What Did Ezekiel See? - Part B

Keywords: UFO, unidentified flying objects, Bible, flying saucers, prophecy, Paleo-SETI, ancient astronauts, Erich von Däniken, Josef F. Blumrich, Zecharia Sitchin, Ezekiel, biblical prophecy, spacecraft, spaceship, NASA, Roswell, aircraft, propellant, extraterrestrial hypothesis, Jacques Vallee, interdimensional hypothesis, Project Blue Book, Condon Report, ancient history, Jesus, Judaism, Christianity, Middle East, end times, engines, rockets, helicopters, space travel, aliens, abductions, alien abductions, crop circles, extraterrestrials, astronomy, economics, biology, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Space Shuttle, Apollo, stars, planets, solar system, scriptures, design, fuel tank, aerodynamics, fuels, hydrogen, oxygen, wheels

Chapter 3

    What does Ezekiel describe?  [p.13] 

    His report begins without any introduction. He hurls the events of the first encounter at the reader with the same poignancy with which he himself had been confronted. The roar of the rocket engine ignited at that very moment explodes in the stillness and makes him look up. The flames of the engine are shooting from the center of a white cloud. Blinding light and a mighty roar come from there. The sky seems to burst open. The cloud allows a glimpse of four elongated shapes above which something as yet undefined is moving. At their lower end one can perceive straight legs and their round feet. For a moment Ezekiel has the impression that these shapes look like human beings. But then the clouds are dispelled, the blazing fire of the rocket engine suddenly vanishes: there can now be no doubt that those shapes have wings which are moving. Below these wings, arms are hanging downward alongside the body; above them Ezekiel discerns forms and shadows resembling faces. Similarity with human forms is certainly not complete but there is some approximation, and whatever Ezekiel sees must be living beings which now, quite close to him, are nearing the ground.

Figure 1 The spaceship seen from a distance of about 190 feet (57.9 meters)

    At all times we must remember that Ezekiel does not interpret what he sees, because he cannot interpret it. What he does is describe to the best of his ability the optical and acoustical impression, and in so doing he uses means which are available to him in view of this phenomenon. Looking at Figs. 1 and 2 in that context, it requires a bare minimum of imagination to recognize in this description the spacecraft in the last phase of its flight from the orbit around the earth. Fig. 3 is an example of the depiction of the traditional interpretation.  [p.14]

Figure 2 Helicopter unit seen from a distance of about 25 feet (7.6 meters)
 

   The spacecraft began its flight to the earth with the separation from the mothership at an altitude of probably about 220 nautical miles (253 mi/407 km). During the flight through the atmosphere, its speed was reduced by aerodynamic drag until eventually, at low altitudes, a brief firing of the rocket engine reduced the speed enough so that the spaceship could use its helicopters for the rest of the descent. This last phase of the flight, which begins with the brief firing of the rocket engine, was witnessed and described by Ezekiel.

    Later he observes the spacecraft as it hovers a few feet above the ground in search of a suitable landing site. The brief bursts of the control rockets occur in a sequence seen as irregular by Ezekiel who construes them as lightning flickering in the space that separates the living beings. This diverts his attention from the fascinating beings to the area between them, and thus he now sees the radiator of the reactor glowing like smoldering coals.

    The spacecraft has landed.

    Wheels, which were housed in the lower portion of the helicopter units during the flight, have now been deployed. The straight legs with their round feet no longer touch the ground.

    Wheels!  [p.15]