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a part of the environment of earth and that they seem to know everything about us, are able to speak our languages, and are even familiar with the total lives of some—if not all—human beings. So long as we adhere to the notion that we are dealing with random extraterrestrial visitors, none of these contactee stories makes any sense. So I ask you to place the UFOs into a terrestrial or ultraterrestrial framework. Think of them as you might think of a next-door neighbor who is hooked up to your party line. The pieces of this puzzle will begin to fall into place. Most theologians reject any suggestion that unidentified flying objects may be even remotely connected with religion, but many leading ufolo- gists suspect that innumerable historical incidents branded as religious phenomena may actually be misunderstood UFO activity. The Bible was completely suppressed for centuries during the Dark Ages, and then it was heavily edited and censored, whole sections being deleted altogether before the modern version was released. Scores of translators contributed to the muddle by altering meanings with high- flown poetry, and by subtly interjecting their own comments and opin- ions. As a result, the contents of modern translations vary widely, and many of the original meanings and descriptions of what were probably actual events have been mutilated beyond interpretation. Theologians recognize this and freely comment upon it. The late Pope John XXIII once made a wry remark about the confusion brought about by all these translations. Try to shelve your own religious beliefs for a moment, and look at the Bible stories objectively. The prophet Elijah was well protected by balls of fire that came out of the heavens and consumed 100 soldiers and their captains (Kings II, Chapter 1). In Chapter 2 of the Second Book of Kings, Elijah leads Elisha into the desert where a fish-shaped object spitting fire from its tail descends from the sky to carry him away forever. (Most translations of the Bible have somehow managed to turn this object into a chariot of fire drawn by fiery horses.) Read this section carefully, and the implications are startlingly clear: Was Elijah somehow connected with an aerial race who protected him and who finally took him away? Fireballs and thunderbolts from the angry skies apparently wreaked a lot of havoc in Biblical times. Some scholarly scientists have suggested that these accounts sound suspiciously like atomic explosions. A Soviet physicist, Professor M. Agrest, has even proposed that Sodom and Machines from Beyond Time / 61 Of Prophets and Prophecy