.

Perhaps you care to debunk with facts, rather than a bias two liner?

edit on 10/10/10 by CHA0S because: (no reason given)

Chaos, have you actually read any of the comments on here or perused the links provided for actual informed information, or is that too painful to your obviously very fixed mindset?

reply to post by mnmcandiez

Like I said in my previous post. Ancient Egyptians painted and sculpted Anubis. So you really think there were hybrid canine people walking around back then?

Ahh they call them Werewolves in Europe and Loup Garu in Canada , Hell hears the List
Werewolf names around the world
ilovewerewolves.com...

Have you heard about this ! maybe Not !

Lion man of the Hohlenstein Stadel (the 32,000 year old Figurine )
en.wikipedia.org...

Links to the Lion Man
aurignacien.de
aurignacien.de...

www.loewenmensch.de...

For the big cat expert nicknamed Lion Man, see Craig Busch. For the New Zealand television documentary series called Lion Man, see The Lion Man. Löwenfrau - a lion-headed figurine found in Germany and dating to the Upper Paleolithic A lion headed figure, first called the lion man (German: Löwenmensch, literally "lion person"), then the lion lady (German: Löwenfrau), is an ivory sculpture that is the oldest known zoomorphic (animal-shaped) sculpture in the world and one of the oldest known sculptures in general. The sculpture has also been interpreted as anthropomorphic, giving human characteristics to an animal, although it may have represented a deity. The figurine was determined to be about 32,000 years old[1][2] by carbon dating material from the same layer in which the sculpture was found. It is associated with the archaeological Aurignacian culture.[3] [edit] History

Cat people from Germany ,, kinda Out dates The Anubis Sculpture

I can Heard the Cat People Soundtrack

Cat People

Originally posted by Phage

As has been pointed out, the religious art of the middle ages is rife with specific symbolism. Without an understanding of that symbolism it is easy to make guesses about what is depicted but it's easy for those guesses to be wrong. Something that puzzles me about the UFO interpretations in this art is that these are artistic renderings of biblical events. Where in the stories which inspired the art are the UFOs?

With respect to Biblical reference of "UFOS" take the words in the book of Ezekiel about the "wheel", known as Ezekiel's Wheel. It was described as having the color of "Glowing Metal", all or most interpretations know that the concordance word for what was originally written meant "glowing and metallic". Describing how in his 'vision' it ascended upon him. He described the characteristics of a machine.

Also taking that there were mentions of "Chariots" throughout the Bible, as the Hebrew or Greek wouldn't have the right words to describe a "flying machine".

Painters were contracted out back then. I would find it hard to believe that the painter did it on his own accord, he would have lost his wages and suffered the wrath of powerful buyers. So either the buyer wanted these images in, or the painter risked his livelihood to include "UFOS" in a painting.

Whether one of them was inspired by the Bible to have it there, or inspired by an experience they had, who knows.

For me, the Inca objects bear a stylized resemblance to the family of fish, rhinobatidae, more than any aircraft I've ever seen. The arrangement of the empennage does not really make sense from an aerodynamic standpoint, with the horizontal stabilizer positioned so far forward of the vertical. Yes, it can be made to fly, but so can a lawn mower.

As I understand the objects were recreated to scale and tested as rc airplanes. The maker siad how efficient their flights were when he just had to make a tweak to the front of the wings. That was the only adjustment I know of. There's a video on YouTube of him flying them.

Now think Phage. A little lonely busy 'tribal' guy sits down and molds a metallic figurine (which would have taken loads of time) and that figurine just HAPPENS to be aerodynamically perfect for flight thousands of years later. And he got this all right by some dumb luck?

Interpreting very ancient drawings becomes problematic. Placing the mystical representations by ancient man into the context of reality is a reach but even so, there is no reason to call upon an extraterrestrial interpretation. Shamans, kings, and warriors often (usually) bear distinctive headgear in order to distinguish themselves from others. The Hawaiians for example had some unique designs which some might say look alien.

But many of the figurines in the OP resemble wearing SUITS. They are distinct form Headresses. Headresses resembled plumage from birds most often.

The OP's figurines have helmets and suits. Again, what tribal people would imagine the wasteful and inefficient creation of SUITS as ornamentation? They pierced themselves, painted themselves, and adorned costumes...but they had no idea of what a "suit" was. It would have made no sense to them, even considering the climates they lived in and elements.

It would be like us creating figurines of people wearing glass shards or knives sewn to their body.

It would make sense if figurines like that were COMMON for that time, but they weren't. These pieces are rare, like a sighting or encounter with a 'space man' would be.

Also, a few of those painting show the craft generating beams of light. Beams of light? From portals in a 'machine'?

Not all the paintings, figurines, or art look "alien". Some mimic animals or could just be human abstraction.
But overall I think this is evidence of people way back to ancient times that saw something and made a note of it.

Really enjoyed the images.

The one lizard type figurine with thick legs and a gadget going to his mouth really impressed me.

This is a truly intriguing subject, and I credit the OP with putting in quite a bit of work to present it so neatly.

I have problems with some of the "evidence" however.

First off, I have trouble with all of the Medieval artwork. Not only has the issue of interpreting Medieval symbolism been discussed over and over here, but more importantly to me is that the artists were not witnesses to the events depicted in their art. As such, the addition of any curious objects to a painting of any given event carries very little meaning in my opinion. The fact that it is a 5-600 yr old piece of artwork gives it no more credibility than if I were to paint something similar this evening. Find a piece of art with similar-shaped objects in the sky painted by someone who witnessed the crucifixion, and you've got a great piece to discuss. However a 16th century artist putting something in the sky that reminds us of a flying saucer may not have reminded the artist of a flying saucer at all and certainly doesn't place one at the crucifixion.

Another problem I have with these artifacts is that we are very much imposing our own definitions on ancient images. We talk of seeing helicopters, airplanes, space suits, and in the case of the Nazca lines (which I know you didn't present here) runways. Well where else in UFO lore do we discuss aliens with helicopters? Where else do we discuss aliens in aircraft that represent what we fly today? Surely if they had the same saucers which we see and describe today (and based on our other "evidence" - paintings, etc - they do), they wouldn't have any need for such comparably infantile technology as a 737. And why would their spacesuits look so similar to ours? If they can travel across light years of interstellar space, wouldn't they have developed a less bulky suit to wear while doing so?

While I have no problem with the concept that Earth has been visited in the past by Ancient Astronauts, I think that some/much of the evidence which we use to prove that theory is tainted by our own biases and our own limited knowledge. We're trying hard to fill in the gaps in that knowledge, but we're doing so by putting far too much credence in the reliability of what's ultimately a self-administered Rorschach Test.

Great post, just shows you doesn't it that all these paintings/drawings cannot be wrong. Can't wait for part 2
S/F

A better question would be how and when did we discover aerodynamics and were the people that did painting like that aware of aerodynamics or it's possibility around their time of painting?

Sure there would have been round objects, but disc shaped objects would have been rare, especially ones with lift like a frisbee. I don't imagine pie plates, lids, being thrown around everywhere, but I could be wrong. Yet we didn't understand the processes FLIGHT until way later. So drawing a painting with a man sitting in a mechanical FLYING ship took some imagination.

But getting the aerodynamics right? The pointed wing shapes, fuselage shape, the discs, the overall look of a 'ship'? They didn't even know what flight was...

And that a couple of those painting depict a focuses beam of light? The most they had back then was candle power. Do you know how many candles it takes to create a beam of focused light traveling hundreds of feet.

What I'm saying here is that even imagination has it's limits. There are things that they could have imagined and things that were out of the bounds of their experience.

Originally posted by ByteChanger
Really enjoyed the images.

The one lizard type figurine with thick legs and a gadget going to his mouth really impressed me.

edit on 13-10-2010 by ByteChanger because: removed previous off topic post.

When i saw that 2nd Figure over




and this



it reminded me of this ! Mondoshawan


5th Element

That image was taken from this site.

LINK HERE

Quoted from site:

"The above image is of an actual sighting that occurred in Nuremburg on the 14th April 1561. It appeared in a local broadsheet and was a woodcut by Hans Glasser. The globes, crosses and tubes began to fight one another, and this went on for an hour. Then they all fell to earth, as if on fire, and faded slowly away producing a lot of steam. Afterwards a black spear-like object was seen, and the whole event was taken to be a divine warning. Held at the Wickiana Collection, Zurich Central Library."

You'll find other paintings on that site with the same premise as the OP. As you get toward the bottom, you find painting in which the artist themselves are painting SIGHTING that they or someone witnessed.

There's no speculation about what they were painting. Some of them were DOCUMENTING events that they saw happen or were reported to have happened, not just someone's wild painter imagination for artistic value.

I believe these are the first UFO 'reports'.

reply to post by stirling


Nor I am a skeptic or a believer, but a scholar, an investigator so... on the other hand:

"sometimes a cigar is just a cigar"

It really goes both ways.

Btw, on the "rc planes" stuff, of course they fly damn good... stuff that size (including birds) dont need a vertical stabilizer so if you actually put one on an object of that scale, of course it would fly wonderfully... we dont really need a real experiment or a degree in aeronautics to figure that one out - seriously I dont know where people want to go with some experiments I see...

And so they dont spend millions of funds in another stupid experiment, if they look like nowadays planes, dont need to upscale that experiment to a 747-size object, because... well since it looks JUST like our airplanes, it WILL fly like our airplanes... big thanks to the geniuses behind that experiment - where would the world be without people that can prove the obvious?

On a side note: I think most people more than wanting to believe that it is from extraterrestrial origin, they dont want proof (even if there was) that it was not so they can continue with their fantasies about ancient aliens. I can see people actually taking it almost personally where theres the slightest possibility that those artifacts can be man made... of course ppl should have their head up their a$$es but hey, dont need to fly that high either.

And unfortunately yes, most of the times lex parsimoniae does apply... but some of those items lack even the simple answer.

reply to post by FraternitasSaturni

big thanks to the geniuses behind that experiment - where would the world be without people that can prove the obvious?

I think some people, no matter how obvious it may be, will demand conclusive proof. We can't just say, "Oh, they do fly beautifully, but we've never actually tested that theory.", because people simply wont believe that, and use it as an attack point instead.

On a side note: I think most people more than wanting to believe that it is from extraterrestrial origin, they dont want proof (even if there was) that it was not so they can continue with their fantasies about ancient aliens. I can see people actually taking it almost personally where theres the slightest possibility that those artifacts can be man made... of course ppl should have their head up their a$$es but hey, dont need to fly that high either.

Why do you have to get all personal and attack people like that? Your first few posts were really insightful and quite open minded, why this sudden change in attitude? If anything, the ones who can't handle the slightest possibility that they are wrong are the "scholars", I see no need to get all worked up and throw out personal criticisms, as those who claim to be "rational" so often do. A lot of scholars, scientists, historians, archeologist etc lack the ability to think outside the box on certain issues because they possess a conditioned mainstream view of a topic. Instead of listening to what the evidence is telling them, they accept only that which validates mainstream ideas and preconceptions, whilst ignoring anything they can't properly explain.

reply to post by CHA0S


chaos, as an art historian myself, I have already explained away the majority of the images. Others are using my experience to create a hypothesis that is more likely the RATIONALE explanation. I am sorry if it bursts your bubble, and that you just want to believe, however, lets use reason and a rationale mind for a moment.

reply to post by CHA0S


I didnt get all personal, I said some ppl start to take it personal when someone offers a perfectly rational explanation instead of the fairy tale they want to believe.

Now, even I would prefer if reality was like the fairy tale! But so far I havent had any proof.

We do think outside the box... but some people lack the box and so far, doesnt matter the possibilities, this is still "inside the box", ppl just dont accept the fact that this all could be man made.

Hi Chaos,
Interesting post! I think you did a thorough job. I just did a talk out in Denver a couple months ago on exactly this topic. The talk was called "Cosmic Connections of the Petroglyphs" and although about Petroforms in general I did sidetrack down the art side and looked at lots of religious art and discussed it. It took me many months to write the talk and I visited Petroglpyh sites and talked to Petroglyph experts such as Ron Regher from Moab Utah and various other folks. I never realized how many books on the subject were available until I started getting interested in it a few years ago. Sadly when I went to present it, I found that I was given a much larger time slot to fill so I had to add more details on the fly that I had originally culled out of the talk!

While I found many connections that indeed seem to be extraterrestrial, as you have pointed out, I also found many that were not in all likelihood. And this raises one important caveat that I respectfully request you look over. In a number of the cases you show, the imagery that looks like UFO and alien related anomaly can actually be better explained by the culture of the people that created it. Let me explain if I may... And by the way, no disrespect is intended in any way! Please dont take it that way. As researchers, we always form an opinion when we think its time. Sometimes, as in my case as well, I have formed an opinion that was missing important data that I did not realize was missing. So that said...

One of the images you discussed was the Abydos cartouche. A "cartouche" as you probably know but others may not, is essentially a royal identifier of a king or pharoah. It takes the form of an oval frame so to speak usually meant to be a rope with powers that protect the king/pharoah whose name is inscribed within. Also within the frame are symbols that provide a statement commensurate with the King/Pharoah's power.
I am not just trying to define the cartouche, but addressing those shapes found within the cartouche. The image from Egypt in the Temple of Seti I shows what appears to be the helicopter and airship/submarine, yes. But, if you look at the history of that temple, you find that Seti I had a cartouche that had symbols that translated were "Who repulses Nine Bows" in deference to his military prowess. His successor and son, Ramesses II, REUSED that same cartouche location and put his own message into it. Ramessess II's message in the cartouche roughly translates to "Who protects Egypt and overthrows foreign countries".
The way they did this new message in STONE, was to fill in the old and engrave new messages over the old [now filled in] message. This is called palimpsest by the way. No big deal but that is techincally what you are looking at in that image. The problem with the palimpsest is that over time, the filling fell out leaving a hybridized message which itself is meaningless.

Here is the image of the overlaid messages:



Note that the red and blue very nicely call out the difference. I wish I knew the author of this diagram to give the person credit. It was done by a scholar though this much is known. But this is not the only suggestion that this was an overwritten cartouche segment. Here is another image showing an untouched segment of another cartouche that uses the same symbology in the same exact way as the other but this one is NOT filled in and you see it as it was originally seen prior to filling:



You can see how the Bow became a helicopter when corrupted by another symbol placed over it. Similarly you can much more clearly see the hand and how it became a boat or submarine. So that particular image is interesting and intriguing but unfortunately not for the reasons that it originally appeared.


Another image you used was that of the Lolladoff plate. The Lolladoff plate has often been cited to indicate existence of alien visitation and show an alien with a UFO at the center. The controversy surrounding this is legend. But, the plate is not in any museum as purported, the story has fallen apart from a variety of angles and it is simply too fraught with complexities that seem to imply it is not a true artifact although the plate itself probably existed. The alien appearing creature could be a poorly made human, and the central object does not remind me of a UFO but more a Solar eclipse with the moon sitting in front of the Sun. If anything this piece of art was probably a depiction of the witnessing of an eclipse. But there are faked images of the Dali Lama meeting with Professor Robin-Evans who authored a book including the plate, and so it casts suspicion on the entire episode. I would love for the plate to be a real depiction of otherworldly visitation but I cannot currently make that leap across the void on the basis of the evidence of the plate itself.

In your Summer's Triumph image, although I didnt use that one in my talk, I DID see it and noted with interest from other stylized work that the 'saucer' objects in the sky are probably depicting clouds. The Petroglyphs found around the world use similar but differently styled clouds. Some depict rain some depict clear sky clouds. Of course anyone would ask "how can you possibly know these are clouds and not UFOs.." Well, only by looking at other works of similar era. Looking at the next image you presented, from Soviet Georgia, on the left and right of the crucifixion are shapes that using this same logic are most likely clouds indicating rain. But, as is typical of art of this time period, there is double duty here, and dual message. The clouds ALSO represent the sun and moon in the sky. Usually the Sun is chasing the Moon across the sky. In this case though it appears that the heavens are raining tears you see. This particular style of what I believe is meant to be a rain cloud is found nearly exactly the same in rock language all over the Southwest interestingly. I guess from a distance rain clouds do look dome-ish with fingers of rain dropping out underneath. This is perhaps where this came from. Without going through them, many of the rest of the religious pictures you showed I completely agree that these indicate a strange occurrence that to date is unexplainable. Its neat.

In one image you did use an image that used the traditional Sun chasing Moon theme. This fresco, the "Crucifixion of the Christ" is VERY interesting for its use of manned 'ships' for the two solar system bodies. But the theme of showing Sun and Moon is the way they chose to illustrate passage of time and to set the stage. IT is very interesting. But I didnt talk about THAT so much as something else that is pervasive in this fresco and in worldwide Rock art of all kinds, paintings, and pictographs. That something is the "halo". I did a section called "Halos and Helmets" because it had struck me how prevalent these were in societies throughout thousands of years and thousands of miles of separation, even isolation. If you notice, your imagery contains a worldwide collection of beings with halos. Why a spherical halo? Where did THAT come from? Note that your Wandjina images, which were the cave paintings from the Kimberly region of Australia are also haloed. Why? That was curious to me how a society in the Kimberly region of Australia thousands of years ago somehow came up with the supposedly Christian Halo on its own. This is not the only example. The Tassilli Mountain imagery shows helmeted beings as well as the Val Comonica Italian 'warrior' image. Indian Pictographs [cave paintings] clearly show helmeted beings as do South American engravings. Isnt that cool? That is something I found to be fascinating.

Incidentally, though I believe that Wandjina mythos [Kimberly Australia cave paintings] is possibly rooted in extraterrestrial origins, the actual Wandjina myth arose according to Aborigine legend. The Wandjina were water gods. They were said to reside in the ocean and have come from the skies/stars. THAT alone was incredible. Now look at how it is possible that a very Earthly myth gets tangled in an extraterrestrial visitation... The Wandjina were said to control the rains the floods. If you notice, in many cases the Wandjina are shown with NO mouth. This is because the illustration of a mouth indicates forever flowing waters, or ... great floods. Why was this the case? Because according to myth, two boys were torturing an owl, which was SAID to have angered the Wandjina greatly and in retribution, the Wandjina sent tsunamis, and great floods to decimate the Aborigine population. So the Wandjina when shown with a mouth are showing a time when the land was flooding and death was abundant. No Mouth, no rain.
But, the concept of the OWL is the interesting part too. I think if you look at the Wandjina depictions you can clearly see that these images can be representative of the owl. And here is where the 'tangle' comes in between extraterrestrial and Earthly story: I postulated that it is possible that the Owl was viewed by the Aborigines as an agent of the very extraterrestrial Wandjina. Why? Look at this image:




I see a resemblance or at least enough of a connection that if either of those two were staring at me it would be unnerving... So it is possible that other Earthly myth is tied to extraterrestrial visitation as well.

Another set of images you showed were the ones where you showed the two images of the "classic saucer" done by Indians of the American Southwest, and then the Itolo images of the seeming saucers dropping vertical "lines". This is more of what I was talking about when I was discussing rain clouds and thunderstorms as depicted in rock language and painting. Several rock scholars including Dr William Lipe Prof Anthropology, Dr Alfonso Ortiz, Native American Scholar, and Alex Patterson, author of Rock Art Symbols, all see convergence in the rock language that indicates that these symbols are undoubtedly meant to represent clouds.

Petroglyphs are rock language as opposed to 'art' ... The images taken out of context remove their meaning. Taken IN context when scholars interpret sequences they get things like the "Hunt was for Bighorn Sheep. They were on the Cliff. They fell. We killed them. It was raining". But each of those requires a number of symbols so when seen over and over in may different sequences of language on rock, they realized with a high degree of certainty that they were talking about clouds and rain. Sorry that was long and drawn out there but it is an important distinction.

All in all it is a good thread to bring to the board in my view. Thanks for that!

Marc Dantonio

MUFON

hey all

just spotted a new story on CNN about a new fish species found deep in the pacific off south america in the peru chile trench. this fish is being called the white snail fish... what I see right away is what look a bit to me like the "plane/spaceship" artifacts. now maybe it's just what i want to see ... but the resemblance is striking to me

check it out news.blogs.cnn.com...

wish I knew how to put the pics up here side by side.... but very cool to me

what do you think?