UFOs Now and Then
By: Kathleen M. Andersen
reprinted from Opinion Magazine

Some people think that ufology in the United States began on June 24, 1947, when Kenneth Arnold, an experienced pilot from Boise Idaho reported 9 flying objects over Mt. Rainier in Washington State. Arnold was not a novice to the skies. He traveled that route on many occasions. But this clear, crisp, June day would change not only his life but create a question to everyone "where is our place in the universe." What happened before the "Big Bang" and the beginning of the universe and what will happen when it dies. The Mt. Rainier sighting was not the beginning. It was only the start of the public interest and media to the subject of where we fit into the grand scheme of things. Who are we?
As a writer and researcher I have spent the past 13 years studying the Arnold case. I have driven many logging roads, hiked numberous trails, flown over Mt. Rainer and interviewed countless people who knew about this case. Kenneth Arnold was a credible citizen, a sheriff’s deputy, a business owner, a father and husband who had nothing to gain with his story. In actuality, it became a bur he often resented in the years that followed his sighting.
The real question about what has appeared in the sky can be traced not to the Pacific Northwest but back in the rubble and decay of the ancient cities of Persepolis, and Nineveh where the oldest form of the written language, cuneiform tablets presented a written history of the earth. We knew nothing of the Sumerians, a mysterious group of people known for not only their material progress and technology but for their ideas, ideals, and values. Even today we have not resolved the question of where they actually came from and about their strange language. We do know that they "showed up" in the Mesopotamia Valley about 5,000 B.C.
They contrasted with the long haired and bearded Assyrians with their long heads, plump hooked noses and fleshy lips we see so often portrayed in archeology reliefs. The Sumerians in contrast were round headed, had prominent but thin noses, thin lips and shaven heads and chins.
They were clear-sighted, levelheaded, rarely confusing fact with fancy, wishwith fulfillment or mystery with mystification. They talked of "The Gods". Human form descending from "heaven" in their fiery chariots, lording over man at the time, making him the servant and instilling a sense of fear and destruction if man did not obey the rules of the their masters. The Sumerians, some believe were just the pre bearers, historians of a prehistoric culture before them simply known as "X".
They brought to us the wheel. They knew how to found cities, build temples, weave cloth and how to measure plots of land. They were keen astronomers, gave us "time", the division of the year into seasons, and recorded genealogy. They even brought with them many recipes, domesticated wheat, drank beer and revolutionized the art of forging metal. They wrote about the Gods, their chariots in the sky, their weapons of destruction, their loves and their wars. The Gods ruled the earth always pondering the difference of "fate" and "destiny". The sky or heavens belonged strictly to them. Their stories are the basis of the Bible. They brought us the tale of "Gilgamesh", a story that recounted the flood. I have questioned on many occasions, where is the line between the truth and myth. Is there truth in the myths of our past?
As time went on archeology showed us questionable artifacts that would not always match logic nor fit into a common path of evolution. Eric Von Daniken in his book "The Return of the Gods" wrote about "The Book of Patriarch" found in the abbey of the Sacred Berlitz. Every chapter in the book starts with, "My father told me….."
My father told me about a world of devastation, a world of plague, a world of floods.
One chapter in particular, Chapter 19, Verse 2
"In my time, there were birds 200 times larger than that bird."
Chapter 19, Verse 3
"In the stomachs of those birds sat men who feasted and drank"
Chapter 19, Verse 4
"Through small skylights they could view the earth below them"
Again, when did our quest for objects in the sky begin? If you look we’ve received hints and clues throughout the history of mankind. Ancient documents such as the bible tell us the stories of many flying objects and also of "angels". Heavenly bodies with wings, floating effortless inthe air. What did Ezekiel see and who was Elijah and why was he taken to "heaven"? Joseph Blumrich, former chief of systems for NASA and also a primary scientist in the Gemini Space program has done careful analysis of these stories and has agreed that the vision of Ezekiel was that of a UFO. Not just any UFO but a craft that could easily be a counterpart to today’s rocketry and space vehicles. If UFOs exist, are they a product of another world or planet or are they from "here", "something" that coexists with humans and perhaps occasionally appearing now and then within our eyesight. Intersections I call it. We know little about the etherical world or for that matter the complete picture of physics. My saying has always been, "until we invented the microscope we did not realize such a minute world was in existence with us, until we invented the telescope, we did not realize the vast wonder of life beyond this planet." Will we someday invent a device that will allow us to see a world that exist simultaneous to our existence?
We can now conclude that something happened in classical times that cannot be explained by historical theories. The winged disk is a frequent of ancient symbolism in art. Scenes often suggest flying objects, flying disks with beings emerging. In 400 BC, a blazing disc burned and destroyed an entire city in India. In 222 BC, Rome reported three moons that appeared at once.
9 BC brought 9 moons over the night skies in Rome. Japan in 1134 BC reported a large silver disk close to the ground. Moving on to 1200 England, a minister at the Newburg Abbey reported a silver, flat disk that hovered off the ground frightening the nearby residents.
In 1896, hundreds of residents in the San Francisco bay area saw a large elongated dark object carrying brilliant searchlights. Between January and March 1897 it vanished completely and suddenly emerged in staggering numbers in the Midwest of the United States. The object was similar to that reported years later in New Hampshire by Betty and Barney Hill.
These historical sightings were no different than what is reported today. "Ships" that have the capacity to maneuver quickly to the left, to the right, up or down or shoot off at a rapid pace as if shot off by a gun. Small beings were reported even back in these times.
UFO’s and history: Let’s go back to 1947 and Kenneth Arnold. His report was only the first in a wave that his the news , a brief story of a crashed saucer in New Mexico.. Jesse Marcel an Army officer made the front page with evidence that something "not of this world" was here. His son, Jesse Marcel Jr. a boy of 8 at the time and now living in Montana still remembers the day his father came home with a piece of material of the wreckage. Marcel Jr is a credible man, he is a physician, and he has a family and is hard working citizen. The story of what happened in his childhood is known as "Roswell".
Marcel Sr.’s story was quickly replaced with another press release from the government that what Marcel found was a case of "mistaken" identity and the rubble in New Mexico was merely a weather balloon. Was the press directed to cover up the truth? The Roswell story lay dormant until a nuclear physcist from Canada Stan Friedman opened the case in 1967 with his article "Flying Saucers are Real" and has spend his life telling this story to the world
By 1947, not only did Arnold’s sighting make the news but other reports from the Pacific Northwest made the national newspapers. St. Marie’s Idaho experienced 8 flying saucers landing on a mountaintop and witnessed in full view of 10 people. Nearby Spokane Washington then had 8 shaped objects the size of a house reportedly flying over the city at 1000 kilometers.
The reports continued into the 1950’s as UFO popularity hit the country. People were convinced they had contact with alien beings. The brotherhood, cigar shaped, disc shaped, glowing balls have always been a part of the skies. The government started a committee to investigate what is happened, the Condon Committee but reached no firm solution.
The question that has always remained is "are UFO's real or a product of our mind". As most witnesses will tell you they see hard and cold material. We have to wonder about the physics of reality. What is reality? Is it a product of our thought? Science will tell you that the most powerful force in the universe is "thought". Everything created has begun with a "thought".
As Dr. David Jacobs of Temple University and Dr. John Mack of Harvard in their continued research into the UFO phenomenon might imply, ufology might represent a part of a large picture of growth, the growth of mankind and earth is simply a nursery. We might be given these experiences, these mind altering "visions" in order for us to open our minds so that we can perceive a much bigger picture of how things work and to grow to become citizens of the universe not just this planet.
Robert Monroe, founder of the Monroe Institute, the fore runner of "remote viewing" wrote that a major feature in a meditative state has been a beam of light coming down from a cloud or from the sky. He had experienced a light or beam that came from the north about 30 degrees above the horizon. It left him powerless but he knew this beam was controlled by some intelligent force and that it was giving him the thought that he had some sort of "job" to perform here on earth. Monroe was not a ufologist, he was a man who dedicated his life to understanding how the brain functions.
He also went on to explain that this force or these beings were far beyond our own intellectual capacity and that the things we possess in our lives, love, hate, emotion was lacking in theirs. Could these visitations or visions be the basis for man’s religious beginnings?
We have a past with UFO’s and we will have a future. Where we are headed is anyone’s guess. Why they even exist in our life is a big question but in Kenneth Arnold’s last statements he simply said,
"It is my impression that everyone, no matter what part they play in our existence has a special purpose, a special task or a special reason for being what they are and for doing what they do. Perhaps it is a personal reason: -- merely to add to our own experience, our mental growth, our ability to become a functional part in a whole of society which may be far more vast than we dream."