Was God an Astronaut?

With the publication this month of Nick Redfern's Pyramids and the Pentagon, another in his series of UFO and ancient mystery conspiracy books based on U.S. government documents released through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), I've decided to examine some of the CIA and NSA files Redfern cites in his many books as important evidence for piecing together the story of government involvement in the exploration of ancient astronauts and other extraterrestrial mysteries. This is the fourth piece in my series on the U.S. government's FOIA files.

In reading through the FBI's UFO files, I came across a rather extraordinary little pamphlet by a fellow named the Rev. John Miller, SMT, of whom I had never heard. Apparently, this fellow was an acolyte of George Adamski (who provided the cover illustration to the mimeographed pamphlet), and he operated a church in Litchfield, Illinois. Otherwise, I know nothing of him.

His mid-1950s pamphlet, called "Whirling Wheels: A Correlation of Flying Saucers and Visitors from Other Planets in The Bible," on the other hand, is a rich text replete with claims that would be repeated time and again in the developing von Daniken strain of the ancient astronaut theory.

I've posted extensive excerpts of the pamphlet in my US Government Ancient Astronaut Files section as well as a link to the FBI's copy of the full pamphlet.

Just imagine the audacity of Miller's claims for a 1950s audience: "To understand our own holy book we must replace outworn mythological terminology of yester-year with the most adequate scientific terminology of today." This much is what von Daniken would do a decade later. But then it gets good. Miller claims that Americans should remain Christians because God, Jesus, and the angels were all extraterrestrials. "This clear understanding of things as they are and as they will be, is for our comfort. We should always remember that God’s people are always protected by a circle of space-ships."

Compare this message with these delivered by Erich von Daniken, Giorgio Tsoukalos, and David Hatcher Childress. The general sentiment is the same, but it's astonishing how religious belief has so changed since the 1950s that alternative theorists have had to retrench from claims about Jesus as an alien to avoid offending increasingly adamant fundamentalists.