Mythology: Ancient Astronauts: An Outline: Part Three

Denying the reality of the gods (including God) by attributing to them only mythological (fictional) status is easy. Much harder is to try to accept their reality while stripping them of their supernatural (deity) status. That’s what I try to do here. If that however can’t be done, well the fairy tales involving the ancient Egyptian, Roman, Greek, etc. gods or the Biblical God still make for interesting bedtime stories.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Where Are They Now?

*One of the great unexplained mysteries in the mythology texts is where did the polytheistic ‘gods’ go to? They tended to be present and accounted for one day; out of sight and out of mind the next. I guess it is just generally assumed that as monotheism took to the fore, the ‘gods’ just became more and more irrelevant and were ultimately dismissed mentally, instead of being shown the door physically. Translated, this is the way the ‘gods’ end, not with a bang goodbye, but a whimpering fade-away.

*The eventual rebellion of humanity caused the ‘gods’ to retreat off-planet. This rebellion isn’t explained in any real detail but clearly something ultimately caused the ‘gods’ to ‘leave the building’ and leave us alone!

*Of course not only did the ‘gods’ go, so did their bestiary menagerie, dragons, etc; and those half-and-halves departed too. 

*Zeus (Jupiter), Odin, Re, and the rest of the motley gaggle of ‘gods’ just morphed into the one single ‘God’. However, scholarly impressions that’s what happened might not be necessarily so.

*However, at least one polytheistic ‘god’ departure is accounted for. The Aztec ‘god’ Quetzalcoatl ‘left the building’, but promising to return – ‘I’ll be back’ in “Terminator” language. Unfortunately, this, according to history, resulted in the downfall of the Aztec empire when the Aztecs viewed the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadors as the return of their ‘god’, Quetzalcoatl.

*One story I found interesting since I’ve often wondered where did the gods go, is that of Astraea, a goddess of justice, daughter of Jupiter (but not Mrs. Jupiter), who got entirely fed up with humans and their violent ways, and left for the heavens, but vowing (at a time never mentioned) to return to usher in a new Golden Age!

*According to Wikipedia, “She [Astraea] is always associated with the Greek Goddess of justice, Dike, who used to live on Earth but left, sickened by human greed. Astraea, the celestial virgin, was the last of the immortals to live with humans during the sagacious Bronze Age (the third age, after the Utopian Golden Age and defective Silver Age) in the old Greek religion’s five deteriorating Ages of Man. According to Ovid, Astraea abandoned the Earth at the end of the Iron Age. Fleeing from the new wickedness of humanity, she ascended to heaven to become the constellation Virgo; the scales of justice she carried became the nearby constellation Libra, reflected in her symbolic association with Justitia in Latin culture. According to legend, Astraea will one day come back to Earth, bringing with her the return of the utopian Golden Age of which she was the ambassador.”

*Some ‘gods’, including ‘God’ left for good, either returning home or seeking newer and greener pastures elsewhere in the cosmos.

The UFO Connection:

*’Chariots’ seem to be associated with the ‘gods’ because of the popularity of Erich von Daniken’s book title (when translated into English) “Chariots of the Gods”. But there’s no actual index entry for ‘chariots’ in that book. So, did the ‘gods’ ride in aerial chariots or equivalent? A quick scan of the mythological literature says “yes”! A partial list of the ‘gods’ or demigods (or demi goddesses) who rode in (UFO) ‘chariots’ (or equivalent) include Ravana (India); Zeus (Greece); Hercules (Greece); Mithra (Persia); Re or Ra (Egypt); Indra (India); Thor (Norse); Freyja (Norse); Helios (Greece); Apollo (Greece); Marduk (Babylon); Hades (Greece); Triptolemus (Greek); Cu Chulainn (Ireland); and Medea (Greece). 

*According to Wikipedia, “Chariots figure prominently in Indo-Iranian mythology. Chariots are also an important part of both Hindu and Persian mythology, with most of the gods in their pantheon portrayed as riding them.”

*What in ancient times were aerial ‘chariots’ pulled by various beasties with the ‘gods’ as passengers, are, in modern times, UFOs and extraterrestrials.

*Visoki Dečani is a major Serbian Orthodox Christian monastery located in Kosovo. Within are various murals. On the "The Crucifixion" fresco, painted in 1350, objects similar to UFOs can be found. They represent two comets that look like space ships, with two men inside of them, and are often cited by those interested in ‘ancient astronauts’. The images are certainly striking and again, Google Images can bring up the relevant pictures. You have to decide for yourself, but if not representing really real ‘ancient astronauts’, well then I’m pretty well stumped. 

*It was also believed that the ‘gods’ could appear to human beings in dreams and even carry them off to heaven or the underworld (shades of modern UFO abductions).

*The UFO abduction ‘greys’ seem to be interested in humans mainly with respect to areas or aspects surrounding reproduction and genetics. These are the same sorts of areas required for the ‘gods’ to have ‘created’ humans in the first place, so maybe their grand plan is still unfolding!

*The ‘gods’ who stayed behind, still monitor human activities in case we should ever prove a threat to them. Such monitoring is via our modern era UFOs.

*Speaking of UFOs, there are lots of potential UFO events in mythology, from the Star of Bethlehem to the Wheel of Ezekiel. One interesting, out of dozens of possible UFO events in the mythological literature, is this: “According to the Dogon of Mali, one of their eight ancestors rode down from heaven on a rainbow in a ship the size of a granary”. Now I didn’t invent that. It was within the National Geographic’s “Visual History of World Mythology”.   

*Another classic UFO event in a religious context was the so-called ‘miracle of the sun’ which occurred on 13 October 1917 near Fatima in Portugal. A miracle had been promised by the Virgin Mary as related by three young children to occur on that date. The gathered crowd, some 30,000 to 100,000 in number (the usual figure is given as roughly 70,000) saw some highly unusual luminous phenomena. According to Wikipedia, slightly paraphrased by me… “Witnesses spoke of the sun appearing to change colors and rotate like a wheel. Not everyone saw the same things, and witnesses gave widely varying descriptions of the ‘sun's dance’. The phenomenon is claimed to have been witnessed by most people in the crowd as well as people many miles away. However, no movement or other phenomenon of the sun was registered by scientists at the time. Not all witnesses reported seeing the sun ‘dance’. Some people only saw the radiant colors, and others, including some believers, saw nothing at all.”  Since scientists observed no actual movement of the sun; since it was an overcast day, it’s probable the witnesses to the sun dance and the changing in colors was a bona-fide UFO, making an appearance on schedule to bring credibility to the prophecy.

*Attempts are still being made towards manipulating the future evolution of humans via the artificial selection of humans subjected to various procedures via what’s termed UFO abductions. Perhaps the long-term goal is to make us less of a threat to them; perhaps an eventual biological merger – an alien/human hybrid (back to the mythological half-and-halves again?).

Fictional Analogy:

*We’re all somewhat familiar with the comic book, TV, and film adventures of Superman. Now just imagine that Superman was real and came to Earth in Mesopotamia 8000 years ago. What would the natives have called him – God perhaps?

Modern Historical Analogy:

*There’s no doubt that ‘cargo cults’ arose in the Pacific as a result of WWII.

*The Pacific island natives that are identified with those cargo cults did NOT invent that cargo cult mythology out of hard cloth.

*Translated, the natives really saw and interacted with real beings (Allied servicemen and women) who really did come down from the sky and really did have solid ‘cargo’ some of which astonished the natives seeing as how the two cultures were ‘light-years’ apart.

*That after the Allied servicemen and women left, the Pacific island natives began to worship them and the ‘cargo’ they brought and built ‘temples’ to them in hopes they would return with more ‘cargo’.

*Now, substitute Pacific island natives of WWII vintage with human beings six to eight thousand years ago; substitute Allied servicemen and women with advanced extraterrestrials… Well, you have a gods and goddesses mythology ready made at your fingertips. 

To be continued…