1950s UFO Abductions with Dr. O.L. Jaggers

The coming of the flying saucers in 1947 were seen by some as the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy of the end times, “fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven...  in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars”  - Luke 21, King James Version. The thought was reflected in a song,  (When You See) Those Flying Saucers performed by The Buchanan Brothers, Oct. 27, 1947:

...those flying saucers may be just a sign...

So repent today, you’re running out of time

When you see a saucer fly like a comet through the sky

You should realize the price you’ll have to pay

You’d better pray to the Lord when you see those flying saucers

It may be the coming of the Judgment Day"

The previous STTF article, Signs: Ezekiel, the Bible and UFOs, recounted some early examples of the intersection of religion and saucers. This piece will examine how UFOs became a core part of the World Church led by Reverend Orval L. Jaggers

The Los Angeles Times April 19, 1952

Reverend O. L. Jaggers

Reverend Orval Lee Jaggers (1916 - 2004) was a contemporary of Billy Graham of Oral Roberts, and began his ministry as a successful traveling revival evangelist, complete with tent shows and healing the sick. In 1952 he opened the World Church in Los Angeles, which by 1956 boasted a membership over 10,000, and reached an even wider audience by via radio, television and occasional speaking tours. Jaggers also wrote over 300 short books on a number of modern concerns, from the threat of Communism to the Atomic bomb, immortality and flying saucers.

Rev. Jaggers was an associate editor to The Voice of Healing, the monthly inter-evangelical magazine of the Last-Day Sign-Gift Ministries. Their July 1950 issue featured an article “Prophetic Significance of The Flying Saucer” by editor Gordon Lindsay, and it’s very much in line with the message Jaggers incorporated into his ministry.

"God is determined to punish a race that has rejected Him and given themselves over so completely to evil and depravity. It would appear that the matter of the Flying Saucers is one more warning to the sinner to repent and get right with God before the horror of irremediable judgment strikes the earth."

It's valuable snapshot of how the public viewed the UFO phenomenon at the time, as a pervasive mystery seen by many people, the origin unknown. Lindsay and Jaggers leveraged that and turned the belief of the seen, saucers, into a tool for managing belief of the unseen, God and Heavenly matters.

UFOs became part of Rev. Jaggers’ sermons, as seen in the clipping above from the Los Angeles Times, May 3, 1952, on his sermon, “Flying Saucers.”

PDF of book at http://www.universalworldchurch.org/w/images/6/68/Flying_saucers.pdf

In 1952, Rev. Jaggers expanded the sermon into a 48-page book,  Flying Saucers!   In the book, Jaggers said:

Documentary evidence both from government sources and otherwise; prove beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the so-called FLYING SAUCERS ARE REAL.” He goes on to say that UFOs were described in several passages in the Bible, and that Ezekiel’s Wheel was a description of flying saucers.

There are two types of angelic beings one is the CHERUBIM or the “LIVING CREATURES” and the other is the SERAPHIM.

Jaggers explained that their appearance is a warning to the USA due to the moral decay of the nation:

BECAUSE OF AMERICA’S SINS… FLYING SAUCERS… THE CHERUBIM OR WHEEL IN THE MIDDLE OF A WHEEL, WITH SUPERSONIC AND SUPERNATURAL SPEED AND POWER, ARE FLYING OVER AMERICA AS A WARNING THAT THE JUDGMENTS OF GOD ARE ABOUT TO FALL ON THIS UNRIGHTEOUS NATION!

Later in 1952, Jaggers' sermon answers the question:

“Who Are the Little Men in the Flying Saucers?”

The Los Angeles Times Aug. 16, 1952

There was nothing in Rev. Jaggers'  book about abductions, but kidnappings by flying saucers became an important topic in his sermons in 1953.

Los Angeles Times Dec. 12, 1953

The article by Tony Breeden at the site Christian Exotheology, “The Preacher Who Believed That Flying Saucers Were Kidnapping Human Beings – in 1953,” suggests that Jaggers was inspired by reading the article by Leroy Thorpe, “Are the Flying Saucers Kidnapping Humans?” in the October 1953 issue of Man to Man magazine. The article was not based on contemporary accounts, just an undated recycling of a mysterious disappearance taken from one of Charles Fort’s books.

Winnipeg Free Press, June 12 1954

Flying saucers kidnapping humans didn’t fit well with Jaggers’ angel explanation, so he eventually revised his point of view to say that some saucers had little men - or even giants - inside.

Odessa American Sept. 9, 1955

"Irrefutable proof that flying saucers and little men in flying saucers do exist!"

Press-Courier (Oxnard, CA) Aug. 31, 1957

Flying Saucers were an integral part of Rev. Jaggers' teachings an in 1974, he reissued his 1952 book under a new title, revised to include modern UFO news clippings, U.F.O.s and the Creatures That Fly Them! Those teachings along with some other extreme departures from Biblical teachings caused a divide between the World Church and more conventional evangelists. 

Somewhere along the line, Rev. Jaggers picked up an impressive collection of degrees, Doctor of Science, Doctor of Biology and Divine Physics, Doctor of Literature, Doctor of Divinity, Doctor of Philosophy, Doctor of Nuclear Biology, Ph.D. Professor of Human Genetics - all  apparently granted by his University of the World Church.

1957, Miss Velma and Beyond

At the top: The Los Angeles Times June 30, 1956

The San Bernardino County July 22, 1957

In an epic ceremony in 1957, Jaggers married his cousin, known as “Miss Velma,” and the church performances became more theatrical and often featured her "soaring above the congregation" on horseback, in a chariot, spaceship, or dressed as an angel. Rev. Jaggers’ teachings were controversial and he had an adversarial relationship with the Pentecostal church and it was said that “his imagination went wild.” They couldn’t accept his claims that miracle healing oil flowed from his hands - or that his believers could attain physical immortality.

According to the biography of Jaggers at the site Healing and Revival, things took a turn for the worse in 1957. Miss Velma joined the ministry and “participated in all of his increasingly weird teachings and found her niche in odd theatrical productions.” ... (A financial fiasco) caused the church to decline and it never recovered. Jaggers was no longer a daily news item and his teachings became increasingly unbiblical and weird. He taught that God was created by space aliens.” 

The Universal World Church hosts a site devoted to the memory of  Rev. Dr. O. L. Jaggers, Dr. Miss Velma Jaggers, and it includes much valuable information from articles to videos of the Jaggers in lectures and television performances.

. . .

Other Sources and Further Reading

All Things Are Possible: The Healing and Charismatic Revivals in Modern America

by David Edwin Harrell, Jr, 1979 (At Google Books)

Biography of O.L. Jaggers: "Healing As A Means To An End"

http://healingandrevival.com/BioOLJaggers.htm

“O. L. Jaggers: January 8, 1916 - January 10, 2004,” The Voice of Healing

http://www.voiceofhealing.info/05otherministries/jaggers.html

“Prophetic Significance of The Flying Saucer” by Gordon Lindsay, The Voice of Healing, July 1950

http://endtime.is/TVH/1950_JULY.pdf

“What is the Mystery of the Flying Saucers?” by Gordon Lindsay The Voice of Healing, Oct. 1952

http://endtime.is/TVH/1952_OCTOBER.pdf

“The Mystery of the Flying Saucers” by Gordon Lindsay The Voice of Healing, April 1954

http://endtime.is/TVH/1954_APRIL.pdf

“Further Developments On the Flying Saucers” by Gordon Lindsay The Voice of Healing, June 1954

http://endtime.is/TVH/1954_JUNE.pdf

Signs: Ezekiel, the Bible and UFOs

"It's God's truth — I will swear it on a Bible." 

- Kenneth Arnold, Oregon Journal, June 27, 1947

Kenneth Arnold received a warning shortly after his sighting of flying saucers in 1947. Some people were seeing the saucers as a sign from above.

Preacher Sees Doomsday "... getting his flock “ready for the end of this world.”

Spokane Daily Chronicle, page 1, June 27, 1947 

Biblical connections were being found:
Los Angeles Herald-Express, July 8, 1947, "Ezekiel the Prophet Foretold Flying Discs."

The Bible and Project Blue Book

Project Blue Book checked the Bible for such signs. General John A. Samford, from page three of the AF transcript of the July 29, 1952 press conference prompted by the Washington, D.C. UFO radar incidents.

“The volume of reporting is related to many things. We know that reports of this kind go back to Biblical times. There have been flurries of them in various centuries. 1846 seems to of been a time when there were quite a flurry of reporting of this card. Our current series of report goes back, generally, to 1946 in which things with this kind reported in Sweden."

Later handwritten notes added in margin, with an arrow pointing to Biblical times:

“Charles Fort has written on the subject of UFOs – his works published during the last century.”

https://www.fold3.com/image/1/12428060

Captain Edward J. Ruppelt of Project Blue Book in a 1952 document, “Draft of Article for August Air Intelligence Digest” had a section dealing with the Biblical UFOs, UAPs or UAOs:

"Ezekiel Saw de Wheel,"Zechariah saw a "roll"

The AIR INTELLIGENCE DIGEST will not quarrel with readers who dismiss as far-fetched any interpretation of the Biblical quotations below as references to 1) a disc-shaped UAO and 2) a cigar-shaped UAO. These quotations are presented solely for whatever significance, if any, that DIGEST readers read into them.
The wording of the well-known reference in Ezekiel is: " . . . a whirlwind came out of the north . . . a fire unfolding . . . and a brightness was about it, out of the midst thereof as the color of amber . . . it sparkled like the color of burnished brass . . . like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps . . . the appearance of the wheels was like unto the color of a beryl (greenish-blue) . . . as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel".

Less familiar is a passage in Zechariah: "Then I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and beheld a flying roll . . . the length thereof (was) twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof (was) ten cubits." "Roll," in Biblical terminology, usually meant the parchment rolls then used for books. In some translations, the phrase "flying book" is substituted for "flying roll" in the foregoing passage. Converting cubits into feet, Zechariah's "flying roll" measured 30 by 15 feet.

Ruppelt briefly touched on the topic in his 1956 book, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects:

“Did UFO reports actually start in 1947? We had spent a great deal of time trying to resolve this question. Old newspaper files, journals, and books that we found in the Library of Congress contained many reports of odd things being seen in the sky as far back as the Biblical times. The old Negro spiritual says, 'Ezekiel saw a wheel 'way up in the middle of the air.' We couldn't substantiate Ezekiel's sighting because many of the very old reports of odd things observed in the sky could be explained as natural phenomena that weren't fully understood in those days."

The Air Force wasn't going to accept the Biblical accounts on faith alone, but it was enough for many.

Flying Saucers, God's Last Sign of the Age

Certainly a bit of religion worked its way into UFO lore, such as with George Adamski's Space Brothers, "technological angels" from Venus. A bit of flying saucery worked its way into some churches as well. The Reverend R.D. Ingle included saucers in some of his sermons.

"Earthquakes and Flying Saucers, God's Last Sign of the Age."

Harrisonburg Daily News-Record (VA) March 21, 1953

"The United States Will be Invaded From the Air According to Bible Predictions"

Zanesville Signal (OH) April 1953 

Ezekiel's vision

 

Reverend Billy Graham was asked in his column about Ezekiel and flying saucers. Graham didn't know much about saucers, but didn't think they were part of Biblical prophecy. Still, he thought it prudent to get right with the Lord just in case, and also to "Watch..."

Charleston Daily Mail (WV) April 2, 1953

The topic of UFOs and religion is near infinite, so we'll let Rev. Graham have the last word for now.