Heiser-The-Facade - Sparkling Eyes

"You may want to follow along in the notebooks you received last evening,"Major Lindsay began, "by reading the various documents contained in your folders, but Iwould suggest you wait until you return to your rooms to read things in full. I'm going topresent an abbreviated survey of the history of alien contact in this country and theinvolvement of our own military and civilian government in relation to that contact.Please feel free to ask anything you want. Again, this will be your primary opportunity todo so, since I don't anticipate any further role with this task force.""Some of you may be aware," the major continued, "that what we think of as UFOsightings and alien `contact' have been witnessed for millennia. Ancient literature bearssuch accounts, in cultures as diverse as that of ancient India, Native Americans, medievalEuropeans, Mesoamerican peoples, the Egyptians, and, some would say, the ancientIsraelites. I would assume," he said looking in Brian's direction, "that Dr. Scott wouldcontest the latter.""I would," Brian agreed. "I know a lot of people would say that the first chapter ofthe book of Ezekiel describes a UFO, but that conclusion is totally without merit in mymind.""Could you explain why?""The details of Ezekiel's vision can be traced to religious iconography in Babylonat the time of Ezekiel's writing while he was among the Israelite captives. I can show youdrawings and photo-graphs of religious statuary with the wheels, eyes, creatures with fourfaces all of it. Ezekiel was either witnessing a manifestation of deity, complete withmotifs he had seen before in Babylon, or God providentially appeared to him in such away that his description would tell people in Babylon familiar with such symbols thatGod had visited him. He did not see a spaceship. I would contest the Egyptian material aswell. The winged disk of Horus is perfectly consistent with Egyptian modes ofexpression. On the other hand, I've seen the medieval paintings with airships in them, thePre-Columbian figurines of flying craft, and have read some of the accounts of suchthings in the ancient Hindu Vedic literature. Beats me what's going on there.""I wouldn't argue with anything that you've said, Doctor," the major responded."It merely goes to show that, when we're dealing with ancient material it's difficult toknow just what they were seeing. Consequently, I try to steer away from such areas. Iplan to stick to the twentieth century. A good place to begin the discussion of our ownculture's odyssey with UFOs," the major said, shifting gears, "is the 1940s. In February of1942, air raid sirens and anti-aircraft fire awakened a good number of the people of LosAngeles. The targets were 25 silver flying objects in V-formation near Long Beach. Over1400 rounds and thousands of dollars of damage to homes and public buildings later,nothing was shot down. The unusual thing about the episode was that eyewitnessesreported seeing several of the objects stop motionless in midair while the antiaircraftshells exploded all around them. Keep in mind—this was 1942. Neither we nor anyoneelse had aircraft even remotely matching the descriptions recorded during the event.""Why the hell did they start shooting?" asked Deidre. "Again, this was Februaryof 1942. It was just three months after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Authoritiesthought they were under attack by some kind of wingless flying machine that the112