Page:Miller - Flying saucers, fact or fiction.pdf/9

 sor Nicholas Roerich, one who has spent many years in Central Asia, as asking a "learned lama" if it is true "that very soon new energies shall be given to humanity"?

The lama is quoted as having replied: "Innumerable are the great things predestined and prepared. Through the Holy Scriptures we know of the Teachings of the Blessed One about the inhabitants of the distant stars. From the same source we have heard of the flying steel bird, about iron serpents which devour space with fire and smoke."

Chinese Taoist records relate that Chen Jen — the " Perfect Man " — was "borne on the wings of the wind, seated on the clouds of Heaven, (and) he travels from one planet to another and fixes his habitation in the stars."

"Shen Ye (Divine Archer)," wrote Tomas, " is depicted in Chinese lore riding on a celestial bird . It is said that when he was carried into the center of an immense horizon ' he could not perceive the rotary mo tion of the sun . ' Our future spacemen will not be able to see that either ."

Bringing ourselves into biblical times, we may possibly find the greatest proof of written accounts of the UFO in the Holy Bible.

Ezekiel records a rather spectacular phenomenon in the first chapter of his book:

Verse 4 — "And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire unfolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire.

Verse 7 — ".. And they sparkled like the colour of burnished brass."

Verse 12 — "And they went straight forward ... and they turned not as they went."

Verse 13 — Their appearance was like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps ... and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning."

Here, the reference to like burning coals of fire could not help but to remind the author of a particularly interesting sighting report made by airline pilots 1st Officer William B. Nash and 2nd Officer William H. Fortenberry, both of whom witnessed eight UFO's traveling beneath them near Norfolk, Virginia, on July 14, 1952. (See Chapter VI.) The Nash-Fortenberry report was classified by the Air Technical Intelligence Center as "Conclusion: Unknown . " The paralleled description in this case was contained in a passage of their report, "They (the objects) had the fiery aspect of lot coals, but of much greater glow." Could this be another way of describing "burning coals of fire"?

But to continue with Ezekiel:

Verse 16 — "The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the colour of a beryl ... and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel."

The similarity between Ezekiel's description of "a wheel in the middle of a wheel" and current reports of unidentified flying objects is striking. One such simile was related by the Boston Traveler of May 5, 1952. On the prior 20th of March, the