Mythology: Ancient Astronauts: An Outline: Part Four

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…

Unresolved Questions:

*One ultra-super-major question arises – if we can’t crossbreed with even our closest living terrestrial evolutionary relations, and I know of no even short-term viable union between human and other primate gametes (i.e. – there are no gorilla-human or chimpanzee hybrids in even just the earliest of embryo stages) then how can we breed with the ‘gods’? We’re terrestrial; they’re extraterrestrial – a goldfish should have a higher probability of successful mating with a petunia since their both terrestrial species. Well, I can only conclude that the ‘gods’, in their artificial selection program to create humans for their own purposes (including sexual) had the ability in advanced genetic engineering techniques to make successful mating viable. Clearly from their point of view, human-‘god’ offspring would result in better overall stock than just human-human breeding. The potential proof of that pudding is that modern humans went from hunter-gathering on Earth to hunter-gathering on the Moon, not in millions of years or hundreds of thousands of years, but in less than ten thousand years. No other species on this planet has accomplished so much so fast. That’s in view of the fact that overall there’s apparently no real natural evolutionary pressure towards higher intelligence. Will a smarter cat catch more mice, or will a faster cat and/or one with sharper vision and better reflexes catch more mice?

*One interesting question is that are all the motley collection of ‘gods’ (including ‘God’) and associated ‘pets’ and the ‘half-and- halves’ all one genetically-related race (like all terrestrial life-forms are), or many? If one takes concepts like “Star Trek”, “Star Wars”, “Stargate”, etc. at face value, the galaxy is teeming with many races many at similar technological levels. Given the diversity already mentioned I’m inclined to go with the ‘gods’ (including ‘God’) representing more of a (in “Star Trek” terms) a Federation.

*This Federation of extraterrestrials is further postulated by yet another range of apparently mythological beings – the wee folk, or in general the fairy folk. Tales of elves, fairies, leprechauns, sprites, etc. are also quite commonplace throughout the world’s culture. Were it not for the UFO greys, I might dismiss them, but modern UFO occupants show a diversity akin to that of ‘ancient astronauts’ (the ‘gods’ and ‘God’ and ‘pets”) and presumed ‘ancient astronauts’ – the wee fairy folk. 

*Another question needs to be asked, could the polytheistic ‘gods’ and ‘ancient astronauts’ be two entirely different things? IMHO, the answer is “no”. If you remove the polytheistic ‘gods’ as being part and parcel of any ‘ancient astronaut’ consideration, and that’s including God from the ancient astronaut equation, then there’s no remaining suggestive evidence for ‘ancient astronauts’.

*Yet another reasonable question is that is the ‘ancient astronaut’ gods (including God) mythology one general overall story with many differing cultural variations in the telling, or are there many actual differing tales unique to differing cultures? That distinction probably remains to be worked out in detail yet; it’s probably a bit of both. Overall, because there are so many common (creation, paradise, sky being, etc.) themes between cultures, I’m inclined to endorse the former. However, many individual cultures probably have some myth or two or twenty that’s pretty much exclusive to them.

*Translated, with respect to similarities vs. differences, can one reasonably suggest that An or Enlil (Mesopotamia) = Zeus (Greek) = God (Christianity) = Jupiter (Roman) = Indra or Brahma (India) = Odin (Norse) = Fuxi (Chinese) = Quetzalcoatl (Aztec) = Viracocha (Inca), and so on and so on down the line, or are they all different ‘gods’ ruling different kingdoms? The same applies to ‘lesser’ gods – does Eros = Cupid or are they two separate beings? Is Ares (Greek) the same person as Mars (Roman)?

Rival Ideas:

*Highest Probability: That the gods (including God) really existed or still do exist in some cases, but are really flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials as outlined above.

*Next Highest Probability: That the gods (including God) never existed and never had any sort of physical reality. This might imply that advanced extraterrestrial civilizations with interstellar spaceflight capacities don’t exist; they exist but somehow missed our planet; or found it uninteresting and moved on.

*Lowest Probability: That the gods (including God) really existed and still exist as supernatural deities.

Conclusions:

*If technologically advanced extraterrestrials arrived on Planet Earth, say some six to eight thousand years ago, you could be pretty certain that…

*Humans would come up with legends of ‘sky gods’.

*Humans would interpret technology as magic or the supernatural.

*Humans would deify the beings as ‘gods’.

*The ‘gods’ would in reality be our modern concept of ‘ancient astronauts’.

*Lastly, regardless of the speculations, it’s not going to be 100% possible to totally separate out reality from mythology. Even if the ‘gods’ (including ‘God’) were flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials, many of the tales surrounding them will still have some mythological elements to them. Currently scholars will argue that its 0% reality; 100% mythology as far as the polytheistic ‘gods’ are concerned. Enthusiastic and fundamentalist-oriented monotheistic believers have 100% reality for ‘God’; 100% mythology for the ‘gods’ – what they think of ‘ancient astronauts’ probably varies from disbelief to high probability, as long as it doesn’t involve ‘God’. I put my money on 75% reality for the ‘gods’ + ‘God’ = ‘ancient astronauts’; 25% that the ‘gods’ and ‘God’ are total mythological.   

Summation:

Several hundreds of thousands of years ago, a technologically advanced race of alien beings landed on Planet Earth, perhaps with the idea of colonization. They selected the most highly suitable ‘intellects’ on the planet, the primates, in order to genetically engineer an intelligent enough species to basically be their subjects, if not downright slaves to do all the hard work. This was pretty much accomplished by about 8000 years ago, when said aliens began to educate the now intellectually sufficiently race of Homo sapiens. The transition from unsophisticated primitives to sophisticated urbanites had begun. The alien race became the gods (in modern terminology, ‘ancient astronauts’); human’s dealings with them our mythologies. Perhaps we were too much of a good thing, for ultimately they withdrew from our obvious presence, however still maintaining down through our modern era a presence via the phenomenon we call the UFO (and associated baggage).   

Glossary:

*Ancient Astronauts: The gods (including God) and associated beings (like angels, etc.) who came to Earth multi-thousands of years ago from a place or places unknown.

*Demigods: Offspring resulting from the mating between a god and/or goddess and a human.

*God: One of thousands of (falsely presumed) deities albeit in the top echelon and who briefly assumed Top Dog status before His demise.

*The gods: The combined officers and crew of a fleet of interstellar starships who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. The gods includes God within those ranks.

*Half and Halves: The apparent outward appearance of some mythological beings that reflects a part-human/part-animal hybrid. Some gods are also half-and-halves (i.e. – the ancient Egyptian gods tend to have animals heads).

*Jesus Christ: The Son of God, but now a dead ancient astronaut, executed by humans.

*Paradise: Planet Earth.

*Shape-Shifting: The apparent ability of the gods (or at least many of them) to alter their outside appearance when it suits their purpose(s).

*Starship Asgard: Captain Odin’s spaceship and command, which includes an accompanying battle-fleet including the Starship Valhalla.

*Starship Heaven: Captain God’s spaceship and the ship under His command.

Further readings on which much of this is based:

Allan, Tony; The Mythic Bestiary: The Illustrated Guide to the World’s Most Fantastical Creatures; Duncan Baird Publishers, London; 2008:

Bierlein, J.F.; Parallel Myths; Ballantine Books, New York; 1994:

Brown, Nathan Robert & Smith, Evans Lansing; The Complete Idiot’s Guide to World Mythology; Alpha Books/Penguin Group, New York; 2007:

Burgess, Dana L. & Osborn, Kevin; The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Classical Mythology; Second Edition; Alpha Books/Penguin Group, New York; 2004:

Crossley-Holland, Kevin; The Penguin Book of Norse Myths: Gods of the Vikings; Penguin Books, 1980:

Davidson, H.R. Ellis; Gods and Myths of Northern Europe; Penguin Books, London; 1964:

Ferguson, Diana; Hamlyn History: Myths Retold; Reed Consumer Books, London; 1998:

Hathaway, Nancy; The Friendly Guide to Mythology: A Mortal’s Companion to the Fantastical Realm of Gods, Goddesses, Monsters and Heroes; Penguin Books, New York; 2001:

Impelluso, Lucia; Myths: Tales of the Grek and Roman Gods; Abrams, New York; 2008:

Ions, Veronica; Hamlyn History: Mythology; Reed International Books, London; 1997:

Leeming, David; The Oxford Companion to World Mythology; Oxford University Press, Oxford; 2005:

National Geographic Society; Essential Visual History of World Mythology; National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C.; 2008:

Ryan, Donald P.; The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Ancient Egypt; Alpha Books, New York; 2002:

Tyldesley, Joyce; Myths and Legends of Ancient Egypt; Allan Lane/Penguin Books, London; 2010:

Various authors; The Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology; Chancellor Press, London; 1996:

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…