''The Spaceships of Ezekiel'' (1974) is a book by Josef F. Blumrich (March 17, 1913 – February 10, 2002) about a spaceship that was supposedly observed by the prophet

Ezekiel Ezekiel (; he, יְחֶזְקֵאל ''Yəḥezqēʾl'' ; in the Septuagint written in grc-koi, Ἰεζεκιήλ ) is the central protagonist of the Book of Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible. In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Ezekiel is acknow ...

, written while the author was chief of

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

's systems layout branch of the program development office at the

Marshall Space Flight Center The George C. Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), located in Redstone Arsenal, Alabama (Huntsville postal address), is the U.S. government's civilian rocketry and spacecraft propulsion research center. As the largest NASA center, MSFC's first ...

. It was originally published in German by Econ Verlag GmbH under the title ''Da tat sich der Himmel auf'' (March 1973).

History

After

ufologists This is a list of notable people who are ufologists (UFO researchers). Argentina * Juan Posadas, (1912–1981), Trotskyist theorist who blended together Trotskyism and Ufology. Posadas' version of Trotskyism is regarded as its own strai ...

such as

Erich von Däniken Erich Anton Paul von Däniken (; ; born 14 April 1935) is a Swiss author of several books which make claims about extraterrestrial influences on early human culture, including the best-selling ''Chariots of the Gods?'', published in 1968. Von D ...

had pointed to the possibility of interpreting

Merkabah Merkabah ( he, מֶרְכָּבָה ''merkāvā'', "chariot") or Merkavah mysticism (lit. Chariot mysticism) is a school of early Jewish mysticism, c. 100 BCE – 1000 CE, centered on visions such as those found in the Book of Ezekiel chapter ...

vision as a report of an extraterrestrial spacecraft, Blumrich decided to disprove the hypothesis. However, a thorough examination convinced him that Ezekiel had, in fact, seen a spaceship. He then made detailed drawings of the alien craft. He decided the technology of the builders must have been somewhat higher than mankind's at the present, and added he had seldom felt as delighted, satisfied, and fascinated by being proven wrong.

Content

In ''The Spaceships of Ezekiel'' Blumrich asserts that Ezekiel's account in the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

was not a description of a meeting with

God In monotheism, monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator deity, creator, and principal object of Faith#Religious views, faith.Richard Swinburne, Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Ted Honderich, Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Ox ...

in a prophetic vision, but one of several encounters with ancient

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...

s in a

shuttlecraft A shuttlecraft, also known as a shuttle spacecraft, shuttle ship, drop shuttle, drop spacecraft, or dropship, is a type of spacecraft described in theory and science fiction. Serving the same purpose as a ship's tender, it is a smaller vessel that ...

from another planet. Blumrich analyzes six different translations of the Bible in conjunction with his experience in engineering and presents one possible version of Ezekiel's visions of how God—described as riding in an elaborate vehicle capable to see, attended by angels—supposedly showed him the future and gave him various messages to deliver. In the appendices to the book he presents technical specifications of the hypothesized spacecraft. Blumrich also published an article on his belief, "The spaceships of the prophet Ezekiel", in the UNESCO journal ''Impact of Science on Society''.

Omni wheel

Blumrich proposed a wheel that is capable of rotating not only in the forward-backward direction, but also sideways, based on his interpretation of the description in Ezekiel, and patented it. The wheel is now known as

Omni wheel Omni wheels or poly wheels, similar to Mecanum wheels, are wheels with small discs (called rollers) around the circumference which are perpendicular to the turning direction. The effect is that the wheel can be driven with full force, but will al ...

, and it is used in special applications.

Criticism

Ronald Story in his book ''Guardians of the Universe?'' (1980) stated "Blumrich doctors up his Biblical quotes just a smidgen to make them conform a little better to his spaceship interpretation", and "''The Spaceships of Ezekiel'', in all honesty, can only be described as an extreme form of rationalisation, with a good supply of technical jargon, charts, and diagrams, carefully designed to impress the general reader. The book does contain a good collection of impressive drawings which prove nothing more than that whoever prepared them is a good draughtsman."

Jerome Clark Jerome Clark (born November 27, 1946)"Jerome Clark". ''Contemporary Authors Online''. June 12, 2002. Retrieved on April 11, 2012. is an American writer, specializing in unidentified flying objects and other paranormal subjects. He has appeared ...

wrote that Blumrich "offered a creative but misplaced effort to translate the metaphorical biblical account into a properly engineered spacecraft."

, ''The UFO Book:Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial'', 1998, Visible Ink, , p. 57

Notes

External links