By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO—I'm not certain whether the History Channel should perhaps call itself the Speculation Channel because nothing resembling either evidence or facts were offered in its essay aired yesterday on whether some of the miraculous phenomena in the Bible might be explained by visits of alien life forms to the world.

Coming on the second day of Passover week, the program provided plenty of material that we might all have discussed at our seders on either of the two nights before.  For example, could the pillar of smoke that led the Israelites through the desert by day, and the pillar of fire that led them by night, in reality have been manifestations of an alien spacecraft?  Did that spacecraft provide the manna that sustained the Israelites through their 40 years of wandering?  Perhaps while hovering over the Reed Sea, did it cause the waters to part for the Israelites and  to close over the Egyptians? And when Moses went up Mount Sinai, could he in fact have entered a space ship for his instruction in the law?

According to the History Channel, this is what people who claim the reality of UFOs (unidentified flying objects) believe. Furthermore, these" UFOlogists" believe that other events in Hebrew Scriptures—and in Christian Scriptures as well—also may be reinterpreted with the idea that highly intelligent aliens visited the Earth and interacted with important biblical personages.

For example, we have been taught that when Abraham was sitting in his tent on the plain of Mamre, that the three visitors who came to see him were angels of the Lord, carrying  God's message that Sarah would bear a child despite her advanced age.  According to the History Channel, however, UFOlogists believe those were aliens demonstrating their abiding interest in human reproductive processes. From the story about the angels knowing that the aged Sarah laughed outside the tent when she overheard the prediction of her impending motherhood, UFOlogists infer that these aliens had telepathic powers and could hear what Sarah was thinking.

Aliens also might have been involved in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, according to UFOlogical speculation, although the program was hazy on why aliens would want to destroy these twin cities—or for that matter why they cared at all about simple little humans on a planet far away from their home worlds.

The program offered speculation from such UFOlogists as the Rev. Barry Downing, a Presbyterian minister;  Patrick Cooke,  Dr. Hugh Ross and Guy Malone.  The speculation was all the more remarkable in that these commentators all appeared to assume that the events described in Scriptures actually did occur, but that the people who wrote up the phenomena were too technologically backward to recognize a space vehicle. 

Thus, they suggest, Elijah, who was said to have ascended from the earth to heaven in a fiery "chariot," may have gone up into the sky in a spacecraft—similar to the experiences described by modern people who believe they were abducted by aliens. Likewise, the UFOlogists believe the Prophet Ezekiel clearly had a Close Encounter of Some Kind with aliens.  As translated from the Hebrew in the Stone edition of the Tanach (edited by Rabbi Nosson Scherman), here is how Ezekiel described his vision:

I saw, and behold, there was a stormy wind coming form the north, a great cloud with flashing fire and a brilliance surrounding it; and from its midst, like the color of the Chashmal in the midst of the fire, and in its midst there was a likeness of four Chayos...

Traditional biblical commentators were confounded by what Ezekiel saw, but not the UFOlogists.  Clearly, in their view, it was the descent and landing of a spaceship and a visitation by extra-terrestrial creatures.

There are learned professors in the field of Bible studies—Prof. William Propp of UCSD being one scholar who comes to mind—who suggest that the Book of Exodus may be nothing more than a mythic story which sought to explain the origins of the people who became the Jews.  I can recall visiting Egypt and asking the knowledgeable guides who took us through pyramids and showed us other tangible evidence of ancient Egyptian civilization what artifacts, or evidence, might have been found to substantiate the Exodus story.  My guide smiled and responded that nothing in the historical record corroborates what we must take on faith. 

The UFOlogists not only take on faith the Exodus story and other stories as told in the Bible, they then add another layer of faith—their, dare-we-call-it "religious" belief in alien spacecraft—and transform these stories into tales that others describe as science fiction. 

So what should any of us believe?  We should believe whatever we want to, so long as we cause no harm to others in the exercise of our beliefs.  As for myself, I'd like to be able to base my beliefs on some real, down-to-earth evidence and facts.  I'm waiting.