Those Black Holes Revisited

I’ve noted in earlier essays that someone crossing over the Event Horizon of a cosmic Black Hole does so from a personal perspective of one second per second – normal time. An outside observer would see that same crossover event as one frozen in time for all eternity. That implies a paradox in that something cannot happen at one second per second and yet take an infinite amount of time to happen. The paradox might be resolvable if it were only the image of the happening frozen in time. Alas, that too has issues. 

I’ve read several times some scientific author suggest that to an external observer, someone (or something) that’s on a bullseye path toward an astronomical Black Hole, well someone will not only be travelling at a time rate slower and slower by the external observer’s clock as they (let’s call that person a pilot) approach the Event Horizon, but in fact at contact with the Event Horizon, the pilot’s time, again as recorded by the external observer, will have stopped. In other words, the external observer will never witness the pilot’s crossover from outside the Black Hole’s Event Horizon to inside the Black Hole’s Event Horizon. The pilot will appear to be frozen in time at the Event Horizon, as witnessed by the external observer for all eternity, yet as far as the pilot is concerned, everything is normal in terms of time flowing at one second per second. The pilot, from the pilot’s perspective, crosses the Event Horizon as easily as driving to the local supermarket.

Now that’s a major paradox. The pilot can’t be crossing the Event Horizon at one second per second, while at the same time being frozen in time while crossing, which is the case according to our external observer. Of course the paradox is bullshit. To an external observer, time only comes to a screeching halt from their point of view for someone external to them if they witness that someone travelling at the speed of light. Firstly, that’s a physical impossibility. There’s no reason to believe that our cosmically Black Hole bound pilot is crossing the Event Horizon at light speed. There’s no absolute requirement that our pilot is crossing the Event Horizon at the speed of light. The pilot in fact might have fired retro-rockets to slow down just prior to crossing the Event Horizon in order to better savour the moment (just like crossing the equator for the first time)! So, in actual reality, our external observer will see the pilot cross the Event Horizon, albeit at a way slower rate than the pilot will because the pilot is travelling, hence doing the Event Horizon cross-over, though at less than the speed of light but still at some subluminal velocity relative to the external observer. Any velocity incurs some slowing of time when viewed by an external observer; the faster the velocity, the greater the slowdown.  IMHO, some ‘experts’ need to go back and redo Physics 101.

Only here’s the expert’s explanation which explains why there is no paradox. 

Space is a thing and mass (hence gravity) can warp space, twist space around its little finger. The most extreme form or amount of gravity is contained within a cosmic Black Hole from which not even light can escape – hence the blackness of the Black Hole. Because space is a thing, the Black Hole or the super ultra intense gravity of a Black Hole can suck in space (as well as matter). Okay, so a Black Hole can gobble up space.

Issues arising #1: IMHO, space is not a thing but a concept. Gravity therefore cannot interact with space. Gravity is a thing; matter is a thing; light is a thing, so interactions between gravity and matter and light (representing energy which is just matter in another form) are not an issue.

Issues arising #2: presumably that means that anything that has gravity (like you) will suck in some amount of space since even the tiniest amount of gravity will warp space to some degree.

Meantime, back to the expert: Space (as a thing), gets sucked towards a cosmic Black Hole at less that the speed of light, but speeds up as space gets closer and closer to the point of no return (the Event Horizon). When space crosses the Event Horizon, it is travelling at the speed of light. Once inside the Event Horizon, space falls down the gravity gurgler at a speed greater than that of light, which is okay since space, albeit a thing doesn’t have any mass. Anything with mass cannot travel at superluminal velocities since anything with mass can’t cross the speed of light boundary from subluminal to become superluminal.

Any physical object crossing the Event Horizon will be giving off and/or reflecting light (or any other form of electromagnetic energy) at the speed of light. But the Event Horizon is that exact boundary between space being sucked in at less than light speed and being sucked in at greater than light speed so light being given off at the Event Horizon is escaping at the same velocity that it is being sucked in. It’s like you running on a treadmill at the exact same velocity but opposite direction to that of the treadmill. To an external observer you are running yet standing still, and would appear so for all eternity.

We have to assume that the material object itself can’t be crossing the Event Horizon at the speed of light (that’s not allowed), nor will it travel at or beyond the speed of light once inside the cosmic Black Hole and dropping down it’s gravity gurgler. Though the material object crosses the Event Horizon at less than light speed, the visual image of that object will travel at light speed, but light at the Event Horizon is like the runner on the treadmill. It’s a balancing act in that the image from the object is escaping from the Black Hole’s Event Horizon outward bound at the exact same rate as it is being sucked into and past the Event Horizon by space itself.

Issues arising #3: IMHO, the Event Horizon must be extremely thin, since the Event Horizon by definition is that boundary where a velocity just a tiny, tiny, tiny (add some more ‘tiny’ here) fraction under the speed of light becomes just a tiny, tiny, tiny (add some more ‘tiny’ here) fraction above the speed of light. Or, the Event Horizon is that boundary that marks the speed of light exactly (and any tiny, tiny, tiny deviation either side is no longer the speed of light). The Event Horizon must in fact be the shortest allowable thickness that’s allowed by quantum physics, which is the Planck Length (which is so small in length, or thickness, not even the most powerful of microscopes could resolve it).

The implications revolve around the fact that any image, like that of our pilot in their spacecraft, is going to be massively larger than the thickness of the Event Horizon. In actual practice our outside observer will more decidedly not see the image frozen at the Event Horizon for all eternity. Part of the image will have to be above the Event Horizon and thus be able to escape away from the Black Hole. Part of the image will be below the Event Horizon and sucked into the cosmic Black Hole never to be seen again. Any remaining image is one Planck Length thick – invisible to the human eye and the most powerful of microscopes. Even that tiny remnant won’t last long due to ever present quantum fluctuations. The Event Horizon has the tiniest of jitters but it’s enough to disrupt the remaining bit of image from remaining for very long. The upshot is that the frozen image of the pilot and the craft as witnessed by the external observer will be fleeting at best.

Issues arising #4: When it comes to those astronomical Black Holes, we are all external observers. If our expert is correct, and images are frozen for all time at the Event Horizon by objects consisting of matter and energy that cross the Event Horizon, then absolutely anything and everything that has crossed over the Event Horizon since the creation of any specific cosmic Black Hole – since the year dot probably – well their images collectively should still be, well, visible. Each individual image would be piled on top of the next one top of the next on top of the next and so on. Somehow I very much doubt that’s the case. It should be bleeding obvious through our astronomical telescopes. And so, I repeat that IMHO, some ‘experts’ need to go back and redo Physics 101.

The Otherworlds: Other Worlds That Are Out Of This World?

If it’s plausible to speculate on the actual existence of the apparently mythical polytheistic god, by postulating that there were not really supernatural gods but flesh-and-blood ‘gods’ – technologically advanced extraterrestrials in other words – then it open up a can of worms. What about the rest of the apparently mythical menagerie like the Fairy-Folk and their realm of the Otherworld? Okay, let’s give them a fair-go too because fairies, like dragons, are nearly universal throughout all cultures – from Polynesia to Asia to the American Indians to, and of course, the Northern Europeans.  Fairies and elves (Fairy-Folk in general) equal the modern UFO ‘Greys’, or the modern UFO ‘Greys’ equate to the mythological but actual and historical Fairy-Folk, to unite past and present.

A fairly common thread in mythology is someone coming across or visiting or being taken (kidnapped even) to some sort of magical land or place inhabited by exotic, even supernatural, beings, often god-like deities and/or often the Fairy-Folk types. However, upon return to their natural world, there’s no apparent similarity between the interval of time that person thought they spent in that enchanted realm and the elapsed time between that person exiting their normal abode for enchantment-land and re-entering their natural world later on down the line. For every day or week or month that person spends in the land of enchantment, perhaps a year or more of their natural world time passes. For example, we have the mythological (or is it?) enchanted land of the Otherworld.

The ‘Other World’ (Slavic) or ‘Otherworld’ (Irish, Welsh and Celtic) in mythology tends to be a mysterious, enchanted, fabulously wealthy land, a land of fantastic pleasures, the land of (usually dispossessed*) gods, goddesses, and Fairy-Folk that is literally out of this world. It’s sort of like the Promised Land that resides towards the west, located in the oceans or beyond the seas. Note it’s the ‘Otherworld’, not the ‘underworld’ – two different concepts.

The Otherworlds (in general – they’re quite a few of them) tend to be places of rebirth where the dead get resurrected back to the land of the living. Call those rising-from-the-dead, sort of like what Jesus Christ (an extraterrestrial ‘god’) did, though he’s but one of many ‘gods’ with that talent according to mythology.

While fairies are known throughout the cultures and mythologies of the world, such as with the Maoris of New Zealand, they tend to be most associated with the Irish, Celtics and Welsh.  Further, Fairy-Folk tend to be extremely long lived (quasi-immortal, like the mythological gods), maybe even really immortal (or as close to it as makes no odds) in their Otherworld, again depicted as a land of eternal youth.

The Celtic / Irish / Welsh Otherworld is kind of like the ancient Greek Elysium (or Elysian Fields), a land of paradise also situated just somewhere to the West, but without the bit about being dead, although apparently some get to Elysium without dying. Regardless, in Elysium you’re granted immortality or become immortal, which is kind of like a rebirth, although death and rebirth were certainly Otherworld themes – part of the Otherworld environment.

My general or overall interpretation of the Otherworld(s) is that it’s a high-tech, quasi-utopian planet in another (probably not too far away in astronomical interstellar terms) solar system, inhabited by quasi-immortal, shape-shifting beings we tend to call the modern UFO abduction era ‘Greys’ or the equivalent, the historical Fairy-Folk, perhaps even home to some of the more traditional ‘gods’ associated with our mythologies.

Relevant to the case history immediately below, it’s worth noting that the Fairy-Folk (as well as the gods) have the ability to be seen only by those who they want to be seen by, just like the Norse Valkyries can only be seen by a Viking warrior about to die in battle before being escorted to (a sort of Norse Otherworld called) Valhalla. There the Viking warriors are resurrected and live to fight another day for the Norse gods like Odin in the coming final battle known as Ragnarok. This ability by Fairy-Folk and the gods and associated hangers-on to be visible to only those they wish to be visible to have a parallel in modern UFO abduction lore. Abductions can take place right under the nose of those who aren’t participants. They see and hear nothing, though by all rights they should have. The abductees usually are made unaware of the experience – some sort of mental block – though such deliberate attempts at amnesia haven’t been entirely successful, otherwise the UFO abduction phenomena or scenario wouldn’t be such a major and ongoing topic.

Case History #1: An unseen woman (obviously a Fairy-Folk or ‘goddess’ of some sort) except to an Irishman called Conla, lures him away to the Otherword in a ship of glass, a crystal coracle, never to be seen again. Now a coracle is normally a small round boat composed of wickerwork or interwoven laths covered with skin or canvas – it’s not made of glass or crystal! The ‘boat’ used by Conla in his voyage with the invisible woman to the Otherworld sounds a lot more like a shiny metallic round UFO IMHO.

Now people disappear all the time, and I’m sure that applied in our ancient past as well. A few (more probably back then than now) disappeared through some sort of natural mishap – being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Most people voluntarily disappear themselves be they criminals on the lam, people dropping out of society, children running away from home, parents running away from each other and their kids and family responsibilities, political refugees, etc. That accounts for probably 99.9% of people seemingly vanishing. But there is a residue, perhaps like Conla above, of people who do vanish under rather mysterious circumstances. In the UFO/abduction area, take for example the October 1978 case of Frederick Valentich, a young pilot flying a private plane on a short trip from Melbourne to King Island under ideal flying conditions. He and his plane vanished from sight while he was in radio contact with Melbourne flight controllers, reporting a UFO hovering over his plane. His transmission ceased at that point – go figure. But to this day, neither he nor his plane has ever been seen again.

Case History #2: The Scottish Thomas of Erceldoune, otherwise known as Thomas the Rhymer was escorted by the Queen of Elphame to fairyland (Otherworld) for an apparently brief period, but upon leaving found that seven years had passed.

Case History #3: An Irishman named Oisin had a bit of a fling with the fairy princess Niamh in the mythical Irish land of Tir na nOg (Land of Youth), the land of fairies and elves (Fairy-Folk), a land of eternal youth. It was a mystical place, an island (planet?) that lay beyond the edge of any known maps (outer space perhaps?). Oisin lived with Niamh in the Otherworld for three years, but when longing for, and finally returning home to old Mother Ireland, found that he had returned 300 years later – all his friends and family were dead, surviving himself long enough to relate his tale to Saint Patrick. 

Now in any sort of modern context or interpretation, regarding those latter two case histories, that’s nothing more than Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity’s time dilation effect – the Twin Paradox. The closer you travel towards luminal (speed of light) velocities, the slower time (rate of change) ticks over for you relative to those you left behind who are not travelling at close to luminal velocities. Thus, when you return home, you’ve aged less relative to those who stayed at home.

To continue with modern parallels, I might broad-brush alien races here which may (or may not) be in cahoots or at least in some sort of association or alliance. We have the ‘chosen few’ and the ‘victims’, in modern terms called the ‘Contactees’ and the ‘Abductees’, and their associated extraterrestrials, which are… 

The modern UFO abductees are associated with the UFO ‘Greys’ which in turn might be akin to the mythological Fairy-Folk (lumped collectively together), which might have an association with the Incubi/Succubi and related types prevalent in the Middle Ages.

In the TV show “Stargate: SG-1”, the ‘Greys’ were shown to be the Asgard race, well the Norse. But that’s okay for the real Norse too had their elves or Fairy-Folk – Their Muspelheim was the land of dark elves; Svartalfeim their world of (run-of-the-mill everyday) elves.

UFO abductions (via the ‘Greys’) have Fairy-Folk kidnapping parallels. And just as Fairy-Folk have been associated with the abduction of humans (like say to Otherworld), that applies ditto to the gods who could abduct you and take you ‘upstairs’ or ‘downstairs’. You could also often be abducted for sexual purposes by the gods. Modern abductions (as in UFO abductions) have a common theme of sex. Sex with, unwilling human victims is nothing new, like in the Middle Ages. 

In the past, like around the Middle Ages (though the track record goes all the way back to Mesopotamia around 2400 BC), you had similar tales with respect to the Incubi and Succubi - legend claims that demons both male and female sexually prey on human beings, generally during the night when the victim is sleeping. Incubus/human and Succubus/human couplings are sometimes said to be able to conceive children. The half-human offspring of such unions are sometimes referred to as a cambion. There are exact parallel tales of infant hybrids between humans and the ‘Greys’ of UFO abduction fame.

The modern (1950’s) flying saucer Contactees are associated with the ‘Nordics’ otherwise call the ‘Space Brothers’ which might have an association with Jesus Christ like varieties of angelic-like ‘gods’.

The question is, where stand the standard pantheons of the polytheistic gods or extraterrestrial ‘gods’ in this scenario? IMHO, somewhere in-between the angelic-like ‘Nordics’ as physically perfect specimens and the ‘Greys’ in terms of their personalities and actions, which can be rather callous and uncaring.

In conclusion, Otherworlds as other worlds, and out of this world, is a part of mythology that’s relevant to all those interested in astrobiology, ancient astronauts and UFOs.

*Presumably by the rise of Christianity and monotheism forcing the polytheistic ‘gods’ to pack up their bags, exit stage left, and return home – to their Otherworlds.

Ancient UFOs: Methuselah Takes A Trip

UFOs aren’t anything new. In fact, if my premise is correct, that the polytheistic gods (including the monotheistic God) were not deities but extraterrestrials (‘ancient astronauts’) then their aerial and sometimes fiery chariots so often referred to in mythology were nothing but shuttlecraft out of their mother-ships or star-ships – what we might now term UFOs. We’re all familiar with the ‘Wheels of Ezekiel’ story, but mythology coughs up several more possibilities, Biblical and otherwise. I’ll continue the ball rolling with the Bible’s old aged pensioners, like Methuselah, all of whom might actually have something to do with UFOs.   

Ah, the Bible! The Bible is an endless source of inspiration. Inspiration that is for trying to figure out how to deal with the idiocies contained within. Some tales are plausible like David and Goliath; but some, like that of Methuselah’s old age run so against the grain as to be laughable. But perhaps, just perhaps, one can come up with a plausible scenario to account for these Biblical super pensioners. 

 

It never ceases to amaze me that an awful lot of people take every word in the Bible literally. I consider that a very poor reflection on the human intellect and the ability to think logically. To believe the Bible as literal truth today is now akin to believing that the Earth is flat and that the Sun goes around it. Once upon a time it might have been understandable, but those days are long gone. 

Despite a large percentage of people taking a literal interpretation of all things Biblical, including the tale of Methuselah (and others) living to a really, really ripe old age, modern day experiences strongly suggest the point, a point that you know and I know, that biology gives the thumbs down to any such longevity. So, what do we make of this tale?

I interrupt the story here to point out that 1) behind all mythology, including Biblical mythology lurks a tiny grain of historical truth and that 2) God isn’t a supernatural deity but just one of many extraterrestrials who have arrived on Earth eons before and have divided jurisdiction over various terrestrial geographical areas among themselves. God’s patch of turf to oversee and govern of course is what we now call the Middle East. The logic behind that is too long and complicated to go into again; I’ve done that previously. Let’s just say if you believe in God then you actually believe in extraterrestrial life, extraterrestrial intelligence and ‘ancient astronauts’. 

One of the many anomalies part and parcel of Biblical texts are those “Book of Genesis” genealogies that inform us that various characters in the Bible apparently spend way more time in retirement and collecting pensions and other old age social security benefits than they ever did gainfully employed. Methuselah is often the person cited as king of the pensioners. The question is, are those Biblical old ages fact or fiction? If factual, what are the possible explanations?

I’d normally sooner trust a card shark, used car salesman, even a politician before I’d trust any of those Biblical tall tales. However, there’s always the ‘what if’ game, as in ‘what if’ this particular Biblical tall tale is really true. ‘This’ in this case is the ripe old ages of a few of the Old Testament characters. Where does that lead us?

The following Biblical characters and their ages at death are listed on Wikipedia, but since there are several versions of the genealogies in the Old Testament (Genesis) the ages don’t always agree. Regardless, relative to you or me, these fine Biblical folk are up there getting their pensions and other senior citizen benefits and have been for quite some considerable time assuming they retired at 65. If you’re getting close to your ‘use by’ date, don’t you wish you had been born a Methuselah?

Methuselah = 969 (or 720) years.

Jared = 962 (or 847) years.

Noah = 950 years.

Adam = 930 years.

Seth = 912 years.

Cainan or Kenan (pre flood) = 910 years.

Enos or Enosh = 905 years.

Mahalaleel = 895 years.

Lamech = 777 (or 753 or 653) years.

Shem = 600 years.

Arphaxad = 535 (or 438) years.

Eber = 464 (or 404) years.

Cainan (post flood) = 460 years.

Salah = 460 (or 433) years.

Enoch = 365* years.

Peleg = 339 (or 239) years.

Reu = 339 (or 239) years.

Serug = 330 (or 230) years.

Nahor = 304 (or 148) years.

Terah = 275+ (or 205) years.

Abraham = 175 years.

Oldest human verified = 122 years.

Reasonable life expectancy = 80+ years.

While there’s no theoretical reason(s) for a human to die after X number of years, 969 is pushing that envelop a bit even if you did have all the right stuff, inherited good genes, didn’t smoke or drink, ate your vegetables (and an apple a day), got eight hours of sleep and some reasonable exercise every day, avoided stress and all those other sorts of things your quack general practitioner keeps on telling you to do.

One now needs to ask to what purpose were these select few individuals given, in most cases, 900+ years instead of three score and ten. I mean that’s just not a little bit of difference from the norm, it’s a massive difference. Further, these Biblical pensioners aren’t of the ‘over-the-hill-and-off-the-pill’ set. That is to say, if you want to live to a really ripe old Biblical age, it’s better to have been born a male (which somehow runs counter to expectations today where females tend to live to collect more pension checks than males).

The Bible itself apparently offers no explanation for these extraordinary life-spans. Therefore, we have open slather when it comes to speculations upon the explanations.

The most probable explanation is that it’s pure Biblical fiction, just more myths and fairy tales for grown-ups, but then if that’s true this essay terminates now. So, indulge my fantasy as I play the ‘what if’ game, as in ‘what if’ a lifespan of 969 was achieved. How and why and what sorts of implications are now gist for the fun-and-games mill that can be speculated on till the cows come home. 

One thing I rule out is more time to be fruitful and multiply. Any normal male over any normal lifespan could potentially father hundreds upon hundreds of offspring. You don’t need a 900+ year lifespan. Re-enforcing this are the observations by the Gershwin brothers in their “Porgy and Bess” song that no gal is going to give in and spread her legs for no man who’s 900 years old!

Now I have speculated elsewhere at long length that God isn’t really a deity, but an extraterrestrial, a Captain of the Starship Heaven. Further, God, and his extraterrestrial colleagues from other starships, the polytheistic ‘gods’, came to Earth with technological powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men (and women), and experimented with mammalian primate stock, ultimately producing, via artificial selection, the human being (which really was a very bad mistake, but that’s another topic).

Now perhaps these Biblical long-lifers were really aliens themselves, aliens with naturally long life-spans, part of Captain God’s Starship Heaven crew who did a lot of the be-fruitful-and-multiply begetting bit (some of those ‘sons of God’ chatting up some of those ‘daughters of men’ scenarios that the Bible relates) designed to improve the stock of the terrestrial species known as Homo sapiens..

Or perhaps this gift of extensive longevity is yet another case of God and/or the polytheistic gods doing a bit of bio-tampering via bioengineering, medical technology, and/or genetic engineering on actual humans – some of God’s chosen ones.  So perhaps if our old-timers were human through-and-through, then you have really got to conclude that clearly, some advanced bio or genetic or medical technology/engineering was employed, and by elimination, the only beings capable of employing such technologies would be aliens, aliens who to humans living way back around the time of the mythological flood were considered deities.

So assuming Methuselah and the rest of the super-pensioners listed above were genetically or medically augmented with all those additional years, what’s the point?

One reason for a long lifespan is if you need to take a long journey. Now that rules out Planet Earth since a normal human lifespan is long enough for you to get from Point A to Point B, even before the invention of the automobile and the airplane, especially given the rather limited geography that was known in Biblical times.

The only journeys that make sense in Methuselah terms would be a journey to the stars, where say Captain God (the E.T.) and crew of the Starship Heaven originally came from – call it a sightseeing tour for God’s chosen few. 

Today, modern humanity with its advanced high-tech civilization can’t manage to get to even the nearest of stellar neighbours. Our spacecraft are too slow; our life-spans too short. But how far could you get if you lived to be over 900 years and had an advanced extraterrestrial’s technology to transport you?

Now when it comes to interstellar distances, things are measured in light-years. One light year is the distance light travels in one year. The speed of light is roughly 186,000 miles per second; a light-year is some 6 trillion miles.

If you could travel at 1% light speed, you’d travel one light-year per every 100 years. So, if you lived somewhat beyond 900 years, you could make it out to roughly 9 light-years one-way, or 4.5 light-years roundtrip. That would bring you to our nearest stellar neighbour, the Alpha Centauri system, and back home again within your 900+ year allotment.

If you celebrated over 900 birthdays, and if you could travel at 10% light speed, you’d travel one light-year every 10 years. So, you could make it out to roughly 90 light-years one-way or 45 light-years if you wanted to touch ground on home turf again before you snuffed it. A radius of 45 light years brings you to distances that incorporate a fair few stars and star systems, some of which are quite Sun-like and prime candidates for hosting some form of alien life.

But if you could travel at close to light speed and taking into account special relativity, you’d boldly go outward bound at a little less than one light-year per year. The catch here is ‘special relativity’. It operates in your favour if you want to explore strange new worlds, etc. very far from home.

So, another possible explanation is that Methuselah (and the others) actually lived normal human life-spans but their interstellar journeys were at such velocities, close to light-speed, that Einstein’s special relativity came into play. The upshot is, the faster you travel, the slower you age. And thus, the case of the ‘twin paradox’ where the stay-at-home twin ages normally (one second per second; one year per orbit around the Sun) according to our norms, but the boldly going traveller, rocketing along near light speed twin, ages way more slowly. Thus, when the boldly going twin returns home and reunites with stay-at-home twin, there will now be vast differences in their ages. Stay-at-home twin has grown a lot older relative to boldly going twin. In fact, stay-at-home twin might have already snuffed it, dying of natural causes – old age – before a reunion happens.

So if Methuselah was boldly going, he might return home to a home now hundreds of years post his terrestrial date-of-birth, but to stay-at-home types, knowing nothing of special relativity, Methuselah would a super-pensioner, having obviously spanned those hundreds of years. Those stay-at-home bodies would record Methuselah lived to a super ultra ripe old age when in reality he aged normally and had a normal life span – no bio, genetic or medical technology/engineering, just special relativity physics.

 

And so in conclusion, Methuselah’s age and those of his super ultra pensioner kind, can be accounted for by 1) assuming the story is total rubbish (and if you were a betting person, that’s the way to bet); 2) they were aliens with naturally lengthy life-spans; 3) they were humans who were artificially augmented by various technological means to keep those grey hairs and wrinkles at bay for hundreds of years; or 4) they had normal terrestrial life-spans, the sort that you or I expect, but they were subjected to the weird physics associated with the Special Theory of Relativity.

So, here are your options: 1) Supernatural God works a miracle and allows a whole lot of men to live multi-hundreds of years; 2) There were no such persons and no such longevity, rather the author of Genesis was on some sort of Biblical-era LSD – the option any sane betting person would take; 3) the story has some sort of foundation, in which case the violation of basic biology was only apparent and had to have been something else.  

P.S. The moral to these stories is that once you reject the literal interpretation of any one of the Biblical tall tales (The Brothers Grimm should have written so many), like Methuselah, then you have to question the literal aspects of all the texts; every Biblical book, chapter and verse.

*Enoch didn’t come back from his interstellar sightseeing excursion to die a peaceful and natural death back on Terra Firma. Apparently was whisked away from his terrestrial abode by God for reason(s) unknown – raptured, abducted, died on the voyage, joined the crew, whatever – and so we don’t really know when Enoch snuffed it.