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190 mechanical legs there protruded from the object's main body a bulbous contraption (Fig. 61). What were these objects? Were they the "Whirlwinds" of the Near Eastern texts (including the Old Testament), the "Flying Saucers" of the Anunnaki? The murals, the circular pits, the bands of ashes, the strewn, blackened pebbles, the location of the place- all that was uncovered and probably much that was not—bespeak Tell Ghassul as a stronghold and supply depot for the patrol aircraft eu ak The Tell Ghassul/Jericho crossing point played important and miraculous roles in several biblical events, a fact that may have en- hanced the Vatican's interest in the site. It was there that the prophet Elijah crossed the river (to its eastern bank) in order to " keep an appointment—at Tell Ghassul?—to be taken aloft by "a chariot of fire . . . in a Whirlwind." It was in that area that at the end of the Israelite Exodus from Egypt, Moses (having been de- nied by the Lord entry into Canaan proper) "went up from the plain of Moab"—the area of Tell Ghassul—"unto the Mount of Nebo, to its uppermost peak, which overlooked Jericho; and the Lord showed him all the land: the Gilead up to Dan, and the land of Naphtali and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh and the whole land of Judea, unto the Mediterranean; and the Negeb and the plain valley of Jericho, the city of datepalms." It is a description of a Fig. 61 THE WARS OF GODS AND MEN of the Anunnaki.