Free The Ancient Alien Question by Philip Coppens Page B

catastrophe. The angels told Lot to flee into the mountains, where he and his family would be safe. They were warned not to look back. Lot’s wife did anyway, and she was turned into a pillar of salt. The following day, Lot did look to the land where once two cities rose, and said, “Why, here thick smoke ascended from the land like the thick smoke of a kiln.” For Matest M. Agrest, a Russian-born ethnologist and mathematician with a PhD from the University of Leningrad, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was caused by a nuclear blast.
And what to make of this, from 2 Kings 2:11? “And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.” This is clearly a traumatic experience for Elisha, who remained behind and never saw Elijah again! Modern ufologists would label it a UFO abduction experience, in which a human being is taken by extraterrestrial beings; medieval folklorists would also call it an abduction, but into the faery realm. So who is the abductor? God? Faeries? Aliens?
The opening chapter of the Book of Ezekiel contains an enigmatic description of a close encounter between the prophet and “the Lord.”
4 And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the color of amber, out of the midst of the fire.
5 Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man.
6 And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings.
7 And their feet were straight feet; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf’s foot: and they sparkled like the color of burnished brass.
8 And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides; and they four had their faces and their wings.
9 Their wings were joined one to another; they turned not when they went; they went every one straight forward.
10 As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle.
11 Thus were their faces: and their wings were stretched upward; two wings of every one were joined one to another, and two covered their bodies.
12 And they went every one straight forward: whither the spirit was to go, they went; and they turned not when they went.
13 As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps: it went up and down among the living creatures; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning.
14 And the living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning.
15 Now as I beheld the living creatures, behold one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures, with his four faces.
16 The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the color of a beryl: and they four had one likeness: and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel.

The vision is one of seven Ezekiel had throughout a 22-year period, from about 593 to 571 BC . Ezekiel had been deported by King Nebuchadnezzar in circa 597 BC to Babylon when he was about 25 years old. He lived in the village of Tel-Abib on the River of Chebar in Chaldea and had been a Temple priest in Jerusalem. All of his visions occurred when Ezekiel was in exile, with his first vision occurring at the age of roughly 35.
What Ezekiel saw in his visions has remained a subject of intense speculation. Astrologers have claimed to understand the vision as a representation of the zodiac, which they see enforced by the mention of a wheel. The faces of a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle are interpreted as being linked with the fixed signs of the zodiac. But what to