Alien Space Gods Of Ancient Greece and Rome (36 page)

Such references to strange phenomena in heaven and Earth so intrigued Julius Obsequens, a writer of fourth century AD of whom nothing is known, that he searched all available histories and listed their erratic facts, Fortean phenomena, in his 'Prodigiorum Libelius'. Obsequens recorded his dates from 'Anno Urbis Conditae’, A.U.C., 'from the year the City was built'. The fragments from Obsequens now extant to us date only from 577 AUC (176 BC) until 737 AUC (16 BC). In the sixteenth century, the writings of Julius Obsequens captured the imagination of a young priest, Conrad Wolff hart, born in 1518 at Ruffach in
Alsace
; mediaeval theology taught that prodigies in the skies expressed the Will of God. It was religious zeal rather than the cynicism prompting his modern emulator, Charles Fort, which inspired Conrad Lycosthenes (his surname in Greek) then a deacon at
Basle
to scour the Classics to restore the work of Obsequens; he also read many authorities of the Middle Ages and extended his chronicle of oddities in Earth, sea and sky up to 1556. Five years later he died from apoplexy.

In his masterly work
'Piece for a Jig-saw'
, Leonard G. Cramp suggests that those rains of frogs, fish, flesh, stones, iron and chunks of ice reported by Charles Fort and witnesses today are probably elevated from Earth by Spacecraft powered by a gravitational field, then jettisoned from a very high altitude as unwanted cargo. Such debris fallen from the skies so frequently mentioned by Julius Obsequens would apparently prove the presence of Spaceships over Ancient Rome.

Pliny in
'Historia Naturalis’
Book II, LVII, discussing celestial phenomena comments:

'Besides these events in the lower sky, it is entered in the records that in the consulship of Manius Acilius and Gaius Porcius (114 BC) it rained milk and blood and that frequently on other occasions there it has rained flesh, for instance in the consulship of Publius Volumnius and Servius Suplirius (461 BC) and that none of the flesh left un-plundered by birds of prey went bad, similarly that it rained iron in the district of Lucania, the year before Marcus Crassus (in the battle of Carrhae 53 BC) was killed by the Parthians and with him all the Lucanian soldiers, of whom there was a large contingent in his army; the shape of the iron that fell resembled sponges; the augurs prophesied wounds from above. But in the consulship (49 BC) of Lucius Paullus and Gaius Marcellus, it rained wool in the vicinity of Compsa Castle (now Conza in Samnium) near which Titus Annius was killed a year later. It is recorded in the annals of that year that while
Milo
was pleading a case in Court it rained bricks.'

During most of the fifth century BC
Rome
fought incessant wars with her neighbours, the Etruscans, Latins and Samnites, which probably attracted the attention of Spacemen. In 461 BC the heavens were seen to glow and the people saw strange phantoms which terrified them, the forms and voices of the apparitions were dreadful to the eyes and ears of men; this terse description by Lycosthenes recalls those startling accounts of humanoids terrorising the peasants of
South America
today. These Visitants were accompanied by a rain of flesh like the appearance of snow from the sky scattered in pieces large and small as though torn from every kind of bird flying over before it touched the ground, the remains which truly occurred spread over city and field and lay for a long time neither changed in colour nor smell from old decayed meat. This outrage the soothsayers were unable to interpret; however the Sibylline Books advised that it warned of enemies without and sedition within the City. As so brilliantly theorised by Leonard Cramp rains of flesh apparently originate from animals caught up by the gravitational field of a Spaceship, confirming perhaps that those dreadful apparitions in 461 BC were Spacemen.

Today most UFO reports are explained as meteors, bolides, perihelia, sun-dogs, temperature-inversions, birds or the planet Venus; lack of scientific data makes evaluation of Roman sightings somewhat dubious. The following quotations from various Classics may arouse controversy among our modern sceptics, who were not present at the time to observe the phenomena, but the Romans well-experienced during centuries of watching the skies did believe they had seen something strange and significant worthy of comment.

Perhaps some of the UFOs were Spaceships. If we really do believe that Spacemen are watching our Earth today, then surely we must accept the possibility that they also visited our planet in Roman times and millennia earlier.  In 344 BC Timoleon, who belonged to one of the noblest families in
Corinth
, was invited by the Greek cities in
Sicily
to drive out the Carthaginians who had landed on that island. Plutarch describing his voyage there writes:

'And now with seven Corinthian ships and two from Coreyra and a tenth which the Leucadians famished, he (Timoleon) set sail. And at night, after he had entered the open sea and was enjoying a favouring wind the heavens seemed to burst open on a sudden above his ship and to pour forth an abundant and conspicuous fire. From this a torch lifted itself on high like those on which the mystics bear, and running along with them on their course darted down upon precisely that part of Italy towards which the pilots were steering.'

Timoleon won a brilliant victory and became ruler of
Sicily
; his campaign possibly attracted Space Visitants.

Four years later the Romans more belligerent than ever coveting the fertile
land
of
Campania
were waging war against the Latins. Livy in Book VIII, Chapter VI, reports:

'340 BC There in the stillness of the night both Consuls are said to have been visited by the same apparition, a man of greater than human stature and more majestic, who declared that the Commander of one side and the army of the other must be offered up to the Manes and to Mother Earth,'

In 332 BC 'Flying Shields' are alleged to have appeared over
Tyre
besieged by Alexander the Great and later to have dived on the Macedonians crossing a river in
India
stampeding the soldiers and elephants with darts of fire; these reports cannot be confirmed.

For two hundred years while the Romans extended their domination over
Italy
they kept uneasy peace with
Carthage
, whose fleets lorded the
Mediterranean
. When the people of
Sicily
in 264 BC appealed to
Rome
to liberate their island from the Carthaginians the Senate dreaming already of Imperial glory were determined to challenge
Carthage
and began the First Punic War lasting twenty-three years. The century-long conflict between
Rome
and
Carthage
with such tremendous consequences for future civilisation would inevitably intrigue any Spaceman watching Earth.

234 BC 'At
Rimini
three moons were seen, meanwhile the Gauls invaded
Italy
.'

223 BC 'Portents occurred which threw the people of
Rome
into great fear. A river in Picenum ran the colour of blood in,
Etruria
, a good part of the heavens seemed to be on fire. In Ariminium a light like the day blazed out at night, in many portions of Italy three moons became visible in the night-time and in the Forum a vulture perched for several days.'

The omens proved lucky for Flaminius routed the Gauls back to the
Alps
.

222 BC 'Also three moons have appeared at once.'

‘221 BC 'At Rimini three moons were seen coming from the distant regions of the heavens.’

While
Rome
contended for the mastery of Italy Carthage resolved to resume the war. Hamilcar, Supreme Commander, invaded
Spain
to collect the treasures of the famous silver mines, at his

death in battle near the
Tagus
he was succeeded by his son-in-law, Hasdrubal, killed by an assassin's knife. Command fell to
Hannibal
, twenty-six years old, destined to become probably the greatest military leader in all history. A dramatic story tells how when Hannibal was still a boy, his father, Hamilcar, made him swear on an altar undying hostility to Rome, this vow dominated his life. A brilliant General,
Hannibal
surpassed his own soldiers in exercise of arms on foot or horseback; his bodily powers of endurance allied with personal bravery and sagacity won admiration even from his enemies, although the Romans naturally accused him of cruelty and ferocity though he never broke faith with
Rome
. Like many great soldiers he was a man of culture and delighted to converse on intellectual matters in Latin and Greek, in 218 BC the Carthaginians besieged Saguntum in
Spain
, ally of
Rome
, beginning the long and difficult Second Punic War.
Hannibal
was now in his twenty-ninth year, about the same age as Napoleon, when the Emperor led the Grand Army of France into
Italy
.
Hannibal
's crossing of the
Alps
with 50,000 foot, 9,000 horses and 37 elephants was one of the epics of history; after mass desertions and attacks by the
Gaul
’s, the Carthaginians slowly descended from the snow-capped peaks to the sunny
Po
valley with less than half the men with which they had set out. For the next sixteen years
Hannibal
ravaged
Italy
yet never set foot in
Rome
.

This fateful campaign surely attracted surveillance by Spacemen.

Livy in Book XXI, LXIL reports 218 BC 'Phantom ships had been seen gleaming in the sky.... In the district of Amitemum in many places apparitions of men in shining raiment had appeared in the distance but had not drawn near to anyone.'

Forty years earlier during the First Punic War similar apparitions were seen.

217 BC The sun's disc seemed to be contracted. Glowing stones had fallen from the sky at Praeneste, at Arpi bucklers had appeared in the sky, the sun had seemed to be fighting with the moon, at Capeme two moons had risen in the daytime. ... at Falerii the sky had seemed to he rent as it were with a great fissure and through the opening a bright light had shone and that lots had shrunk. At
Capua
there had been the appearance of a sky on fire, and of a moon that fell in the midst of a shower of rain.' (Livy, Book XXII I.)