RRR Group Claims Aliens "Fooled" Muhammad, Jesus, and Joseph Smith

8/25/2013

Last week the RRR Group blog, which I am led to believe is associated with longtime ufologist Rich Reynolds, published an article on George Adamski comparing his encounter with Venusians to the divine revelations imparted to Muhammad and Joseph Smith. The discussion was going along so well until it took a left turn into illogic near the end.

Let me issue a disclaimer right here before we begin: The RRR Group is the one making claims about Muhammad and aliens. I am not. Please direct all messages about such claims to the RRR Group.

Reynolds describes himself as ufology’s “biggest pain in the ass” and has apparently upset older ufologists by suggesting that “old geezers” retire from active UFO investigation. His RRR Group blog posts are copyrighted to InterAmerica, Inc., which is the name of a Washington, D.C. public relations firm. I can’t imagine they are the same company, yet I can’t find any other information for the InterAmerica that owns the copyright on RRR Group content. The name is not trademarked, so there is no trademark record, either.

Anyway, Renyolds or the RRR Group or InterAmerica or whoever they are began by describing his viewing of PBS’s recent broadcast of the Life of Muhammad, at which point it struck him that George Adamski’s encounter with the Venusians was very much like Muhammad’s visit from Gabriel, or Joseph Smith’s visits with Moroni. In discussing the post-Qur’an Islamic story of Muhammad’s assumption to heaven at Jerusalem astride his horse (attested in the earliest hadiths), he writes: “How does that differ, substantively, from Adamski’s alleged trips in his extraterrestrial scout ships to Venus or the other side of the Moon?”

Interestingly, in the Sahih Muslim, a collection of much later material about the life and sayings of Muhammad that Islamic scholars claim is one of the two most authentic such collections, Muhammad allegedly said that his nighttime trip to heaven occurred

...in a state midway between sleep and wakefulness, (an angel recognized me) as the man lying between two men. A golden tray full of wisdom and belief was brought to me and my body was cut open from the throat to the lower part of the abdomen and then my abdomen was washed with Zam-zam water and (my heart was) filled with wisdom and belief. (1.309)

If this tale can be trusted (and the hadiths cannot be independently confirmed to be true), it is possible to read this as paralleling modern alien abduction scenarios, including the extraterrestrial medical operations. But more importantly, even if you believe the story is a literally true account of an angelic encounter, it also parallels closely the known effects of the gray area when falling asleep where intense visions (known to science as hypnagogic dreams) can occur. Some believe that this is a period when the brain is most receptive to supernatural or divine communication, while modern science tells us that such visions occur due to brain function when falling asleep.

But this isn’t the direction that RRR Group wants to go with this. Ancient Aliens, on much flimsier evidence, declared all the Abrahamic faiths false cults of alien worship, so it shouldn’t have surprised me that RRR Group took a turn in that direction. First, the writer asks a sensible question:

Who is to say that George Adamski was not riddled [sic] by the same force or “external agent” that interacted with Ezekiel or Joseph Smith? Or can we conclude that the major progenitors of religion were all just mentally afflicted? (brackets in original; no, I don’t know why—it isn’t marked as a quote)

He discounts this possibility on the grounds that “insanity” is “unique” to the insane person; therefore, figures as diverse as Joseph Smith and George Adamski would not have had the same delusions of visitation, nor should their message of doing good, loving one another, etc. be so closely aligned had they sprung from an internal source. Naturally, having dismissed both the divine and the neurological, all that’s left is aliens:

So perhaps, we shouldn’t be too quick to dismiss Professor Adamski. He may have been fooled by the very same “divinities” that fooled Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, and Joseph Smith, among many, many other lesser lights.

(By the way, to easily offended readers: Please note again that the RRR Group is the one claiming that aliens “fooled” Muhammad. I have nothing to do with that claim, so please direct all messages about it to the RRR Group.)

But RRR Group isn’t so certain that unidentified flying objects are piloted by alien beings. According to a post from a week before:

When we UFO buffs get into a mysterious presence at the heart of the UFO phenomenon, we are entering a theological-like mind-set, and I don’t think UFOs are worthy of such. UFOs are a manifestation of an odd, as yet unknowable series of things-seen or interacted with, a phenomenon for the quirky.

I’m not exactly sure how these things are supposed to relate, frankly. If the UFOs are simply “odd” and “unknowable” “things,” then how can their pilots be creatures capable of meeting with, inspiring, and fooling humans? If we are not to read UFOs as a modern form of earlier encounters with the supernatural, wouldn’t the earlier post refute the later post on Adamski?

10 Comments

The Other J.

8/25/2013 10:55:06 am

I'm assuming you've received comments/complaints from Christian faithful who've been offended by some of what you've written. Have you also received similar complaints from a Muslim or Jewish perspectives?

Jason Colavito link

8/25/2013 11:04:20 am

No, actually I've received positive comments from Muslim writers and bloggers who have praised some of my earlier material that touched on Arab or Islamic topics. However, because I'm being linked to more frequently on Muslim history blogs, I put up the disclaimer because it also means that extremists are more likely to read my post--and given the number of readers who can't tell distinguish between me and other people's ideas I've discussed (and it's a lot!) it's better to be safe than sorry. I've had enough death threats for one year.

Varika

8/25/2013 11:16:07 am

"Some believe that this is a period when the brain is most receptive to supernatural or divine communication, while modern science tells us that such visions occur due to brain function when falling asleep."

Just to play devil's advocate, the first part of the sentence is not inherently incompatible with the second; it need not be either-or, in short. Perhaps the functions the brain performs while falling asleep DO make it also more receptive to divine/supernatural contact.

Yes, I know that you have to accept the possibility of the divine/supernatural for that to work, but the MECHANICS are not necessarily incompatible.

(Remember. Devil's advocate!)

8/25/2013 11:32:09 am

No, it's not incompatible. One could certainly argue that a supernatural or divine figure communicates via brain functions. As I've written before, this is essentially Graham Hancock's position, and it is essentially impossible to either prove or disprove.

8/25/2013 05:49:07 pm

Doesn't the Emerald Tablet (Hermes Trismegistus) describe something along the same lines as what you're describing -- using that liminal space between awake and asleep to access the supernatural?

8/26/2013 06:18:48 am

Indeed: "I, in my childhood, lay 'neath the stars on long buried Atlantis, dreaming of mysteries far above men." That's when he became "inspired."

John J. McKay link

8/25/2013 04:50:27 pm

Sleep related experiences are the hardest to divorce from belief systems. This is one area where everyone can agree that the experiences are real, but that the "real" cause is one that confirms their preferred paradigm: demons, aliens, psychology, brainwashing, or whatever. I'm not sure there is a way to break through that barrier from here. Paradigm change starts somewhere else.

Gunn

8/26/2013 02:35:01 am

The difference between Jesus, Muhammad and Joseph Smith is that Jesus said there is no other way to the Father (God) except through him. There aren't even supposed to be any mediators between God and mankind, except through Jesus. The Catholics have it wrong about praying to and through saints, according to the Bible itself.

I can predict a sad end for anyone who dares to challenge God, or dares to say the sky is empty. The earth is full of live, and it came from God, evolving according to His will.

There is a way to break through the barrier from here. It's by accepting Jesus as The Way, The Truth and The Light. No person comes to God except through Jesus. Muhammad was an imposter, and so was Joseph Smith. They were both fooled by imposter angels.

UFO's are purposeful delusions and a waste of anyone's time. Why is there no concrete evidence, only delusionary crap? How is it that a group of natives can take a powerful drug and then all see the same dancing tiger on a jungle pathway.

How is it that humans can be led by God through dreams? How is it that humans can be led by devils through dreams?

Whose side on you on, anyway? Take a pick...you must, whether you like to or not. You are already involved, because you are here. See the good, not the bad. Do you believe God is a good God? Are you rebellious, like a witch? Rebellion against God is like witchcraft, like trying to find the hidden (occult) against His will.

Fast and pray in earnest. He will reveal Himself to you. Don't be fooled by anyone who says there is a way other than through Jesus. That's Who this country was founded upon, Jesus, and that's Who the country needs today, not a continuation of the destruction of our country's moral fabric. Bad move on the same-sex marriage deal, Obama. Didn't you get elected by playing the Christian Card, too, like that Wolf-in-Sheep's Clothing, The Decider?

Skeptics can be overly skeptical, to their eternal peril. I would not dare to be proud of trying to spit in God's face. Why did Jimi kiss the sky? Should he have been excused?

Mike Heiser link

8/26/2013 05:19:44 pm

Boy is this one disappointing (the RRR effort). The RRR group has had some interesting, avante garde things to say (with respect to the parochial field of ufology), but this notion shows shallow thinking. I know that Islam is vulnerable to this case in light of its emphasis on verbal dictation of the Quran via visitation by angels. Same for Joseph Smith. But that sort of thing is actually rare in the OT with Moses (Christians will no doubt be surprised by that statement). There is almost no account of a verbal dictation situation in the OT (the ten commandments scene is a notable exception). At any rate, most biblical scholars have zero time for verbal dictation of any sort, even if they don't opt for "critical methods" (which my own readers will know I don't see as bad - for those unfamiliar with me, I have a PhD in this field). And the NT never has Jesus writing anything or being given the details of what would become the gospels, as thought that material was dictated through him. What I'm trying to say here (perhaps not well) is that the idea they put forth is a badly uninformed caricature, at least with regard to the Bible. But it's unfortunately one that the average Jew or Christian would perceive as threatening because they also hold to a similar traditional caricature. (That's a nice way of saying most people who align themselves with the Bible have a poor understanding of what it is and how we got it).

terry the censor

9/20/2013 05:23:45 pm

Rich clarified in the comments that he was just speculating. He seems to have been thinking about Jose Caravaca's "Distortion Theory," which posits that UFO experiencers were not interacting with aliens but an undetermined external force. Caravaca suggests the form of these contact reports is shaped by the experiencer's frame of reference (e.g. aliens and their ships tend to resemble costumes and objects familiar to the experiencers).

Rich goes overbroad in his speculation, certainly. He should have applied it to the contactees only. There's not much reason to suppose the major prophets were the source of the stories about them, or that these stories were even written in their lifetimes (except for Smith, who seems to have been an outright fraud).