Dimensions: A Casebook of Alien Contact - Above Top Secret

already surrounded....I was told where there were deposited some plates, on which was engraved an abridgment ofthe records of the ancient peoples that had existed on this continent. The angel appeared tome three times the same night and unfolded the same things.It is important to note that this apparition was not Joseph's first vision. Indeed, he had "beenforbidden to join any of the religious sects of the day" because he had claimed to have been favoredby a mystical revelation while he was alone in the wilderness at the age of fourteen.When Angel Moroni appeared to him Joseph Smith had been praying for a vision, for, he says, "Ihad full confidence in obtaining a divine manifestation, as I had previously had one." The angelappeared three times during the night of September 21, 1823 (which happens to be the autumnalequinox), repeating exactly the same words. After the third time Joseph was surprised to hear thecock crow and to find that daylight was approaching, "so that our interviews must have occupiedthe whole of that night."Joseph Smith got up and began his normal chores, but he found himself so exhausted (like thechildren at Fatima) that he couldn't work in any useful way. His father thought he was sick and toldhim to go home. On the way he fell when trying to climb a fence and remained unconscious. Theangel then appeared to him once more and told him to repeat his words to his father and to revealhis instructions. The father told Joseph to go and do as he had been commanded and said that "thesethings were of God."Thus, the young man was allowed to go to the place where the plates were buried. He found theminside a stone box, which he had no difficulty opening, but he was unable to take the plates out ofthe box. Again the angel appeared, and it told him to come back precisely in one year and everyyear after that; four years later he would be permitted to take the plates.The remainder of the story is well known. Thanks to the help of a wealthy farmer named MartinHarris, Smith was able to work on the translation of the golden plates, which he read with the helpof special stones he had found in the box. When Harris took the plates and the beginning of thetranslation to Professor Charles Anthony of New York, this learned gentleman stated that thetranslation was correct, "more so than any he had before seen translated from the Egyptian."Looking at the plates that had not yet been translated, he said that they were Egyptian, Chaldaic,Assyrian, and Arabic, and the professor signed a statement to that effect, which he later tore topieces, however, when he learned that the young man had found the plates upon the instruction ofan angel!Eleven persons have stated that they saw the plates unearthed by Joseph Smith. In June 1829, inresponse to a communication obtained by Smith, the Mormon prophet retired to the woodsaccompanied by Martin Harris, David Whitmer, and Oliver Cowdery, and knelt "in fervent prayer,"hoping to recieve a vision of the plates. As nothing happened, Martin Harris withdrew from thegroup, believing that it was his presence that prevented the miracle from taking place. The othersresumed their prayers and, after a few minutes, an angel stood before them, holding the plates: "Heturned over the leaves one by one, so that we could see them and discern the engravings thereondistinctly."The Book of Mormon was first published in 1830. It is a strange document, similar in many ways tothe Oahspe bible or the Book of Urantia, two accounts of early history similarly "inspired" bydivine intelligence. The Oahspe bible is an account of the origins and antiquity of mankind andcontains many references to the Red Men. It was recieved "psychically" by John Ballou Newbroughabout 1881, and it originated with Shining Beings whom he called angels.It is futile to engage in a debate concerning the truth or falsity of the statements made by JosephSmith. We are looking here for indications of a higher order, and we can define as a miracle anyevent, real or imagined or even faked, which creates certain paranormal but verifiable effects. Thetransformation of an ordinary farmboy from rural New York State into an unchallenged leader ofmultitudes is an unusual fact that deserves attention even if we doubt the story. When we trace theturning point of this man's life to the sighting of a strange light and to contact with an entity inside