CHAPTER 1
The Author
Personal Background:
Who, What, When, Where and Why are the 5-Ws that have puzzled humanity over the ages. They are the five commandments of most journalists. Well with that said, let me introduce myself as the central character and the goals of this publication.
Who am I? I am a middle class American veteran of three Vietnam tours with Bachelor and Master Degrees and some pre-doctoral coursework in education with concentrations in Biology and History. Oh, oh; there's that H word – History! I am not sure there is any other word in the English language that can engender such a rapid expression of disinterest and avoidance, as history. There I said it again! And now for that cliché we must not forget, however, that those who ignore the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them!
I have been fortunate to travel around the world as a faculty representative of the USAF Air University. In the event of war, I would have had the unpleasant task as a B-52 Navigator-Bombardier, to drop four H-bombs on Soviet targets back in the 60s. I was also fortunate to have survived a light plane crash and been shot at by a lot of professional enemy soldiers – and missed. In my own small way, I have experienced ancient history and also been part of contemporary history; moments of both enlightenment, and sheer terror, but also cause for personal introspection.
What am I? I am not a scholar, just an aging individual of average intelligence who has traveled and experienced more than most, and who has had many unanswered questions arising over my 76+ years on Earth. While strapped in an F-4 fighter jet dodging enemy MIGs, AAA and surface to air missiles over North Vietnam, I observed both friend and foe alike die before my eyes and reflected on the insanity of it all. Over the ages of civilization, there has been constant uncivilized behavior. There has been war after war, much in the name of God and religion, and all to what avail? I guess I could answer that question rather cynically by seeing it as a positive behavior countering our propensity to over populate the world thus taxing its diminishing resources. Although the outcome appears to be true, that isn't much of an answer. I recently finished reading The Oxford - History of the Biblical World and was depressed at all the conflict which has occurred over the ages; man doesn't play well with his fellow man. I wish I could say there is hope for change in the future, but based on past behavior, I can't; it will probably be a continuation of the same.
When? Time is an elusive construct. Scholars world-wide appear to agree on the fact that the Earth was formed about 4.56 billion, yes billion, years ago. I guess that number is not so impressive these days when the National Debt of the United States is in the trillions. Also, that date is a far cry farther back in time than Sunday, October 23, 4004 BCE. Where did I get that ludicrous date you ask? In order to establish the date the earth was formed, between 1625 -1656 James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh as well as an Irish Anglican theologian and scholar, assiduously worked backward in time using the Bible as his primary source of inspiration. I shouldn't dwell on his enormous 4.5 billion year error, as it wasn't that far back in time when middle-age man thought the world was flat and Christopher Columbus was crazy to sail out of sight of land. The above error did, however, point to the fact that the Bible, Jewish and Christian, is NOT a reliable source of world history.
When can take us even farther back in time to 13.76 billion years ago when most astrophysicists feel the current Universe started as an exploding infinitesimal speck of unimaginable energy. We refer to this event today as the Big Bang Hypothesis.
Where? Basically I will restrict this investigation to our planet, Earth. I will occasionally mention the Heavens, but more as a physical than a metaphysical location. And as it affects the population of Earth, I am curious about such things as is there a God? Is/was that God or spiritual entity, possibly a misunderstood physical entity from a technologically more advanced civilization? Did he/she create humans in his or her self-image, or did humans evolve over the ages from an abiotic origin; from the primordial soup of early oceans as it were. Is the modern human a product of a slow, gradual evolutionary processes? Or did we experience a biological and intellectual "kick start" 50,000 years or so ago from some unknown entity as some proclaim?
How are we to logically explain humanity going from an ignorant hunter-gatherer, struggling to survive in a hostile environment of predators, disease and hunger, to that of a space explorer in such a short span of geological time? Also, in light of this extremely short period of time, how and why did religious beliefs get started and coalesce into such powerful institutions with unquestioning adherents? Why does the Christian Bible exercise such influence over so many people, when it has numerous parts copied from the Sumerians, has been modified hundreds of times, edited, embellished, and selectively assembled by a clergy with an agenda of controlling the population and reinforcing archaic gender discrimination?
Why am I writing this? Basically, I am jotting down my observations and thoughts for my family so that they might better understand me when I'm no longer here. Perhaps even more so, I am doing this as an intellectual exercise to challenge my own findings and beliefs. Matthew 7 in the Christian Bible's New Testament says "Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find." I am seeking an answer to that question posed in the title of this book. Over 45 years ago, when I was discharged from the Army, I read Erich von Daniken's book, Chariots of the Gods. Although I was enrolled in college to study science and contemporary history, I found his observations provocative, if not paradigm changing.
Over the decades since that epiphany, I struggled with some of the ideas he presented, their apparent contradiction of my childhood religious views, and questions regarding the origin of life and evolution. However, like most of us, I was swept up in the Vietnam War, marriage, and all the demands of being a parent and bread winner. However, my years in the Air Force provided me the opportunity to visit Machu Picchu, Sacsayhuaman, Stonehenge, Delphi and other unique ancient sites. I began to wonder whether contemporary history and my views regarding the evolution of humanity, were completely correct. So, in writing down my thoughts in a somewhat organized and hopefully coherent fashion, I hope to either reinforce or refute my conclusions. In writing this, I also hope to help you escape your box of conventional wisdom which restricts both thoughts and expression, and delve into other possibilities – entertain a new paradigm as it were.
Personal Biases:
The following pages will be a journey attempting to seek answers to many questions which have personally vexed me over three quarters of a century. Presumably, you have similar questions and suffer a similar intellectual curiosity. As the reader, I would be misleading you if I didn't admit to certain personal biases and a scientific-spiritual agenda at the outset. My academic background has directed me more toward science, which relies on verifiable and repeatable facts, rather than religion, which relies more on an authority-based system of unsupported beliefs. As previously mentioned, I was raised to believe in a God. In light of what I have indicated so far, that may sound counter intuitive; so let me elaborate by listing some of these beliefs I have at the outset, and which I will attempt to either confirm, or refute, in the pages that follow.
First, although possessing a somewhat parochial interest in history, I am suspicious that our published accounts of ancient history are woefully incomplete. Recent archeological discoveries appear to indicate a rather high level of both knowledge and technological competence many millennia ago. Assuming this to be true, there appears to have been a loss of those capabilities over the centuries, and we have recently been "reinventing the wheel" since the start of the current era. Over the past century or two, documents and clay cuneiform tablets have been resurrected from their hiding places, to cast new light on old ideas and historic events. I assume these historic suspicions to be true for reasons I will discuss in later chapters. I am also aware of the perils of assuming; it can make an ass u me, but I must start somewhere.
Second, possessing an academic and teaching background in biology, I strongly endorse Darwin's thesis. This thesis purports that the numerous animal and plant species evolved through a slow process of Natural Selection, not by divine providence or design. If you don't know either who Darwin was, the impact his theory (now regarded in many scientific circles as fact), or the means of natural selection, then you have more to learn than I had anticipated. Therefore, I will elaborate in some places but not to the point where other more scientifically informed readers get bored.
Recently, humanity has become an apex species in the Animal Kingdom: albeit a violent one. I say recently, because for hundreds of thousands of years our evolutionary predecessors were prey for many different carnivores. Cooperative behavior and rudimentary technological developments, tended to level the playing field until humans — with our tools and intellect — are now at the top of Earth's food chain. However, unlike other species, I believe Homo sapiens (that's you and I) experienced an intellectual and technological kick start from outside sources about fifty thousand years ago. But more on this extremely controversial belief, later.
Third, I also believe that much of the Jewish Tanakh, Christian Bible and Muslim Quran, are based on carefully selected writings which have experienced cultural, historic and transliteration errors. There were many writings from the biblical period which were excluded for various earthly, as much as spiritual, reasons. The guiding theological documents which were selected for inclusion in these texts, may have been embellished for specific effect, and possibly fictionalized in places by a few of their anonymous authors. Many of the writings also appear to have been heavily plagiarized from much older Sumerian and Egyptian oral myths. One must ask, are the oral traditions which have become part of these religious canons, the words of God, inspired or otherwise, or those of humans, or a mixture of both?
Fourth, I am almost positive Earth has experienced extensive extraterrestrial visitation both present and perhaps hundreds of millennia in the past. The thousands of Sumerian cuneiform clay tablets discovered in the excavated royal library of Nineveh, describe the epic of creation, the deluge epic (the great flood), the resurrection of Gods and many other mythical events which probably have their roots anchored in the fertile soil of some ancient fact. Many of the megaliths around the world clearly indicate an advanced engineering capability, use of advanced tools, extensive astrological knowledge and exhibit many carved glyphs implying assistance from advanced civilizations "arriving from the sky." Surviving myths recorded on Indian Sanskrit and Sumerian tablets, also allude to the possibility of high-tech warfare occurring between several different alien groups on and above the Earth over four millennia ago. If true, they were probably interested in Earth for either its resources, or as a way station in their travels to other celestial destinations.
Fifth, although in a way linked to four above, I cannot help but believe that the incredible technological progress we have enjoyed these past one hundred or so years was obtained, in part, indirectly through reverse engineering, or perhaps the direct result of alien intervention. If the latter is true, why would aliens help humans when over the ages we have repeatedly demonstrated our violent nature while pursuing personal, national, and religious goals? I speculate that they may be attempting to elevate us to some form of interstellar maturity before we ruin our planet and perhaps, in some way unknown to us, we pose a threat to the rest of the inhabitants of our galaxy.
It has been speculated that our government officials, and possibly Pope Pius 12th, were in communication with at least one of an estimated five or more different visiting alien species. Myth also indicates that in February 1955, President Eisenhower was offered the secret of inexpensive, pollution-free, energy which would drastically reduce the cause of international strife and future warfare over fossil fuels. The quid pro quo here was provided the United States would stop developing nuclear weapons. Purportedly he refused, possibly fearful of the growing Soviet nuclear arms threat, or at the insistence of the wealthy minority (military industrial complex who pull the strings) who are heavily invested in fossil fuel production and sales associated with related industries. Am I conspiracy advocate? In all likelihood: but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm wrong. I am certainly open to reasoned and factual contradictory logic.
There is a growing body of anecdotal and some empirical evidence, that my suppositions are correct. Any smoking gun of direct evidence in support of these suppositions, appears to have been carefully and systematically altered: or otherwise hidden from the public. If so, that leaves us with primarily circumstantial and inferential evidence. As in a court of law, that then leaves us with a dilemma; does an extensive amount of circumstances meet the test of being beyond reasonable doubt?
Sixth, I fully believe that there is a movement within the financial and political community, to achieve a New World Order orchestrated by a powerful, intellectual, and well-funded elite. The United Nations and the European monetary system may be small steps toward this goal. Don't forget why the American fathers included the right to bear arms in the Bill of Rights: not just to hunt game but to protect the people from their own misguided government should it become necessary. Democracy may become a faded memory if the common people relinquish control and the means to resist unwanted, and unwarranted, change.
If it comes to fruition, will such a New World Order result in less bloodshed resulting from frivolous and economically or religiously-instigated wars? Possibly! I say economically-instigated vs. politically-instigated because politics is subservient to economics. Remember the Golden Rule: those with the gold, rule. Will a new world order also produce a higher standard of living for the average member of society? Again, possibly! Will this arrangement yield even greater wealth to the membership of the inner circle of this new order: thus creating greater disparity between the haves and have-nots? Most likely!
Seventh, is there a God, or are there numerous Gods? This is the most perplexing question of all in our search for an answer. Over the millennia the majority of the people on Earth have believed so and waged thousands of wars in the name of their God or Gods.
I remember an event in October 1972 when our aircraft was climbing off a railroad bridge we had just bombed on the Chinese – North Vietnamese border. A Soviet Mig 21 fighter plane came out of China and had us in his cross hairs. We were pulling as many Gs as possible to defeat any missile he was about to launch. I remember saying to myself something to the effect, "God – protect me!" I wouldn't be at all surprised if the enemy pilot — intent on shooting us down — wasn't thinking a similar unspoken prayer to his God. I am sure combatants in every battle share the same experience. Assuming for the moment there is a God, who does that God protect; both, neither or one over the other?
If only one God, and if the answer to the previous question is one over the other, how does he/she decide which to save and which to let die? On the day I just mentioned, I lived and the enemy pilot died in a ball of flame and debris: ironically defending his country. He may very well have just received the blessing of his Chaplin, while I hadn't been to church in many decades. Why save me and not the other guy? Commonly referred to as survivor's guilt, this universal question has haunted most individuals who have been intimately involved in the carnage and destruction of mortal combat.
