4/5/14

Aztec Creation Story

Article 322: The Creation Story According to Aztec Culture

Author: hasan A. yahya

Hasan A. Yahya, Ph.Ds, a writer from the Unholy Land

How did the world begin?  The Aztec creation story has its own answer - or you could say, answers, to that question.  The five suns were the key to the rebirths of the world.

The story of creation in ancient Mexico and surrounding areas actually changed as time went by.  It was likely adapted by the Aztecs for their own political purposes, though even within the Aztec empire there were variations of the story.  But basic components of the story had evolved over centuries and centuries, so we do see similarities between the Aztec's stories and the beliefs of earlier cultures.

Rebirth: The story of creation, according to the Aztecs, is actually a story of birth, death, and rebirth.  When the world is destroyed, it's born again through the sacrifice of one of the gods, and so through the birth of a new sun.  So you'll often hear of the legend of the five suns - the five births of the world.  Five suns, and so five different worlds, have existed.  When the story is told, the order of the worlds is sometimes different, sometimes there are even less that five suns, but the general idea remains the same.

But it's not a story of endless cycles, as you may see in other cultures.  For the Aztecs, the universe did have an actual beginning.

In the beginning was the void.  It was at some ancient time in the Aztec creation story that the dual god, Ometecuhtli/Omecihuatl, created itself.  (Looking back, of course, the Aztecs believed that the many opposites that they saw in the world would have to somehow unite in the origin of the world.)  This god was good and bad, chaos and order, male and female.  Being male and female, it was able to have children.  It had four, which came to represent the four directions of north, south, east and west.  The gods were Huizilopochtli (south), Quetzalcoatl (east), Tezcatlipoca (west), and Xipe Totec (west).

The directions were very important to the Aztecs, since their great empire was believed to be at the very centre of the universe (remember what I mentioned about the Aztec creation story being political?).

These four gods began to create.  They created water, and other gods, and the sea monster Cipactli.  Cipactli was part fish and part crocodile, a massive creature as big as all things that now are.  This was a consuming monster, a jaw at every joint.  Cipactli was to become the source of the cosmos in a strange way.

As the gods continued to create, they had a problem - their creations would fall into the water and be eaten by the dreadful Cipactli.  So it was time for war - the four gods attacked the sea monster, pulling her in four directions.  She fought back, biting Tezcatlipoca and tearing off his foot.  But at last Cipactli was destroyed.

From this enormous creature the universe was created (in some traditions this happened between the last two suns).  All the 13 heavens stretch into her head.  The earth was created in the middle, and her tail reaches down to the underworld (Mictlán) (nine underworlds, to be exact).

You could say that in the Aztec creation story the world is on the back of this sea monster, floating in the water of space (reminiscent of the Iroquois belief that the world rests on the back of a turtle).

The first sun - Jaguar Sun (Nahui Ocelotl): To complete the world, the great source of energy had to be created - the sun.  This is the key to the cycles in the Aztec creation story.  But the sun is so powerful, it can't just be created.  It can only come into being through the sacrifice of a god.  The god chosen was Tezcatlipoca.

Tezcatlipoca only managed to become half a sun, however, making this first creation incomplete.  During the first age, the gods created giants from ashes, and gave them acorns to eat.

A fight began, however, between Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca.  In the end, the sun was knocked from the sky, and in anger Tezcatlipoca sent jaguars to destroy the giants.

The second sun - Wind Sun (Nahui Ehecatl): At this point Quetzalcoatl took over for his brother as the sun.  Humans were created as they are now (normal size).  They lived on piñon nuts, and for a while things were fine.  But the people became corrupt, and perhaps out of revenge Tezcatlipoca turned them into monkeys.  Furious, Quetzalcoatl sent a hurricane to blow the monkeys away.

The third sun - Rain Sun (Nahui Quiahuitl): Tlaloc was one of the early creations of the gods, the god of rain and water.  He became the next sun.  But his personal problems became his downfall.  Once again, Tezcatlipoca was the instigator.  Tezcatlipoca stole Tlaloc's wife (Xochiquetzal), and Tlaloc was grief-stricken.  He shone as the sun but refused to send rain, in spite of the pleas of the people.  Drought swept the earth, and finally in a rage Tlaloc made it rain fire, burning away this version of the world.  (Another version attributes the destruction of this world directly to the continuing battle between Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl).

The fourth sun - Water Sun (Nahui Atl): The Aztec creation story continues...  This time the gods selected Tlaloc's sister to be the sun.  She was Calchiuhtlicue.  But filled with jealousy, Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl struck down the sun.  As she fell, the sky opened up and water flooded the earth.  All things were destroyed again.

In the darkness between the suns, Quetzalcoatl descended into the underworld to bring up the bones of the dead.  They would be used to bring to life the people who are now here.  (That's a whole other story!)

The fifth sun - Earthquake Sun: The gods gathered to bring another sun into being.  This is when the Aztec creation story really gets around to explaining what the world is today.

The proud god Tecuciztecatl offered himself, but the other gods preferred the humble Nanahuatzin.  A great fire was built, but Tecuciztecatl was too afraid at the last minute to jump in.  Nanahuatzin did jump.  Filled with jealousy, Tecuciztecatl jumped after, followed by a brave eagle and jaguar.

Two suns began to rise in the east.  It was too bright - the gods threw a rabbit into the face of Tecuciztecatl to dim the light, and he became the moon.

But Nanahuatzin was weak.  He was motionless, so the other gods gave their blood to give him the energy to rush across the sky.

This is the world in which we now live.  The Aztecs believed its end would come in massive earthquakes.

Here's something else interesting about the Aztec creation story.  The identity of the final sun isn't actually as simple as it may seem.  (1167 words) www.askdryahya.com

___________________________________

Sources: University of Texas page for a quick summary of the Aztec Creation Story.

http://www.aztec-history.com/aztec-creation-story.html

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/culture-articles/article-322-the-creation-story-according-to-aztec-culture-3941997.html

About the Author

Professor, Dr. Hasan A. Yahya is an Arab American writer, scholar, and professor of Sociology lives in the United States of America,  originally from Palestine. He graduated from Michigan State University with  2 Ph.d degrees. He published 65 books plus (45 Arabic and 20 English), and 300 plus articles on sociology, religion, psychology, politics, poetry, and short stories. Philosophically, his writings concern logic, justice and human rights worldwide. Dr. Yahya is the author of Crescentologism: The Moon Theory,  and  Islam Finds its Way, on Amazon. He's an expert on Race Relations, Arab and Islamic cultures, he is also, interested in religion, world affairs and  global strategic planning for justice and human rights. www.dryahyatv.com

3/6/14

Ancient Astronauts Discussion

Ancient Astronauts: An Extraterrestrial Fairy Tale

Author: John Prytz

Before embarking on my little fairy tale, I note that for such taken-for-granted imaginary beings, the polytheistic gods and their relationships and adventures are spelled out in exquisite detail. I mean this was way before multi-season TV shows and volumes of related paperback novels for mass consumption. I mean we know an awful lot about Captain Kirk and Sherlock Holmes and Harry Potter. But were there writers of polytheistic fiction back then who knew perfectly well they were fabricating the lives and times of the gods for consumption by and entertainment for the great unwashed and kept quiet about their literary fictions? Probably not! I don't think the gods were literary characters invented out of whole cloth. Dare say a non-fictional biography of (fill in the blank - pick a god, any god) would be far more detailed than a similar tome devoted to God or Jesus Christ (J.C.).

The second point from the outset is that IMHO the polytheistic gods aren't gods but ‘gods'. We think of them as the mythological gods but they weren't actual gods but real alien beings. Now let's get on with the tale.

1) Once upon a time, a long time ago, a group of boldly going extraterrestrials discovered Planet Earth and took dominion over it, like humans take dominion over national parks and reserves, but starting at a time before humans.

Discussion: If you assume advanced extraterrestrial civilizations exist; If you assume that some advanced civilizations arose way, way, way before human civilization did; if you assume that they (or some of them) will boldly go and explore their galaxy; if you assume that there are no laws of physics that prevent subluminal space travel (there aren't); and if you go along with calculations that suggest that the time it takes to explore every nook and cranny of the galaxy is but a short fraction of the age of the galaxy; if you accept that Planet Earth isn't cloaked/invisible; then it's logical that one of more such extraterrestrial civilizations have noted and logged Planet Earth in their galactic databanks, and because Earth is such a bio-friendly place, took a liking to the place, perhaps as a nice vacation spot for R&R.

There are many references in creation times and myths to the concept of paradise, perhaps ultimately nice vacation spots for the extraterrestrials, who we've come to identify with as the ‘gods'. . For example, the ancient Sumerians had this paradise called Dilmun, but it was a resort of, and for, the ‘gods', not for humans. Dilmun was something like Eden, though who's to say Eden didn't serve as ‘God's' paradise retreat – a summer vacation home away from His day-to-day abode in heaven? In this case, ‘heaven' is God's home base, or in the case of the Norse ‘gods', Asgard is their heaven equivalent, or perhaps spaceship. In Star Trek terms, ‘heaven' or Asgard is the NCC 1701 Enterprise. So perhaps we have Starship Heaven and Starship Asgard!

One could argue that you'd need a very long lifespan to get subluminally from there to here. While there are other ways around that chestnut, recall that the ‘gods' are immortal, or as close to it (in the human mind at least) as makes no odds. Whether it's natural or technologically enhanced immortality is of no consequence in this case.

2) Now I've no idea where they came from except from somewhere out there. Different myths and legends point to different points of origin, all of which could well be the case.

Discussion: In the case of the ancient Greek ‘gods', there's some association with the stars, or constellations – the Pleiades and Orion in particular. The Greek Andromeda is also associated with a constellation of stars. Now a constellation is just a random grouping of stars usually not in close association with each other, but when viewed from Earth against a ‘flat' blackboard or background of space, tend to form a sort of picture and our minds are very good at finding patterns and connecting the dots when presented with random configurations. The Big Dipper and the Southern Cross are two well known examples. Of course the ancients, our remote ancestors, didn't know that. It was probably just as logical to associate a ‘god' or ‘gods' with a constellation as with one specific star (which we of course would do today). It's sufficient for the sake of this argument that there is an association between the ‘gods' (or at least some ‘gods') and outer space. It seems as if nearly every culture's ‘gods' has some affinity with various stars, constellations, etc. 

3) In the time of humans, sometime later on down the line, these extraterrestrials would become, in the minds of the humans, the ‘gods'. But the so-called ‘gods' (including ‘God') were never real supernatural deities, but ‘flesh-and-blood' extraterrestrials with advanced technology and powers.

Discussion: How would our ancient ancestors, with no knowledge of physics and chemistry and relatively little of what we'd call modern day astronomy, and who had only the rudiments of mechanical and construction engineering (though sufficient to build the pyramids, etc.) but certainly nothing in the way of being knowledgeable of electrical or nuclear engineering or abilities in same, view sky beings who had all this sort of advanced technology and powers. As equals? No, probably just as deities or ‘gods'.

What's Zeus and Thor noted for? Lightning or thunderbolts, which is what ancient humans might have interpreted laser and particle bean weapons as, sort of like that envisioned as part of America's Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) – the ‘Star Wars' program. ‘God's' been known to toss around a thunderbolt or two as well. That's an example of advanced technology or powers.

4) The ‘gods' reign over their dominion of mankind wasn't always benign and just.

Discussion: Well any readers of the Bible are well aware that ‘God' has a big temper and a short fuse. Our so called ‘loving God' certainly has directly caused massive death and destruction, so much so that I'd rather find my ‘loving' in the arms of someone else. The ‘gods' on the other hand are very loving, but often treat us mortals as their sexual playthings. Zeus apparently fathered a considerable proportion of the ancient Greek populus via mortal women and not via Mrs. Zeus – Perseus for one; Herakles (Hercules) was another; ditto Helen of Troy, the list goes on and on. And Zeus wasn't the only randy ‘god'. That the ‘gods' were sex machines, well that has filtered down to us even via such means as Richard Wagner's four-part mega-opera "Der Ring Des Nibelungen". In the second instalment, "Die Walkure", we find the head god Wotan (Odin in Norse mythology) has fathered twins via a mortal woman, Siegmund and Sieglinde (who would in turn have a role in the hay and produce the flawed hero, Siegfried). Needless to say, the ‘gods' hardly offer up any alimony or child support!

5) They, the extraterrestrials, made their presence felt at the dawn of mankind's emergence; but hence, because there were so many of them, polytheism became the religious order of the day as far as the various human cultures were concerned. The humans obviously mistook the advanced extraterrestrials for supernatural deities, worshiping what they thought were the ‘gods', but who in reality were at best pseudo-gods.

Discussion: One criticism of von Daniken's (and others) ‘ancient astronauts' was the ‘evidence' in their use of their advanced technologies in building, or assisting in the building of the ancient Egyptian or Mesoamerican pyramid and other monumental constructions or well, monuments. Critics suggest that it insults the reasoning, resourcefulness, ingenuity, stubbornness, imagination, intelligence and other capabilities of our remote ancestors. If that's the case, and I agree it is, then it's equally insulting to suggest that they couldn't distinguish fact from fiction and invented imaginary beings (their ‘gods') out of whole fictional cloth as opposed to presenting their ‘gods' as real entities. They certainly believed their ‘gods' were really real, so let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they were indeed really real.

So what evidence do I offer up that the ‘gods' were really real, albeit actual flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials. Well, there's the consistency of the tales within each culture and often parallel consistencies between ancient societies and their mythologies. For example, parallel ideas central to a ‘paradise' or to ‘sky beings' or to ‘wars fought in heaven'. That's very unlike the Bible which contradicts itself no end – like at nearly every opportunity. I mean, ‘turn the other cheek' vs. ‘an eye for an eye'; ‘thou shall not kill' but please execute homosexuals. Then there are the images of the ‘gods' as wall paintings or rock carvings or as statutes, frescos, etc. So what? Well, these images are contemporary with the reign of the ‘gods; it's as if the ‘gods' sat for their portraits. The ‘gods' weren't camera shy! If the ‘gods' didn't exist, why would the ancient Greeks go to so much trouble as to construct the massive Statue of Zeus at Olympia which occupied the whole width of the aisle of the temple that was built to house it, and was 12 meters (40 feet) tall; the Colossus of Rhodes, a giant statue of the Greek god Helios, god of the sun, some 35 meters (110 ft) tall; or the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus which was dedicated to the Greek goddess Artemis and took 120 years to build. Oh, all of these are listed as being three of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. That's big league territory. Sorry, not one of the Seven Ancient Wonders was devoted to ‘God'.

Then there is the nature of some of those images. I mean if you look at, or read a description of the Egyptian god Seth (Set), it just screams out ‘I'm an extraterrestrial'.

6) Therefore, the polytheistic pseudo ‘gods' (or at least some, many or most of them) exist. Later on down the track, what became the monotheistic ‘God', actually pseudo-God also existed. However, in the beginning, pseudo-God was just one of the pseudo-gods.

Discussion: If you assume the ‘gods' exist, you may as well assume ‘God' exists, but it's also logical to lump them all together. On the other hand, if ‘God' exists, why are there no images of ‘God' from say 4000 years ago (to the best of my knowledge anyway)? There are no paintings; no frescos; no statues; no images at all. Perhaps that's suggestive evidence that there is no ‘God', or perhaps ‘God' was just ‘camera' shy!

7) Now I assume here that the ‘gods' and ‘God' are all related, but like humans, aren't always one big happy family. In fact, if there's any one word that describes the family of the ‘gods', its "dysfunctional"!

Discussion: Take the ancient Egyptian ‘god' Seth (or Set – whose appearance just screams out something extraterrestrial), who had quite a domestic spat with fellow ‘gods' Osiris, Isis and Horus. Poor Osiris was murdered in fact by Seth. That's dysfunctional!

Speaking of dysfunctional, there are lots of references in mythology to wars fought in heaven between the ‘gods' (battles in outer space – a sort of ‘Star Wars' perhaps?). There's no doubt the ‘gods' do fight among themselves for dominance. For example, the Olympian ‘gods' (Zeus, Hades, Poseidon, etc.) kicked out the Titans to achieve top ranking status as the Greek ‘gods'. Then there's the Norse apocalypse of Ragnarok – more ‘gods' behaving badly. Finally, there's that heavenly battle royal between ‘God' and company, vs. ‘Satan' and company. [See Section 9]

8) Even further on down the track, was there was some sort of a falling out between ‘God' (and His followers) and the other ‘gods' for control over humanity? If so, ‘God' and hangers-on win – monotheism comes to the fore.

Discussion: Well there's no disputing that once upon a time, polytheism ruled the world; today monotheism tends to hold sway. Translated, in those ancient polytheistic times the ‘gods' ruled, but in later times, our beloved monotheistic ‘God' ruled heaven and Earth. If ‘God' were once just one of the boys, just one of the ‘gods' then there must have been some sort of falling out, even if there's no documentation to that effect (that I'm aware of). Of course a non-existent ‘God' might have won the hearts and minds of humanity by default. The supporters of monotheism had a good PR operation going!

9) However, ‘God' (assuming His reality) and His minions have a falling out in turn – a house divided against itself. This is where ‘Satan' and followers tell ‘God' and followers to take a long walk off a short pier. Ultimately, ‘God' proves to have ‘the force' be with Him.

Discussion: Well there's no disputing the Biblical (tall) tales that ‘document' some sort of domestic disagreement between ‘God' and some sort of entity we call today ‘Satan'. If you believe those Biblical tall tales, the end result of that domestic dispute, Armageddon, isn't in fact in dispute. There's a decided element here of "This ain't over till it's over; this ain't finished yet; I'll be back"! However, if you believe the Bible and the Book of Revelation, then you realise that Armageddon should have taken place over 1900 plus years ago, at least according to J.C. He said that the final battle between good (‘God') and evil (‘Satan') – I bet he was biased in deciding who was what – would take place within a generation or two of his utterances. So, if it took place way back then it took place off planet and out of human sight – a real life ‘Star Wars'. But if it hasn't happened yet, assuming ‘God' and ‘Satan' are really real ET's, then it probably isn't every likely to. I mean you can only hold off a grudge match so long. Maybe they've kissed and made up, or…    

10) But, a now much weakened ‘God' and company are ripe for getting their comeuppance and it was so. They then get overturned and banished by the ‘gods', which is why there's no evidence for any Godly presence over the past several millenniums. ‘God' has left the building! ‘God' has been tarred and feathered and exiled from Dodge City.

Discussion: There have been no ‘acts of God' documented over the past several thousand years – no burning bushes, no universal floods, no pillars of salt.  So either there is no ‘God', or ‘God' is afraid to show His face or His presence, or ‘God' has tucked tail between legs and sought fame and fortune elsewhere - if the latter, who else had the power to exile ‘God' but the ‘gods'? 

11) But are the ‘gods' still around? There's been equally and relatively little evidence for them too over the past several millenniums. Still, I propose they're out there at a distance, patiently observing, ever observing.

Discussion: It's unlikely that if the ‘gods' are really boldly going extraterrestrials, and since they have expended so much time, effort and energy in exploring this strange new world and new civilization (Earth and Earthlings) they would totally abandon their investment, their vacation R&R spot, their paradise, their home away from home. On the other hand, it's one thing to hold sway over relative primitives, quite another to try to hold sway over a rapidly advancing civilization, one which by leaps and bounds begins to achieve their level of thunderbolt and related technologies.  

12) But what happens when humans get advanced enough technologically to begin to, at least in principle, have the potential to challenge the ‘gods' on their own turf? That is, we humans can begin to toss around a thunderbolt or two of our own.

Discussion: There's no doubt that we've come a technological long way baby over the past 6000 or so years; even in the past 600 years, far less the past 60 years which has seen humans go from a relative state of being at the mercy of Planet Earth, to Planet Earth being at the mercy of humans. Even if the ‘gods' decide to concede their dominion over Planet Earth to the natives, they can not be confident that the tide won't turn and that we humans, we natives, might ultimately seek dominion over the ‘gods'. So, if we're becoming an increasing potential threat to the ‘gods', why don't they just wipe us out while the wiping out is good. Well, firstly, we're just ‘potential', not actual. Secondly, they may have some sort of Prime Directive against genocide. The ‘gods' aren't totally amoral beings. Thirdly, they could just leave, leaving no trace as to where they went. Sure, thousands of years hence, when we boldly go, then it might be the case that they can't hide from us, but by then perhaps we too will have a Prime Directive in place. But in the meantime…

13) Enter the modern UFO era, with the ‘gods' moving in to keep far closer tabs on us and their dominion, which they've probably never relinquished but are worried that it will be taken away from them, even by force. Our thunderbolts are now, or soon will be, bigger and better that their thunderbolts.  

Discussion: Well, there's no denying that the modern UFO era dawned at the very time our nuclear thunderbolts came to the fore of our offensive capabilities. We've only increased the technological sophistication of our thunderbolts since.

The question is, will we all live happy ever after?

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/new-age-articles/ancient-astronauts-an-extraterrestrial-fairy-tale-4251005.html

About the Author

Science librarian; retired.

2/18/14

UFO Cover-Ups

UFO Censorship and Cover-ups

Author: John Prytz

As the recent and ongoing WikiLeaks saga has demonstrated, as if any demonstration were really needed given such well known historical instances like ‘Watergate' or ‘the Pentagon Papers', governments and government officials, sometimes a whole succession of governments and government officials, not only can, but do try to keep secrets from the citizens and taxpayers that ultimately elected those governments and those officials and paid for all those activities now kept secret. And what leaks is probably the tip of the iceberg. There are probably more secrets than declassified or leaked secrets!

Now of course there are some things that need to be kept secret – at least for a time – things central to national defence and security are obvious examples. But some as yet undisclosed secrets of that nature have probably exceeded their usefulness use-by date, but it's too much effort to release now – who, despite some stuffy academic historians of no consequence cares what was what from years gone by anyway? – and anyway who wants to take unwanted and unnecessary responsibility declassifying stuff? 

But, way too many secrets are secret just because they are, if made public, reveal an embarrassing skeleton in the closet or would reveal a black sheep in the ‘family' or it's just a plain diplomatic ‘oops'. I'm sure even ordinary families can relate to those sorts of issues. Once you dig yourself a non-disclosure hole, it's not always easy to climb out again, but if you're comfortable in your self-dug hole, why bother trying?

So, on to the issue of UFOs – are UFOs an ever ongoing necessary thing to censure; a classified topic that passed its use-by date a long time ago; or just one of those ‘black sheep' skeletons-in-the-closet? 

I received an email from a SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) scientist along the line that cover-ups are the usual excuse for the claim there's no obvious public evidence for the UFO ETH (ExtraTerrestrial Hypothesis), and that's an argument from ignorance, so it has no force.  It's also implausible that every government in the world is participating in a cover-up. I'm guessing here, but I'd wager that scientist hasn't ever been in the military (I have) or worked for any defence, security or diplomatic related agencies.

Well, any time the powers-that-be classify, conceal, deny, cover-up things, you're in the dark so obviously any debate or argument to the contrary by you is an argument or debate from your relative ignorance because you don't have all of the facts.

1) Disclosures vs. Cover-Ups: There is intense interest in the question of whether or not we are alone in the cosmos. It has been one of the biggest philosophical, cum scientific questions ever. To date, all discussions revolving around the existence of life on other worlds, be it layman, academic, philosophical, political, etc. have remained if not idle speculation, at least educated speculation. The Big Question comes about when life on other worlds is actually discovered. What do those in the know tell those not in the know? To cover-up, or not to cover-up, that is the question.

#Microbial Life on Mars: Viking and/or the Mars Rock (ALH84001): No Cover-up. In fact, the powers that be, scientific and governmental, have been very open about presenting analysis from, for example, the 1976 Viking space probes that landed on the surface of Mars and initially give positives results for current microbial life on the Red Planet. Ditto the possible discovery of fossil microbes in a Martian meteorite than landed in the Antarctic – with the rather dull name of ALH84001. The jury may be still out on Viking and ALH84001, but it was all open and aboveboard. Maybe that's because Martian microbes, past fossil, or alive in the present, however interesting, aren't going to cause any revolutions, apart from scientific ones off course.

#ETI at A Distance: SETI: No Cover-up. Since positive SETI results can be verified across international boundaries, no one country can control disclosure that a radio (or optical or IR signal – leakage of beacon) has been detected. SETI scientists have various protocols in place regarding the announcement of discovering the existence of an ETI civilization that's somewhere ‘out there', millions if not trillions of miles away. It will be up to the scientists concerned to make the announcement. Replying however, will probably have to take in political realities and will be up to the United Nations.

#ETI Here but not Now: Ancient Astronauts: No Cover-up. The ‘Face on Mars', spires photographed by the Lunar Orbiter spacecraft on the surface of the Moon, the avalanche of tomes and documentaries on ‘ancient astronauts', while interesting, probably didn't alter any voting patterns, effect the stock market, or increase the price of your shopping. Even if some prominent scholar proved the concept of ‘ancient astronauts' to the satisfaction of, and with the full backing of, the entire academic community and scholarly society in general, it wouldn't cause any change, even minor, in the day-to-day affairs of the world and her citizens. The powers-that-be would have little, if even that, control over the pronouncements of private academics in any event, at least in most countries.

#ETI Here and Now: UFOs: Cover-up. If alien beings land on the White House lawn with a traditional ‘take me to your leader' spiel, or start zapping us with photon torpedoes, or if they're forced to land, or crash-land, in a densely populated area where there are lots of witnesses and cameras, then the question of a cover-up, the need for the powers-that-be to reveal all, is moot and of only academic interest. Apart from that scenario, there is a lot of circumstantial evidence that some nations and their governments have actual physical evidence, hence knowledge of the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence(s) on Earth in the here and now. Roswell comes to mind as an obvious example. Why would a UFO cover-up exist? And why wouldn't a UFO cover-up ever be negated at a later date? Okay, let's assume that you are The Big Cheese, the one who knows that UFOs are here and are spacecraft from an advanced extraterrestrial civilization. It's in your power to reveal or censor that information vis-à-vis the rest of the world. What would you do?

Perhaps incoming administrations aren't ever briefed or told. The old ‘if they don't ask, don't tell', what they don't know won't ever come back to haunt them philosophy, also translated as the less in the loop, the better, could be one reason.

Perhaps everyone in the know, including incoming administrations who are briefed and who have the power to show-and-tell and reveal all, have been convinced of the need for ongoing secrecy (i.e. a cover-up). What might such reasons be?  

Well, it's hard to say you're sorry for the past actions of others, and it's hard to own up to having done something that has caused others injustice, and it's hard to admit to lying and deceiving your citizens and doing things that just appear outright wrong. Why spoil your lilywhite image – and re-election chances – or your nation's and predecessor's reputation.

Well, no government is going to share that sort of knowledge with any other nation, for obvious national security and military advantage reasons. Thus, you don't tell anyone, be they your allies or your citizens. As time goes by, it becomes even harder to admit to having done this.

No government is going to admit to its citizens (and thus to the rest of the world) that it has no control over its airspace and territory. They may know they don't, but you're not ever going to hear them broadcast that fact.

Any government admitting to its populace and the rest of the world that an advanced ETI civilization is in close proximity to ours with unknown motives is adding one hell of a knuckleball into a game situation that's already close to the brink. There's enough major political and economic uncertainty and trauma in the world without introducing another loose cannon such as extraterrestrials-in-our-backyard if this can be avoided.

2) The Official UFO Cover-Up: It might be somewhat possible for one country's government to keep one or a few UFO incidents (crashes, etc.) that by chance fell into their laps first under wraps and hence keep their citizens in the dark as to the reality of ETI. And the motive, as hinted above, is with respect to the utilization of acquired alien technology. However, in the broader context, it staggers the imagination to suggest or believe that every government, and subsequent change of government, elected or otherwise, including every knowledgeable government official over 60 years, in every country in the world, would or could conspire collectively to do the same. The odds that every nation would pursue that same policy independently are so greatly against as to also stretch credibility.

Since it all boils down to individuals. Over the years one would have to believe that thousands to tens of thousands of those in-the-know wouldn't blow the biggest story of the millennium, especially when on their death beds via death-bed confessions.  If just one current (or ex) prime minister/president/premier/king, etc. in just one country changed sides and spilled the beans…

In any event, no individual, no government, no country has any control over that ETI may, or may not, do. If Roswell had been Central Park in New York City in broad daylight, who could cover it up? If UFOs choose to hover over major inhabited locations, ala "Independence Day", what official, government or country could prevent their citizens from knowing about it?

There are several solutions to the cover-up scenario. Firstly, there are no ETI; therefore no cover-ups were ever necessary. Secondly, ETI might be here, but there have been no UFO incidents, no acquired alien technology that have required the perceived need for an official cover-up. Thirdly, there have been UFO incidents, but so few and far between that a long term cover-up was possible. Lastly, there is a global conspiracy policy, a co-operation carried out by every nation in the world since day one to prevent the great unwashed from learning about the existence of ETI (for whatever reason – prevent panic, etc.), and there have been no deviations from that policy ever and no rouge individuals bucking the system for fame or fortune or because it was the right thing to do.

While one of the first two alternatives seems most probable, I think there is enough evidence to make the third alternative the most credible. Certainly the last one is so far out in left field that in fact it's right out of the ball park.

Regarding the question of censorship and cover-ups over things alien in nature, as noted above, things like Martian microbes are too inconsequential to try to hide; ‘ancient astronauts' are too old for a government to worry about; SETI aliens (if SETI succeeds) are too far away to worry about; but UFOs are a different kettle of fish. The possibility that highly advanced aliens with unknown motives might be present here and now – well can you imagine any government admitting to the great unwashed that they really have no control over their airspace! Any government that had, by accident, obtained alien technology would certainly not share that information with anyone, including allies, and thus wouldn't admit same to their citizens.  Of course not all countries and their respective governments may even have the appropriate data which to cover-up. You can't hide what you don't know about in the first place.  

3) Freedom of Information (FOI): Why is it, if UFOs are total pseudoscience nonsense, that so many individuals have had to resort to Freedom of Information Act actions (in the United States in particular) in order to get official UFO related government documents, many of which, if released, have large portions and chunks blacked out? Further, not all FOI requests succeed. Why indeed if UFOs are just ‘silly season' fodder claimed by the sceptics? 

4) Case History: Area 51, etc: If a government, any government of any country, had possession of alien technology, say the remains of a crashed flying saucer, there is little doubt that the powers-that-be would try to 1) figure it all out and b) keep it secret from other foreign powers-that-be. That would be the case as well if say the Americans were to obtain terrestrial technology with military applications from captured Russian or Chinese or for that matter even Australian hardware. Thus, it would come as no real surprise that such a government would have one or more top secret sites where such back engineering would be done, and secrets kept. However, even if no government had any alien technology, they still would have top secret sites for producing, testing, and etc. terrestrial technology vital to national security. Thus, the existence of Area 51 (also known as Dreamland for some reason) does not of necessity prove that the United States (in this example) has alien technology in its possession. But, if you accept Roswell (and/or other tales of captured alien technology), then Area 51 (or akin) follows of necessity.

Take Area 51 (Groom Lake, Nevada). Even assuming that the location has bugger-all to do with UFOs doesn't negate secrecy going on. There's no denying the place exists. That's on the public record. Satellite and ground photographs exist. There's no getting around the fact that signs are posted around the site that there will be ‘no trespassing' and that if you do, ‘use of deadly force is authorised' to keep you out. [That includes SETI scientists!] That too is on the public record, filmed and documented. Translated, there are things going on at Area 51 the American government doesn't want anyone to know about. Pine Gap in Central Australia is another such location. Many more exist throughout the world. You want cover-ups, censorship and related – call it what you will. Well, something that immediately comes to mind was the Manhattan Project. Then there's that U-2 spy plane (and a whole range of stealth military aircraft that remained top secret while in development). Likewise, the Project Mogul package designed to detect foreign nuclear weapons testing, launched to high altitudes by balloon, as beloved as an explanation for Roswell. (I'm sure Project Mogul existed, whether it really explains Roswell is quite another matter.)

Nobody can deny that the military has levels of classified security ratings ranging from confidential through to secret and top secret. Anyone suggesting that the Americans (or British, Australians, Chinese, Russians, etc.) don't have skeletons in their respective closets are in serious denial or in delusion mode. A UFO case might even be classified not so much because it's a UFO, but because the surveillance equipment, type of radar or spy satellite, etc. might be classified.

The number of classified confidential / secret / top secret projects worldwide must number in the tens of thousands. The total number of classified confidential / secret / top secret documents (plus photos and films and related) must be in the millions, probably multi-millions if not more. The number of multi-decades old classified projects and documents are unknown, but some surely exist. Something old by itself doesn't equal declassified. And it's not just the military – all sorts of government civilian and diplomatic projects and decisions remain under wraps for a whole variety of reasons.

There's no doubt in my mind that UFOs could be one of hundreds to thousands or more topics somewhat too-hot-to-handle and pretty much under classified wraps. That's a conclusion that's fairly obvious to me when it came to light, after much denial by the CIA, but pressured via Freedom-of-Information requests, that the CIA had some quite considerable interest in UFOs. Alas, FOI not withstanding, a vast percentage of the text from those released documents are blacked out. And that too is on the public record.

When it comes down to all things classified (a fancy word for cover-up because classified things are covered-up and tucked away out of sight) there is a phrase called ‘need to know'. If you don't need to know, and you want to, that's a cover-up as far as you're concerned. Now Australia had a very long serving Prime Minister (John Howard) who was finally defeated in a 2007 general election, and left politics. I'm sure he knows many secrets – military and diplomatic – from his years in the top job. But, like all good citizens, he's not telling tales out of class. Ditto all American ex-presidents and Commonwealth PM's and all other manner of retired statesmen.

There's also the aspect or concept of ‘the superiority complex'. The ‘I know something that you don't know' – ha, ha, ha – that helps feed our egos. Maybe someone does have THE knowledge and THE proof positive of what UFOs are, but why should they share it with you hence share the Nobel Prize? Or, maybe they are just internally satisfied that they alone are blessed with THE answer and that's the be-all-and-end-all of the matter.

5) Case History: Washington, D.C. 1952:  In July 1952, on two separate occasions, separated by one week, UFOs buzzed America's National Capitol, making long term incursions over restricted air space. They were tracked, independently, by various civilian and military radars. Military jet fighters were scrambled to intercept and identify the UFOs, but were outmatched and didn't succeed, although they were witnessed by the pilots. The objects were also witnessed from the ground. USAF Major-General John A. Samford, at the largest Pentagon press conference ever held since WWII, in late July 1952, made the statement with respect to the recent Washington D.C. UFO flap that these sightings were made by "credible observers of relatively incredible things". It's on the public record.

Now of course these sightings had to be explained by any means necessary since you just cannot admit to having unknown aerial objects fly over restricted air space. So the idea of ‘temperature inversions' explained all - hogwash. It's amazing that the common occurrence of ‘temperature inversions' had never before, and never since, caused such commotion.  

One other point, SETI scientists poo-poo the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) saying there's no PHYSICAL evidence. Eye witness testimony counts for absolutely nothing. Well of course there is PHYSICAL evidence for the UFO ETH of the exact same nature as that would satisfy a SETI scientist of E.T. – after all SETI scientists look for a PHYSICAL signal which they can study at their leisure, not an actual E.T. in the flesh. Well, UFOs have produced PHYSICAL evidence because they too can, and have, produced a PHYSICAL signal – radar returns, and there exist a fair few bona-fide radar returns of UFO events that have, after due investigation, remained unidentified. Now the PHYSICAL evidence left behind by bona-fide UFO radar cases, those unexplained radar cases, deserve intense respect, and the operators that interpret those radar returns. If radar operators can be trusted to distinguish a flock of birds from an incoming ICBM or foreign miliary bombers intent on doing us a mischief, the reason the radar DEW line was established and manned during the Cold War; if radar operators can have entrusted to them the lives of military and commercial pilots, crew and passengers, then they must have the ability to distinguish a radar echo from a temperature inversion from a solid object – in this case the aircraft. If you fly, you entrust your very life to the ability of those radar operators to tell who's who; distinguish what's what. Sorry, but UFO radar returns are solid PHYSICAL evidence for the reality of unidentified flying objects.  

6) Stargate: SG-1 / USAF / UFO Connection: Considering the number of movies and TV shows (not to mention documentaries) that accent UFO censorship or cover-ups or disinformation, etc. well the idea has obviously struck a responsive chord. That so much has been made of this via motion pictures and TV shows is suggestive that either the public don't trust the government to tell the truth, and/or that the governments (way more than one government since the beginning of the modern UFO era) have failed pretty miserably in convincing the public it has disclosed all and has nothing to hide. Anyway, we've had blockbuster movies like "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Independence Day" which highlighted the issues, and wasn't "E.T." treated pretty badly by those government types? On the TV front we've had "Dark Skies", "Taken", "Roswell" and "The Invaders". Then we had "Stargate: SG-1".

"Stargate: SG-1" was a TV spin-off of the feature film "Stargate" that ran for ten seasons and featured several alien races that in the main had links to ancient terrestrial mythology. One such race was the Asgards, and as the name suggests had connection with our Old Norse mythology. The interesting bit was that in appearance, the Asgards just happen to look exactly like the standard ‘greys' of modern UFO (Roswell and abduction, etc.) lore. This was I'm sure quite by design and no coincidence. This fictional show also confirmed several times over that Area 51 both housed and studied alien/extraterrestrial technology. And so, the fact that both ‘greys' and Area 51 feature on the show makes one other observation and interesting observation. That other interesting bit is that the stargate in "Stargate: SG-1" was a (fictional) USAF top secret enterprise. The TV show featuring the stargate had the endorsement and cooperation of the actual USAF, probably because the TV show portrayed the USAF in a positive light. In fact, two actual then currently serving USAF Chiefs of Staff (4-star generals) appeared in the actual TV show as themselves! How's that for endorsement? So, we have the actual USAF assisting (by providing an advisory role, aircraft and personnel to the show) and endorsing a TV show that prominently featured UFO ‘greys'. Okay, I'm probably reading way to much into that. In all probability the USAF connection probably had no actual relevance to any indirect approval of the UFO ‘greys' in the show by the USAF. That ‘endorsement' is just pure speculation on my part. So I do have to admit that there's probably no deep meaning underlying this connection, but I still find it interesting.

Further readings:

Darlington, David; Area 51: The Dreamland Chronicles: The Legend of America's Most Secret Military Base; Henry Holt & Company, New York; 1997: 

Dolan, Richard M.; UFOs and the National Security State: Chronology of a Cover-up 1941-1973; Hampton Roads, Charlottesville, Virginia; [Revised Edition] 2002:

Dolan, Richard M.; UFOs and the National Security State: The Cover-up Exposed 1973-1991; Keyhole Publishing, Rochester, New York; 2009:

Friedman, Stanton T.; Top Secret / MAJIC; Marlow & Company, New York; 1996: 

Good, Timothy; Need to Know: UFOs, the Military and Intelligence; Sidgwick & Jackson, London; 2006: 

Kean, Leslie; UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On the Record; Harmony Books, New York; 2010:

Maccabee, Bruce; UFO FBI Connection: The Secret History of the Government's Cover-Up; Llewellyn Publications, St. Paul, Minnesota; 2000: 

Patton, Phil; Travels in Dreamland: The Secret History of Area 51; Orion Media, London; 1997:

Randle, Kevin D.; Project Bluebook Exposed; Marlowe & Company, New York; 1997: 

Redfern, Nicholas; A Covert Agenda: UFO Secrecy Exposed; Simon & Schuster, London; 1997: 

Steiger, Brad (Editor); Project Blue Book: The Top Secret UFO Findings Revealed; Ballantine Books, New York; 1976:

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/politics-articles/ufo-censorship-and-cover-ups-4381637.html

About the Author

Science librarian; retired.

2/3/14

Alien Genetics

Mythology's Hybrids: Human Imagination Or Alien Genetics?

Author: John Prytz

There are many puzzling features in mythology, if taken as purely mythology, regarding the so-called gods. I say so-called because to my way of interpreting things, the gods weren't mythological but flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials with advanced technology, especially in the field of bioengineering or genetic engineering. A puzzling feature regarding the ‘gods' and related tales, or even tails, are the half-and-halves (my phrase – you probably won't find it lasted in any index in any mythology text). But these half-and-halves, some of which I'm going to cite, are just scratching the surface of the sum total of those represented in our ancient mythologies. The interesting point is that these hybrids are universal within that collective mythology. That is, they appear across all cultures; all geographies. Anytime something supposedly mythological, is represented everywhere, it's time to sit up and take closer notice that things might not be quite as mythological as things first appear.

So what are some other common and relative well know examples of half-and-halves where half of the half is a human half?

If you're a Christian, I guess you accept the reality of Angels – humans with wings.

You have the Greek mythological Centaurs (a human head on a horse's body).

Cupid (or Eros) is in Greek or Roman mythology a human (‘god') with wings.

The Cynocephali are a medieval dog-headed people. 

There's also the Indian ‘god' called Ganesha with an elephant's head atop a human body.

Also from India there's the Garuda, a half-human (head and torso) and half raptor (wings and talons).

You have the Gorgons, especially the infamous Medusa, a human head on a human body, but with serpents' (snakes') for ‘hair'.

You have the Harpies, females having a human head on a bird's body.

The Persian Huma had a gender crisis being half male, half female – with wings.

If you attach a lion's head on a giant's body, you get the Humbaba of Gilgamesh fame.

The Kurangaituku was a Maori (New Zealand) bird-woman.

The Lamassu (or Shedu) were winged bulls with human heads in ancient Mesopotamian or Assyrian mythology.

The ancient Greek Lamia had a female head and upper torso, but from the waist down, she was just a snake.

Also courtesy of the ancient Greeks, we are presented with the Manticore – a human face on a lion.

Then you have the Mermaids or Mermen with human heads on the body of a fish or fish-like creature.

You have the Greek Minotaur – that's a bull's head on a human's body.

Then you also have Satyrs, hybrids with a human head on a goat's body.

The Sirens are bird-maidens (a female head and body with bird wings and tails).

You have the really well known Sphinx (a human head on a lion's body).

The Tengu is a Japanese birdman.

The Typhon is the father of all monsters in Greek mythology, who was a man from the waist up, and a mass of seething vipers from the waist down.

But there are other half-and-halves that have nothing to do with humans and human features. For example:

The Ahuizotl was an Aztec dog adapted for life in the water - but with a hand at the end of its tail.

The ancient Egyptian Amemait possessed a crocodile head attached to the body of a lion and that to the hindquarters of a hippo.

Anzu (also called Zu of Persian and Sumerian mythology) is depicted as a lion-headed eagle.

If you have the body of a horse, but the head of a bull, you're probably a Bonnacon.

The Chimera is a triple-headed, triple-bodied composite of lion, goat and dragon.

The Cockatrice is a winged cockerel with a serpent's tail.

Dragon's themselves are an amalgamation of a lizard or snake or serpent with wings.

There's the Fenghuang from Chinese mythology, which is a hybrid cock, swallow, swan and goose.

You have the Gryphon (or Griffin – alt spelling), a combo of a lion's body tacked onto the head, talons and wings of an eagle.

Then there's the Hydra, a lion's body with serpent heads.  

The Japanese Kappa had a monkey-like face with the ‘arms' and legs associated with frogs, along with the body and shell of a tortoise.

From Hindu mythology, there's the Makara with the head of a crocodile but the body and tail of a fish.

One can't of course forget Pegasus, the flying winged horse.

A Peryton has a deer's (or stag's) head and body but with wings; perhaps useful to Santa?

From Arthurian mythology arises the Questing Beast with a serpent's head but various feline body parts, but also hooves (not paws and claws).

The Qilin is a Chinese version of the Unicorn, but with the body of a deer, hooves of a horse and the tail of an ox.

The Simurgh from ancient Persia is an eagle-like raptor with the head of a dog, the claws of a lion and tail of a peacock.

The Tarasque has a lion's head, but the body of a serpent – with wings.

The Yale was antelope-like but with boar tusks and an elephant's tail.

The Biblical Book of Revelation has more anomalous hybrids within than you can shake a stick at, from seven-headed dragons to locusts with humans faces and the tails of scorpions, to a sea beast with, you guessed it, seven heads but collectively ten horns which sort of looks like a leopard with bear's feet! 

Now if two (or seven) heads are better than one; if many arms and hands make for lighter work, then rest assured we have many beasties, and ‘gods' that have many heads and/or arms.

For starters, well the Hydra comes immediately to mind, ditto the Greek multi-headed dogs (Cerberus with three heads and Orthrus with two heads; collectively each with a snake for a tail). The Amphisbaena (Greek) was a serpent with two heads – one at each end. That's sort of like the Mesoamerican ‘god' Quetzalcoatl, often depicted as a feathered snake with a head at each end. The Scylla is a multi-headed sea monster with a woman's torso attached to a dog's body with a (cheaper by the) dozen legs! Not quite as bizarre was the Azhi Dahaka who was an ordinary run-of-the-mill triple-headed serpent (perhaps the inspiration for Godzilla's nemesis, the Ghidorah).

That's just a sample, but there are lots of others, especially from the Indian (as in subcontinent) mythology. For those, see the India section below.

Are some of the ‘gods' themselves half-and-halves? Most of the Egyptian ‘gods' tend to have an animal head but a human body. For example:

Amon (or Amun) had the head of a ram.

Anubis has a jackal head placed on a human body.

Bastet has a cat's head atop a human body.

Harakhte was another falcon-headed deity.

Hathor was often depicted as a cow-headed goddess.

Horus has a falcon head placed on a human body. Of the four sons of Horus, three had animal heads (Duamutef – jackal; Qubhsnuf – hawk; and Hapi – dog).

Khnum was another ram-headed god.

Ra (or Re) has the head of a falcon.

Sebek (or Sobek) was one of their gods who had a crocodile head.

Seker (sometimes known as Sokar) had a hawk's head.

Sekhmet has a lioness head placed on a human body.

Then there's the ancient Egyptian God Seth (Set) – a really one off. See below for more nitty-gritty details.

Sokar (sometimes known as Seker) has a falcon head placed on a human body.

Thoth has an ibis head placed on a human body.

It's interesting that several ‘gods' have falcon heads on human bodies. If Horus, Sokar, Ra and others depicted as falcon-headed were figments of the ancient Egyptians' imaginations, you'd think there would be enough animal heads to go around without duplicating. I mean it would make things easier in terms of who's who. However, there's more than one ‘god' with a jackal's head, a hawk's head or a ram's head as well.

Speaking of strange non-terrestrial appearances of the ancient Egyptian ‘gods', let's take the ancient Egyptian ‘god' Seth (or Set). Here's how various mythology texts tend to describe him.

He [Seth] was often depicted as a tall beast – perhaps a jackal or donkey – with a long muzzle. 

Seth (Set) was mostly depicted as a fabulous creature, with a curved snout, square ears, forked tail, and canine body, or sometimes as a human with only the head of the Setanimal. It has no complete resemblance to any known creature, although it could be seen as a composite of an aardvark, a donkey, a jackal. Some early Egyptologists proposed that it was a stylized representation of the giraffe due to the large flat-topped 'horns' but the Egyptians themselves distinguished between the giraffe and the Set animal. In the late period Set is depicted as an ass or with the head of an ass.

When depicted in animal form, the god Seth is a very odd creature, with a long snout, short ears, and a pointy, upright tail. There have been many attempts to try to identify this creature with a known animal. The possibility remains that it is purely a mythological creature. To Egyptologists, it is known as ‘the Seth-animal'.

[Seth is] depicted with floppy ears and an erect and divided tail. 

Set is represented as having the features of a fantastic beast with a thin, curved snout, straight, square-cut ears and a stiff forked tail. This creature cannot with certainty be identified and is commonly called the ‘Typhonian animal'. Sometimes Set is depicted as a man with the head of this strange quadruped.

Seth has a bizarre appearance. His human-form body is topped by a head that appears to combine the rounded snout of an aardvark (unknown to the ancient Egyptians) with curious, straight, flat-topped donkey ears. When represented in fully animal, four-legged form, he also displays a long neck, a dog-like body and an erect, curiously forked tail.  Egyptologists have struggled valiantly to identify Seth's component features: the more imaginative include camel, long-nosed mouse, hare, antelope, pig, giraffe and boar.

If Seth (Set) was an ‘ancient astronaut', and extraterrestrial ‘god', then by implication all his kin were too and by implication so were all the ancient Egyptian ‘gods' (noted above), and by implication the whole lot of the polytheistic ‘gods'.  

If the physical appearance of the ‘gods', or at least one representative ‘god' can not be reconciled with that of any living thing known to man, then that alone is suggestive of something not-of-this-Earth; an extraterrestrial in other words, or the catch phrase, an ‘ancient astronaut'.

Let's now take as examples some other geographical regions and their half-and-halves.

Mesopotamia (Persia) had several hybrid ‘gods': Mithra had the head of a lion on the body of a human – with wings; Ahura Mazda on the other hand had a human head, but, like Angels, they had bird wings.

Half-and-halves are common throughout nearly all cultural mythologies, not just European and Egyptian ones, and other combinations from other mythologies have been realized. Here's a small sample:

India: As noted above, when it comes to multiple body parts, you have the many headed hydra. However, one culture in particular seems to revel in multi-headed and/or multi-armed gods or creatures – ancient Indian (as in subcontinent) mythology. For example, the Nagas of India were multi-headed cobra-like snakes. Brahma had multi-heads; Shiva had multi-arms; ditto Durga, Kali, Lakshmi, and Yama. Agni and Ravana have multi-heads and multi-arms.

Then as noted above, there's the Indian elephant-human hybrid ‘god' called Ganesha.

Peru: Ancient Peru had a pot-load of half-and-halves. There were owl-headed supernatural folk healers; unreal monsters shown flying through the air with falcon wings and tails attached; sculptures of half-human half-feline beings. In fact you had the flying felines known as the Ccoa, somewhat larger than a domestic cat with a winged body. The Ccoa was one of many frequent appearances of flying creatures containing human, feline and bird characteristics.

There must be something about Mesoamerica that has a thing about felines. The mysterious Olmecs have images of a human body but with feline facial features. Unfortunately, the Olmecs vanished mysteriously leaving only the images for us to speculate on.

Where's the body-on-the-slab-in-the-lab evidence? With no fossil evidence of any such hybrids, perhaps this is where mythology overrides reality. Perhaps it is just a natural pondering to wonder ‘what if' human abilities could be combined with some other animal's abilities; or what a composite of one animal's body parts attached to another animal's body parts might achieve.

But then again, maybe that's not the case.

Now clearly, judging from the small number of examples noted above, a lot of people, our ancestors, went to a lot of valuable time and effort to create or depict in often quite considerable detail all over the world, the who's who, and what's what, in tens of thousands of paintings, literature, statues, figurines, murals, monuments, carvings, pictograms, hieroglyphs, etc. to what we (their descendents) would call nonsense – purely imaginary entities. But I maintain our ancestors would not go to extraordinary lengths to devote precious resources into making images of beings they knew to be imaginary. Translated, they believed with all their hearts and souls that these beasties, globally numbering in the multi-hundreds, whether ‘gods' in various combinations or lesser mortals (human-animal) or purely animal-animal forms, really existed. Multiply that by more multi-hundreds of ‘normal' mythological characters that have been honored with thousands of monuments, and well there's apparently a whole ancient expensive and often backbreaking industry devoted to what again, we superior modern descendents of theirs, believe to be nothing at all.

As an exact parallel, ‘modern' human have built and erected all manner of monuments, memorials and statutes to really real historical people. Many are on display in all manner of public parks for the pigeons to rest their weary wings on.

Then again, in our modern era, nobody designs and builds cathedrals just to provide work for the construction industry, but rather because the relevant powers-that-be, the instigators and designers and fundraisers of cathedrals firmly believe there is a being who deserves such monuments to be built in his honor. Now the fact that being probably doesn't exist, at least as a supernatural creator deity, but rather just one of many of an advanced race of extraterrestrials is irrelevant. You build the cathedral because you believe that being exists – full stop. Atheists don't build cathedrals. Okay, our smart-as-we-are ancestors believed the half-and-halves really existed.      

Now that we've seen some of the puzzling anatomical features associated with the half-and-halves, beasties that are composites of two or more terrestrial life forms, here's a hard as solid rock case study that not only illustrates time and effort but might highlight why human imagination is not at work. There's a very large life-size statue from ancient Assyria housed in the British Museum of a winged, human-headed bull (probably representing Shedu or Lamassu). That would be odd enough, but in this statue of a bull with wings and a human head, you find that the bull is depicted with five legs (please note I can count up to five!).  Now, if you were to design from scratch a mythological beastie, one thing I'm pretty convinced of is that you would NOT give it five legs! So, I ask instead, is this statue a representation of one of the ‘gods' genetic experiments?

Now before pursuing that tack, we're all aware of the various plants and animals we've artificially selected for via breeding pairs of organisms that have the sorts of characteristics we desire such as leading to faster horses; disease resistant wheat, cuter puppy dogs, etc. Sometimes we interfere at the cellular level to increase the pace of the changes we want. We've all heard of genetically modified food or genetically modified organisms; of DNA from one species being spliced onto the DNA of another species. We've heard of harvesting animal tissues and organs for transplantation into humans. We've come into the era of the designer baby, or at least prospective parents undergo genetic counselling and testing before having children. Having children is no longer hit or miss and take your chances. And it won't be long before babies will be made-to-order if the parents so wish.

Now imagine the genetic tricks a highly advanced, if somewhat amoral race of ET's were to use terrestrial stock to further their genetic research and agenda. Even several hundred, far less thousands of years in advance technologically of us could produce the half-and-halves of our mythologies.

So, were the half-and-halves of our mythologies evidence of genetic and bioengineering experiments by the ‘gods', the ‘gods' own version of "The Island of Dr Moreau"?  If these hybrids are not the wild imaginations of our ancestors, and standard Darwinian natural selection cannot adequately account for them, then it's clear an alternative artificial selection mechanism must be contemplated instead. What on Earth (or off Earth) could be the driving force behind such artificial selection – behind the required bioengineering or genetic engineering required? Well, unless your best guess is better than my best guess, ET, that's who.

But then it all ceased to be; then they all went away, either literally (as I suspect) or within the human imagination (and if so, why?).

One thing I'm convinced cannot adequately for the massive range of our mythological hybrids are fossils. Fossils cannot explain the half-and-halves. There aren't going to be too many buried skeletons of a lion minus its head that just happens to have a human skull in the immediate vicinity to explain the Sphinx. And what about the odds of finding the skull of a falcon minus body that just happens to rest next to a headless human skeleton and thus explain several of the Egyptian ‘gods'?

Now clearly some of these half-and-halves beasties are going to ultimately prove to be mythical – figments of the human imagination invented for reasons now lost and buried by the sands of time. Some cases are probably of real beasties we all know today but embellished for reason or reasons unknown and probably unknowable. There's going to be cases of linguistic misinterpretations or misunderstandings or errors in translations. Then too there's going to be cases of someone who told someone who told someone who told someone who told someone over many miles and probably generations before the tale was written down. The 20th generation retelling of an ‘eyewitness' account explains some of the half-and-halves.

But are the mythological half-and-halves all really products of pure human imagination and embellishments and 20th generation retellings? If that be the case, why are there no more recent equivalents, in the multi-hundreds, in our ‘modern' (say within the last 300 years of fictional literature, later films and TV) apart from those taken directly from our mythological ancient history like Mermaids? Nearly all ‘modern' literature's creations are human (Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, Harry Potter, and Captain Kirk as examples – even if they do come from another planet like Superman or Mr. Spock). The Creature from the Black Lagoon was humanoid; ditto the Wolfman who at no time was represented as being a wolf's head on a human body or vice versa. Frankenstein's Monster was still human, even if patched together. Dracula may have been able to shape-shift into a bat, but he never was actually half-human and half-bat – ditto Batman. Even Donald Duck was still a duck; Mickey Mouse was just a clothed talking mouse. Some of the Egyptian gods were represented as half-and-halves, but The Mummy wasn't! So, if all is assumed to be human imagination, then there's this discrepancy between way back then and recent history. The one obvious ‘modern' exception is the well known novel "Island of Dr. Moreau".

The "Island of Dr. Moreau" was originally a novel published in 1896 by H.G. Wells with film adaptations in 1933 (as the "Island of Lost Souls"), 1977, and 1996. It basically deals with vivisection and an obsessed scientist who conducts profane experiments in evolution, eventually establishing himself as the self-styled demigod to a race of mutated, half-human abominations. This all takes place on a remote island, the inhabitants being those experimental animals being turned into strange looking humans by one Dr. Moreau – the obsessed mad scientist in question. I'm just substituting the ancient ‘gods' for the more modern Dr. Moreau; the so-called mythological half-and-halves for those modern fictional experimental animals turned into abominations.

That ‘modern' novel aside, you may think the ancient mythological menagerie – if entirely imaginary - exhibits quite an intense range of the human imagination in the creation of half-and-halves. I'd beg to differ. There's an immense array of potential half-and-halves possibilities that apparently have never been realized, or at least popularized. The whole plant and invertebrate communities have largely been ignored, which may make sense from the biological reality of a genetic engineering standpoint. I do realize that Hollywood has rectified this with several versions and sequels to "The Fly" and B-Grade films like "The Wasp Woman", and probably several other B-Graders in that vein. But 1) those cinema features were relative rarities in terms of modern half-and-halves images and 2) there was never any possibility of mistaking those films for anything else other than social commentary and/or entertainment, just like the novel by H.G. Wells.

Anyway, as to what might have been imagined by our ancient ancestors, but never really was, though I do seem to recall a mythological human head on an octopus body, but that was about it when it came to the invertebrate and plant kingdoms – no lobster heads on a human body; no human heads on a slug; and as for humanoid rose bushes – forget it! 

However, when talking real modern half-and-halves, one would be remiss not to mention Mothman, a winged hominoid with glowing red eyes, associated with the Point Pleasant area of West Virginia around the period of November 1966 through December 1967. Mothman's been the subject of several books, dozens of articles, and at least one motion picture ("The Mothman Prophecies" – 2002). However, there have been no sightings since. Perhaps Mothman's a purely imaginary half-and-halves case, one never before or after seen. Maybe.

Finally, there might be a really real modern version of the ‘gods' and their half-and-halves. If UFO / alien abductions are to be believed, taken at face value, (somewhat backed up and supported by animal mutilation cases), then the alien ‘gods' – collective now called the ‘Greys' – are still manipulating human genetics and further progressing with the evolution via artificial selection (breeding) of the human species, as well as their own, for the apparent objective is nothing less than a human-alien (or human-grey) hybrid. That this is implausible, well, recall from mythologies around the world those human-animal hybrids like the Satyr, Sphinx, Minotaur, Mermaid, and a host of others.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/culture-articles/mythologys-hybrids-human-imagination-or-alien-genetics-4749879.html

About the Author

Science librarian; retired.

Discussion on Alien Civilizations

When Religious Aliens Come Knocking

Author: John Prytz

There has been an awful lot of ink spilled over many, many a decade on the question of what the discovery of an advanced extraterrestrial civilization would mean for terrestrial religions, especially the Big Three – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. That's mainly because the Bible (and associated texts) make no mention of ET, and thus human beings are the one and only apex of God's creations. Discovery of ET would throw that alleged apex into more than just a bit of theological confusion.

However, theologians tend to make light of this and suggest along the lines that there's an awful lot of real estate out there, and since God can do whatever He damn well pleases, well maybe He populated some of that real estate with one or more extraterrestrial societies. I mean the Bible doesn't mentionAntarcticaor penguins. The discovery of both didn't upset the religious applecart, so why are aliens relevant to vie for Biblical space and commentary and why should they, if they exist, upset the religious applecart?

In short, one answer boils down to, is everything out there in parallel with everything down here, at least as far as the big three monotheistic faiths go? Do all planets with intelligent aliens have extraterrestrial Adams and Eves that muck up their alien Gardens of Eden and get the boot? Do all alien civilizations have sin, a flood, a Chosen People, a Promised Land, etc? 

Now apparently the biggest of the big theological question is, assuming the existence of ET civilizations, is whether or not Jesus (assuming the reality of a Jesus of course – not a given) visited these worlds and got subjected to the ET equivalent of The Cross. Did Jesus have to hitch a ride on interstellar spaceships in order to get to all those other sinful other-worlds, assuming those other-worlds are sinful other-worlds?  Methinks the questions are as similar to how many angels dance on the head of a pin!

IMHO, the odds that our religious histories in broad-brush form would happen on each and every other-world housing an extraterrestrial civilization is so remote as to not be worthy of even two seconds of pondering.  

Okay, so if UFOs land on the White House lawn tomorrow, or radio astronomers detect obviously artificial radio signals from an extra-solar other-world planet that's home to ET, big deal. Church attendance will probably not alter greatly, at least after the initial shock. If those of the monotheistic faiths embrace all of humanity as equals, then it's not a huge step upwards to embracing extra-solar ‘humanity' – ET – as equals as well. 

But, and this is a very real but, what if our advanced aliens are not just technologically advanced aliens, but theologically  advanced aliens, who in fact have a theology that bears no similarity with any terrestrial theology! Then what? Might ET take a leaf out of our religious histories and violently preach their version of hell, fire and brimstone to us? What leaf you ask?  

The basic reality is that members of the trilogy of major monotheistic religions (and lots of minor ones as well) have in the past wished, and continue to wish, to impose their beliefs by any means fair or foul (usually foul) on anyone and everyone else. If fact, all too often those wishes were turned into reality.

If one had to list all of the atrocities inflicted on various cultures by Christian missionaries, including the abduction and indoctrination of young children, well let's just say comparisons with the Nazi Third Reich regime wouldn't be all that inappropriate. From across Africa to thePacificIslandsand points beyond, it was the Christian duty of the faithful to force-feed if necessary their religious doctrines to all those thus far spared monotheism fanaticism. And it wasn't just a matter of polytheistic to monotheistic conversion, it was the absolute and total destruction of anything and everything part and parcel of their ‘pagan' traditional beliefs that had to be eliminated, so much so that most of the culture, say of the Aztecs and the Incas, have now been lost forever – thanks due to God, or rather His ever faithful representatives.

Then throw in the Inquisition, the Crusades, and all manner of Holy Wars and God's Old Testament reign of terror has been taken to heart by the faithful whose duty is to see that it is ‘to be continued' and on, and on, and on it goes. Your option: be a living Christian; or a dead pagan. Well there's an exception to that – the last of the Inca emperors was given this option: a relatively quick and easy death as a born-again Christian, or a very slow and very painful death as a pagan. Needless to say Christianity won out yet again. Belief in God can be very persuasive when you're faced with being burned at the stake as an alternative.   

Albeit more civilized today, the indoctrination goes on. It might be religious fanatics picketing in front of abortion clinics or forcing public schools to delete Darwinism (Darwinian evolution) from their curricula and replace it with Creationism or Intelligent Design (you'd think that had been settled once and for all with the 1925 Scopes Trial). It often takes the form of all those televangelists knocking your socks off and all those religious billboard signs warning you of this, that and the next sinful thing. Then of course there are those ever pestering Bible-pushing Christians knocking at your door, eager beavers telling you how much God loves you, but in return for a donation He'll love you even more!

But take note, its God the singular, not gods the plural. I mean is it a God / Jesus Bible-thumper who bangs on your door or is it an Osiris / Odin / Quetzalcoatl / Zeus, etc. person who disturbs your peace and quiet, trying to convert you to the wisdom of polytheism? Did I hear you say God / Jesus? I thought so. Despite the fact that the Bible isn't a legal document like a search warrant or a summons, it nevertheless seems to give Bible-pushers carte blanch to do whatever they please, as long as the Bible tells them it's okay to do it, like chewing your ear off (not literally of course) with tales of hell, fire and brimstone and trying to scare the shit out of you into making a donation to the cause.  

If there were any polytheistic cultures who tried to ram their gods down the throat of other cultures I'm not aware of them, which is not the same as other cultures assimilating the gods of another culture. As an example, there ultimately proved to be an amalgamation of ancient Greek and Egyptian deities. Ramming has been the ‘divine right' and privilege of monotheistic cults and examples, including all of the very graphic details, would fill an encyclopedia. Would aliens perceive their having a ‘divine right' to ram their theology down our throats? Yes, if our own history is an example. If God is on your side, you can do no wrong!

In the history of our terrestrial civilization, there have been lots and lots of refugees. Many are economic, escaping poverty by chasing that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow away from their homeland where it never rains (thus no rainbow). Some are political. Some are for racial / racism reasons. A fair share of all refugees, past and present, are religious refugees, an obvious example being the Pilgrims that migrated to theUnited States of Americabefore there was such a name as theUnited States. So the issue of religious freedom, or freedom from having someone else's religion rammed down your throat, is not trivial.

When it comes to ET, the traditional Hollywood image, often reinforced by some scientists, is that when the aliens come calling, it will be with ray-guns blasting away (like in "The War of the Worlds"), unless they are sneaky like in "Village of the Damned" plus sequel "Children of the Damned", or "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (several versions). Justification for depicting ET as nasty is often given based on terrestrial histories of invasions and conquests. A warfare scenario pessimist is hardly ever disappointed; a peace scenario optimist frequently is.

But let's look on the bright side. ET arrives and there's not a ray-gun in sight. It's the dawn of a new and enlightened era! But let's substitute their ray-gun replacing it for their extraterrestrial religious text, a text in which ET worships the Almighty Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes (or in Hollywood fare, "The Blob").

Okay, so based on religious tolerances (or lack of same) as expressed within and by terrestrial societies, what can we expect from ET? When it comes to a religiously inclined and pushy ET, well that's hardly ever mentioned as a possible scenario, but ultimately it's really terrifying, in a potential sort of way. A fanatical religious ET vis-à-vis an invading ET, is perhaps a more likely ET and what we may really need to worry about is that they'll come in peace alright, but as fervent missionaries to spread the word that their version of a supreme being [the Almighty Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes] is the only true version of a supreme being and that all of us terrestrial heathen, pagan infidels had better see the error of our untrue faiths and convert to their extraterrestrial theology quick-smart.

More likely as not ET won't be Jesus-like and certainly won't allow themselves to be nailed to a cross (or a higher-tech version); they will probably be more along the lines of the Conquistadors or perhaps akin the Inquisition, or even worse Koran-thumping Islamic extremist-types. After all, they have to be very, very strongly motivated to come out to our neck of the boonies, and they are going to want favorable results, or else. All hail the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes!

Now here's a very rough translation and commentary on the first few bars (it's also an opera) of ET's "Holy eBook of Slime and Ooze". It goes something like this:

"Once upon a time the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes, ejaculated and gave rise to the Holy Ooze and the Holy Ooze was without form and the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes felt that this was how it should be and everything was Almighty fine. And that ended the First Great Cycle of Cycles.

 

On the Second Great Cycle of Cycles, Ms. Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes took her less than better half partner, the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes to task for creating a Holy Oozy Mess and told her less than better half, the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes to clean it up, or else! And so it came to pass that the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes swept the Holy Ooze all under the Heavenly Cosmic Carpet. 

 

But the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes wasn't through with His creation, and under cover of the Cosmic Night, He played with His toy biochemistry set and infused animation into the Holy Ooze that had been swept under the Heavenly Cosmic Carpet. And that was the Third of the Great Cycles.

 

The animated Holy Ooze multiplied in an Oozy sort of way and expanded outwards, ever outwards from under the Heavenly Cosmic Carpet and the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes was Almighty pleased and totally up Himself with His skills. And thus was concluded the Fourth Great Cycle of Cycles. 

 

On the Fifth Great Cycle of Cycles, Ms. Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes, totally fed up with her less than better half, packed her Heavenly Duffle Bags and left the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes for even greener pastures. She moved in with the step-brother of the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes. His name was the Greater Greener Slime Being, who, unfortunately had fallen from Grace [mutiny I believe] and had been stripped of his Almighty Supreme title and status – such are the fates in family disputes and Wars in Heaven between rivals for power." 

And it goes on and on and on from there, over ten eBook volumes worth that kind of make the Bible read like a short story. But in a bit of a twist, a role reversal, the underdog, the Greater Greener Slime Being ultimately triumphs and comes out on top to become the new Almighty Greater Greener Slime Supreme Being. Well after all the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes really was a bit of a twit.

 The former Greater Greener Slime Being and the former Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes' Ex – His more than better half – together, it is prophesized, will have a child who ultimately will become the role model for, obviously, "The Son of the Blob", who is to grow so blobby that His massive gravity will prove enough to cause the Heavenly Cosmic Carpet and all that it contains (life, the universe and everything) to roll up in on itself and turn into a singularity. It will be the End of Days, the Cycles of Cycles – the Big Crunch will have arrived! If I recall correctly, that Last Great Cycle is numbered somewhere over the million mark of all things Cyclic. Amen.

Although you'd hope that advanced alien beings would have long since out-evolved such religious nonsense, that's not a given. That missionary scenario is even more frightening than them coming here with their ray-guns blasting away IMHO. So if those extraterrestrial evangelists come knocking at your door, with tales about the Holy Ooze, or the Almighty Greater Greener Slime Supreme Being, be afraid, be very afraid!

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/new-age-articles/when-religious-aliens-come-knocking-6031756.html

About the Author

Science librarian; retired.

2/1/14

Enuma Elish - Epic of Creation

         Enuma Elish is a creation myth written in ancient Babylonia, 12th century BC and formed of seven clay tablets. It mentions the creation of the human beings and the universe also the war between the god Marduk and Tiamat. The gods mentioned in the epic are also the parts of the earth and nature like Apsu - fresh water, Tiamat - salty water.

        During chaos the god Tiamat decides to kill younger Gods Ea, Enki and the others becasue they were very loud. At the end God Marduk defeats Tiamat. After his win he is declared as the leader of the Gods and followingly they begin to create humanity. It somehow represent a rivalry between the cosmic order and chaos.

      Enuma Elish from the point of view of some historians accepted as the root of Book of Genesis as there are many similarities between two of them. The epic has first been published by George Smith in 1876, Chaldean Genesis.


Quotation from the first tablet:

                         When in the height heaven was not named,
                        And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name,
                        And the primeval Apsu, who begat them,
                        And chaos, Tiamut, the mother of them both
                        Their waters were mingled together,
                        And no field was formed, no marsh was to be seen;
                        When of the gods none had been called into being,
                        And none bore a name, and no destinies were ordained;
                        Then were created the gods in the midst of heaven,
                        Lahmu and Lahamu were called into being...