Even More Random Out Of This World Thoughts

Sometimes you have a new thought, an idea, or eureka moment, but it’s not gutsy enough to expand into a reasonable length article or essay. So, here’s a potpourri of thoughts too good not to record, but with not enough meat available to flesh out. 

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* I have suggested elsewhere that the Cyclopes of mythology made for excellent representations of ancient astronauts. They possessed, according to Greek legends, the ability to create high-tech weapons for the Olympians (Zeus, Poseidon and Hades), in their war against the Titans. They certainly don’t have human appearance or physiology. But another line of evidence for the Cyclopes as ancient aliens is the Tassili (Sahara Desert region of Algeria) rock art image of ‘The Great God Mars’ so named by its discoverer since this massive image appears very unworldly. Google for the image and see how closely it resembles a Cyclops in appearance.   

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* Because the Mayan people who lived in Tikal believed they came from the constellation Pleiades, Tikal's builders placed the seven most important pyramids of the Grand Plaza in the same geometric pattern as the 'seven sisters,' or seven stars comprising the Pleiades constellation. The geometric placement of structures that mirror the Pleiades at Tikal sort of mirrors the trilogy of pyramids at Giza. The pyramids mirror the placement of the stars in Orion’s Belt. Modern societies don’t lay out their buildings in stellar patterns like the ancients tended to do. So, why did Orion’s Belt, the Pleiades, and some other celestial objects like Sirius hold such sway with our ancient ancestors?

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* Might the UFO ‘greys’ actually be robotic or an android ‘life’ form, an ExtraTerrestrial Artificial Intelligence? Well, why not?  I’ve yet to read any account that proved the ‘greys’ were functioning flesh-and-blood ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence. For all of their outward spindly appearance, they seem to be far stronger than their physiology would give them credit for. No one has seen them bleed or have bruises or scars; No arm or leg casts suggest no broken bones, not even a limp; nor have there been reports of sniffles and sneezes; they certainly look asexual and even act robotic as if on autopilot as well as being totally emotionless. When it comes to age, all seem to be the same age; there’s no sign of aging or age differentials. An artificially intelligent ‘life’ form could take on just about any outward appearance its designers wanted it to have. Natural biological evolution and natural selection are totally irrelevant when it comes to AI, including their appearance.

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* It’s been speculated that a really super advanced extraterrestrial technological civilization could literally manipulate matter and energy and create a universe from scratch (although IMHO that’s a really potentially dangerous experiment that could big bang backfire in a big bang big way). But for such an alien race, it would be far easier (and safer) to create one or more, probably more, lots more, simulated universes for fun and amusement, for study purposes or for research. The upshot is that simulated universes could exceed natural universes by multi-thousands to one. Therefore, the odds, if you’re a betting man, are that your reality is a virtual reality. 

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* In the early days of the modern ‘flying saucer’ era, the powers-that-be maintained a low key public policy of discrediting, debunking and downplaying the phenomena and the release of formally classified documents now prove (the Robertson Panel;  Project Grudge; AFR 200-2, etc.). Now one of the more really ludicrous aspects of that early era was the rise of the Contactees – people to claim to have met the handsome ‘Space Brothers’ (and equally beautiful ‘Space Sisters), been taken for rides in their spacecraft to their homes on Venus, Saturn, etc. and who spouted off realms of New Age cosmic wisdom and philosophy. Naturally, the Contactees tainted the entire ‘flying saucer’ picture. The Contactees ridiculed the entire subject. The powers-that-be couldn’t have wished for a better public distraction from the serious behind-the-scenes national security issues.

Which got me thinking about that intelligence trick of misinformation and disinformation – what if, I thought, the entire Contactee subsection of the flying saucer community was a setup in order to ridicule the entire subject matter in the eyes of the public, especially the influential public like members of congress, scientists, etc.  Now the individuals who would become the (relatively few) Contactees were poorly educated, had low incomes, and were in general towards the bottom rungs of human society and achievements. So, you can imagine some intelligence agent(s) from the CIA or NSA going up to one of these people, the great unwashed, with an offer (i.e. – a bribe) they couldn’t refuse – “how would you like to have an extra $1000 appear magically in your bank account every month for life no questions asked. All you need do is claim to have been contacted by tall, dark and handsome aliens and given rides in their flying saucers to Venus and be the recipient of all sorts of wonderful cosmic philosophies of peace, brotherhood, etc. We’ll even help you write up the books detailing your ‘experiences’ for you and you get to keep the royalties and go on radio and TV and go on tour and become famous. How does that sound?” How many people in those circumstances would say no to that? And if any did, well, accidents happen; people disappear. Who’d miss a nobody - one of the great unwashed? This is just a thought which once thought of rings a bit too close to the bone for comfort.



Mythology’s Extraterrestrial Gods: The Giant Cyclopes?

The concept of ‘ancient astronauts’ has been with us for a few decades now, even longer. Those visiting extraterrestrials have been associated with the polytheistic ‘gods’, even at times the monotheistic ‘God’ and His cast and crew (the angels, etc.). However, visions of the ‘gods’ don’t usually include the offbeat, like the mythological giants, and, for the purposes of this exercise, the Cyclopes. Are these one-eyed wonders, among other giants, imaginary, or alien?

One of the major themes of mythologies around the world relate to the concept of giants. It’s easy to extrapolate and super-size up the human body to giant proportions (Hollywood’s done that a few times in Grade-B sci-fi flicks), and there are many tall tales and fairy tales/folklore about giants like the American Paul Bunyan or the kiddie favourite “Jack and the Beanstalk”. However, while it’s easy to imagine human giants, however, it becomes obvious pretty quickly that these giants can’t be the case in reality without major anatomical alternations to the human physique.

Now let’s say the average human is six foot tall. The maximum height for a human male is a fraction under nine feet; for a human female a fraction over 8 feet according to the “Guinness Book of Records”, but humans much above 7 ½ feet are very rare indeed.  7 ½ feet and below isn’t really giant-sized, just very tall. A real giant say is at least double the human average – say 12 foot high – and that and more is not all that uncommon in the mythological literature and all cultures have tales of people of exceptional size. However, most of the mythological giants tend to be under twelve feet – like Goliath cited as being somewhere from a bit under seven feet to just under ten feet.

The main problem regarding human giants is, if you double the height, and associated width and breadth as well, you increase the body’s mass by a factor of eight. The person weighs eight times as much. However, the supporting structure, the cross-section (width and breadth) of the legs (muscle and bone) has only increased by a factor of four. So your legs are four times as thick, but they must support a weight eight times as great. If you triple the dimensions you have 27 times the mass, but only nine times the supporting area for that weight. A fourfold increase sees a massive increase in weight to 64 times normal; the supporting structure is however only 16 times greater. The ecological catchcry of ‘limits to growth’ takes on a new meaning here.

Thus, while human giants are grand Hollywood entertainment, films like “The Amazing Colossal Man” or “Attack of the 50-Foot Woman” can’t be taken for anything more than that – pure (put your brain on the shelf for the duration) entertainment.

So there are limits to growth. If some of the giants of mythology can’t be human, and if they aren’t purely figments of the imagination, then they are probably extraterrestrials.

It doesn’t take too awfully long for giants to make their appearance on Earth according to the Bible.

Apparently way back towards the near beginning of all things, the Biblical ‘sons of God’ and the ‘daughters of men’ did their ‘be fruitful and multiply bit’.

Now what’s this ‘sons of God’ and ‘daughters of men’ bit? In Genesis 6:2 [New King James Version] we have: “that the sons of God saw the daughters of men; that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose.”

According to the Old Testament [New King James Version], “There were giants [Nephilim] on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them.” (Genesis 6:4). However, since these giants are the products of the sons of God* (who must therefore also be gods) and human women, these giants must only be demigods.

Now the ‘sons of God’ couldn’t have been too giant-sized in their own right if they were to have their wicked way with the ‘daughters of men’, yet their giant-sized offspring were – well, giant-sized that is. Numbers 13:33 [New King James Version] states “There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.” If humans were like grasshoppers in size relative to the giants (the offspring of the ‘sons of God’ and the ‘daughters of men’) then something’s screwy somewhere, unless either the ‘sons of God’ or their giant [Nephilim] offspring were shape-shifters. That something is screwy somewhere actually comes as no real surprise considering it’s the Bible – the most contradictory text ever written.

Those other ‘gods’, the polytheistic deities, also spent a lot of time screwing each other and us humans. The sexual exploits of the ‘gods’ (especially the Greek ‘gods’) would put modern swinging and swingers to shame. The ‘gods’ were really quite a randy lot and not just the male ‘gods’ but a fair few of the fairer sex ‘goddesses’ as well. We’re well acquainted with Eros (Cupid) and Aphrodite (Venus) as to their job descriptions.

For example, according to ancient Greek mythology, in the beginning there was the Earth Goddess Gaia and her son the Sky God Uranus who had a bit of a role in the hay together and produced not only the 12 Titans but also the Cyclopes trio of Arges (Bright), Brontes (Thunderer) and Steropes (Lightning-Maker). The Titans eventually went head-to-head with the Olympians (Zeus and company) for world (or at least Mediterranean) domination, but the Cyclopes, treated somewhat badly by daddy, all turned turncoats and helped Zeus defeat the Titans.

Now the Cyclopes were expert metal-smiths, and they fashioned the thunderbolts for Zeus, Poseidon’s trident, and Hades’ helmet of invisibility which played key roles in that epic war-in-heaven. The Cyclopes are said by the Roman epic poet Virgil to have been as tall as forest trees, so a height way more than 12 feet would not be out of order.

Now as gods in their own right (being the offspring of Gaia and Uranus), the Cyclopes are immortal (or quasi-immortal as nothing lives forever); but they, like most other quasi-immortal gods, well the various Cyclopes weren’t invincible or invulnerable. In fact the Greek god Apollo bumped off our trio in revenge for Zeus killing Apollo’s son with a thunderbolt that the Cyclopes had made for Zeus in the first place; Zeus then had to punish Apollo, but that’s another story.

Odysseus did some major damage to the Cyclops Polyphemus (a second generation Cyclops fathered by the God of the Sea, Poseidon) in Homer’s “The Odyssey”, thus incurring the wrath of the Sea God who made Odysseus’ life quite a miserable one for many years. 

So why not consider Polyphemus purely fictitious? Well, “The Odyssey” is the sequel and companion volume to “The Illiad”, and it was Heinrich Schliemann who had such faith in the historical accuracy of “The Illiad” that he used it has the historical text in which to find and uncover the apparent mythological or fictitious city of Troy. He did! So, if the “Illiad” isn’t pure storytelling; perhaps the “The Odyssey” isn’t either.

Now the Cyclopes are clearly too large to be based on the purely human anatomical plan. A real human the size of a forest tree would have to have leg bones made of metal or stone.

The one eye of the Cyclopes suggests something non-terrestrial. No terrestrial species has one eye, very rare mutations (called obviously enough ‘cyclopia’) aside.

The Cyclopes clearly possessed very advanced technology that enabled the Olympians to defeat the Titans.

Now more likely as not, the Cyclopes collectively were either an alien race in their own right and not literally the offspring of Gaia and Uranus, or the results of the ‘gods’ experiments in genetic engineering. The later makes the idea of a creation, of offspring, more understandable.

Now mother and son (Gaia and Uranus) weren’t quite through producing giants. They actually parented another trio of giants, the Hecatoncheires, who had 50 heads and 100 arms/hands each! Perhaps these giants were again really the end result of some more genetic tinkering on the part of the ‘gods’. Anyway, the Hecatoncheires were also treated badly by daddy, so they too ultimately joined forces with Zeus against the Titans. Daddy meantime came to a bad end having his private parts cut off, but again, that’s another story.

As to the liaison between the Earth Goddess Gaia (mother) and the Sky God Uranus (son), well if they were both really extraterrestrials, then you couldn’t expect their moral or ethical codes to mirror ours of necessity.

But the one-eyed creatures of mythology don’t start and stop with the first and second generation of the Cyclopes of Greek (or Roman) mythology. While there’s not room to make a detailed account of them all, there’s the legendary Norse/German half-human character of Hagen who in a few accounts is one-eyed. Hagen is today probably best known for his role in the downfall and slaying of Siegfried in Richard Wagner’s concluding opera of his epic Ring Cycle, “Gotterdammerung”.

Then there’s Balor of the Evil Eye, a god of death who was a king of the Fomorians, a race of giants in Irish mythology. Balor (or Balar or Bolar) had one eye in the middle of his forehead and you most certainly didn’t want him looking at you! Fortunately, he too came to a sticky end at the hand of his grandson.

There’s one other possible explanation for the Cyclops by the way that also involves the Cyclops being an alien. What if aliens who land here need some sort of environmental protection; a protective suit? If an ancient, primitive, unsophisticated in the ways of high-tech humans saw a ‘creature’ in what modern humans would call an astronaut suit, the kind humans hopped along on the Moon in; or the pressure suits jet fighter pilots wear; or say  a deep-sea diver’s suit, even a typical scuba outfit with mask, the outward appearance tends to be that of a one-eyed being – a Cyclops. 

In conclusion, when it comes to giants in general or the Cyclopes in particular, we have yet again a universal theme in mythology. When it comes to mythology, my basic premise is that anytime you have near universal themes between wildly dispersed in space and/or time cultures, ethnic groups, nationalities, whatever, then you sit up and take notice that something more than just human imagination is at work.

*So Jesus Christ had brothers, presumably older and far larger brothers! The Big Question however is who was God’s wife (or mistress) by which God fathered the ‘sons of God’, or does God reproduce asexually? Maybe there isn’t a Mrs. God or she’s kept well out of sight. God doesn’t seem to be an equal opportunity player. His offspring are all male (J.C. and the ‘sons of God’); so are his cast and crew (the angels) entirely male and he deals with males like Noah, Moses, Enoch, Abraham, etc. Even Adam came before Eve and those two only produced male offspring (which is another whole can of worms glossed over by the faithful). It would appear that the polytheistic gods are heads and shoulders above the monotheistic God when it comes to the status of women.