I’ve blogged before (here and here) about how what the biblical prophet Ezekiel saw was not a UFO or flying saucer. From time to time I get email (or comments here) about how I’m wrong because of the “research” of Joseph Blumrich, a pseudo-scientist who blessed the world in 1974 with his pseudo-scholarship in The Spaceships of Ezekiel. For some reason I’ve recently gotten a good bit of such interaction, so I thought I’d add something to my previous posts on Ezekiel’s vision.
One of the reasons so many people have (and still do) think Blumrich’s book is worth referencing is that he claimed (and so his followers are fond of repeating) that he was a NASA engineer. He wasn’t. As Jason Colavito demonstrated a long time ago, documentation exists from the U. S. State Department that shows the State Department could find no evidence that Blumrich was affiliated with NASA. Frankly, it wouldn’t matter if Blumrich was an engineer. His ideas are based on desperate and uninformed misreadings of the biblical text anyway. We know what Ezekiel saw because his descriptions mirror ancient Babylonian iconography that we can look at today because of archaeologists. The imagery is no mystery, nor is its meaning.
So, once again, the uncritical thinkers in the ancient astronaut orbit (and I do mean orbit) were duped by a “researcher” that lied to them. You have to wonder how many times this has to happen before some of these folks wake up. The ancient astronaut theory is primarily supported by industrious but duplicitous researchers offering fraudulent research to an emotionally and psychologically primed audience. It’s actually pretty sad.
No, what’s sad is that scientifically educated people are being skeptic as they are and I was taught but that this skepticism is biased to their adopted beliefs that mainstream Archaeology has given them through institutional teachings. Skepticism means questioning all scientific inquiry, even those put forth by peer-reviewed academic mainstream “professionals.” Skepticism is about believing in possibilities with an open mind, not doubting and discrediting the ones that conflict with your personally held beliefs because it would just be too much work and too far away from your belief system to try and think how it could possibly, if at all, fit in with your current belief system. Think about Einstein’s special theory of relativity; before him, no one challenged Issac Newton’s foundation of basic physics and Einstein was in fact laughed at in some mainstream scientific circles when he first presented his theory. This was because mainstream science had taught a form of physics based on dualism (matter and energy were separate) for so long that challenging this way of thinking seemed too preposterous for any sincere consideration in the peer-reviewed scientific community. Their skepticism was skewed toward their beliefs about physics that they had adopted from educational institutions over many decades, so they laughed at what Einstein purported because it was just completely different from what they were taught and accepted as truth and the only truth. However, there were a few open minded and rightly skeptic scientists that did see the legitimacy of Einstein’s theory, propelling it forward into the future for global acceptance and scientific application.
It is very unfortunate that there are a select few from the Ancient Aliens television series whose names are used in support of this theory which have denounced its credibility which Erich Von Daniken sparked in the 60’s; Sitchin being one of those names especially. The television series Ancient Aliens is still a show and requires some form of an entertainment aspect to hook the viewers with some alien conspiracy fantasy like those described by Sitchin. However, Erich Von Daniken (author of “Chariots of the Gods?”, “The Eyes of the Sphinx”, “History is Wrong”, “Twilight of the Gods”, etc.) David Hatcher Childress (author of “Technology of the Gods”) and Philip Coppens (author of “The Ancient Alien Question”) all have supported and bibliographical entries in their books for those in depth researchers looking for sources of information. Their books remove the fantasy that the television show presents as factual; their books focus around questions of skepticism toward “known” science, research and facts, just like peer-reviewed essays and dissertations.
Our skepticism should not be narrowed only toward things we don’t believe in or understand fully, otherwise we are guilty of biased thinking which academic institutions teach one to guard against. We need to open our mind, even if that means being skeptic of what we are “supposed” to believe in, especially when it comes to history, Archaeology and Egyptology as these fields are limited in their timelines due to less technologically assisted devices when they were founded theory upon theory. Accepting Ancient Astronaut Theory means that each field would practically have to start over since every theory is founded upon previous theories; all theories would require reinterpretations and that is a tremendous amount of work and effort; that alone would occupy the time of each field, not leaving much time for the field’s experts to excavate sites, potentially setting them back to desk workers while these new theorists do all the excavating and new research.
A rightly skeptic person is not only skeptic of what he or she doesn’t believe in but also what he or she does believe in!
Just one nitpick.
You say that Joseph Blumerich wrote “The Spaceships of Ezekiel”. The linked telegram from the State Department at Colavito’s site references “Joseph Blumerich”.
The listing for “The Spaceships of Ezekiel” at amazon.com shows the author as “Josef F. Blumrich”.
A simple google search for ” ‘Josef F. Blumrich’ site:nasa.gov” returns many hits indicating that Josef F. Blumrich was indeed affiliated with NASA. In fact, in 1972 he was awarded the NASA Exceptional Service Medal which “is the second highest award in the NASA Incentive Awards Program. It is granted for significant achievement or service characterized by unusual initiative
or creative ability that clearly demonstrates substantial improvement in engineering, administative, space flight, or space-related endeavors which contribute to NASA programs.
Sad: Your claim that “Joseph Blumerich” wrote the “The Spaceships of Ezekiel” and claimed that he lied when he stated an affiliation with NASA. Something you appear to have accepted, unverified, from Jason Colavita’s site.
“Joseph Blumerich” did not write “The Spaceships of Ezekiel”. That book was written by “Josef F. Blumrich”. A simple Google search (“Josef F. Blumrich” site:nasa.gov) will provide ample evidence that Josef F. Blumrich was indeed affiliated with NASA.
I must admit, though, that I find it difficult to reconcile the spacecraft that Blumrich describes with the description that Ezekiel provides.
This has me wondering if it’s the same person – why spell both first and last names differently?
I cant understand those who debunk certain theories… You all believe in stories that a snake spoke to eve and convinced her, sons of GOD took earthly women, but doubt ancient astronaut theory. This is ridiculous.
I don’t believe for a minute that Eve talked to a snake. I’m also not locked into a literal (biological) view of Gen 6 (though I reject the Sethite view). I’m also not married to a literal Adam and Eve, since other elements of Gen 6 cosmology are obviously not about scientific claims. I’m not a philosophical materialist, so I do believe in spiritual beings – a notion held by tens of millions, so not really strange. What’s ridiculous is that you’d draw your conclusion without reading my material on the web. I have nearly 600K words online, part of which relate to all these ideas. You didn’t bother to even look.
I am not pointing anything at you, I said in general those who debunk theories, moreover that is just a couple of things I took from creation history, but there are lot of text from ancient writings and artifacts that is not explained properly.
Why are you listening to some idiot who doesn’t know where to check? Send a FOIA request to NASA for copies of anything they have related to Blumrich. They’ll send you copies of his employee record as well as articles about him in their database.
Also, the site http://www.SpaceshipsOfEzekiel.com has a list of his articles published while he was at NASA.
I’m the guy who put together the SpaceshipsOfEzekiel website. The website includes extensive references to Blumrich at NASA including his patents and images of two awards he received from NASA.
http://www.spaceshipsofezekiel.com/html/josef-blumrich-toc.html
If you want information about Blumrich and NASA you need to file a FOIA request with NASA, like I did, not send a request to the State Department. One of the things NASA sent me that I didn’t put on the website was a photocopy of his employee record.
Blumrich knew nothing of biblical Hebrew exegesis, or the analysis of biblical literature in general. Him telling us what Ezekiel meant is like me telling you how a rocket engine works.
If you read the commentary about his book I go into that in DETAIL–including the original Hebrew of the two mistranslations that are the core of this theory.
http://www.spaceshipsofezekiel.com/html/text_analysis-josef-blumrich.html
By the way, I bought or found in research libraries the SAME EDITIONS Blumrich used.
http://www.spaceshipsofezekiel.com/html/spaceships_of_ezekiel_references.html