The Old Testament

The religious leader Ezekiel writes about an encounter with a flying object year 592 B.C. near Cheber River Chaldea, in todays Iraq.

"As I looked, behold a stormy wind came out of the north and a great cloud, with brightness round about it, and fire flashing forth continually, and in the midst of the fire, as it were gleaming bronze.

"And from the midst of it came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance: they had the form of men, but each had four faces, and each of them had four wings. Their legs were straight and the soles of their feet were like the sole of a calf's foot; and they sparkled like burnished bronze. Under their wings on their four sides they had human hands... each had the face of a man in front; the four had the face of a lion on the right side... the face of an Ox on the left side, and... the face of an eagle on the back."

(Comment: Did Ezekiel describe hominoids wearing helmets with virtual cameras on the sides and at the rear, marked with symbols?)

"And their wings were spread out above; each creature had two wings, each of which touched the wing of another, while two covered their bodies. And each went straight forward... without turning as they went... And the living creatures darted to and fro, like a flash of lightning.

"Now as I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel upon the earth beside the living creatures one for each of the four of them. As for the appearance of the wheels and their construction: their appearance was like the gleaming of a chrysolite... being as it where a wheel within a wheel... the four wheels had rims and they had spokes: and their rims were full of eyes round about. And when the living creatures went the wheels went beside them; and when the living creatures rose from the Earth, the wheels rose."

(Comment: where these hominoids going back and fouth into a glowing spacecraft surrounded by a ring of portholes?)

"... there was a likeness of a throne, in appearance like sapphire; and seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness as it were of a human form. And upward from ... his loins I saw as it where gleaming bronze, ... and there was brightness ... Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about ... And when I saw it... I heard the voice of one speaking. ... the spirit lifted me up... I heard... the sounds of the wheels... that sounded like a great earthquake."

Ezekiel holds he was taken to Tel-Abib where his fellow exiles are and he is "...overwhelmed amongst them seven days."

Many historians and engineers have taken Ezekiel's story very seriously even if a part of his descriptions is coloured by the cultural level of the time. He could only describe what he saw with words and metaphors from the reality he was living in. Nevertheless are there enough information to say Ezekiel encountered a flying craft. Ezekiel is talking about living creatures which could be a description of mechanical devices such as helicopter blades that are lowered at touch down