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An Ancient UFO Event: The ‘Star' Of Bethlehem

We have no idea what date Jesus Christ (hereafter J.C.) was ‘born', if a virgin ‘birth' can be interpreted as being somehow naturally ‘born'. Because nobody has a real clue about the actual ‘birth' date of J.C., there's only a one in 365.25 chance that it was December 25th. That's not good betting odds in most people's bookkeeping. The 25th of December is a pure invention on the part of the Christian Church, the hijacking of a pagan winter festival that celebrated the rebirth of the Sun; the return of lengthening hours of daylight – even the exact year of J.C.'s ‘birth' is uncertain. Some scholars and astronomers have tried to pin the date and year down by trying to come to terms with the related ‘Star of Bethlehem' event. However, IMHO, this is futile because the ‘Star' had nothing to do with celestial phenomena and everything to do with an extraterrestrial spaceship.

 

The so-called ‘Star of Bethlehem' is of little use in pinning down J.C.'s date and year of ‘birth'. Despite speculation that the ‘Star' was a conjunction of two or more stellar and/or planetary objects, the ‘Star' would still resolve itself into two or more points of light, even though apparently in very close proximity. Further, that two or three individual points of light connection would also have been obvious to observers in the days and weeks before (as the points of light grew closer together) and after (as they drew apart again). A supernovae or a comet would have been visible for many days' even weeks. A ‘shooting star' would visually last for way too short an interval. No, the ‘Star' must have been a one-off short duration event. Let's call a spade a spade here – the ‘Star' was a classic UFO sighting! The proof of that pudding is that the so-called ‘Star' led people, wise men or otherwise, to a very, very specific geographical location, something no astronomical object could do. 

 

An astronomical object (apart from actual or potential polar stars) just doesn't stay put in the sky at a fixed point. Celestial objects traverse the sky in a generally east to west fashion. A real ‘Star' of Bethlehem in order to be useful had to stand still.  

 

Consider that any astronomical object(s) would rise and set with the rotation of the Earth. Because the Earth's axis is tilted (other than on the days of the equinoxes) with respect to the greater outside, the positions of celestial objects with respect to Earth's compass directions alters, even over short time intervals. Say in high summer in Australia (December 21st), the Sun rises in the extreme southeast and sets in the extreme southwest; it doesn't follow a straight east-west path. So if you follow the Sun on the summer solstice ‘Down Under', you sort of traverse a curve, not a straight line.

 

Now consider even following a celestial object that does rise due east and sets due west. Say you see the planet Venus shinning brightly in the western sky (as the Evening ‘Star'). You head towards it. Where do you end up? Well, somewhere to the west of where you started from. The point where you end up is the location you're at when you get tired of following Venus or when Venus sets beneath the western horizon.

 

But if you spot a UFO towards the west and walk towards it, sooner or later (assuming it doesn't fly away) the object will be directly overhead and you know you've arrived at your destination. Now 2000+ years ago, many prosaic explanations for our modern UFOs couldn't be entertained. The ‘Star' of Bethlehem couldn't have been a weather balloon, or aircraft, or flare, or helicopter, or satellite, or piece of space junk re-entering the atmosphere and burning up, etc. Who would think to hoax a UFO event back then? Of course maybe it was just ‘swamp gas'; or ‘ball lightning'; or ‘St. Elmo's Fire', but ghee-whiz, what a coincidence that such rare natural phenomena would just happen to coincide with the ‘birth' of J.C. (or shortly thereafter – some scholars think the audience bearing gifts arrived a few months after-the-fact). In any event, ‘ball lightning', etc., like a ‘shooting star', has a natural duration of a minute or two; probably just a few seconds. Hardly time to get one's bearings. So it's back to a bona-fide UFO (as extraterrestrial spaceship) happening.  

 

Piling on the speculation, let's say our UFO was, say if not Starship Heaven (my presumed extraterrestrial-in-residence and ‘ancient astronaut' God's spacecraft), at least a shuttlecraft from same. If the infant J.C. were, in a manner of speaking ‘beamed down', well more likely as not delivered to the stables or wherever the prospective adoptive parents and hangers-on were assembled, well that would be something akin to a ‘virgin birth'. Modern UFO abduction lore would suggest that our modern aliens, the greys say, do have some sort of beaming technology, but that's probably not really a necessary bit of technology required for our purposes.  

 

One obvious question arises. Why would ‘ancient astronauts', if interested in spreading their word, or undertaking missionary related efforts, send down an infant instead of an adult of some knowledge and stature? The only thing that comes to mind and makes sense is acclimatization, mingling with and getting to know and think and live like the natives think and live. An extraterrestrial infant who is ‘born' and grows up and matures in a terrestrial society – becomes one of us – is probably a far more credible potential missionary than a fully adult extraterrestrial who just pops in from down high and starts preaching. ‘God' tried that in the Old Testament and things didn't work out too well. 

 

About the Author

Science librarian; retired.

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