Wonders in the Sky (85 page)

Circa 2637 BC, China
Relativity and the Emperor's dragon

According to an article circulating on the Internet, the legendary First Emperor Huang-Ti (the “Yellow Emperor”, who instituted the calendar that survives in China to this day for festival dates, and is said to be the ancestor of all Han Chinese) had a “dragon” named Changhuan, that could move through space at enormous velocities. One ancient writing mentioned that it “originated in the land where suns are born,” and was over 3,000 years old. Its enormous speed had an effect on the movement of time, affecting the ageing process, a surprising early reference to the relativity of time, 4,400 years before Albert Einstein.

Huang-Ti is said to have manufactured 12 gigantic mirrors of unknown nature and used them “following the Moon,” as well as miraculous tripods about 4 meters high. The legends of ancient China said that the “tripods” depicted “dragons, flying in the clouds.”

We have not been able to verify these statements or to consult the sources listed, which appear to come from the late scientist and orientalist Igor Lissevich (magazine “Asia and Africa Today”, 1974, No. 11, in Russian). Lissevich also presented his scientific findings at the 1975 Zelenchuk SETI Symposium (“Problem of SETI”, Moscow 1981, in Russian). Igor Lissevich knew Chinese and was a reliable source. The original references are quoted as “Records of the foremost deeds of Huang-Ti the Great” and “Glorification of the three tripods of Huang-Ti” written by Zao Ji. The Yellow Emperor Huang-Ti is said by tradition to have reigned from 2698 BC to 2598 BC.

Circa 2357 BC
Japan's “divine man” and his luminous monster

Entries in various UFO lists mention that “According to Tau-se from an ancient manuscript called
Sey-to-ki
, during the time of Emperor Ton-Yo, in the year of “Mon-Sham” a divine man descended from the sky, using a “monster that was emitting light” (spacecraft?). The people called this man “the master.” He received the name
Tan-kun
(Sandalwood God) and his country was called Peson.”

The source for this item is
Space Visitors in Ancient Japan
by Mikhail Rosenshpitz in
Unbelievable World
No. 8, August 2004. When we tried to research this item it was found to contain spurious information and we could not locate anything supporting it, unfortunately a frequent situation with both online cases and UFO books.

In this case, our first goal was to obtain a copy of the original article by Rosenshpitz. This proved more complicated than we expected because it turned out that
Unbelievable World
did not exist. The correct Russian name of the magazine was
Neveroyatnyi Mir
, a paranormalparanormal news journal distributed in the Ukraine. Steering away from sensationalist press wherever possible, we decided this was not a source we could use.

Observant readers may have noticed that the year given is also spurious, because even legendary Japanese rulers date back only as far as Emperor Jimmu, who supposedly founded Japan in March 585 BC! No real or mythical Japanese emperor had a name resembling Ton-Yo. After playing with different spellings we realized the account must be from Chinese tradition, not Japanese. Indeed, Tause was just an unusual transcription of Tao-se, or “Tao Teacher.” The information may refer to the legendary Lord Yao or Tangyao, who supposedly reigned between 2357 and 2258 BC However, as we could find nothing resembling the story of the “divine man” and the light-emitting monster in the Chinese literature available to us, we quickly lost faith in the account.

Circa 2208 BC
A Chinese Emperor flies away from danger

The emperor of China is said to have flown in an aerial machine and descended back to earth. (reference: Hervey – Winkler catalog, published by FUFOR – the Fund for UFO Research). It turns out that this is a story about Emperor Shun, who supposedly reigned between 2258 and 2208 BC. However the actual incident has nothing to do with the ‘aerial machine' account.

In the
Shi Ji
(Historical Records) Sima Qian relates that Shun's father Gu Sou wanted to kill him. Finding him at the top of a granary tower, he set fire to it. Shun escaped by assembling a pile of large conical straw hats together and leaping down! See
The Shorter Science and Civilization in China
Vol. 4, by Colin A. Ronan: Cambridge University Press 1994, 290.

Circa 1900 BC
Egypt, the death star and a gold serpent

The first ancient reference to an unidentified object from the sky in relation to strange beings is found in an authentic Egyptian papyrus generally considered to belong to the twelfth dynasty, 1991 to 1802 BC. The text, known as
The Tale of the Shipwreck
, was discovered by chance in 1880 by Golenischeff in the Ermitage Museum of Saint Petersburg and is now on display at a Moscow Museum. It tells how the lone survivor of a shipwreck was carried by the waves to a mysterious tropical island that nobody had seen before. The ruler of the island was a giant, glowing, human-headed serpent, “his body overlaid with gold, and his color as that of true lapis-lazuli.” This being seemed pleased to meet the unfortunate sailor and invited him to his home as a guest.

Egyptologist G. Maspero, very much an authority in his day, translated the extract in
Les Contes de l'Egypte Ancienne
(4
^th
Edition, Paris 1911):

What ‘star' is the serpent-being referring to? Unfortunately no details are given in the papyrus. Was the ‘star' a meteorite, as most scholars suggest? It seems possible but it cannot be proved. There was no word to describe meteorites in the Egyptian hieroglyphic system, so the word ‘star' (“seba”) could be used as a wild card for any kind of luminous phenomenon travelling in the sky.

Analysis of the tale reveals that it already contains imagery that would become the framework of ‘encounter' stories for the next three and a half thousand years. The island, which the text actually says will sink into the sea again like fabled Atlantis, would be replaced by what is nowadays called a ‘window area.' The reptile king would hardly change at all over time, as humanoid serpents and “reptilian beings” are a staple element in mythology and UFO lore all over the world. And wherever supernatural beings dwell in folklore, mysterious lights, or crashing objects are never far away.

Similar stories come from ancient China: the dragon king had his palace on an island in the ocean. This island was said to vanish and reappear regularly, confusing sailors and giving rise to many strange beliefs. “Sometimes,” writes Donald Mackenzie, “a red light burns above the island at night. It is seen many miles distant, and its vivid rays may be reflected in the heavens.” A Japanese story describes the island as “a glowing red mass resembling the rising sun.”

Circa 1766 BC, China: Feathered guests from the sky

“The Xian were immortals capable of flight under their own divine power. They were said to be feathered, and a term that has been used for Taoist priests is
yu ke
, meaning ‘feathered guest'. The
fei tian
, which might be translated as ‘flying immortals', also add to the numbers of airborne beings in the Chinese mythological corpus.”

“The Chinese tales of
fei che
, flying vehicles, exhibit the first understanding, perhaps, that humans would fly only with some kind of technological apparatus.”

 

Source: Dr. Benjamin B. Olshin,
Mechanical Mythology: Private Descriptions of Flying Machines as Found in Early Chinese, Korean, Indian, and Other Texts
(from extensive quotes available online).

Circa 1515 BC: Egypt: The infamous Tulli papyrus

Shiny objects “brighter than the Sun” flew south and left a foul odor, according to an ancient Egyptian document found among the papers of Alberto Tulli, a director of the Egyptian museum at the Vatican.

The text appeared in 1953, in Issue 41 of
Doubt
, journal of the Fortean Society, when novelist and co-founder of the Society, Tiffany Thayer (1902-1959), published the hieroglyphic translation of what would soon be known as the “Tulli Papyrus.” Accompanying the transcription was a letter from its translator, an amateur Egyptologist of Russian-Italian descent, Boris de Rachewiltz. This letter explained that the papyrus had been passed on to Tulli's brother Gustavo, a priest. Rachewiltz had been sent the hieroglyphic transcription for translation.

Rachewiltz explained to
Doubt
that the papyrus had been longer, and indeed we must assume the unpublished part referred to an incident during the reign of Thutmosis III because the fragment we have provides no sign of this. Several versions of the translation have been published, but the following is the first, as it appeared in
Doubt
: