UFO Conference Really Wants Aliens to Be Bible-Based

I did it! I didn’t think I’d be able to squeeze my entire anthology of ancient texts used by fringe historians into the publisher’s limit of 125,000 words, but after completing the first draft of the full text, I clocked in at 124,800 words, which includes the texts, commentaries, book overview, and the chapter introductions. I’ll probably do some trimming here and there, but I thrilled that I managed to get everything in without having to sacrifice any texts.

Along the way (i.e., yesterday), I also solved an interesting minor puzzle that I’m sure you aren’t interested in but I’ll tell you about anyway. When Buenaventura Bonnet tried in 1944 to explain how Don Manuel Osuna Saviñón had fabricated a medieval text documenting a medieval Arab voyage to the Canary Islands and/or America in 999 CE (which I discussed here), he didn’t know how the author came up with the name Abdelmehc, whom he had identified as the reigning monarch of the Caliphate of Cordoba when the voyage took place. Buenaventura Bonnet correctly noted that there was no caliph of Cordoba by that name, for Hisham II was the monarch in that year, but he could go no further than that. When I realized that the typesetter had mistaken “li” for an “h” the puzzle pieces started to fall into place. “Abdelmelic” was an early Romanization of Abd al-Malik, the hajib of Cordoba under Hisham II from 1002 to 1008 CE. He was the de facto governor of Spain because Hisham was a non-entity. The discrepancy in dates is probably because early nineteenth century histories of Spain claimed that Abd al-Malik had been made “emir of Almagreb” after winning a battle in 987. At that time, emir meant “general” rather than prince or sovereign, and our author has mistaken the military title for a royal one.

However, I had been concerned that I devoted too much space in the book to the myth of the Watchers and the Nephilim. I shouldn’t have worried. Yesterday, Buzzfeed’s Katie Heaney reported on her trip last week to the 55th UFO/ET Paranormal and Metaphysical Congress at the New Jersey Paranormal and Consciousness Conference. There she heard 57 conspiracy theories about aliens, of which a surprising number were devoted to religious mysteries, particularly those of the Book of Enoch and Genesis 6. Heaney didn’t quite understand all the subtleties since she hasn’t become an expert in Biblical ufology like all of us who put up with so much ancient astronaut ridiculousness, but I was shocked at just how thoroughly ufology and ancient astronautics have become synonymous, and both with New Age religion.

Let’s take a look at some of the conspiracies Heaney heard:

49. English occultist Aleister Crowley let the demon Lam into our world through an inter-dimensional portal, via Satanic ritual.

48. Later, Crowley’s portal, located at Area 51, was enlarged by rocket scientist Jack Parsons and L. Ron Hubbard. This began the modern UFO era.

47. This is not the same inter-dimensional portal that was located on the top of The Tower of Babel. But they’re related.

Star gates! An inter-dimensional portal atop the Tower of Babel is a new one on me, but in researching the issue I found that it is a popular theme among Nephilim researchers. According to one conspiracy theory, because the building of the Tower meant that “nothing would be restrained from” humankind (Genesis 11:6), this can be nothing less than knowledge of how to manipulate the space-time continuum—because what else could it possibly be? A more detailed version, compiled from the random selection of various texts to support the idea that the Tower transported Nephilim to and from Mars, can be found here.

44. One-third of heavenly angels “fell” with Lucifer, and became demons. These demons are getting onto Earth via the inter-dimensional portals.

43. Demons dress up in “bio-suits” that look like what we think of as grey, black-eyed aliens.

This is a standard Watchers conspiracy theory, but one with the added bonus of making the Watchers into the Greys and tying it to a vaguely technological star gate. Apparently, even Nephilim researchers have trouble imagining magic nowadays and need their angels to have super-iPads.

42. Fallen angels mated with humans once, but NOT twice. This information is presented on a PowerPoint slide titled “5 Reasons Why I Do Not Believe There Was A Second Incursion of Fallen Angels.” I’d badge this BuzzFeed list “SMH” and “TRASHY.”

41. Zeus was not an angel. Zeus was a Hero of Old. (?)

40. Goliath was a descendant of Zeus.

39. The Garden of Eden was located in what is now Göbekli Tepe, in Turkey.

Heaney, not being fluent in Biblical allusions, didn’t understand that the conspiracy theorist wanted to make Zeus into one of the sons of the Watchers, the heroes of old from Genesis 6:4. This is a standard rationalization of pagan deities going back to the early Church. Typically they were identified with demons outright (Augustine, City of God 7.33, e.g.), but as Cyprian writes in On the Vanity of Idols (6.1), Christians also adopted the euhemeristic idea that the gods of old were antediluvian kings: “That those are no gods whom the common people worship, is known from this: they were formerly kings, who on account of their royal memory subsequently began to be adored by their people even in death” (trans. Robert Ernst Wallace). Modern conspiracy theorists simply apply the euhemerist reading to their belief that the mighty men of old were Nephilim-giants.

Making Göbekli Tepe the Garden of Eden is a new one on me, though. As you can see here, David Rohl and Andrew Collins are promoting the idea based on—wait for it—the Watchers from the Book of Enoch! Again!

37. Mount Hermon is tied to alien-demons, which we know because its topography, symbolic of Satan, is in the shape of a goat. I can definitely see it, once the guy who tells us this draws the outline of a goat over the map.

Mount Hermon, originally a pagan site sacred to the Canaanite gods, and later identified as the home of the Anunnaki in the Old Babylonian Gilgamesh texts, was of course demonized because of—you guessed it—the Book of Enoch, which makes the Watchers descend from heaven at that spot, obviously because of its earlier pagan heritage. The Phoenician writer Sanchuniathon associated the entire Anti-Lebanon mountain range with the civilizing giants of old (Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica 1.10).

To this end, take a look at this photo Heaney captured of a presentation by Rob Skiba, a Nephilim conspiracy theorist who believes that America is the fulfillment of world history and the catalyst for the rise of the Antichrist, tied to Freemasonry and (of course) the blood moon tetrads that began this week. How many crazy ideas can you find in this photo?

Photo: Heather Heaney / Buzzfeed

The promise that the Nephilim are tied to the Roswell incident is my favorite, and I’d have loved to see that part of the slide.

33. Human DNA is 7% alien. (Because they’ve been hooking up with us.)

32. We know this because human DNA has evolved in a greater rate during the last 5000 years than any period before it.

These are claims straight from David Wilcock on Ancient Aliens, and as I explained back when those episodes aired, he read the study all wrong.

17. The Sphinx is 8000 years older than we all thought. (By this point in the day I am like, sure. That sounds right.)

16. The Sphinx was originally a lion, and shrunk due to erosion.

15. The Sphinx’s head is not its original head. When this speaker tells us he believes the Sphinx’s head is a fake, and was replaced, and none of the Egyptologists will admit it, everyone in the audience is pissed, including me.

14. Under the Sphinx is a Hall of Records that details the history of the lost continent of Atlantis. (I have to get under the Sphinx.)

These old chestnuts are still around from the 1990s! Heaney has apparently misunderstood number 16, which should read that the Sphinx originally had a lion’s head (it still has the body of a lion), a standard claim in alternative archaeology, which argues that the head was re-carved, thus explaining its disproportionately small size. The Hall of Records originates with Edgar Cayce, who took many of his ideas directly out of Theosophy and the book Dweller on Two Planets.

13. Our alien overlords, also called “oversouls,” have made agents of masonic societies and the Illuminati

Of course we have the have the Freemasons and the Illuminati, since they are diagnostic of modern conspiracy culture… but where are the Knights Templar? The over-souls seem to refer to concepts from New Age beliefs in which they typically are said to represent fragments of a Gnostic-style Creator’s immortal soul, though, in any case this is more New Age spirituality manifesting as ufology.

So, apparently I made the right call in devoting so much space to Watcher-Nephilim texts; for whatever reason, they are the very center of ancient astronautics.