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UFO
REVELATION 11
Dr.
Barry H. Downing
ADVANCED
PHYSICS, UFOS AND BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION
When
I was a senior at Princeton Seminary, I told one of my theology
professors I was going on to the University of Edinburgh to do
further studies in the area of science and Christianity. He told me I
was wasting my time, the two fields had become totally separate. I
found his point of view difficult to understand. After all, physics
is the study of energy, and whatever else the Holy Spirit is, it is
one form of God’s energy, what I sometimes call Holy Energy. (Col.
1:29) I believe the “Everywhere God” is the source of the energy
that created our visible universe, not to mention the power that
enabled the healing ministry of Jesus. The sense in which this
power is “supernatural,” whatever that means, needs to be raised
in the modern church, and will be raised I believe in the future when
the church begins to deal with the UFO mystery.
Whatever
theologians may think, there are scientists who are raising the God
question. One such scientist is Dr. Paul Davies, Professor of
Theoretical Physics, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England. He
is author of several books, including God and
the New Physics (1984). The jacket of the
book summarizes the Davies view: “Demanding a radical reformulation
of the most fundamental aspects of reality and a way of thinking that
is in closer accord with mysticism than materialism, the new physics,
says Davies, offers a surer path to God than religion.”
Davies
is well aware of the historical conflict between science and
religion, but takes the position of scientific orthodoxy (Jung,
Menzel, Sagan) that UFOs are a space age myth, not science. In
regard to UFOs, “with the decline of organized religion, they
[aerial phenomena] have re-surfaced again in technological guise,
employing the language of spacecraft and pseudoscience, of mysterious
force fields and mind over matter—a polyglot synthesis of primitive
superstition and space-age physics.” (p. 198)
In
his book, Davies promotes the view that “science” is the trusted
way to truth, and “revealed religion” frequently gets in the way
of truth, promoting prejudice and warfare instead of truth.
“Although individual scientists may cling tenaciously to some
cherished idea, the scientific community as a group is always ready
to adopt a new approach. There are no shooting wars over scientific
principles.” (p. 6) Thus from Davies’ point of view, the
enterprise of science as a whole is free from ideological divisions.
(Science does, however, provide the weapons for shooting wars, which
is no small issue, when searching for the government motive for a UFO
cover-up.)
In
contrast to the purity and ideological freedom of science, “religion
is founded on revelation and received wisdom. Religious dogma that
claims to contain an unalterable Truth can hardly be modified to fit
changing ideas. The true believer must stand by his faith whatever
the apparent evidence against it. This ‘Truth’ is said to be
communicated directly to the believer, rather than through the
filtering and refining process of collective investigation. The
trouble about revealed ‘Truth’ is that it is liable to be wrong,
and even if it is right other people require a good reason to share
the recipients’ belief.” (Ibid)
It
may be that some religious truth is said to be revealed “directly
to the believer.” In Roman Catholic Christianity, the doctrine of
papal infallibility is based on the faith that the Holy Spirit will
reveal the truth directly to the Pope, although Papal pronouncements
will have been worked out carefully in light of Catholic theological
tradition.
The
Protestant Reformation, which is my tradition, came at the issue of
truth from a different point of view. Protestants see the church as
open to error, including the pronouncements of church councils.
While many Protestants see the Bible as a document of revealed truth
that cannot be changed, nevertheless an important Reformation
principle is that our interpretation of Scripture may be in error,
and therefore the church must “always be reforming.” My
experience in exploring the issues regarding UFOs and biblical
theology has been that Protestants who preach that the church must
“always be reforming” do not seem very open to reform. (See my
article “UFOs and Meta-narrative Reformation,” Strong Delusion
archives.)
Nevertheless,
scientists and Christians, need to understand this. Just as the
universe is the object of study of scientists, physicists from Newton
to the present may put forward new theories to explain the meaning of
this reality. The theories may change, and have changed,
nevertheless, the universe is the constant reality with which
scientists work. In this sense, scientists have a kind of “revealed
truth,” the universe, which scientists may, or may not, understand
correctly. In the same sense, the Bible is “the universe of the
Christian theologian.” And for Christians, the biblical testimony
concerning who Jesus was, and why his life, death, and resurrection
matter, is the core reality, the core universe, of the Christian
theologian. The interpretations of this reality may change, but the
reality stays the same. From my point of view, the biblical core
reality is still there, but in light of UFOs, we need to reinterpret
some of our beliefs about what the Bible means, especially the
meaning of biblical angelology. I think this is a Protestant
Christian thing to do.
Davies
wants to make it clear that although he is suspicious of “revealed
truth,” that does not mean he is against religion. “It is a
great mistake, however, to infer from the scientist’s suspicion of
revealed truth that he is necessarily a cold, hard, calculating
soulless individual, interested only in facts and figures. Indeed,
the rise of the new physics has been accompanied by a tremendous
growth of interest concerning the deeper philosophical implications
of science.” (p. 7) What Davies sees happening is that many people
now believe “that recent advances in fundamental science are more
likely to reveal the deeper meaning of existence than appeal to
traditional religion.” (p. 8) My answer to Davies as a Christian
is that there is no deeper meaning to existence than we find in Jesus
Christ. But there are many spiritual powers in all of us that keep
us from seeing the truth that is revealed in Jesus. (For instance, as
explained in UFO REVELATION 8, our biological drive to dominate
others is in conflict with the call of Jesus to servanthood. And
there is more than a hint in the work of Davies that “science”
ought to be in a “dominating” position in relation to “revealed”
religion. Am I wrong to suspect that the arguments of Davies are as
much about his power and status as they are about truth?)
Davies
does raise issues concerning extraterrestrial life and Christianity,
while not admitting belief in UFOs. “The existence of
extra-terrestrial intelligences would have a profound impact on
religion, shattering completely the traditional perspective of God’s
special relationship with man. The difficulties are particularly
acute for Christianity, which postulates that Jesus Christ was God
incarnate whose mission was to provide salvation for man on Earth.
The prospect of a host of ‘alien Christs’ systematically visiting
every inhabited planet in the physical form of the local creatures
has a rather absurd aspect. Yet how otherwise are the aliens to be
saved?
In this space-age
era, when so many people apparently accept the reality of UFOs,
remarkably little attention has been given to the ‘alien dimension’
by the world’s principal religions.” (p. 71)
Davies
is right, the issue of extraterrestrial life does raise questions
about “salvation” on other planets, although he does not explain
the presumption that life on other planets would have to be “fallen”
in order to need redemption. But Davies is quite right I think to
say that “remarkably little attention” has been given to the
issue of ET life and its implications for the Christian faith. What
Davies, and scientists like him either do not understand, or do not
want to admit, is that once you believe in, or have proof that UFOs
are real, you then have the scientific possibility of religious
revelation. By that I mean that if what Dolan and Zabel call the Day
of Disclosure comes, religious revelation becomes a scientific
possibility in a concrete sense. Revelation is already a “religious
possibility” for those of us who are believers, of course.
Scientists like Davies, Menzel and Sagan take the position, “I know
of no scientific evidence of a ‘revealing reality.’” Of course
even if the government were to admit UFOs were real, that would not
“prove” that UFOs are the source of biblical revelation. But
then it would not be just a religious possibility, it would also be a
scientific possibility. The fundamental position of the Bible is that
there is a “revealing reality,” an angelic reality, not of this
world. Scientists like Davies simply write the whole idea of
revelation off as “unscientific,” and therefore beyond serious
consideration.
The
presence of UFOs raises the possibility that alien life is flying in
our skies. What kind of alien life? How do they fly? And where are
they flying from? Advanced physics can give us some clues to
possible answers to these questions. We need to explore the concept
of anti-gravity, and the concept of multiple universes, both areas
where advanced physics raises questions that may give new direction
to biblical interpretation.
ANTI-GRAVITATIONAL
THEORY, UFOS AND BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION
The
issue of UFO propulsion systems has many implications for the
economy, the military, and civilian life. If some type of
anti-gravitational system is part of the UFO story, then our oil
based economy might be on the way out, which could be good for the
environment, but bad for all the businesses that depend on oil.
As
Dolan and Zabel remark, “For many years, leaks have occurred and
claims have been made describing radical propulsion systems in alien
flying saucers, as well as in the home grown variety. Certainly,
anything that can move in perfect silence, hover indefinitely, and
accelerate instantaneously is using something better than high-octane
gasoline as its source of fuel, whether this be some form of the
fabled zero-point energy field, a clean burning nuclear fusion, or
something more exotic.” (A.D., p. 195)
Nick
Cook is an independent reporter who began to search within American
industry for signs of anti-gravitational research. He published his
results in his book, The Hunt for Zero Point
(2001). Although he talked to some high level scientists in
American industry, these scientists usually had a security person
representing the interests of company secrets included in the
interview. Consequently, there were limits to what Cook could learn.
Nevertheless he points out the size of America’s black budget,
which “in 1988, the total was computed to be $30 billion for R&D
and secret weapons programs—more than the entire annual defense
budget of a major European NATO nation such as Britain, France or
Germany.” (p. 127) (See my review of Cook’s book, MUFON
UFO Journal, October 2002, p. 16-17) It
seems reasonable to suppose that if we have been spending that kind
of money since 1947, we now have air craft or space vehicle designs
that are much more advanced than has been made public, and it is
likely that something like anti-gravitational technology is part of
that advance.
Do
one or more of the governments of the world have in their possession
crashed UFOs? Most researchers believe there may be a few, and these
would be highly prized. By studying a crashed UFO, scientists might
discover in a few years what otherwise might take decades of
research. As Jenny Randles has said, “The prize of the secrets of
alien technology would be enormous. I was told by a senior figure in
Britain’s Defence Ministry that finding out how UFOs do what they
do is purpose number one behind any study of the data; as it was
phrased, ‘We have to learn to use this to build weapons before the
other side do.’ This same factor seems critical, from what little
we know, to the thinking of security agencies, such as the CIA, and,
probably, the NSA, which delve into UFO reports.” (Jenny Randles,
UFO Retrievals: The Recovery of Alien
Spacecraft, 1995, p. 165)
Paul
R. Hill has written the most comprehensive book thus far that
explores the issues related to UFO propulsion technology. Hill, a
former NASA scientist, experienced a personal UFO sighting, but as a
member of NASA, he also heard of UFO reports that shaped his
scientific thinking. Hill reports that UFOs have knocked persons
down with some kind of force field, displaced tree branches when
hovering over them, and rocked automobiles when flying above them,
without direct contact.
What
type of propulsion system would cause these effects? “In
evaluating the force fields to determine which type is used, we shall
examine the static-field types: the electric field, the magnetic
field, and the repulsive force field. The first two are well known,
but the third is not. As we have mentioned, the latter may be
thought of as a negative gravity field, or a field with similar
properties as yet undiscovered. Negative gravity is the field that
theory indicates is associated with negative matter and possibly with
some antiparticles. This field repels all matter.” (Paul R. Hill,
Unconventional Flying Objects: A Scientific
Analysis, 1995, p. 109)
How
does all this relate to the Bible? Many theologians refer to events
in the Bible that are outside our normal experience as supernatural
events. Events like the parting of the Red Sea, or the Resurrection
of Jesus, are called examples of the supernatural. But
“supernatural” is not a biblical word, and when strange events
happen in the Bible they are often called “signs and wonders.”
(Mt. 24:24; Jn. 4:48; Acts 2:22 etc) My opinion is that “After
Disclosure,” theology will have to distinguish between “miracles”
in the Bible that were caused by some type of advanced technology,
while others will be seen as the direct work of the Holy Spirit. I
believe the parting of the Red Sea is an example of the work of an
advanced technology, while the Resurrection of Jesus is the work of
the Holy Spirit, as were his healing miracles, and as was the giving
of the Holy Spirit to the church at Pentecost. (Acts 2:4)
If
UFOs carry the angels of God, and operate by some type of
anti-gravitational system, then these might be some of the signs of
anti-gravitational power in the Bible: the parting of the Red Sea
(Ex. 14:19-30), the earthquake effects at Mt. Sinai (Ex. 19:18), the
stopping of the Jordan River (Josh 4:19-24), and the falling of the
walls of Jericho (Josh. 6:12-21), as well as the earthquake reported
at the tomb of Jesus when an angel “descended from heaven.” (Mt.
28:1-3)
What about the case
of Jesus walking on water? Is this a case of anti-gravitational
technology, or the work of the Holy Spirit? (Mt. 14:22-33) I don’t
know. There are reports among modern close encounter cases where
humanoids are seen to “float” about a foot off the ground as they
travel either from, or to, their space craft. Although Jesus spoke
often about the Kingdom of Heaven, and its angelic occupants, we
really have few details about the power that is basic to heavenly
life. If angels are related to our modern UFO reports, then it seems
likely that the Kingdom of Heaven operates on the basis of two
different kinds of power, one that we might call impersonal and the
source of heavenly technological power, and the other personal, what
we usually call the power of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the
Trinity.
PARALLEL
UNIVERSES, UFOS AND BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION
When
I published The Bible and Flying Saucers
in 1968, I had one major concern about connecting UFOs to biblical
angels. The biblical view of angels was they were eternal beings,
they had eternal life. My understanding of the scientific world view
at that time was that we live in a “running down universe,”
meaning that at some time in the future, the universe will run out of
energy, and die. If this were true, then no one living in this
universe could be eternal.
I
began to explore the possibility that there might be more than one
universe, that there might be a way to escape from the space-time
continuum of our universe into a world that did not decay, did not
run down. I thought Einstein’s Theory of Relativity offered us the
freedom to explore some possibilities within the framework of the as
yet unfinished science of advanced physics. With that in mind, I
began to look at the New Testament ideas of the angelic world looking
for “some way out” of our universe, and looked for the
possibility that UFOs did not come from our universe, but rather from
another dimension. That was the basis for chapter 5 in my book,
“Where Is Heaven?” I then expanded somewhat on these ideas in my
two part article, “Wormholes, Heaven, and the God Hypothesis.”
(MUFON UFO Journal,
November 2001, p. 10-12; December 2001, p. 11-14)
When
my book was first published, the Christianity
Today review of my book was predictably
negative about chapter 5. “Space does not permit a complete
account of the scientific distortions contained in the book. In the
preface Downing states that he ‘is not an authority on Einstein or
on heaven…’ This does not deter him, however, from devoting a
chapter to the question, ‘Where is heaven?’ He admits that his
discussion ‘reads very much like science fiction’ and ‘is not
necessarily true’; but it may, he says, ‘help to set our minds
free from the somewhat depressing agnosticism we now find ourselves
in when we even being (sic) to entertain the idea that we might live
eternally—as part of God’s plan.’ He then proceeds, with
complete abandon, to do violence to both Einstein and heaven with
over twenty pages of pure speculation.” (Albert L. Hedrich, “Flying
Saucers in the Bible?” Christianity Today,
June 21, 1968.)
It
should be clear to all who have read this series on UFO REVELATION
my work has been rejected by both the liberal
and conservative branches of Protestantism. Liberals do not want me
to take stories like the parting of the Red Sea literally, they want
it to be poetry, mythology.
They
want to keep science out of the Bible. Religion is not about
reality, it is about something we make up in our heads, much like
music and poetry. Religion may have a beauty about it, it may
represent human psychological longings, but it has nothing to do with
the physical world.
The
issue with conservative Christians is quite different. It has been
more than 40 years since the publication of my book, and I still
can’t quite understand the conservative attack on my work. The
conservative Christian mentality seems to be this: the church is a
fort, the fort protects the basic treasure we have, which is the
gospel, and the task of Christians is to attack all enemies who are
trying to destroy the fort. They might be atheists (or other
non-Christian religions, New Age mysticism, etc.,) or they might be
false prophets, or as Gary Bates says of me, “former believers who
have fallen away.” Within this assumption, everyone has to be
tested to see if he or she is a true believer, or an enemy.
From
the point of view of Hedrich, I am the enemy, I proceeded “with
complete abandon to do violence to both Einstein and heaven, with
over twenty pages of pure speculation.” For Hedrich, my
speculation amounts to bombs dropped on the Christian fort. I am the
enemy. Christians can “only hope that this book has a very limited
circulation.” Does Hedrich know where heaven is? If he does, he
does not tell us in his review. Apparently he thinks it is sinful
even to wonder about it. Since when is being full of wonder a sin?
Since when is it a sin to believe that “with God all things are
possible.” (Mt. 19:26)
My view is not that
the church is a fort, something we build to defend the gospel. God
is our fort, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” And we are not
called to live in a fort, we are called to live in the wilderness
with God, on a journey, where we are moving toward the kingdom of
God. If you hole up in a fort, you will not arrive at the kingdom of
heaven. The incarnation of Christ means this journey through the
wilderness is so important to God that God became human in Jesus, and
lived, and died, on the journey with us. On this trip, we look for
signs of buried treasure. (Mt. 13:44)
For
more than 40 years I have been pointing at UFOs and saying, “This
may be buried treasure hidden for us to find.” UFOs are not
buried in dirt, of course, but buried by the greed and lust for power
of the military-industrial complex which decided years ago that UFO
truth needed to be kept from us. Our modern Pharaohs are no different
from the Pharaoh who challenged the God of Moses. I suspect that
many world leaders did not want us to even think about the
possibility that the angels of God are not only watching us, but are
on occasion, shutting down our nuclear missile sites. And I suspect
that for many conservative Christians, defending fortress America,
and fortress Gospel, are so similar, that seeing UFOs as demons,
rather than as angels, enemies of both America’s military power,
and enemies of the Gospel, was a very natural way to interpret the
UFO mystery. This is my best understanding of why I am not only the
enemy of liberal Protestants, but also conservative Protestants. By
and large, it is Roman Catholics who have not demonized me.
One
hundred years ago, physics and cosmology, the sister science of
astronomy, were separate sciences. But with the advent of relativity
theory, and particle physics, we now understand there is no way to
explain the origin of the universe separate from advanced physics.
The expanding universe, the way in which galaxies are formed, the
cooling process of stars, and the action of the power of gravity on
collapsing stars with the nuclear forces, all depend on advanced
physics for interpretation.
Michio
Kaku is professor of theoretical physics at City University of New
York. He is an excellent interpreter of the current relation between
physics and cosmology. He points out that there are four basic
forces in the universe: gravity, electromagnetism, the weak nuclear
force, and the strong nuclear force. (Parallel
Worlds, 2006, p. 79-80) The search for a
unified field theory uniting all four forces has thus far failed, but
what is called the “Standard Model” is a formula that unites
three of the four forces, leaving only gravity out of the equation.
One might suppose that if a Unified Field Theory is achieved, this
might help explain the apparent “gravity free” nature of UFO
flight.
But
the Standard Model, lacking the simplicity that physicists prefer,
nevertheless has led to some strange cosmological conclusions. One
theory about the “big bang” is that the original explosion at the
creation of the universe was not exactly uniform, and the lack of
uniformity might suggest that many universes might be created by the
same process.
As Kaku suggests,
“The multiverse idea is appealing, because all we have to do is
assume that spontaneous breaking occurs randomly. No other
assumptions have to be made. Each time a universe sprouts off
another universe, the physical constants differ from the original,
creating new laws of physics. If this is true, then an entirely new
reality can emerge, within each universe.” (p. 96)
From
my Christian point of view, I find this interesting, because the
suggestion that another universe might exist, parallel to ours, which
operates by different laws of physics, leaves open the possibility
that “death” might not be a natural part of that universe. In
other words, a universe in another dimension might be eternal, unlike
our own.
Kaku, as co-founder
of string theory, presents the latest in dimensional theory in
chapter 7, “M-Theory: The Mother of All Strings.” Kaku points
out that only a few years ago, scientists who “proposed the
existence of unseen worlds were subject to ridicule.”
“With
the coming of M-theory, all that has changed. Higher dimensions are
now in the center of a profound revolution in physics because
physicists are forced to confront the greatest problem facing physics
today: the chasm between general relativity and the quantum theory.”
“Of all the theories proposed in the past century, the only
candidate that can potentially ‘read the mind of God,’ as
Einstein put it, is M-theory.”
With M-theory we can
begin to ask fundamental questions: “What happened before the
beginning? Can time be reversed? Can dimensional gateways take us
across the universe?”
(p.
185)
Einstein
had shown that something like a “wormhole” exists at the heart of
a black hole in space. “Mathematicians call them multiply
connected spaces. Physicists call them wormholes because, like a
worm drilling into the earth, they create an alternative short-cut
between two points. They are sometimes called dimensional portals,
or gateways. Whatever you call them, they may one day provide the
ultimate means for interdimensional travel.” (p. 118)
My
purpose in presenting this material from Kaku is to demonstrate that
the types of speculation that I presented in chapter 5, “Where Is
Heaven?” in The Bible and Flying Saucers,
is not far from the possibilities that are emerging even more clearly
from modern physics and cosmology. I look at these possibilities
with hope, and I do not think hope is a sin.
How
does the issue of parallel universes relate to UFOs and biblical
interpretation? There are two issues that I see clearly. There may
be others. 1) Is there any connection between the idea of “portals”
or gateways to other universes as we find in advanced physics theory,
and UFOs, and the Bible? 2) And are there any indications that
Jesus, or the angels, seem to go back and forth between earth and
some kind of parallel universe?
Dolan
and Zabel are aware that many of the strange aspects of the UFO
mystery might be explained by the physics of multidimensionality.
There are many cases of UFOs seeming to “wink in” and “wink
out” of our reality, rather than flying away. Perhaps UFOs have a
way of entering and exiting our reality.
They report the story
of a young man and woman lying on their backs on a hill in Hawaii,
when they see something strange. “Looking straight up, they
noticed what looked like a huge, white door open up in the sky. It
was either squarish or rectangular in shape, with four easily
identifiable sides.” (A.D., p. 144) The witnesses believed they
saw a portal opening into another dimension of reality.
THE
HEAVENS WERE OPENED
The
concept of portals or doors is central to entering the Holy City of
Jerusalem, and of course, in our human imagination, we suppose that
after we die we meet St. Peter at the Pearly Gates to see if we will
be admitted to heaven. (Rev. 21:21)
In the story of the
baptism of Jesus, we find that after Jesus was baptized by John, “he
went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were
opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and
alighting on him; and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, ‘This is my
beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.’” (Mt. 3:16, 17)
What
does the phrase “the heavens were opened” mean? The biblical
report suggests that something like a portal to another world is
being described. What comes out of this portal? Something flies out
of the portal, the “Spirit of God.” Notice this is not God in
his Godness exactly, but rather some kind of visible mediator of God.
Apparently related to the Spirit of God, a voice from heaven
identifies Jesus as “my beloved son.”
What
is this flying Spirit of God, which descends like a dove—white or
silver, no wings moving, gliding, round, even saucer shaped in
appearance? The “Spirit of God” flying connects back to Elijah.
Elijah had been taken up into the sky in a chariot of fire, and
Elisha had been anointed as his successor. The fifty prophets who
supported Elijah asked Elisha’s permission to go on a search for
Elijah, for “it may be that the Spirit of the Lord has caught him
up and cast him on some mountain or into some valley.” (2 Ki. 2:16)
Thus the “Spirit of God’ was thought to provide a transportation
system for chosen prophets.
If
we look at the baptism passage in this light, then what may be
suggested is that when Matthew says Jesus “went up immediately from
the water,” that Jesus “was levitated from the water,” and
that the Spirit of God, descending like a dove, “alighted” on
Jesus, or perhaps more accurately, merged with Jesus.
After
the merger of Jesus and the Spirit, “Jesus was led up by the Spirit
into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” (Mt. 4:1) The
image of Jesus walking behind the Spirit, which flies ahead of him,
fits the Exodus image of the pillar of cloud and fire, leading Moses
and Israel into the wilderness for their time of testing. But the
Greek words here for “led up” might also be translated that Jesus
was “carried by the Spirit into the wilderness,” which might be
more in line with the Elijah tradition. In any case, in the baptism
of Jesus we have a story of a possible heavenly portal, a UFO coming
from the portal, and Jesus being lifted up and carried away by the
UFO, or at least being led by it into the wilderness. (See my
treatment of the Baptism issues in more detail in my book, The
Bible and Flying Saucers, p. 134-148.)
Another
example of the “the heavens being opened” is found in the speech
of Stephen when he was about to be stoned to death. He gazed into
heaven, saw the Glory of God, Jesus at the right hand of God, and
said to the crowd, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son
of man standing at the right hand of God.” (Acts 7:56) Here we do
not have a UFO flying out of the portal, but rather Stephen is
somehow given a vision of a reality that is very near to him, but
invisible to everyone else. The idea that the angels of God, the
heavenly armies of God, can be present, but invisible to most humans,
was also present in Old Testament history. On one occasion the king
of Syria sought to kill Elisha, and surrounded the city where Elisha
stayed with his army. Elisha’s servant woke early in the morning,
and saw the enemy army surrounding the city. In fear he went to
Elisha, who prayed for the servant to see what Elisha saw. Elisha
prayed, “So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw;
and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire
round about Elisha.” (2 Ki. 6:21) There is also the strange story
that an angel that was visible to Balaam’s ass, but invisible to
Balaam, until “the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam.” (Num. 22:31)
What
we see is that there is a biblical tradition that suggests we live in
a universe of multiple dimensions, so that the heavenly reality can
be in our space, but most of the time we do not see it. The kingdom
of God can really be “in the midst of you” as Jesus said. (Lk.
17:21)
This
brings us to the second issue: Are there examples of Jesus, and the
angels, going back and forth between our universe and a parallel
universe? A parallel universe theory seems to be one of the best
ways to interpret the resurrection stories of Jesus that we find in
the Gospel of John. We find these words in John: “On the evening
of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where
the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among
them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’” (Jn. 20:19) It is
made clear here that somehow Jesus entered the room even though the
door was shut, probably locked, for fear that the powers that
crucified Jesus would be coming for the disciples. How did Jesus
“materialize” in the room? I do not know, but the resurrection
stories suggest that the kingdom of heaven can be a place where
beings have bodies, but maybe these bodies operate on the basis of
different laws of physics. As Michio Kaku has suggested, the laws of
physics might be different in a universe in another dimension. [We
need to consider the possibility that what the Apostle Paul called a
“spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:44) represents both a different kind
of physics and biology. (For further discussion see my book, The
Bible and Flying Saucers, “Flying Saucers
and the Resurrection of the Body,” p. 203-212.)]
Eight
days after he appeared to his disciples, Jesus appeared again, with
the doors shut, to help doubting Thomas overcome his unbelief. (Jn.
20:26-29) Luke’s Gospel also has a resurrection story that implies
multidimensionality. Two disciples, one named Cleopas, were
traveling the seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus, when they were
joined by a stranger, who turned out to be Jesus. They spent the day
walking with him, talking with him, but did not recognize him until
he broke bread in front of them at their evening meal. “And their
eyes were opened and they recognized him; and he vanished out of
their sight.” (Lk. 24:31) As Jesus vanished, so the angel that had
met with Gideon also just vanished. (Judg. 6:21) As modern UFOs seem
to “blink in” and “blink out,” Jesus just vanished, only to
appear somewhere else. Much later, as the disciples tried to
understand these strange resurrection stories, “Jesus himself stood
among them.” (Lk. 24:36)
These
kinds of reports bring to mind the experience of Betty Andreasson,
who was abducted by beings who came through the door of her home
without opening it, and left, taking her with them, without opening
the door. Likewise in one of the bedroom encounters of Michael
Carter, one of the beings left his room simply by walking through the
window of his bedroom, which was on the 15th
floor of his building.
The
story of an angelic rescue of Peter reported in the book of Acts is
also interesting in dealing with the issue of moving from one
dimension of space to another. Herod had put Peter in prison, and
was probably planning Peter’s death. An angel appeared in the
prison cell, struck Peter on the side to wake him (Peter was sleeping
between two guards), and told Peter to get dressed. Peter’s chains
fell off of their own accord, and Peter was ordered to follow the
angel. “When they had passed the first and second guard, they came
to the iron gate leading into the city. It opened of its own accord,
and they went out and passed on through one street; and immediately
the angel left him.” (Acts 12:10) While this is not proof that the
angel “materialized” in the prison cell, it seems unlikely that
the angel opened the iron gate on the way in, closed it, and then had
to reopen it again on the way out. It seems more likely that as
Jesus materialized in the upper room in his resurrection appearances
reported in John, likewise the angel somehow came from another
dimension into Peter’s cell.
In
the context of a discussion of proper head covering for men and women
in prayer, the Apostle Paul said, “That is why a woman ought to
have a veil on her head, because of the angels.” (1 Cor. 11:10)
Scholars are not sure how to translate, or interpret, this verse.
But the implication seems to be that angels are present when we
worship, we cannot see them, but they can see us. It may be that the
appearance of an angel to Zechariah as he served at the altar of
incense is an example of an angel “materializing” during worship.
(Lk. 1:5-23)
I
believe modern physics opens doors of possibilities for
interpretation of the UFO mystery in light of multidimensional space.
Likewise, much of the biblical revelation seems to report some kind
of UFO reality, which is connected to the angelic world, where Jesus
is King of the Angels. I come to the UFO mystery with much more hope
than fear. I do not believe we need, in the name of modern science,
to stop believing in the angelic world, as some Christian liberals
have done. Nor do I think it is helpful to come at the UFO mystery
with a fortress mentality, as some conservative Christians have done.
I believe we need to come to the UFO mystery with Christ’s hope.
I believe Christ understands that we now live in a basically godless
culture. Scientists like Richard Dawkins mock our God openly in the
name of science. The proper response is not to go into a fort, and
shoot Bibles at those like Dawkins. The biblical witness, plus UFOs,
plus the expanding field of advanced physics, have made it clear to
me that God has the power to break us free from our modern form of
Egyptian slavery—secular atheism, a culture with no godly hope. I
believe the angels of God will some day expose the lies about UFOs
spoken by our modern Pharaohs. Then we will have a new Exodus.
We
will be able to journey with God in faith again, through another
stretch of wilderness perhaps, but finally, Promised Land is up
ahead. The resurrection of Christ is our ultimate promise that after
wilderness comes Promised Land. But here in the wilderness,
justification by faith should be our response to the current vision
of the cloudy pillar which leads us to God’s future.
Dr.
Barry H. Downing
August
14, 2011
http://thestrongdelusion.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1574&Itemid=9 Part 1
http://thestrongdelusion.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1593&Itemid=9 Part 2
http://thestrongdelusion.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1608&Itemid=9 Part 3
http://thestrongdelusion.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1621&Itemid=9 Part 4
http://thestrongdelusion.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1628&Itemid=9 Part 5
http://thestrongdelusion.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1646&Itemid=9 Part 6
http://thestrongdelusion.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1659&Itemid=9 Part 7
http://thestrongdelusion.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1662&Itemid=9 Part 8
http://thestrongdelusion.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1665&Itemid=9 Part 9
http://thestrongdelusion.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1684&Itemid=9 Part 10
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