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September 2010_june_july_2009.qxd 29/09/2010 10:59 PM Page 8 8 Close Encounters of the Sacred Kind Close Encounters of the were lifted from the earth, the wheels also were lifted with them." Sacred Kind Ezekiel's description rings true to by Lee Speigel Downing, who says it sounds like accounts of modern UFO sightings that include reports of alien beings. A group of people has a mass sighting of a huge, airborne glowing object that follows "What we have is a picture of four flying them for many miles and even protects them saucer-type vehicles with four astronauts that were floating in the air beside each of these from attack. Someone is seen being lifted into vehicles," Downing said. the sky on a beam of light. A man witnesses "I think that a lot of the miracles were unexplained circular vehicles with living "This object hovers in the air and then done by what we would call advanced creatures on board. leads the Jewish people up to the Red Sea, and Pretty much sounds like your typical, hovers over the Red Sea during the parting of it, technology, but the biblical people had no clue modern-day UFO sightings, right? Wrong. and I believe, uses its propulsion system to split about technology -- a chariot wheel was advanced technology for them." These are vivid accounts of stories from the Old the waters of the sea so the Jews can cross. And, of course, there's the famous story and New Testaments. "When the Jews got on the other side, of the Ascension that tells of Jesus taken up to "If UFOs are some type of intelligent the Egyptians came in with their chariots and power from another world, they may have been got in a good long way before something heaven as his apostles watched from the ground. "The disciples are gathered together and around for millions of years and may have been strange happened. According to the Bible, they see him carried up into the sky in a cloud - involved in the development of the biblical Moses raised his hands in the air and the walls - the word 'cloud' really comes to understand religion, and I do believe that is the case," said of water collapsed, which I take to be the power some type of heavenly transportation system," the Rev. Barry Downing, a retired Presbyterian was turned off." minister. But if this story really happened, can it said Downing. Downing maintains that Jesus' kingdom In his 1968 book, "The Bible and Flying be explained in modern scientific terms? of heaven sounds like "a possible interplanetary Saucers" (Marlowe), Downing suggests that At the National Center for Atmospheric or intergalactic civilization, and that there's extraterrestrials in technologically advanced Research in Boulder, Colo., software engineer some kind of heavenly organization of which he spaceships played a major part in events Carl Drews recently suggested that the Red Sea depicted in the Bible. event was more a miracle of nature than divine was a part and which is there, and toward which we will go when we die. But, in the meantime, "You can go through the Bible and look intervention. he's trying to teach us behavior patterns that are for signs of things that hover in the sky and "The parting of the waters can be expected when we get to that place." seem to be intelligently controlled and interact understood through fluid dynamics," Drews Downing doesn't think the current with the biblical people," Downing told AOL said. "The wind moves the water in a way that's News. in accordance with physical laws, creating a secular culture can accept the premise, not only of UFOs and aliens in the Bible, but in today's Downing, who served 34 years as pastor safe passage with water on two sides and then world, as well. of the Northminster Presbyterian Church in abruptly allowing the water to rush back in." "I don't think our culture wants to deal Endwell, N.Y., has tirelessly researched this Drews and his team of researchers with the idea that we've got a power here that's material for decades. As a student at the speculate that a very strong 60-mph wind -- University of Edinburgh in Scotland, he blowing for 12 hours -- could have resulted in greater than we are." Downing's views about possible alien specialized in the relationship between natural the water parting, if you will, upstream and visitation include a radical theory of the origin science and theology and is listed in "Who's downstream, which might have opened a dry of humans. Who In Theology and Science." walkway for the Israelites. "I think if the aliens are there and are The theory that many of the miraculous Maybe not, says Downing. events of the Bible could be explained by the "I believe that some type of force field doing the abductions and biological experiments on people that we read about -- if intervention of aliens first struck Downing in was used by the pillar of cloud and fire to push they're this far advanced in terms of air travel, the early 1960s. the water back," he said. "The wind theory is and if they've been around for millions of years, "When I was in seminary, the conflict OK if you leave the pillar of cloud and the fire between science and religion had become fairly out and if you leave out huge amounts of details. why can't we suppose that, maybe they've clear, and some of the more liberal professors But if you actually want to pay attention to what shaped life on Earth? "And if this is true, guess what? We are basically said, 'We can't believe in things in the the Bible says, then the wind theory doesn't a designed species, and this would mean Bible, like the resurrection and ascension of work." intelligent design really is the story. Darwin is Jesus, we can't believe in the angel world -- this Downing explains that the events of the out, to some extent, and it means a lot of vested is all mythology.' Exodus and other amazing biblical happenings "But when you dismiss these things as were described by people who had limited interests get hurt on the scientific side by this. "What would it do to world religions in mythology, you end up with a god with no knowledge of science. general? You'd have a lot of bloody noses on power, and nobody's going to bother with a god "The Jewish people didn't know about both the scientific and religious side with where with no power." Einstein's theory of relativity or about force this would go." It was during his years at the University fields and so, the language they use is like a But the retired minister says his belief in of Edinburgh that Downing started thinking stunning glance: The Lord in the pillar of cloud extraterrestrial visitors doesn't conflict with his about the possibility of visits from outer space. and the fire looked down." belief in the Trinity of Christian faith. And he wondered how that might to apply to the Downing says another possible UFO "God, the father, is what I would call the concept of the angels in the Bible. encounter happened to the prophet Ezekiel. In God who is other than we are and is largely Let's consider a few biblical stories that the Douay-Rheims translation of the Bible, Downing has closely examined and see how Ezekiel says: "Now, as I looked at the living inaccessible. If this God is so unlike us and, by and large, beyond us, then how does this they measure up to what we know as UFO creatures, I saw a wheel upon the earth beside beyond-us God reach out to us in love, and the encounters. the living creatures, one for each of the four of biblical answer is through mediators," he said. Probably the best-known and most them -- their construction being as it were, a dramatic of these has to be the parting of the wheel within a wheel. When they went, they "I trust that there's an invisible and Red Sea -- a miracle that saved the Israelites, went in four directions without turning as they unreachable God the father, who I know only through a combination of things, including the who were fleeing their lives of slavery at the went. revelation of the Old Testament of angels, or hands of the Egyptians. "The wheels also had a size and height mediators, or through what I would call the Downing cites the "pillar of cloud by and a dreadful appearance, and the whole body day and the pillar of fire by night" that led the was full of eyes round about all the four. And extraterrestrial reality we now have flying Jews during their Exodus from Egypt. wherever the living creatures went, the wheels around us, and doing what I think it's done for went beside them, and when the living creatures many centuries." []