Nile Valley, Egypt — Circa 1447 BC
Moses and the blue object
Moses is seen brandishing a rod and triggering rains of blood, in an ancient illustration that shows a complex flying object. This picture is taken from the Ashkenazi Haggaciah, in a section showing the Plagues of Egypt (Exodus 5-9). Reference: The British Library, Add. Ms. 14762. The artist has represented an astonishing blue device hovering in the sky. The picture shows an object with four circular structures or openings, surrounded by flames and what appear to be bloody explosions. The hand of God at the end of a reddish-brown sleeve is extended below it, pointing to the assembled-and somewhat astonished - Hebrews. A flame is burning atop a nearby column. The illustration represents a well-known event, the Seventh Plague sent against the Egyptians. The arm in the picture is textually referred to as “God’s outstretched arm.” Here is the relevant Old Testament passage, as used by Jews today: Fig. 41: Moses and the blue object Shemot (Exodus) 9:23-24: And Moshe stretched out his rod towards heaven: and HaShem sent thunder and hail; and the fire rained down upon the ground; and HaShem rained hail upon the land of Mitzrayim. So there was hail and fire flaring up amidst the hail, very grievous, such as there was none like it in all the land of Mitzrayim since it became a nation. The image is from a 15th century manuscript composed and illuminated by Joel ben Simeon. That is, an illustration created 3,000 years after the event. It shows the fire (red and yellow) and hail (grey) sent by God. While the text itself does not mention any flying object in the sky, the artist, possibly influenced by tradition, has felt it necessary to display God’s manifestation in the form of something resembling a flying machine. Ca. 1440 BC, Elim, Sinai Desert, Arabic Peninsula Manna Machine The Zohar, a sacred Jewish text, describes a device miraculously providing food for the Hebrews as they flee: ” There are three upper heads; two, and one which contains them. The dew of the white head drops into the skull of the Small-faced One and there is it stored. And those parts which are found in the beard, they are shaped and lead downwards in many directions. In his lower eyes there are a left and a right eye, and these two have two colors, except when they are seen in the white light of the upper eye. ” Modern writers have speculated that in this puzzling text the ancient Hebrews, who lacked a technical vocabulary, used anatomical analogies to describe a complex flying machine that generated food to sustain the crowd as it moved through the desert. Fig. 42: The Manna Machine The Bible never tells us exactly what manna was and where it came from, but there are many Old Testament passages which describe its physical qualities and conditions associated with its appearance. The Bible’s first reference to manna is in the Book of Exodus as the children of Israel are fleeing from Egypt and follow Moses into the wilderness. After six weeks of wandering, they begin complaining to Moses that they are tired and hungry. What happens next is truly extraordinary: ” Then said the LORD unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law or not (16:4).’ And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground (16: 14). And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another: It is manna, for they knew not what it was. And Moses said unto them, ‘This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat.‘” Before 1200 BC Mesopotamia’s dark meteors and standing fireballs At the dawn of recorded history, Mesopotamian tablets deserve a mention, if only because a popular author, Zechariah Sitchin, has offered an interpretation of some passages in terms of visits by astronauts from other planets (notably in The Twelfth Planet, Avon Books 1978). It is a fact that some cuneiform literature deals with interesting celestial anomalies. Assyriologists have recognized these writings to be astromantic in nature, that is, texts explaining how to forecast the future by watching meteoric phenomena, as opposed to astrology, which deals with the movements of the planets. Some of these records are from 1200 BC or earlier, and were written in Hittite, but it is thought that they were copied from older Akkadian originals, not yet located. The vast majority of these texts described phenomena that can be explained today as the natural observation of meteors, fireballs, and comets. The scribes did not generally report on specific incidents that had occurred but rather provided meanings to particular kinds of sightings. A handful of cuneiform references to sky phenomena have puzzled archaeologists and astronomers. For example, the following text: “If a fireball moves across the Wagon-Star and stands…” seems to describe a meteor that stays motionless in the sky. The word “sallummu” has been translated as “fireball” but it very literally could have been anything bright passing through the sky that stood still. One possibility is that ‘sallummu’ was a meteor train that remained visible for some time across the face of the Wagon Star (Ursa Major), but the original text is not clear enough to reach a conclusion. Other texts mention a more complex picture: “Two great stars flashed one after the other in the middle watch.” (R. Campbell Thompson, The Reports of the Magicians and Astrologers of Nineveh and Babylon Luzac & Co., London 1900, 202) The “dark meteors” were among other mysterious objects described in cuneiform. For example: “If a meteor comes from above the Wagon Star and is dark and passes at the right of the man: that man will see injury.” Since meteorites passing overhead are necessarily luminous or fiery rather than dark it is tempting to retain such quotes as indication of an exceptional phenomenon, but the context is so vague that it is ultimately anyone’s guess. To the extent that no date is associated with the observation, we have not retained these cases in our chronology.
Source: Case: W457