By C. Scotty Littleton
© 2003-2007
© 2003-2007
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I am not a ufologist. I've never investigated a UFO sighting, nor a crop circle, cattle mutilation, or an abduction. Nor, to the best of my conscious knowledge, am I an "experiencer." Twice, when I was young and again a few years ago, I've observed flying objects that didn't fit any categories with which I'm familiar.[1] But I've never had a significant "missing time" episode or other indication that I've been a "guest" aboard an alien ship.Yet for more decades than I care to remember, I've watched the serious UFO literature--including works by investigators such as Jacques Valleé, Budd Hopkins, John Mack, David Jacobs, Timothy Goode, Linda Moulton Howe, Jenny Randles, Raymond Fowler, Stanton Friedman, Bruce Maccabee, the late Allen Hynek, and Don Ecker of UFO Magazine, to mention a few--grow into an impressive body of data and theory. It is a literature that can no longer be ignored by responsible social scientists, including cultural anthropologists like myself. Thus, I've decided to "come out of the closet," as it were, and assert my belief that the UFO phenomenon is real--despite the carefully orchestrated attempts by our own and other governments to deny its existence, and the skeptics and debunkers who do their best to make persons who take the phenomenon seriously appear ridiculous.
The implications of the UFO phenomenon for anthropologists--or for anyone who would make rational sense out of the human condition--are profound. If Valleé, et al. are correct, humans have been the genetically exploited "lab rats" of one or more extraterrestrial civilizations, whose technological sophistication (evincing Sir Arthur C. Clarke's assertion that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic") has allowed them to maintain a clandestine hegemony over this planet for at least the past 13,000 years.[2]
With apologies to the "British Raj," which held hegemony over India from the late seventeenth century to 1947, I've come to conceive of this extraterrestrial presence as the "Alien Raj." Yet that may be a grossly oversimplified picture of the nature of human-alien interaction, especially in ancient times. The "Alien Raj" seems not to have been--and may still not be--monolithic, any more than was the British Raj, even in its nineteenth-century heyday.
Almost every ancient mythology includes at least one rebellious deity, one who willfully violates the divine "rules." For the most part, such figures are what anthropologists call "tricksters," that is, gods or heroes who gain their ends by cleverness, stealth, and liberal applications of magic rather than by sheer divine power. Tricksters are typically reprimanded and/or severely punished for their actions, which, more often than not, involve efforts to transmit elements of divine wisdom or "technology" to mortals.
This article focuses on three trickster deities: (1) The Old Testament figure Lucifer, the "Light-Bearer," who, in defiance of Yahweh, brought self-awareness to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden; (2) the Greek deity Prometheus, who rebelled against the authority of Zeus and gave fire to mankind; and (3) the ancient Mesoamerican god Quétzalcoatl, the "Feathered Serpent," known to the Maya as Kukulkan, who was forced into exile because of his efforts on behalf of mankind.
I posit that these and other trickster deities (e.g. the Old Norse god Loki, who built Valhalla but later turned against the supreme god Odin, and the pan-Polynesian god Maui, for whom the island is named) are mythological reflections of one or more extraterrestrial dissidents who rebelled against the Alien Raj's "Prime-Directive"-type policy of non- interference in human affairs--except when it suits the aliens' immediate agenda--and were punished for their actions by the Raj.
The best-known, albeit most misunderstood, of my three examples is Lucifer, the "Fallen Angel" who rebelled against the divine authority of Yahweh and was exiled from Heaven. Soon thereafter, disguised as a serpent, he tricked Adam and Eve into becoming fully sentient, that is, over and above an immediate awareness of their sexual natures. This violated God's policy of "non- interference" in the newly-created humans' affairs, and Lucifer remained an outcast as far as the supreme--and eventually monotheistic--Hebrew deity was concerned.I suspect that in this story's earliest version, Lucifer, like Prometheus, also gave Adam and Eve the secret of fire-making, as is suggested by his name. Note, although they were eventually conflated, Lucifer should be distinguished from Satan, who entered the Hebrew tradition much later and is derived from the ancient Zoroastrian entity Angra Mainyu, the "Lord of Darkness," who was believed to be in permanent conflict with Ahura Mazda, the "Lord of Light and Goodness." (This latter conflict may also reflect the alien presence, more specifically a conflict between two or more ET species who, some 6,000-7,000 year ago, seem to have fought what amounted to a colonial war for possession of Earth.[3])
In the fully developed Hebrew religious tradition, the sexual aspect of Lucifer's "gift," together with the defiance of divine authority, assumed a disproportionate importance, and thus, unlike Prometheus, the Hebrew "Light-Bearer" remained a negative figure, an exile deserving his fate. Thus, ironically, the ancient Hebrews came to interpret the mythology surrounding this pro-human figure in much the same way the Alien Raj regarded the behavior of the dissident who inspired it: a clear violation of the rules that could not go unpunished.
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A member of the Titans (the elder dieties in ancient Greek tradition), Prometheus defected and sided with the younger Olympian gods, headed by Zeus. (Again, we have the theme of an ancient conflict that probably has alien overtones.) But after the Olympians defeated the Titans and banished their leader (Zeus's father Kronos) to subterranean Tartaros, Prometheus (whose name means "Forethought") grew uneasy with Zeus's intentions toward the newly-created humans. Zeus, the chief Olympian, forbade Prometheus from carrying fire from Heaven and teaching mortals how to use it. Prometheus defied his sovereign and did so anyway. As a result, humans became more than mere dumb animals, just as Lucifer's "gift" permitted Adam and Eve to emulate their creator, at least to a degree.Enraged, Zeus chained the rebellious god to a mountain top, where an eagle pecked his liver. A colleague, Elizabeth Barber, suggests that this is a metaphor for a volcanic eruption in which the eagle's black wings are the spreading plume of smoke and the god's blood is the red-hot lava flowing down the mountain side. Her interpretation may also be correct, as most mythology is multi-layered; once it was clear that the rebellious gift-giver from the sky was punished, human imagination took over, and the symbolic association of Prometheus's torment with a particularly devastating volcanic eruption took shape.
In time, Zeus's rage abated, and Prometheus came to occupy a heroic position in ancient Greek religion as humanity's chief divine benefactor. This is in stark contrast to the Lucifer myth, nevertheless, the tales are strikingly similar. Indeed, together with R. J. Werblowksi and several other scholars, I suspect there is a historical connection between these two figures, and that they reflect a common Near Eastern account of a rebellious, "light-bearing" pro-human deity who descended from the sky bearing knowledge--technological and otherwise--and was punished and/ or exiled by his "divine"--that is, alien--superiors for his actions on behalf of humanity.
My third example of a "pro-human" deity that seems to derive from a dissident alien prototype is the Mesoamerican "feathered-serpent" god Quétzalcoatl, called Kukulkan by the Maya, who is described as a culture- bearer. A relatively benign deity, at least by the bloody standards of Mesoamerican mythology, Quétzalcoatl, like Lucifer and Prometheus, came to earth to teach his human devotees all manner of useful arts and wisdom.[4] Like the other two divine rebels, by doing so, he angered his fellow gods and was forced into exile, although vowing to return at some future time--a motif implicit in the other two mythologies (Prometheus returned after Zeus pardoned him, and Lucifer's eagerness to return, albeit negatively valued, permeates the Judeo-Christian tradition).Two elements of the Quétzalcoatl mythology are relevant. First, his "feathered-serpent" image. Several UFO abductees, including Nebraska Highway Patrolman Herbert Schirmer and Betty Andreessen-Luca, have reported seeing winged serpents emblazoned on the abductors' uniforms. Although this element is absent in the Lucifer and Prometheus mythology, Lucifer's reptilian alter ego in the Garden of Eden is noteworthy, and the winged-serpent figure does exist in ancient Greek tradition in the image of the Caduceus (although it's associated with Asclepias, god of medicine, rather than with Prometheus).
Nevertheless, I suspect the image of a winged or feathered serpent is an important and deep-rooted alien symbol, one that may reflect a very ancient extraterrestrial totemic identification that predates the Alien Raj. Thus, one may expect both dissidents, like the prototype of Quétzalcoatl, and the more "establishment" type aliens who abducted Schirmer and Andreasson-Luca, to display it.
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The second relevant element in the Quétzalcoatl mythology is the idea that he is fair-skinned. This was one reason Moctezuma initially accepted Hernando Cortes as Quétzalcoatl redux.[5] (Among the alien physical types reported by abductees are the so-called "Nordics": blond, blue-eyed humanoids who sometimes appear in charge.[6]) Although Cortes and his fellow Spaniards didn't entirely match this human type, the dissident alien prototype of Quétzalcoatl could have been a Nordic, and the fact that the Europeans were generally fairer than Mexicans may have led Moctezuma and his people to believe that the god had returned. Of course, they soon realized that Cortes and his rapacious comrades were far from divine, but by then it was too late; the Conquest was a fait accompli. This may be a lesson for us humans, especially for those "New-Agers" who have seen fit to deify our alien colonial masters.
We have a pattern: A divine being (Lucifer, Prometheus, Quétzalcoatl, and other trickster figures) defies his superiors in the pantheon (Yahweh, Zeus, Huitzilopochitli) and attempts to assist humans. After transmitting some divine lore (self-awareness, the secret of fire-making, writing, etc.) he is punished by his superiors, either physically or by exile. It seems extremely probably that this widespread theme reflects an actual event (or series of events) of some 5,000-odd years ago, one that involved an abortive rebellion against the non-interference policy of the Alien Raj.
Do alien dissidents still exist? One can only wonder, although some abductees/contactees do report being given information that has proven useful. My friend Jack Sarfatti, a post-quantum physicist, asserts that he received an alien "phone call" in 1953 which predicted that he'd make an important breakthrough in 1973. And it happened. Could this phone call have been made by an heir to Prometheus or Quétzalcoatl?
If a dissident movement persists within the Alien Raj, we must contact it and obtain some of that magical technology, and the science behind it. It would appear to be the only realistic way to consider overthrowing the Raj's oppressive hegemony. Only when we discard the notion that our extraterrestrial "visitors," as Whitley Strieber has dubbed them, exist on some higher "spiritual plane" than ourselves can we make rational sense of a phenomenon that has such a profound, albeit clandestine, impact on our existence.
As yet, no hard, incontrovertible evidence exists that my three divine "suspects" were mythological reflexes of ancient alien dissidents. But I submit that the "soft" evidence supporting both the presence of an Alien Raj, and my above hypothesis, is persuasive enough to warrant close collaboration between anthropologists specializing in comparative mythology and folklore, and serious students of the UFO phenomenon.
We anthropologists must overcome the "they shouldn't exist, therefore they don't exist" skeptical mindset frequently encountered in academia, and systematically examine UFO abductee accounts and their congruence with mythology and folklore.
1. Circa 1936 or 1937, when I was three or four years old, I watched what I later came to think of as a "flying French horn"--this was at least a decade before the phrase "flying saucer" entered the lexicon--drift slowly across my nursery window after waking up from an afternoon nap. A half-century later, in March of 1990, while vacationing at the southern tip of Baja California, I woke up at 3:00 a.m. one morning and watched a bright point of light perform a variety of maneuvers over the ocean, including 90-degree turns, that no aircraft I'm aware of can perform. After about three minutes, just as I was about to wake up my wife, the object simply winked out.
2. Exactly how long the aliens have been here is still an open question. The appearance of lenticular, or discoid images on cave walls in Southern France and elsewhere in the late Upper Paleolithic (ca. 13,000 years ago), lends credence to this date, but their arrival could have been earlier--perhaps as far back as 25,000 years ago if some ambiguous African petroglyphs are depictions of alien beings. Some investigators assert aliens have been here for hundreds of thousands of years, and were responsible for hominid evolution, or at least that of anatomically modern Homo sapiens. However, other researchers, such as David Jacobs (personal communication), assert that the alien presence hardly dates back more than a century.
3. Except perhaps to say that Charles Fort's eighty-odd-year-old observation "That once upon a time, this earth was No-Man's land, that other worlds explored and colonized here, and fought among themselves for possession..." now appears remarkably prescient!
4. There may be a purely historical dimension to some of the mythology surrounding the "Feathered-Serpent." We know that a brilliant Toltec prince named Topilzin Quétzalcoatl, who reigned at Tula (ca. A.D. 850-900) and is credited with introducing a variety of useful arts and knowledge, was removed from power by a jealous faction in the ruling dynasty and forced into exile.
5. Additionally, by sheer chance, the year in which the Conquistadores arrived, 1519, marked the end of a 52-year Aztec calendric cycle, at which time miraculous events were supposed to happen, including the return of figures like Quétzalcoatl.
6. My own view here coincides with that of David Jacobs, who suspects that the Nordics are more probably what he calls "late-stage" human-alien hybrids, and thus not the dominant alien species. Nevertheless, they do seem fully integrated into the Alien Raj, at least culturally, and it's not impossible to suggest that one or more of them became disenchanted with "establishment" policy re the "natives" and rebelled against the Raj.
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ReplyDeleteGreetings Antigray,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comments; they're "always" welcome and indeed invited; however, promoting your book using our bandwidth without invitation and or as much as a request (from you), nor permission from us is indecorous, to be polite; that said, I have removed the "shameless promotion" and am leaving below your comments.
In the future, so you know, reference to any work of yours in the course of "making your point" is fine, as well as a "location" (e.g., an URL for your web-site) included in your "sign-off." (signature etc.)
In addition, for those that are "blog savvy," if you complete your "bio" (blogger profile) anyone can click on your name, and view your information including any "links, book information etc." (Using your bandwidth).
Antigray previously wrote:
I answered Professor Littleton on this subject before in the following Email exchange.
Art Greenfield
Note to moderator, If the photos don't come through here, Email me and I will resend this.
Hi Art,
First of all, I’m thoroughly familiar with the full text from which I took Charles Fort’s “I think we’re property…” It’s one of the epigraphs in my novel (the other is “Clarke’s Law”). And yes, I agree with Fort that we’ve been “fought over” in the past, just as the British and French fought over control of India in the 18th century. Indeed, there’s an abundance of mythological (and some archaeological) evidence—the Titanomachy in Greek mythology, the war between Odin, et al., and the Frost Giants in Scandinavian myth, and the conflict between Lucifer and Yahweh in the Old Testament, to mention but a few examples—that two distinct alien societies fought a devastating “colonial war” for hegemony over this planet some seven or eight thousand years ago, and that there was almost certainly a great deal of “collateral damage.” One set of combatants could well have been the Reptoids; the other probably the Grays. I strongly suspect that this war ended in something of a stalemate, although it’s also possible that the Reptoids beat the Grays and thus became the dominant alien species, at least on this planet.
But—and this is a very big “but”—I see no clear evidence that either the Reptoids or the Grays have used Earth as a source of food. Nor is there clear evidence that the “Alien Raj,” as I call it, has ever allied itself with any specific human community. To be sure, they’ve exploited a variety of planetary resources, including water and electric power, and human DNA has been harvested systematically, both to produce hybrids and for reasons that are not yet clear, for millennia. Moreover, on several occasions since 1950, representatives of the “Alien Raj” appear to have contacted the leaders of the U.S. and other technologically advanced nations, and agreements seem to have between worked where by, in exchange for some high-tech “trinkets,” they received carte blanche to abduct human “subjects,” mutilate animals, etc. But this is hardly an alliance. Rather, it’s more analogous to the Dutch “buying” Manhattan Island.
I sincerely doubt whether the aliens, of whatever variety, are out to harm us intentionally, any more than ethical human researchers intentionally harm their lab animals. Sure, on occasion some creatures must be sacrificed if a research project is to be successful; the same probably holds for the “Alien Raj.” In short, IMHO, they’re neither “angels,” who are here to help us achieve a higher level of “spirituality”—a word I detest—nor “demons,” which regularly eat our flesh. Rather, their behavior seems more akin to that of a consortium of human naturalists and enlightened entrepreneurs, who are managing a wilderness area. They periodically band “subject” animals so as to trace their migration routes, and, at the same time, carefully exploit the region’s resources in such a way as to cause minimal damage to the local flora and fauna. Of course, not all such persons are enlightened, as Bush’s callous attitude toward the environment abundantly demonstrates, and I’m sure there are some Bush-like aliens who couldn’t care less about us and out habitats. But the “Raj’s” basic policy for the last ten millennia or so seems to have been fairly benign, all things considered.
Of course, I don’t like being a “colonial subject,” any more than Gandhi, et al. like being subjects of the British Raj. And I wish we could figure out an effective way to throw off the alien yoke. But at the same time I really don’t thing they’ve been eating us, making alliances with counties like North Korea, or subliminally “controlling” the left in the country, whose antagonism to Bush and his insane war is extremely well founded.
Cheers,
Scotty
C. SCOTT LITTLETON, Ph.D.
Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus
Hi Scotty,
I find it rather amusing that you used one of Charles Fort's quotes, but overlooked his quotes that have a bearing on the subject at hand. There is an interesting premise written by Charles Fort in 1931. Fort was one of the first ufologists and a paranormal investigator extraordinaire and wrote extensively on the subject in the 1920s and 30s:
"I think we are property. I should say we belong to something; that once upon a time this Earth was no-man's land, that other worlds explored and colonized here and fought among themselves for possession, but now it's owned by something; that something owns this Earth--all others warned off."
--Charles Hoy Fort in 1931
Another troubling statement of Charles Fort: "I believe we are fished for. It may be we're highly esteemed by super-epicures somewhere."
Epicure-a person who has cultivated tastes, as in food or wine; a connoisseur. The Reptoids living amongst the Maya had a taste for fresh human hearts. We need to take action to insure they will no longer come here for a hearty meal.
Observe the Reptoid God eating human hearts. You will notice he has three-toed Raptor feet, just like the footprints from the Reptoid wearing the invisibility/zoom suit encountered at the Skinwalker Ranch. Observe the fashionable head gear. The Mayan artists have faithfully reproduced a long range antenna array. That system beats cell phones all to hell. They just need a craft parked in hover mode above to keep in touch with each other.
No, I am not saying we copied their antennae.
You being an anthropology prof, I thought you were supposed to know "where all the skeletons were buried," culturally and mythologically speaking. It's even in your job description:
Scott is a cultural anthropologist who teaches courses in comparative mythology and folklore, the anthropology of religion, cognitive anthropology, and Japanese culture. He has published extensively on Indo-European mythology and the origin and distribution of the Arthurian and Holy Grail legends, and has done ethnographic field work in a Tokyo neighborhood, with emphasis on the local Shinto shrine festival.
Now I know they had the same "dragons" in the Orient, even though in the modern world they are considered to be quaint myths. Well, the myths have come back and bit us in the ass. Myths don't leave fresh Raptor footprints at the Skinwalker ranch..
I must agree with you that previously, our Repto Sapien cousins did have a Raj-like system that subjugated all major Earth cultures. Their images in the form of statues and temple paintings, etc., are found in virtually every major ancient Earth culture.
It was not like the British-Raj.
They were not practicing colonialism in a quest for minerals, materials, cheap labor, or financial tribute. The only raw material they needed and wanted from Earth was raw meat. Carnivorous Reptoids, the food chain, oh my. I think it is very amusing that you think I am a right-winger because I point out the perfidy of the useful idiots who just happen to be leftists, communists, nazis, and worse. After I realized how the Reptoids used political movements to start wars as a harvesting tool, I became apolitical, and am in fact working on designing a private business corporate-type organization that would replace all political parties and movements, be run as a profitable entity that paid its own way, and actually paid all citizens dividends while it carried out all governmental functions. No more taxes. No more expensive nonproductive bureaucracy. Would you like that? No more bitter elections. No more left or right. The Reptoids couldn't divide us using politics or state religions to cause wars for meat anymore. No more "cannon fodder = Reptoid fodder." You mentioned "stupid war." All wars are stupid. War, what is it good for? Is it evil or not? Why do the same groups like communists and Muslim Jihadists keep starting wars? Take the communists, please. LOL The communists have been the "Useful Idiot" hand puppets of the Repto Sapiens since 1917 and the Jihadists since Mohammed. Whether the Repto Sapien's entire food gathering operation is evil or not is another matter. Instigating wars amongst our people so the Reps can retrieve dead meat is analogous to our ancestors stampeding buffalo herds over a cliff so that they could gather meat.
Logistically, it's the easiest method to satisfy demand that the
Reptoids can use here.
Logistics:1 : the aspect of military science dealing with the procurement,maintenance, and transportation of military matériel, facilities, and personnel.
2 : the handling of the details of an operation.
Otherwise, they would have to personally take on the
logistics of our own cattle and meat-packing industry. They would have to breed, raise, feed, transport, and slaughter "cattle" (us) using their own personnel and operating their own farms,
transportation system, and meat-packing plants. That industry is very labor intensive. Ask a cowboy or meat cutter. It is hard dirty work. I know. I worked as a meat cutter for two years. The Reps just found a way to get us to do all the dirty work and slaughter ourselves for them.
All the Reps have to do is pick up dead bodies from battlefields.
Our murdering each other in war for no good reason is evil. The Repto Sapiens causing it to happen, technically, is not evil because
they are doing it for food gathering purposes, just like we slaughter our own cattle. It is the equivalent of us getting cows to slaughetr each other so that all we have to do is go pick up the meat that we will be using for food. The food chain is not evil. The way the Reps do it to us is kind of unfair to us. We are capable of raising
sufficient cattle to meet the Reps periodic food needs every 50 years when their migration fleet stops by. That is what I am working for. WE raise food for them, and trade it to them in exchange for trade goods, technology, knowledge, etc, that we can use. However, they are hardheaded and set in their ways so we will need to negotiate from a position of military strength on a parity with them. They are not stupid and understand the true purpose of war.
Art Greenfield
http://antigray.tripod.com/
Thank you, Mr. Littleton, for your excellent article - you are a fine writer.
ReplyDeleteJust a few comments I would like to make. In talking about the feathered snake insignia abductees saw on ET's clothing, I wonder if birds' evolutionary closeness to reptiles has any meaning whatsover in this puzzle.
It seems plausible that there was a fight for us between the various alien species. I am inclined to think there is some kind of governing body that at least attempts to enforce "hands off" of the human race. I don't necessarily see it as bad though, and am quite amused by this idea of the "Raj", like we are subject to some horrible kind of oppression. Listen - the only oppressors that are around here are us. It would be sort of funny, wouldn't it, that a race that has practiced every kind of depredation on his fellow man that can be imagined would in the end be subject to a "Raj" - at its worst it could only be karmic justice. But on the other hand there seems to be some evidence of intervention that has kept us from obliterating ourselves and the earth, and I've got to wonder if the Raj had anything to do with it. Remember that missile that was shot out of the sky a few years ago, and with good reason?
I would also be chary of attributing human motivations and agendas to these races. Much of what we are comes from our wiring, and it appears that these races are light years ahead of us in every way and are probably not relying on ancient hardwired survival instincts to get by any more. At any rate, they could have done us in a long time ago if they wanted to, but they haven't. Why? And try to think a little bit harder than "meat harvest".
I think that as they reveal themselves to us more and more, we are just going to have to evaluate them the way we evaluate everyone else, when we don't let our ancient wiring do our thinking for us: by observation and experience. Some people say greys are bad, some people say reptilians are good, and vice versa. Scrap that - it is literally going to come down to face to face exchanges. We are just going to have to be brave humans about this. What the hell - we are dead meat anyway, right? :)
"It would be sort of funny, wouldn't it, that a RACE that has practiced every kind of depredation on his fellow man"
ReplyDelete--- oops, meant "species".