Since Ancient Aliens is on hiatus to avoid competing with the Olympics, I thought it would be safe to take my on to the local aquarium. Surely a display of tropical fish must be free of the insidious mythology of space invaders. Ah, but I was wrong. Since last we visited, the aquarium opened a hall of animatronics offering, in either promise or threat, dinosaurs and “legendary creatures.” The disappointing attraction featured credulous displays about griffins and Bigfoot before reaching a crescendo in a hall where Ancient Aliens clips played on a big screen beside this janky diorama of extraterrestrials. It was not worth the upcharge. Speaking of UFO mythology, the purported excerpts from Lue Elizondo’s memoir Imminent (no one has denied they are in fact the book) are a gift that keeps on giving. In the chapters released on Google Books, we have learned that Elizondo claims psychic powers and that he alleges that he has been haunted for decades by glowing ghost bubbles. These come in three colors, green, clear, and blue, and two are harmless while the third (blue) has malevolent intentions. Elizondo claims these bubbles visit him in his home, though he has made no effort to photograph or document them. He also claims to have engaged in the torture of 9/11 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, been dubbed the “king of torture” by a detainee’s lawyer, and to have European arrest warrant issued against him for torture. (This, somehow, didn’t stop him from traveling to Europe for UFO conferences.) The book seems to have no references or documentation, making it hard to check these claims. Elizondo also offered yet another explanation for his otherwise undocumented title of “Director of AATIP.” This time, he alleges that after AAWSAP ended, he personally transferred parts of the program to his own portfolio without anyone’s knowledge or consent and diverted part of his budget as Director of National Programs, Special Management Staff to “dual-use” the money to investigate UFOs, giving Hal Puthoff access to his materials. But I want to highlight a different passage, one in which Elizondo proves once again the observation I made many years ago, that every fringe history claims are derived directly or indirectly from the myth of the Watchers and Nephilim in Genesis 6:1-4 and 1 Enoch 6-10. Naturally, Elizondo writes about how his UFO hunt led him to the Watchers and Nephilim: Enoch's journey is filled with heavenly accounts, including descriptions of angelic and demonic hierarchy, God's throne, God's inner circle of guards, and even the language of the supernatural. On paper, Enoch's travels don't sound that dissimilar to reported nonhuman encounters. We also looked at the sixth chapter of Genesis. That's the chapter that contains the story of Noah's ark. Before we get to Noah, verses 1 through 4 of that chapter quickly share that otherworldly beings came to earth and mated with human women. Some translations call these offspring giants, while others refer to the visitors by the original Hebrew word, Nephilim, which some scholars say means something like fallen angels, or beings that cause others to fall. Here, we can see that despite his evident confusion about his own subject--Nephilim doesn’t refer to fallen angels, their fathers in 1 Enoch—Elizondo echoes the same language and ideas found on Ancient Aliens, derived from ancient astronaut books of the middle twentieth century, in turn taken from nineteenth century theosophy which in turn drew on medieval derivatives of the Enochian Watchers myth. The exact trajectory of these ideas is too complex for me to summarize here, traveling through Christian, Jewish, and Islamic lore; Hermeticism; Freemasonry; the medieval occult; and the rediscovery of the complete Book of Enoch in Ethiopia.
But when Elizondo says that he had to stop an AAWSAP colleague from giving Pentagon brass a briefing on angels, demons, and the spirit realm because it was “a bridge, or two, too far,” we can see how insidiously this mythology has permeated every level of “anomaly” research.
14 Comments
Crash55
7/26/2024 09:57:05 pm
The aquarium in Rotterdam? A coworker’s wife takes their daughter their all the time, I will have to ask about the aliens.
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E.p. Grondine
7/27/2024 08:12:20 am
I prefer Andrew Collins' From the Ashes of Angels as an explanation.
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Paul
7/27/2024 08:29:18 am
Times past, folks such as these would be locked up in the nearest insane asylum or burned at the stake. Sometimes, there just aren’t enough stakes……….
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Book of Enoch RUBBISH
7/27/2024 08:41:30 am
The Book of Enoch was written after Palestine was conquered by Alexander the Great in 333 BC and subsumed by the Macedonian Empire.
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Clete
7/27/2024 09:32:28 pm
In the words of David Childress you have to ask if he is still taking his meds?
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Charles Verrastro
7/28/2024 11:03:23 am
Why am I more disturbed by his belief Blue equates to dangerous demons. Classic MAGA thug. Can't decide if he is a congenital liar and fantasist, or a true (and dangerous) sociopath. Probably both. Other than you, most critics (even in the government) didn't blink in his repeated boast he conned them after being let go by getting tax funding for running his personal unsanctioned hobby.
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Kent
7/28/2024 04:18:26 pm
Jebeepers! Someone is in the Presidential Suite thinking that saying "MAGA" isn't free advertising. Everytime Joe hit a microphone that was a donation in kind. Hmmm, Trump might be vulnerable here, but how to value it?
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Kent
7/28/2024 02:03:17 pm
Ah yes, Elizondo. An interesting case. Did anything ever come of that Temple of Set angle? It would be interesting to see his DD-214 and how/if it lines up with his "biography" which according to his Wikipedia article has been a wild and wooly ride.
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Bubble Electric
7/28/2024 07:07:34 pm
"...glowing ghost bubbles. These come in three colors, green, clear, and blue, and two are harmless while the third (blue) has malevolent intentions."
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Mrs Grimble
7/29/2024 12:27:53 pm
When I read "Haunted by Bubbles" I thought you meant Michael Jackson's pet chimp.
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Mean r queried
8/10/2024 03:39:30 am
Hello. Sorry if I found this too late to comment. I was on hiatus from reading blogs, but I am commenting here anyway.
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Kent
8/10/2024 12:29:18 pm
Spheres, fears, tears, bears, RFK Jr. Nothing new under the burning Eye in the sky. It burnsss Preciousss like Mark Levin yelling at a caller in the 3rd hour of his radio show. Remember the account from the Dream Pool Essays, mentioned elsewhere on this site and ably translated into English by a former poster.
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Mean r queried
8/11/2024 02:07:54 am
No, not really. I just did a quick search and found the account. The Dream Pool Essays were published in 1088. The account
Kent
8/11/2024 03:37:20 pm
"Easy enough to find." You say that like people used to say "New York" when they meant "Jew". The point of a reference is to be findable. I mentioned it so it would be found. What is yer pernt, Edith? Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
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