The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters

by Story, Ronald

  —RANDALL FITZGERALD

  Ezekiel’s wheel Ezekiel, who lived in the sixth century B.C., was one of the most colorful of the Hebrew prophets. His writings are contained in the Old Testament of the Bible. In 597 B.C., Ezekiel was among several thousand captives carried off to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar II in the first of three captivities of the Jews. (Nebuchadnezzar II’s reign of forty-four years, from about 605-562, marked the peak of the Chaldean or neo-Babylonian kingdom.) The prophet Ezekiel lived among the exiles at Tel Abib on the Chebar River, or Grand Canal, which stretched alongside the town of Nippur from Babylon to Uruk.

  It was in the fifth year of the Judean captivity, in 593 B.C., that Ezekiel described a vivid experience that represented his call to prophesy. This account in the first three chapters of “The Book of the Prophet Ezekiel” is generally explained as a visionary experience while in a state of trance. Indeed, the story has all the earmarks of a religious revelation: God, seated in a throne, descends to Earth in a wondrous heavenly chariot; angels accompany Him; the “eyes round about” indicate God’s all-seeing, all-knowing power. Ezekiel, according to this interpretation, is commissioned to speak God’s word to a rebellious nation. He is told Israel will be punished for its sins, and the warning is emphasized on a scroll. The prophet is warned of the resistance he will meet. After the glory of the Lord departs, Ezekiel goes to his people and sits in a daze for a week.

  Quite a different slant on Ezekiel’s experience, and a more bizarre one perhaps, is the hypothesis that Ezekiel had a dramatic encounter with a UFO.

  In spite of the weird imagery and elaborate symbolism employed by the prophet, and in spite of the difficulty of extracting meaningful details from the account, a thread of coherence does run through the first three chapters of the book. When viewed in the light of the current UFO phenomenon, a surprising tale of a biblical UFO landing and contact emerges. The description is remarkably similar to many modern low-level encounters with UFOs.

  What follows is a modern interpretation of the Book of Ezekiel, chapters 1 through 3. It is a free, imaginative interpretation and as such is purely speculative. But it does not require much imagination to realize how a UFO witness of the sixth century B.C. would react in the presence of an extraterrestrial spacecraft. He would probably behave precisely the way Ezekiel did. In fact, he might even regard the event as simply God’s way of revealing Himself to chosen mortals. It would, of course, be extremely difficult for Ezekiel to describe an advanced flying craft and its occupants. He would have to use terminology and comparisons familiar to him in his day.

  Thus, the prophet’s experience might translate something like this: As he sat by the Chaldean river Chebar one day in 593 B.C., the priest Ezekiel suddenly noticed what appeared to be a bright, fiery cloud of amber color coming out of the north. As the “cloud” drew closer, four disk-shaped objects (“wheels”) became visible and approached. At least one of the disks landed near where Ezekiel stood.

  All the objects had the same appearance—“the color of a beryl [greenish]” … like “a wheel in the middle of a wheel [an outer rim encircling a round center section]”…and “eyes round about them four (probably portholes or windows].” Describing their maneuvers, Ezekiel said “when they went, they went upon their four sides, and they turned not when they went.”

  Four humanoid creatures traveled back and forth from the craft. At times they were visible through a transparent dome on each disk. Though this portion of the account is particularly difficult to decipher in terms of the UFO phenomenon, the beings each had four “wings,” which might have been a helicopter-like device strapped to their backs. Whatever the “wings” were, they allowed the creatures to maneuver about rapidly (“and the living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning”). The prophet also stated: “And when they went, I heard the noise of their wings, like the noise of great water…”

  The beings wore shimmering, shiny garments, or spacesuits, like “burning coals of fire,” with transparent helmets on top—“the firmament upon the heads…was as the color of the terrible crystal, stretched forth over their heads above [a similar transparent dome on the craft].”

  Although Ezekiel had no idea what forces propelled the mysterious “wheels,” he linked control of the disks to the creatures: “When those [the creatures] went, these [the wheels] went; and when those stood, these stood; and when those were lifted up from the Earth, the wheels were lifted up over against them: for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.”

  The witness to this amazing event goes on to describe “the likeness of a throne [pilot’s chair?]” located above (?) the ship’s dome with “the likeness…of a man” seated in it, dressed in an amber-colored, glittering garment. Ezekiel was so awestruck and frightened by this figure that he fell upon his face (1:28).

  Ezekiel’s “wheels” as conceived by former NASA engineer Josef F. Blumrich

  A voice emanating from one of the ships told him to get up and then it proceeded to address him. It complained of attacks against him by his people (they “hath rebelled against me”) and warned that any further provocation would bring punishment (in our own age UFOs have been shot at from the air and from the ground). A scroll was spread out before Ezekiel. It evidently listed complaints against the Israelites. The witness was told to consider these complaints carefully and deliver the message of warning to his people. Ezekiel, according to this view, was selected as a spokesman for the space voyagers. He was also told he would be ridiculed and scoffed at by persons who would not believe his experience-the plight of many UFO witnesses today.

  Then the amazed prophet was taken aboard (“then the spirit took me up”), and he heard “the noise of the wheels…and a noise of a great rushing.” He was carried to Tel Abib, where his fellow exiles were and where he sat “astonished among them seven days.” At the end of that period he recalled more clearly what had happened.

  Ezekiel received word (telepathically?) again from the voice to “go forth into the plain, and I will talk with thee.” This he did, and when he saw the same figure “which I saw by the river of Chebar…I fell on my face.” Once again the note of warning was repeated for Ezekiel to convey to his people.

  The figure in his shining uniform appears again (dream?) in Chapter 8. And in Chapter 10 the four wheels turn up once more with the figure and winged creatures, but these repetitions may have been the handiwork of other writers trying to improve or expand Ezekiel’s book. However, the first three chapters of the book are believed to be the work of the prophet himself

  Having no knowledge of machines or spaceships, it would be natural for Ezekiel to assume he had been in the presence of supernatural powers. We may never know whether his experience was, in fact, a religious vision or an encounter with extraterrestrial visitors.

  —WALTER N. WEBB

  F

  “Face” on Mars On July 25, 1976, as NASA’s Viking 1 spacecraft orbited Mars in search of a suitable spot for the next Viking lander, it photographed a relatively crater-free region known as Cydonia. Strewn with rocky mesas and devoid of dried river channels, Cydonia did not pique NASA’s interest as a promising candidate for harboring traces of possible ancient life. However, after the photos were released to the public, one of the many mesas seen in #035A72 captured the national spotlight because of its striking resemblance to a humanoid face, complete with headdress.

  Section of NASA Viking photo #035A72 showing the controversial “Face” on Mars

  Speculation then arose in some quarters that perhaps this 1.2-mile-wide x 1.6-mile-long structure was not a natural surface feature at all, but rather an artificial monument. Could it have been constructed by a once-thriving Martian civilization? Was it erected by beings from elsewhere in the galaxy during a brief junket through our solar system, perhaps as a “calling card” for when we became a space-faring species? Or might earthlings—from our own future—be responsible?

  Hoagland’s “City” is imagined to be in
the left portion of this picture.

  The person most responsible for promoting the “Face” on Mars is Richard C. Hoagland, a gifted speaker and author of the popular 1987 book, The Monuments of Mars: A City on the Edge of Forever. Yes, a “City.” For within frame #035A72, Hoagland and his associates thought they had discovered evidence of, among other relics, a “fortress,” an artificial “cliff,” a “five “five-sided pyramid” with humanoid “proportions” (its “head…apparently damaged by explosive penetration,” pointing directly toward the more-famous “Face”), and a collection of structures dubbed the “City Square.”

  According to Hoagland, the city may date back approximately 500,000 years to a time when, if one had stood in the middle of the City Square, “the Summer Solstice sun would have arisen directly over the ‘Face.’”

  The publisher’s foreword to Hoagland’s book describes the author as somewhat of a science prodigy: “Richard C. Hoagland is, by career, a science writer as well as a consultant in the fields of astronomy, planetarium curating, and space-program education….In 1965, at the age of nineteen, [Hoagland] became Curator (possibly the youngest in the country) of the Springfield, Massachusetts, Museum of Science….In 1966 Hoagland served as NBC consultant for the historic soft landing of a U.S. spacecraft on the moon—Surveyor 1. Later he appeared on ‘The Tonight Show’ explaining the significance of the landing to Johnny Carson….At Christmas of [1968] he was asked to become a consultant to CBS News…and served as [a science] advisor to Walter Cronkite.”

  But in 1990, with no NASA program yet in the works to aggressively explore Cydonia, despite Hoagland’s public proclamations about “a groundswell of official NASA interest” in his findings, I set out to learn a bit more about NASA’s position.

  Dr. David Morrison, Chief of the Space Science Division at NASA’s Ames Research Center, informed me that Hoagland was largely “self-educated” in science, and that he (Morrison) knew of “no one in the scientific community, or who is associated with the NASA Mars Science Working Group, or who is working on Mars mission plans at such NASA centers as Ames, Johnson, or JPL [Jet Propulsion Laboratory], who ascribes even the smallest credibility to [Hoagland’s] weird ideas about Mars.” None of the other three NASA officials responding to my inquiries knew of any interest at all in Hoagland’s claims.

  Then on April 5, 1998, as part of its orbital photography mission, the Mars Global Surveyor returned images of Cydonia taken at more than ten times the resolution of the earlier Viking 1 pictures of 1976. Now, our new and improved view of the “Face” reveals it to be nothing more than what NASA scientists said it was all along: a natural feature, like many others on Mars, blown into the dusty, rocky surface by the planet’s fierce, swirling winds.

  The supposed “Face” is resolved into its true irregular features in this Mars Global Surveyor view.

  With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, has Hoagland now abandoned his “City”? Oddly, a visit to his Web site (www.enterprisemission.com) reveals just the opposite.

  —GARY P. POSNER

  Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1952). Science writer Martin Gardner wrote this classic—the first book to take a skeptical, “debunking” approach to the growing belief in extraterrestrial visitors. Most UFOs are misperceptions and delusions, Gardner says, and UFO-book authors are preying upon human gullibility; particularly Major Donald Keyhoe, Gerald Heard, and Frank Scully.

  —RANDALL FITZGERALD

  fairy lore and UFO encounters An age-old and nearly universal folk belief alleges that a race of supernatural beings shares the Earth with humankind. These beings are seldom seen because they live underground or are invisible. It is further alleged that they live in some magical place, where they are numerous and have cities, customs, and civilizations of their own. The generic term for such a being is “fairy.”

  Human contact with fairies is rare, often hazardous, and in some striking respects can be likened to encounters with UFOs. Fairies come in all shapes and sizes, some of them tall and beautiful while others are animallike and monstrous. The most familiar type is shorter than human height and similar in some respects to the humanoids associated with UFOs.

  This fairy, known as “Pwca,” was drawn by a Welsh peasant with a piece of coal.

  The best-known fairies belong to Ireland and other Celtic lands, but folk traditions of diminutive supernatural beings are worldwide. In European folklore, Germany has dwarfs while Sweden has elves and trolls. Various forms of Jinn inhabit the Islamic world, while the Devas of India, the kappas of Japan, and the duwende of the Philippines populate Asian folklore. The Mmoetia appear in western Africa, while the Pygmies describe a spirit race even smaller than themselves. The Hawaiians have legends of the Menehune, while in American Elves John E. Roth has compiled a booklength catalogue of fairy types in the folklore of the American Indians.

  The broadest similarities between fairies and UFO occupants are their mutual otherworld origin and possession of extraordinary powers or skills. Fairies paralyze assailants, seem part physical and part immaterial, and impart prophetic messages to humans. Fairies float or fly, and in some strands of tradition sail ships through the air or climb a ladder into a cloud. A common motif in fairy lore is the fairy mound or hill that rises up on pillars of light during nocturnal celebrations, creating a sight very similar to a landed UFO.

  Nowadays, a “fairy ring” may be considered a UFO landing spot.

  Fairies may have a short stature, large head, piercing eyes, and crippled feet or a clumsy gait—features more or less readily comparable to UFO humanoids. Similarities in fairy and UFO lore have been treated at length by Jacques Vallée in Passport to Magonia (1969), Jerome Clark and Loren Coleman in The Unidentified (1975), and Hilary Evans in Visions, Apparitions, Alien Visitors (1984).

  An extended list of comparisons link fairy beliefs with UFO abduction accounts. Abductee Betty Andreasson’s childhood experience of playing in the woods when a short being emerged out of the ground, dressed in clothing like the rough bark of a tree, describes a fairy encounter with no more modernization than the substitution of an alien being for the supernatural. She later visited an otherworld that had more in common with an underground fairyland than another planet. On one trip she saw a beautiful crystalline forest; on another she passed through a tunnel to a lush and fertile land of plentiful light, but no sun or visible horizon. Fairyland is often underground and entered through a tunnel, devoid of sunlight but lit by a perpetual twilight. The place is extraordinary in its beauty, though the appearance may be sustained by magical deception. Like fairies, alien abductors are proficient in mind control and prone to deceive their captives.

  Abducting aliens show a keen interest in reproduction by examining genitals, harvesting eggs and sperm. They also indicate that their home planet has lost its fertility and they somehow need humans to restore the viability of their race. Fairies lack reproductive self-sufficiency as well. They steal human children, take human mates, or need a human midwife to assist at a fairy birth. One common practice is exchange of a human baby for an elderly fairy. This changeling has a wizened look and wisdom beyond its apparent age, features comparable with the “wise babies” described by Budd Hopkins in Intruders (1987).

  A human who meets fairies may experience the “supernatural lapse of time,” wherein a few minutes or hours spent in fairy company translates into years or centuries elapsed in earthly time, the sort of shocking discovery that Rip Van Winkle made when he returned home. The time lapse of abductees is a loss of memory rather than a loss of years, but a break in the continuity of time occurs in both cases. Some contacts with fairies lead to gains of supernatural powers or knowledge, while some abductees receive prophecies or acquire psychic powers. Unfriendly fairy encounters lead to injury or insanity, while the personalities of some abductees also deteriorate.

  A mother struggles with the fairies as they try to abduct her baby.

  Any recognition of the similarities between
UFO lore and fairy lore must also reckon with the extensive differences. Few fairies are hairless or large-eyed, as so many aliens are, and no fairy drives a spaceship. Yet the parallels between fairy kidnappings and abductions are too striking to ignore, and suggest that fairy lore, near-death experiences, and perhaps abduction accounts as well may stem from some subjective, psychological experience common to all people. The basic content may be inherent in the human mind even if the outer trappings belong to a particular time and culture.

  —THOMAS EDDIE BULLARD

  FATE magazine Long before the paranormal was popular, FATE magazine was publishing true reports of the strange and unknown. FATE first hit the newsstands in the spring of 1948. Co-founded by Ray Palmer and Curtis Fuller, the magazine’s first cover story was a feature by Kenneth Arnold as he shared in his own words the unknown objects he saw over Mount Rainier one fateful day in 1947.

  Arnold’s sighting inspired the modern UFO era, and his story propelled the fledgling FATE to national recognition. Ray Palmer had worked as editor of several science fiction pulp magazines (including the venerable Amazing Stories) and head of the fiction group at Ziff-Davis Publishing Company in the 1930s and 1940s. Curtis Fuller was also an accomplished editor. He and his wife Mary took full control of FATE magazine in 1955, when Palmer sold his interest in the venture. The Fullers expanded the magazine’s focus, and increased readership to over 100,000 subscribers.

  The Fullers published the magazine until 1988, when they sold it to the present owner, Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd. In his farewell editorial, Fuller explained: “Our purpose throughout this long time has been to explore and report honestly the strangest facts in this strange world-ones that don’t fit into the general beliefs of the way things are.”