UNWELCOME
GUARDIANS: WATCHERS FROM ABOVE
By Scott
Corrales ©2000
Music video enthusiasts might fondly
remember a 1987 clip by British rocker David Bowie which portrayed angels
filming all details of human existence--even the most sordid ones--with
suitably "angelic" white-painted cameras. The concept of God's
minions looking upon our every act is central to many religions, along with a
belief in the existence of angels.
In the 1960's and '70s, a number of
researchers and theorists began to examine the possibility that the UFO and
attendant phenomena were merely a new or "retooled" version of the
same old story mankind had been living since the caves. Although their findings
were initially well received, the field became increasingly polarized between
advocates of extraterrestrial technological intervention and believers in
mundane solutions to the riddle. Suggestions that angels or non-physical beings
could be involved in the UFO question were brushed aside by more
material-minded investigators.
But when we put our own religious (and
scientific) beliefs aside and consider the question dispassionately, we begin
to consider if such beings could actually exist, their motivations, and the
reason for their outright interference in human affairs, whether as mediators
between humans and the Deity or merely invisible entities who have influenced
humanity since the beginning of time.
The Hindu Devas
The Persian Empire under the Achaemenid
Dynasty was one of the largest land empires of antiquity. Stretching from
Macedonia to the Punjab and from Uzbekistan to Egypt, the Persians managed a
far-flung realm that included most of the civilized world of its time. Between
486 and 465 B.C.E., one of its rulers, Xerxes--better known to posterity as
biblical King Ahasuerus in Ezra 4:6 and in the book of Esther--contended with a
number of wars and uprisings throughout his kingship and left detailed records
of his response to each of these crises. One of them is particularly
interesting:
"Speaks Xerxes the king: When I became
king there were among these lands which are written above [some which
rebelled]...by Ahuramazda's will such lands I defeated, and to their place I
restored them. And among those lands were some where previously the Daivas were
worshipped. Then by Ahuramazda's will of such temples of the Daivas I sapped
the foundations, and I ordained: the Daivas shall not be worshipped. Where the
Daivas had been worshipped before, there I worshipped Ahuramazda with Arta the
exalted..."
If the Persian Daivas can be identified
with the Indian Devas, perhaps the words of Xerxes predate the angel's
admonition to Saint John about not worshipping such divine messengers: "I
am thy fellow servant...and of thy brethren," which appears in the book of
Revelation and has been quoted by other researchers on the subject.
Vedic mythology gives us the supernatural
and beneficent Devas, whose existence is invisible to humans yet share the
human characteristics of being doomed to an endless cycle of birth, maturation,
death and reincarnation. The word to describe these entities comes from the
Sanskrit term which means "beings of light" or "glowing
ones". Living in a dimension adjacent to our own, the purpose of these
etheric presences is to keep the physical universe which we inhabit running
smoothly--roughly akin to a maintenance department, out of sight but ever
present. The Devas are assigned to three distinct environments: the heavens,
the upper atmosphere and the earth, and have control over the lesser nature
spirits which exist in everything from clouds to trees to rocks.
Persian Zoroastrianism did not share such a
sanguine view of these entities. The Devas became known as Daivas and were
associated with the forces of evil--the semi divine creatures that chose the
path of druj (untruth) over the path of asha (truth). Zoroastrian
teachings and the Vedas agree that this order of non-human creatures is often
at war with another order of beings, and that their struggles often spill over
into the mortal world.
These clearly non-human yet
humanoid-looking entities have appeared before startled onlookers in guise of
sylphs, undines and dozens of creatures of medieval and ancient legend. While
trolling through folklore for evidence is hazardous work at best, we can
readily find a number of traditions (Native American, Middle Eastern, Asian) in
which a human mates with one of these "more than human" quantities
and has offspring, or like the unfortunate hunter who spied on the goddess
Artemis as she bathed, meets his or her doom.
Fascination
with Mortal Love
Salvador Freixedo's La Granja Humana (Posada,
1989) presents the high-strangeness story of a young Mexican named Jose Luis
and his bizarre friendship with a small child/man known only as
"Fair" due to his blond hair.
Jose Luis told Freixedo that he had first
encountered his odd friend during a camping trip: a group of schoolboys had
pitched their tents in the woods and encountered another boy their age (or so
they thought) who led them to his own "tent" -- a rectangular, shiny
affair resembling an excursion bus. From that moment on, "Fair" became
a fixture in the lives of Jose Luis and his friends, visiting them at school to
fill their heads with tales of space travel and the future, and making it a
point of visiting Jose Luis at home on his birthday year after year. The
strange little visitor earned the affection of Jose Luis' parents "because
of the good advice he always imparted" to their son and his companions. In
a manner worthy of an Outer Limits episode, people noticed that
"Fair" never seemed to age with each subsequent birthday visit, but
said nothing either out of fear or due to a belief that the small figure may be
suffering from a glandular disorder. But his enigmatic visitor's apparent lack
of development was the least of Jose Luis's problems.
"Fair’s role in the Mexican
youngster's life seemed to be, suggests Freixedo, to groom him for future
greatness (whether this greatness has been achieved remains unclear) by
clearing any and all obstacles. When Jose Luis took a humble job in an
important corporation, a number of managers supposedly died of a variety of
symptoms until Jose Luis found himself in a powerful position--all of this
after consultation with "Fair". Something similar occurred when Jose
Luis remarked that he was in love with a married woman:
The fact is that one day, when Jose Luis was
feeling particularly depressed, "Fair" told him: "You're sad and
I know why."
J Jose
Luis tried to deny that he was particularly sad about anything...but
"Fair" insisted: "You're in love with a young woman who can't
correspond your affections because she's married. You're saddened to see that
achieving your wishes seems impossible [...] Don't worry. Within a year, when I
come back to visit you, you'll not only be married to the young lady, but
you'll also have a child by her--no matter how impossible it may seem."
(Freixedo, p.210)
And so it was. The method used to remove
Jose Luis' "rival" from the picture isn't mentioned.
Freixedo elaborates further about the
experiences of Jose Luis and his mysterious friend, but the above will suffice
for our purposes. Did the diminutive and ageless "Fair" belong, as
the author suggests, to the order of intermediary beings between humans and
angels known in the Islamic world as the Djinn? Citing Gordon Creighton's work
on this order of non-humans, whose reality is accepted in religious courts
throughout the Middle East and North Africa, Freixedo discusses their
capricious behavior toward humans, often selecting one of us as a protégé or
even as a pet, and manifesting a fascination for human reproduction and human
affairs (much like the abducting "Greys" our own time).
How far does this interest extend on the
part of this powerful yet far from divine order of beings? Anthony Roberts
suggests that the large-eyed, black-haired and pointed-faced Mesopotamian love
goddess Ishtar was of their number (said physical traits being common to ultra
terrestrials, in his opinion) along with other similar entities. Ancient myth
had it that no mortal--understandably--was immune to the goddess of love. But
what about today?
Some twenty years ago, a curious little
book entitled UFO Encounters of the Fourth Kind (Zebra Books, 1978)
explored the carnal obsessions evinced throughout history by these beings who
appeared to us now in as "space people". Author Art Gatti made reference to a 1969
epidemic in Morocco having to do with "Aycha Kenaycha", described as
a "dark demoness" or succubus who appeared to drug users undergoing
astral experiences by summoning each of them in their mothers' voice. The
drugged-out astral traveler would find himself facing an astral form capable of
stealing their souls, not just their astral selves. Gatti states that the
nationwide epidemic which filled insane asylums and jails to capacity ended in
the 1970's, and that its end was brought about by the Islamic equivalent of
exorcism rites...or a drastic reduction in hashish consumption.
Wars on Earth Below
That the Gods choose sides in mortal
conflicts is hardly a new idea. A quick glance at the Iliad shows us the
Olympian deities backing human contestants much like a human might favor a
sports team, and even lending assistance to support their favorites. But when
examples of supernatural intervention appear in our own wars, both in antiquity
and in the recent past, this gives us reason to pause. Are warring human
factions supported by non-human parties, or is this just a belief fostered by
belligerent to hearten their own troops with the notion that "God is on
our side"?
During the second Egyptian campaign lead by
the Syrian monarch Antiochus; his troops were encouraged by an aerial display
of "armed horsemen in golden armor" who charged at each other in the
sky. Almost a thousand years later, beleaguered Spanish knights would be
equally heartened by the apparition of the Virgin of Covadonga, spurring them
on to win a major battle which marks the beginning of the reconquest of the
Iberian Peninsula from the Moors. The entities in this particular conflict
didn't mind playing both ends against the middle--during the battle of Alarcos
in 1195, the forces of Alfonso VIII claimed seeing a fully armed St. James on a
white steed flying overhead, leading them into the melee, while Muslim
chronicles tell us that the Moorish forces, who eventually won the encounter,
saw above their numbers none other than Mohammed himself, astride his magical
steed al-Borak.
The reader can dismiss all of the foregoing
as little more than charming folklore that has percolated down to our times.
But supernatural forces continued aiding and abetting different factions in
conflict, especially during the European conquest of the Americas. Chronicler
Pedro Cieza de León, whose writings describe the conquest of Peru and the
Pacific coast of South America in general, mentions an odd situation
experienced by conquistadores: when the Incas turned against Pizarro's
invaders in the mountain city of Cuzco, the European forces numbered little
over 180 horse and foot, while Manco Inca (sic) had more than two hundred
thousand warriors at his command. But native sources told Cieza that the Inca
defeat was attributable to a "heavenly figure" who appeared during
battles and "caused the natives great harm" (Cieza, Ch.119).
Pedro de Valdivia, who conquered modern day
Chile, wrote a letter to Charles V of Spain informing him of a strange event
which occurred during a conflict with the natives in 1541, while Araucanian
warriors besieged his makeshift fort: "[...] the native Indians say that
the day they came to our fort, at the very same time that our horsemen rushed
forth against them, an old man riding a white horse fell among their numbers,
urging them: Flee, for these Christians shall slay thee! Such was their
fright that they turned about and fled."
Valdivia's letter notes that three days
earlier, a "beautiful lady clad in white" had appeared among the
natives and given them as similar warning.
The Spanish conquistadores were bold, brutal
and vain. While attributing their success to divine intervention might
ingratiate them with Church authorities, it also showed the direness of their
predicament--something they would have normally been loath to admit. Again, the
reader might chalk all of this up to the rantings of a soldier far from home,
trying to make a good impression on his superiors.
But what can we say when this "divine
intervention", for want of a better term, occurs during our own century?
On August 26, 1914, the survivors of the
British Expeditionary Force were retreating from the battle of Mons with the
German cavalry in hot pursuit. Unable to make it to safety, the bedraggled
force turned around to face the attackers and make a last stand. To the
astonishment of the British "Tommies", a line of ghostly cavalry
stood as a buffer between their position and the onrushing Germans. Contenders
on both sides insisted that the spectral army had indeed been an angelic host,
although official reports only indicate that the Germans refused to attack the
retreating British due to the presence of a large body of troops in the area.
Wars in the
Heavens Above
It has long been suggested that our earthly
conflicts mirror the struggles of our planet's unseen "overlords".
"It looks as if a long war has been fought in the immediate vicinity of
this planet, and that this war is far from over," observes Anthony Roberts
in his book The Dark Gods, further cautioning that "the purpose now
must be to see this long war in its more universal application...to reconcile
the cosmic connection with the cosmic battleground in which the whole saga of
existence takes place."
Roberts posits that
these battles rage on the physical and spiritual levels much like a human war
might take place on land and sea simultaneously. The spiritual dimension of the
conflict, as suggested by Roberts, bears a resemblance to the premises of
certain works of heroic fantasy in which the opposing sides are the forces of
Law and Chaos, always striving to overcome each other.
The author cites the beliefs of certain
religious traditions concerning Man's role as a tool or plaything in the hands
of these vast forces, going as far as to cite the Theosophical belief that the
lost continent of Atlantis was destroyed by the excesses of its black magicians
(another idea brilliantly portrayed in fictional form by J.R.R. Tolkien). At
this point a slight digression may be in order: While scholars may be outraged
by this notion, epigraphers working on deciphering Brazil's controversial Ingá
Stone -- an intricately carved structure of dark stone located in northeastern
Brazil -- claim to have deciphered a curious name. Epigrapher Francis
Schauspelier has suggested that the word su-me which appears repeatedly
on the Ingá Stone translates as "black hand" in certain Indo European
languages. Could the Sume have been one of these Atlantean black magicians?
Leaving Atlantis to rest in its watery
grave, let us retake the thrust of our argument.
In the early 20th century, Charles Fort
turned his keen intellect to the concept of struggles taking place at a level
far beyond mortal ken. In his inimitable prose style, he suggested that a
"vast, black, brooding vampire" large enough to "obscure a star
or shove a comet" held sway over this world and perhaps others; perhaps
even defending its fiefdom against other entities--space-scavengers who may
have picked off entire terrestrial civilizations like that of the Mayas.
"Something now has a legal right to us," wrote Fort. "by force
or by having paid out analogues of beads to the former, more primitive owners
of us..."
Decades later, his line of thought would be
expanded by those who saw a similar relationship arising in the Scriptures. Was
the biblical "war in heaven" merely the retelling of an event in
which mighty non-humans fought for possession of our world, perhaps even our
universe? Were the figures of Yahweh and Azazel mentioned in the Pentateuch
simply the names of each ultraterrestrial or semi-divine faction? Which one was
in control first? Again, Salvador Freixedo explores this issue in his book Defendámonos
de los Dioses
(Quintá, 1985),
suggesting that these ethereal forces struggled for the Earth with one party
defeating the other, which has ever since struggled to reassert itself. While
for all our external differences, notes Freixedo, we are all equally human. The
same cannot be said for these non-human creatures, which do not appear to
belong to a common order of beings, and are not even aware of other non-humans
they may have encountered during incursions into our own reality. "The
struggle which according to theology erupted between the angels before the
creation of the world...is ongoing and the rivalry among spirits is not over,
given their jealousy of rank and prerogatives." (Freixedo, p.21).
This is all well and good, the reader may
think, but what are they fighting over?
A number of authors have dared to suggest
that these improbable beings are fighting over us -- lowly humans who
are largely at their whim. But much like an actor needs an audience or a
politician needs voters, these beings need the energy we appear to feed them
through human wars, suffering, mass worship and other group activities.
Freixedo, Keel, Creighton, Roberts and David Tansley all seem to be in
agreement on this point, which echoes Charles Fort's only partially humorous
assertion that these superbeings wanted us for "our greasy, shiny
brains."
