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This tradition says that one fine day Lamech, Noah's father, came home and was surprised to find a boy, who, judging by his appearance, was quite out of place in the family. Lamech reproached his wife Bat-Enosh and claimed that the child was not his. Then Bat-Enosh swore by all that was holy that the seed came from him, father Lamech, and not from a soldier or a stranger or one of the 'sons of heaven’. (In parenthesis we may ask what sort of 'sons of heaven’ was Bat-Enosh talking about? At all events this family drama took place before the Flood.) Nevertheless, Lamech did not believe his wife's protestations and, feeling very upset, went to ask his father Methuselah for advice. On his arrival, he related the family story that was so depressing to him. Methuselah listened to it, reflected and went off himself to consult the wise Enoch. The cuckoo in the family nest was causing so much trouble that the old man accepted the hardships of the long journey. The question of the little boy's origin had to be cleared up. So Methuselah described how a boy had appeared in his son's family who looked much more like a son of heaven than a man. His eyes, hair, skin and whole being were Enoch listened to the story and sent old Methuselah on his way with the extremely worrying news that a great judgment would come upon the earth and mankind and that all 'flesh' would be destroyed because it was sordid and dissolute. But the strange boy whom the family were suspicious of had been chosen as the progenitor of those who should survive the great universal judgment. Therefore he should order his son Lamech to call the child Noah. Methuselah journeyed home and told his son Lamech what was in store for them all. What could Lamech do but recognise the unusual child as his The astonishing thing about this family story is the information that Noah's parents were told about the coming Flood and that even grandfather Methuselah was forewarned of the terrible event by the same Enoch who soon afterwards, according to tradition, disappeared for ever in a fiery heavenly chariot. Does not this seriously pose the question whether the human race is not an act of deliberate 'breeding' by unknown beings from outer space? Otherwise what can be the sense of the constantly recurring fertilisation of human beings by giants and sons of heaven, with the consequent extermination of unsuccessful specimens. Seen in this light the Flood becomes a preconceived project by unknown beings with the intention of exterminating the human race except for a few noble exceptions. But if the Flood, the course of which is historically proved, was quite deliberately planned and prepared—and that several hundred years before Noah received orders to build the ark—then it can no longer be accepted as a divine judgment. Today the possibility of breeding an intelligent human race is no longer such an absurd theory. Just as the sagas of Tiahuanaco and the inscription on the pediment of the Gate of the Sun talk about a space- ship which landed the Great Mother on earth so that she could bear children, the old religious scripts, too, never tire of saying that 'God' created men in his own image. There are texts which note that it needed several experiments before man finally turned out as successfully as 'God' wanted. With the sentences and whole paragraphs of the text are missing. However, what remains is curious enough to be worth retelling. unlike those of the rest of the family. own and give him the name of Noah!