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.”

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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.