UFOs In Renaissance Paintings Explained
An old canard used by UFO enthusiasts from the 1950s to the present has been debunked by an Italian art historian. The original material has been around since at least 2004, but since it was originally published in Skeptic magazine, most ufologists have chosen to ignore the analysis.
Diego Cuoghi examined many of the strange, saucerlike objects hovering in the background of Italian renaissance paintings, and applied a thorough knowledge of Christian iconography to show that most, if not all of these examples can be explained as representations of saints, the holy spirit, angels etc.
Cuoghi also looked at a myriad of websites dealing with UFOs in old religious paintings and explains:
…no one of the authors of these web sites takes into account the symbolic meaning of these strange elements in respect to the art of the period. Worst of all, by considering these elements as the representation of something real or really seen by the artist, they assume that the artist, eg. an Italian artist of the ‘400 [likely translation error--should be "1400s] or an anonymous Byzantine painter, [would] actually be allowed to insert any non canonical or un-codified element into a religious representation. On the contrary, in past times the commissioners (those who choose the subject and supervised the execution of the art work - in these cases the religious institutions) would have never allowed the [artist] to insert into a work of art anything other than what previously decided, especially in case of religious subjects.
In other words, everything in Roman Catholic religious paintings had to be approved by the Church before any public display could be allowed. The local Cardinal would have questioned everything in the work, and if the artist just happened to have seen or heard of shiny flying plates didn’t mean that he could put them in his painting.
Unfortunately, only the introduction and parts 1, 2 and 5 of eight total installments is translated into English.
As someone trained in art history, but also interested in UFOs, I find Cuoghi’s analysis convincing, no matter how hard I try to hold on to the belief that UFOs are depicted in 500 year-old religious paintings.
P.S. This is a reply to one of the comments below, which clarifies my point:
As I have said in other comments to this post, there is no real evidence for standard interpretation of weird, flying saucerlike shapes in art work of other times and cultures, since we often have nothing to compare them to. In this case, we do.
In the article concerning the first image above (the golden-tinged oval) Cuoghi makes the point that at the time the painting was done, there was an austerity movement afoot in Florence that forbade literal depictions of the Deity or angels. Artists resorted to symbols in the sky instead of cherubic faces in a ring, or angels parting clouds, etc. The man and the dog represent the announcement of Christ’s birth to the shepherds, and is found in many other paintings.
We can of course guess that the Mainardi (the artist) saw or heard about something in the sky that he put in his painting in a standard way in order to depict something that he thought was divine in origin. I feel that this is stretching things a bit.
The other image, of the man in the apparent spaceship is from a fresco of the crucifixion. The arrangement of the elements also matches other artworks on the same theme. If you look closely, the figures in the spaceship/ orbs are male and female, and represent the sun and moon. This also has a wealth of precedents in other medieval and byzantine art.
Once again, the artist may have been using his own depiction of something strange in the sky under the guise of religious iconography, but since there is a more direct explanation for it, I choose to err on that side.
In other comments I have mentioned the Nuremberg woodblock print of 1561 as a good example of a well-documented depiction of a UFO sighting. There are also numerous examples in petroglyphs and other pre-historic art.
Like this one:
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May 22 2008 
May 22nd, 2008 at 3:39 pm
“On the contrary, in past times the commissioners (those who choose the subject and supervised the execution of the art work - in these cases the religious institutions) would have never allowed the [artist] to insert into a work of art anything other than what previously decided, especially in case of religious subjects.”
Yep, but that’s why some medieval and Reinassece masters tried to conceal personal hidden messages that they wanted to express, so they could pass inaverted by the eclessial authorities. All those paintings where Leonardo showed some figure or other with the hand pointing upward, for example.
But I’m not talking about the UFO representations. I had read that analysis some time ago (I think it appeared on UFO Digest) and I find the logic compelling.
May 22nd, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Being raised Catholic, I’ll shoot holes in that Bishop approving things like stars and such. A star appearing in the day would have likely been Venus aka Lucifer bringer of the light and been a pagan symbol. Astrology was one of the many courses required by the Roman Catholic Church for the priesthood in the 1400’s. Certain astronomical events were seriously seen as pagan in nature. Never going to appear on a religious icon. Likely as not, many of there has always been strange things that have appeared in the skies in the 1400’s. Many of them will be seen as a sign from God or pagan if they didn’t correspond to known astrological events. Everyone thinks that the Jesuits sent to convert the Native Americans in the 1500’s blindly destroyed many of their temples for merely being pagan but had left many others like Stonehenge or the Parthenon still standing? The Jesuits likely understood what many of the Aztec priests used to control the masses, a superior understanding of astrology. You can’t convert people of one faith to another without first destroying their former priesthood and their knowledge base. Significant events like solstices and equinoxes were absorbed and converted into holidays like Easter, Halloween and Christmas. Whatever inspired the inclusions of the aerial objects in those 15th century paintings is lost forever unless some hard documentation can be found written by the artists themselves. Calling them mere religious symbolism is as speculative as calling them UFO’s
May 22nd, 2008 at 7:31 pm
RPJ,
I find the logic compelling because Cugohi offers other examples of the same (or very nearly the same) symbols, he doesn’t simply guess based on his opinions.
May 22nd, 2008 at 7:47 pm
crgintx,
Regarding your upbringing as a Catholic, artistic patronage almost certainly operated differently in renaissance period Italy than it does now, unless you can elaborate on this.
Paintings were used as a way of teaching religious principles as well as objects of veneration, so everything had to be correct. It was one of the few mediums available for this.
I agree that things seen in the skies 500 years ago were assigned to the belief system of the culture that experienced it.
The Parthenon and Stonehenge existed before the Catholic Church was established I don’t recall any real need to oppress Druids or Greek pantheists by the 1400s, not in Italy anyway. You imply that these monuments were saved because of their astrological significance, but the Aztec temples were left alone as well. It was probably because they were sort of difficult to tear down. Also, Renaissance artists had a great admiration for classic Greek and Roman thoughts and symbols, and struggled to reconcile this with the Catholic philosophy.
The unidentified objects in the paintings (most of them anyway) correspond to other, very similar, well-known and standard symbols used in other paintings. I thought that Cugohi made a pretty good case that the “mysterious” objects fit well-known patterns. Like you, I did think that it would be better to have some sort of documentation from the artists themselves.
I did write that the evidence was convincing, not conclusive. A couple of weeks ago, I actually used one of these paintings in a lecture, so I’m actually a little embarassed!
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:39 am
The 1400’s were a time of upheaval in both Italy and the RCC . The church for all intensive purposes was the gov’t(the bureaucracy) of everything from Spain to the Balkans. Like all gov’t’s, there was a lot of money to be made by controlling the bureaucracy. So many of the rich families were trying to install the kin into the priesthood as a means of getting at the huge assets the RCC owned or controlled. If a tenth of the rumors of bastardry are true, I’d say that most of the more famous the 14th century painters were connected by blood to the church leaders and the rich families vying for control of the RCC. The commissions for the paintings were simply schemes to get more out of the RCC coffers with the painting itself being so much window dressing. I’ve been in the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel and it’s full to the ceiling with pagan and astrological symbols in statuary, painting and carvings as are many of the churches built in the Medieval and Renaissance Periods. The RCC has arguably one of the oldest and most secretive intelligence services created in the West. I suspect that many of the aerial objects painted into the 14th century paintings were not just religious symbols but markers placed by the rival families to warn or mark a specific church as belonging to that family as well. There are so many skeletons in the closet of the RCC from that time period that it deserves its own web site. Inquistions, witch hunts and such rampant corruption filled the known history of the place and period that it would make even the worst of the DC lobbyists blush
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:58 am
The fascinating things about all this, is that when these christian symbols got more and more abstract and simplified, that’s when they ressemble UFOs to a modern mind like us. Maybe that’s also true for the mystery itself, our brain is only capable of registering a crude abstract interpretation of what’s really there.
And, BTW, the aztec temples weren’t left alone. Most of them were destroyed, and the stones used to build new christian churches (The Templo Mayor at Tenochtitlan was levelled so the Cathedral could be built). Whenever you visit Mexico and see a XVIth century church with really old-looking masonry, you can be pretty sure an ancient mesoamerican temple used to stood at the exact same place.
I guess the Church left Stonehenge alone because moving those big-ass rocks would have been A LOT of work!
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Thanks for this post!
I remembered seeing this a while back, but I hadn’t saved the link.
May 25th, 2008 at 12:42 am
Hello, all!
I love the usual give-and-take attitude of UFO Mystic, but this post by Greg contain many elements that just rub me the wrong way.
First off is the attribution in the very first line that any UFO researchers who consider the possibility of UFOs being depicted in artwork, are presenting a “canard,” ie: a false or baseless claim. Such a term, I suggest, predisposes the reader to a judgement before hearing the facts. It also perhaps displays a preconceived (and negative) notion on the part of the author. If I hadn’t been a frequent reader of this blog, I’d have been led to believe Greg’s opinion wasn’t entirely objective.
And objectivity is what we must always maintain when dealing with such a complex subject us UFOs.
Second, I find it equally dismissive of Greg to say “most ufologists have chosen to ignore the analysis.” This again paints the serious researchers who bother to explore the subject as being not merely misleading, but intentionally so.
I did one quick, inexhaustive search, using the terms UFO +artwork +balls. 5th down on the first page, I found this:
http://www.sprezzatura.it/Arte/Arte_UFO_eng.htm
– an intelligent back and forth discussion that links to the very same series of explanations. Best of all, it’s not from 2004, when this series of articles was referenced in Skeptic magazine. It’s from 2003, which shows at least one instance where such a counter-argument was considered by UFO researchers.
Third, the tone of the Italian art historian takes the same dismissive tone as Greg holds in this post: that all UFO researchers who consider that ancient (pre-Age of Reason, IMHO) artwork contains possible aerial phenomena, are either uneducated, unsophisticated, uninformed or out-and-out charlatans (take your pick).
There is one significant element that Greg and the eminent Diego Cugohi fail to consider:
That the scientifically uneducated ancients painted what they saw, in artistic terms that their limited comprehension could draw, in ways that the Church would see as their own iconography.
Why is that so impossible to accept?
Certainly, the description of Ezekial and his wheel cannot have been some authorized PC version of an angel, or some other “standard” event. And the current best guess of Moses’ pillar of fire by night, pillar of smoke by day was not the Biblical hand of God, but was the remnants of the 1450 BC explosion of Thera (along with the expected tsunami and the ten plagues of Egypt).
These were minds who thought the Earth stood (motionless) at the center of the universe, surrounded by the sun, moon, etc., and later on, were quite willing to burn at the stake anyone who publicly disagreed with them.
But brave souls did sneak their own messages into their artwork. Da Vinci not only removed the wine from the Last Supper (an art piece that cannot have failed to have been “approved” by the local prelate), but repeatedly placed the image of the disappearing stream in his work, an icon that symbolized the hidden stream of thought.
So let’s accept a minimal counter argument: that pre-scientific minds, who could not accept the actual realities surrounding them might still at times have recorded what they saw, though they may not have understood what it was, and instead, attributed the phenomena as religious in nature.
Greg said that Diego showed that “most if not all of these examples can be explained as representations of saints, the holy spirit, angels etc.” That’s only to be expected, since the Church controlled nearly all patronage, as well as most if not all of the sites where such representations were created. Keep in mind, before the King James Bible, it wasn’t even legal for a lay person to OWN their own Bible, let alone have it translated into their own language. If an artist wanted his work to be made public, he had to play by the rules, and couch his work in Church-acceptable dogma.
But the RCC contains examples of events and artifacts that when they couldn’t be destroyed or paved over, would be ensconced in religious iconography, thereby absorbing the blasphemy into the Church itself. Most people know of the extensive record of European churches being built directly on top of pagan sites (since the early Church couldn’t prevent worship at such locations).
But you might be surprised to learn that the early tales of the Holy Grail owed more to pagan Celtic beliefs (and had no connection to the Last Supper or any chalice), and were therefore forbidden by the contemporary Church. But when that proscription couldn’t halt their increasing popularity, Church-sponsored writers inserted “acceptable” iconography into the story lines, so that 100 years after Chretian de Troyes’ original tale, the Chalice at the Last Supper begins to be central to the story.
The history of the Shroud of Turn contains an equivalent record of denial and absorbtion: the first public appearance of the Shroud, in the mid-14th century, was followed by a direct order by the local bishop to have the article burned immeditaely! Hardly the expected reaction to an icon now considered the burial shroud of Jesus himself. It wasn’t until some sixty years later, when the Shroud reappeared, that the Church decided to embrace the heresy with open arms, at which time the image was touted officially as the image of Jesus.
These are just a few examples of how the Roman Catholic Church has attempted to destroy any opposition, and to accept and redirect those heresies they failed to squash.
To suggest, as Diego has done, that all artistic representations of unusual aerial phenomena are merely religious symbols, fails the test of logic. The dogmatically-enforced misunderstanding of natural phenomena, the record of bending all expression to the Church’s will, and the record of brave artists who still defied their prohibitions in order to pass along their secret messages, shows that there is an undeniable possibility that artists did indeed record unusual objects in the sky, and expressed them in one of many “accepted” methods of depiction.
TemplarScribe
http://www.EternalHorizons.com
http://www.MichaelDelving.com
May 25th, 2008 at 9:37 am
So were vimanas also “astral travel vehicles” or whatever. Greg: Check out the “Thunderbolts of the God” video on youtube — it argues the plasma universe model. Comets are ionized plasma balls and were also figured prominentaly in ancient art in all cultures. Or so we are led to believe — just like Heaven’s Gate?
May 26th, 2008 at 12:29 am
Templar,
I’m sorry that I came across to you as engaging in fundamentalist thinking. I’ve never claimed to be objective, just as close as I can get to equity. “Canard” was used to describe something which is not an established fact, but is repeated as such. It was an admittedly liberal use of the word.
First, I said that we were only dealing with Italian Renaissance paintings, not pre-age of reason (i.e. 17th century) art. I never said that earlier depictions were conclusively debunked, as you suggest I did. The question was not even discussed. I don’t happen to agree with Cuoghi’s assessment, if he indeed debunks ALL earlier depictions of apparent aerial phenomena from other times and cultures. A good example is the 1561 woodcut from Nuremburg.
Good catch on the relevant discussion, but that’s one example, and not particularly representative of most people who study the UFO subject. You suggest that I “paint the serious researchers” as fools because of their ignorance. I wrote “most” researchers. Most UFO researchers (at least the ones we usually hear about) are not very thorough after their belief systems have been satisfied by their examination of any evidence. In my experience, the Renaissance images are often accepted as UFOs with little further thought, and although I am loath to agree with most debunkers, Cuoghi’s analysis injected a bit of sober thought into a subject that had been almost completely ignored as a fait accompli amongst UFO enthusiasts.
Your discussion of Biblic references to strange aerial phenomena seems disingenuous, as the scenes depicted in the paintings (at least the ones discussed on the Cuoghi site) are not of Ezekiel’s wheel or any other strange aerial phenomena mentioned in the Bible.
I know that Leonardo put hidden messages in his paintings, but did he specifically own up to the “disappearing stream” image as possessing a deeper meaning, or is this a pretty standard use of the iconography? The point here is that the UFO-like images in these paintings can be interpreted as common themes easier than they can be as flying saucers.
Although I did title the piece “UFOs In Renaissance Paintings Explained,” perhaps I should have inserted the words “some” or “possibly.” In the final paragraph, I used the word “convincing,” not “conclusive” as my final take on the subject.
It would be nice to uncover contemporary (i.e. 15th-17th century) accounts of strange aerial phenomena in Italy to have objective confirmation that weird things were there for artists to see and paint. I can’t seem to find any. Your discussion of the Catholic Church and its glacial speed in dealing with current events and beliefs reminded me of the strange fact that they only officially apologized in 1999 for their treatment of Galileo and Giordano Bruno and the acceptance of a heliocentric solar system.
Finally, since the depictions in the paintings look almost exactly like what we would expect them to (as UFOs) in our time makes me suspicious of jumping to conclusions, and more accepting of an alternate explanation, even if it isn’t mysterious.
May 26th, 2008 at 4:54 am
Yes, very convinving indeed! I suppose that the objects on Vedic paintings also had to be approved by the Catholic Church. Also, the dog and the man staring at the saucer-like object in the sky (from where the cropped image in this post came from) were also approved by the Catholic Church.
I suppose as well, since we’re in speculation mode, that the artist in question could have just said that the man and dog as God’s creatures are looking at God’s glory in the sky (saucer) to get is painting made public.
Oh and er…the paintings that include artists reports were also approved by the Catholic Church…
All in all yes, very convincing indeed.
May 26th, 2008 at 9:40 am
While Coughi may have presented a convincing argument to debunk the possibility of UFO’s in Western religious paintings, that does not mean he has proven that UFO’s have never been represented in artwork in ancient times. There are a number of ancient artworks posted on the web that are clearly non religious artworks that shows UFO’s in the sky. In one particular painting the artist has painted in the crowd clearly pointing at and looking at something unusual above them. There is also a verbal account of a UFO sighting written down by an Egyptian Scribe. Let’s not forget the cave paintings that appear to show beings in space suits, etc. My point being, even if Coughi is correct regarding the particular artworks he researched it does not mean he has proven beyond a doubt that there were no ancient sitings of UFO’s.
By the way, there is a helluva lot of artwork on Mars, particularly Mawrth Vallis - I’d like to see him research that into oblivion.
May 26th, 2008 at 10:28 am
sometimes a rock is just a rock. . . and sometimes in ancient art they paint what they see, . . you don’t read into it, . there are no hidden or deep meanings, . . it just is what it is, . . and some of the ancient paintings with UFO’s up in the sky are just what they appear to be, . . a painting with a UFO in the sky. . . you can take apart just about anything you see and put “your” spin on it, but unless we can go back in time and ask, it’s all speculation anyway.
May 26th, 2008 at 10:37 am
What this article demonstrates is that UFOs as we know them today were commonly accepted by the Church and others as being associated with (or a manifestaion of) G_d, saints and religion.
May 26th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Fricasse,
Read the article again, and the comments. We are only talking about ITALIAN RENAISSANCE PAINTINGS. The man and dog looking up at the object are also depicted in other paintings looking at things that are more recognizable as angels, parting clouds, and divinity itself, so it seems reasonable to conclude that they are looking at the same thing here. They symbolize the announcement to the shepherds that Christ was going to be born.
May 26th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
All,
There seems to be some confusion here as to what is being written about and discussed. There was no attempt (at least on my part) to explain or debunk artistic depictions of seemingly aerial phenomena from all cultures, countries, and periods of history.
The art historian referenced in the post made a convincing argument that most if not all strange objects in the sky in paintings of the Italian Renaissance (15th to the 17th centuries) can be explained as religious symbols that are readily recognizable as such. Sure, they could be bona-fide UFOs, but it is more likely that they are symbols of divinity.
I hope that this point is clear.
May 26th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Oh I get it. The vehicle in the sky with the wings, cockpit and pilot adorned with helmet headgear is ANYTHING BUT a vehicle with wings, cockpit and pilot adorned with helmet headgear. C’mon the only thing more unbelievable than a UFO theory is selling the notion that we don’t know what we’re looking at. Skeptics would be best served to concede certain battles when they’re obviously unable to debunk the obvious. Not everything is unexplained, but not all can be compartmentalized by the imposed “logic” of the so called skeptic point of view.
May 27th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
I don’t know, Greg. Much as I prefer a simple, less speculative approach to the unexplained (UFOs such a critter,) I am compelled to go back a wee bit further in time to the cave paintings in places like Lascaux, France.
While there’s no question that artists of all periods have probably indulged in a little license with details to represent abstract ideas (like the halo around the heads of saints, etc,) they’ve also tended to paint what they saw, even if they didn’t comprehend exactly what it was they were seeing. Those bison at Lascaux are clearly bison. Then again, there are other representations of things that appear to be a cross between something animal and something human. Imaginary? Artistic license? Narcotic induced hallucination? Symbolic representation? Probably one or more of the above.
But I draw a line of demarcation when there is a physical object that closely matches an artistic depiction. Did some early painters portray a saint or an angel as something that looks like what we would today call a UFO/flying saucer? Maybe. And maybe they were simply borrowing images for which they themselves had no explanation. Back then the heavens were considered to be the perfected work of God. There could be nothing in them that was imperfect in any way. To suggest such was to risk the brand of heretic.
So you see something ovoid or circular in the sky, perhaps glowing or reflecting light, you call it an angel. What else could it be? Certainly not human, and since the Catholic church has only recently officially sanctioned the notion that it is not unscriptural or undoctrinal to suppose God has placed intelligent life on other worlds, those old painters would dared have come out and said, “Oh, yes, I saw this ‘otherworldly’ object and included it in my painting.” Instead they just painted what they saw or thought they saw and called it was was safe; a saint, an angel, or whatever.
But if it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, and the Inquisition isn’t around anymore to burn me at the stake for saying it’s not an angel, and I see the same object or kinds of objects flying around the skies today, then my money is on the duck, not the angel.
~R~
May 27th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Raven,
Thanks for the non-sarcastic and thoughtful comment.
Yes, as I have said in other comments to this post, there is no real evidence for standard interpretation of weird, flying saucerlike shapes in art work of other times and cultures, since we often have nothing to compare them to. In this case, we do.
In the article concerning the first image above (the golden-tinged oval) Cuoghi makes the point that at the time the painting was done, there was an austerity movement afoot in Florence that forbade literal depictions of the Deity or angels. Artists resorted to symbols in the sky instead of cherubic faces in a ring, or angels parting clouds, etc. The man and the dog represent the announcement of Christ’s birth to the shepherds, and is found in many other paintings.
We can of course guess that the Mainardi (the artist) saw or heard about something in the sky that he put in his painting in a standard way in order to depict something that he thought was divine in origin. I feel that this is stretching things a bit.
The other image, of the man in the apparent spaceship is from a fresco of the crucifixion. The arrangement of the elements also matches other artworks on the same theme. If you look closely, the figures in the spaceship/ orbs are male and female, and represent the sun and moon. This also has a wealth of precedents in other medieval and byzantine art.
Once again, the artist may have been using his own depiction of something strange in the sky under the guise of religious iconography, but since there is a more direct explanation for it, I choose to err on that side.
In other comments I have mentioned the Nuremberg woodblock print of 1561 as a good example of a well-documented depiction of a UFO sighting. There are also numerous examples in petroglyphs and other pre-historic art.
May 28th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Sorry….. Seems as if the paintings are being over analyzed.
There is no logical explanation given to counter the evidence of UFOs in ancient art.
Something are exactly what they seem to be even if it defies the context to your personal reality.
Perhaps they weren’t over-looked by the ones who critiqued the paintings before they were allowed to be considered final.
Seems as if the artists meant to include the phenomenon.
Being aware of the UFO reality makes it easier to accept the Truth about the phenomenon in ancient art.
Remember…. The Church says you are allowed to believe now.
So, many perspectives on things that would have sent you to Hell are now acceptable. Including UFOs and their occupants.
May 28th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Verbz,
One person’s over-analyzation is another’s in-depth examination.
You wrote that ” There is no logical explanation given to counter the evidence of UFOs in ancient art.” “There is no logical explanation” seems to remove all doubt that there are any other possible explanations, which I don’t agree with. This statement shuts down any debate, which is exactly what fundamentalist skeptics do when presented with well-documented UFO evidence. “Ancient art” is vague in definition. Does this cover the period from prehistory to the 19th century? The 17th? As we move closer to our own time, it becomes easier to check on other factors.
UFOs and aliens do not defy my “context for reality” even if they might for the art historian who wrote the articles. All you need to do is look at my other posts on this site, and the entire post up top, which I added to yesterday in order to clarify my position.
I don’t know if other examples of UFO-like objects in artworks are actually depictions of extraordinary aerial phenomena, but in this case there is a good alternate explanation from an era where the philosophy, politics and standard symbols are known.
May 28th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
I too agree with Diego Cuoghi’s interpretations. Debunking, and skepticism, especially with the crowd that frequents UFO circles, is viewed (and rightly so) in derisive terms. Sometimes, however, when it is done right - and with the necessary skill and background - debunking can be elevated to a level that all rational beings can appreciate.
This is indeed one of those rare cases. When I first look at the pages (three or four years ago), it was a breath of fresh air. Nothing has changed. Diego Cuoghi’s performance is flawless, and I appreciate the specialized skill that necessarily such an undertaking requires.
May 29th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Greg,
I see your point. You’re probably familiar with Mike Heiser; notorious Zecharia Sitchin debunker. Heiser approaches the subject of early Babylonian/Sumerian writings from a decidely fundamental Christian perspective so I can’t honestly say his work is 110% unbiased, but he does have impressive advanced degrees in the ancient languages he’s commenting on.
One of his video presentations deals with Sitchin’s interpretation of characters which Sitchin says represent our sun in the middle and a specific number of planets orbiting the sun, one of which is Sitchin’s favorite Anunnaki homeworld, Nibiru. Heiser shows a photo of the tablet in question and, if you’re just a Sumerian-illiterate like me you might think to yourself, sure, that looks like a star in the center with planets arranged around it. I mean it DOES sort of look like that.
As it turns out, the resemblance is only really compelling at first blush because Sitchin has told you those are planets orbiting our sun. But Heiser shows examples from the dictionaries left behind by the culture that invented the language and then he shows several other writings that employ the exact same symbols in which it is clear from the context that the character Sitchin translates as “planet” is actually the character for “star”. Then that entire tablet becomes not our sun surrounded by planets (including Nibiru), but rather its just depicting a group of stars.
Easy to misinterpret, especially if you have an “authority figure” to hand you an incorrect interpretation up front, but much clearer once the truth of the matter gets probed a little deeper.
And I guess that’s kind of the thrust of what you are saying about early art if I’m reading you right. But I still look at those paintings and think, “Hmmmm….quack, quack!”
~R~
May 29th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Raven,
I’d never heard about the Sitchin rebuttal. Good one.
It seems that when people take the time to examine the research of those who seem to (or actually do) know what they’re talking about, some issues become more complicated, not less so. And in a significant set of these instances, our minds are changed, or at least challenged. Of course, there is the problem of figuring out if the person’s emotional need to convince us outweighs their evidence and logic.
I used to take a different attitude about these renaissance paintings, until I read Cuoghi’s analysis.
If by “early art,” you mean the paintings of the period in discussion, yes, I tend to think that the anomalous objects are most likely standard symbols, and not UFOs. To me, “early” in art history refers to the Roman Empire and anything before. This may have been one of the problems in my discussions in the comments. It’s a very inexact term.
Yes, the objects still do look a lot like UFOs!
May 30th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Glad to see this discussion is still ongoing, and that unlike many other so-called experts on the subject, you’re always willing to share in a good discussion. Your openness to criticism from strangers like myself, places you heads and tails above many others in the field IMHO, and is why I consider your site one of the best.
BTW: Colonel Corso, good to see you back among the living! haven’t heard from you since your death in 1998. How’s the weather in Heaven?
First, a word to Raven about Mr. Heiser: I have a hard time accepting conclusions presented by a scientist (or linguist, in Heiser’s case) who holds a religion-influenced conviction that the planet (in fact, the entire Universe) is only 6600 years old. Any researcher who wears blinders that severely limiting, must admit their every conclusion is biased from the word go. This pattern of “believe, uncover support, then preach,” runs counter to the scientific tradition of “theorize, discover, and confirm.”
More doubt about Heiser’s conclusions are covered on this interesting thread discussing Sumerian linguistics: “Heiser is good at destroying Sitchin’s Hebrew gaffes but doesn’t speak or understand any Mesopotamian language, so he might as well be a good French speaker trying to solve a problem that involves Sumerian. Nephilim is a loan word in Hebrew the same as Adam and Eden are; they are sourced in Sumerian, and what ends up in Hebrew is a similar sounding word that has a similar meaning. But you need to allow the change in language that normally happens (when you) jump from one language to another.” (from http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread222961/pg1)
Now, to Greg’s replies to my original post:
GB said: “…(A)lthough I am loath to agree with most debunkers, Cuoghi’s analysis injected a bit of sober thought into a subject that had been almost completely ignored as a fait accompli amongst UFO enthusiasts.”
I share your…um, loathing. (:^D) And I agree, sober evidence-based thinking is always welcome, especially in a discussion where little concrete evidence is present (other than first-person accounts, which are numerous and substantial, yet too often circumstantial).
The main problem I have is when one scholar (Cuoghi) attempts to explain away the entire possibility of UFOs captured in artwork, by the limited traditions employed by religious artists in a limited timeframe (the Renaissance). You may think that wasn’t the intent of your post, but by including Cuoghi’s comments such as “an Italian artist of the [1400s] or an anonymous Byzantine painter,” a span of over a thousand years, do indicate a much wider interpretation than the limited one now suggested.
GB: “Your discussion of Biblical references to strange aerial phenomena seems disingenuous, as the scenes depicted in the paintings (at least the ones discussed on the Cuoghi site) are not of Ezekiel’s wheel or any other strange aerial phenomena mentioned in the Bible.”
I disagree: those examples are completely relevant. They represent well-known (to Biblical readers, at least) events that can hardly be interpreted as anything other than what they were: physical objects interacting with humans, who were then considered blessed for their interaction with God (or God-like people and their vehicles).
These were events that are now accepted as dogma by the same religious authorities that accept the earth stood still for one day, that Jesus held physically sway over life and death (as well as control over the weather), and that numerous dead saints in Jerusalem rose from the dead right after the Crucifixion (see Matthew 27:52: “And the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose…”)
Graham hancock’s “Supernatural” has some interesting comments on the subject of the paranormal and how it’s recorded by those who experience it. On page 411, he includes a woodcut from the 16th century that shows fairies inside a hollow hill, beckoning a passerby to join them. The fact that the fairies are dressed in contemporary 16th century garb should not be accepted at face value as the actual dress of the so-called fairies. Similarly, when Renaissance artists depicted warriors of Biblical times (Joshua, David, the Israelites) wearing plate armor, it’s merely indicative of an accepted method of representing actual events in a method accepted by the artists’ sponsors (the Church and their obedient nobility).
Then we have the fascinating occurrences of “angel hair,” strange strands that fell from the sky throughout the world (Hancock includes a record of such a fall in the 17th century — in Japan!), but for whatever reason, most often in Italy. Images of such falls have been painted. Does the fact that they are recorded in artwork by the same artists as Cuoghi covers, mean that we must relegate the recorded events as little more than artistic traditions employed by their contemporaries, as he would have us believe?
Or can we accept that perhaps the exact opposite is possible:
That the traditions of painting holy personages so much like UFOs, may be due to the influence of actual events, perhaps witnessed by some of the same influential artists Cuoghi covers?
GB: “It would be nice to uncover contemporary (i.e. 15th-17th century) accounts of strange aerial phenomena in Italy to have objective confirmation that weird things were there for artists to see and paint. I can’t seem to find any.”
Here’s an interesting point: Other non-Catholic countries, such as Germany, where the RC Church held almost no sway thanks to the Reformation, and where independent artists had recourse to that “devil’s tool,” the printing press, holds hundreds of fascinating events that were recorded in print, as well as by contemporary artists.
One excellent event occurred in Nuremberg in 1561, which you mentioned, as retold at http://ufologie.net/htm/1561.htm (in both English and the original German of the town’s Gazette). Basel, Switzerland had an equally inexplicable aerial ballet in 1566 (woodcut), as did Utrecht in 1528 (painting and woodcut), Hamburg in 1697 (woodcut), and even the members of the Royal Society at Windsor Castle in 1749 (a nice oil, suitable for over the fireplace).
Why is it that during the same time period as covered by Cuoghi, we have multiple events outside the influence of Rome, illustrated just as the witnesses described them? This evidence does more than suggest the aerial events were “limited” to 80% of Europe, but oddly, not Italy proper. Instead, they suggest that the events recorded in that limited arena were simply clothed in the religious garb approved by those who paid the artists.
GB: “The art historian referenced in the post made a convincing argument that most if not all strange objects in the sky in paintings of the Italian Renaissance (15th to the 17th centuries) can be explained as religious symbols that are readily recognizable as such.”
Not so. What he’s convinced me of is the limited way of depicting aerial objects as Bishop’s hats (how absurd!), for example, a finite and oft-repeated pallet of Rome-approved iconography. How these icons were originally derived, how close they resembled witnessed objects from that time (with people on the ground pointing in excitation in many instances), he never addresses.
In fact, as I hope I’ve shown above, there are many countries that had well recorded events in print and art. These were, however, countries devoid of RC religious oppression.
Rather than suggest that “most if not all strange objects” as painted in their skies are religious icons, I would suggest that ANY strange aerial objects, as painted by Roman Catholic-controlled Italian artists, could ONLY by painted and interpreted as “symbols of divinity.”
Greg, I appreciate your exhaustive work compiling the latest info on UFOs and the other mysteries of the world. I also hear and understand your claim not to be unbiased, but are trying for “equity.” As is noticeable by my posts, I too display my own bias, in this instance, for UFOs as physical events recorded accurately down through time.
But I respectfully suggest that you might accept the possibility, if nothing else, that the Italian artists discussed were recreating strange but very real and contemporary events the only way they were allowed: under the guise of acceptable religious dogma.
TemplarScribe
May 30th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Templar,
Yes, civilized debate (especially on the internet) seems rare!
I made my allegiance to Cuoghi’s ideas clear by limiting my title and discussion to the period specified. He apparently chose to delve into other periods and cultures where I do not necessarily agree with him, but his discussion should not be rejected out of hand.
You don’t need to convince me that sightings in other countries were documented and depicted in paintings and prints. I was looking for accounts from Italy from the period specified. If these were snuffed out by the Church, we are only left with guesses.
The “bishop’s hat” (acutally a Cardinal’s hat) that you refer to is, I believe, referenced to a standard Cardinal’s seal showing essentially the same thing. Additionally, the “hat” in the painting is on the ground below and to the right of Christ on the cross. Why isn’t it in the air?
The only people I see pointing excitedly to objects in the sky in the paintings referenced on Cuoghi’s site are men with dogs or sheep, reniforcing the biblical reference to shepherds. In the depictions from outside Italy, there is little or no religious content present.
Of course I leave open the possibility that the Italian artists were painting strange objects in the sky according to accepted dogma, but the fact that their depictions fit so well with other symbols and arrangments in non-mysterious artwork makes it difficult to make a final determination. And yes, the standard symbols could be based on earlier descriptions of anomalous aerial phenomena. I don’t know why halos developed from simple circles to what look like saucers balanced precariously on the backs of people’s heads! Perhaps I should. In any case, historically-referenced comparisons seem to make more sense to me, as well as flattering my admitted bias with a degree in art history.
If people want to go looking for UFOs in art before the modern (early 20th century) era, they could do much better.
May 31st, 2008 at 1:16 am
Greg,
Thought you might find this video interesting, coming as it does from a prominent member of the Catholic clergy. Also included are several of the paintings under consideration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAS5EC1DzV8
Templar,
As I admitted up front, I’m aware Mike Heiser’s views are probably colored at least a bit by his quite open Christian fundamentalist beliefs. I have no knowledge that he is a 6600 year Creationist subscriber. In the several of his video presentations in my collection that idea has never come up, so it he is in that camp that’s something I wasn’t aware of.
However, that possibility notwithstanding, I think the ATS discussion you referenced may provide a less than complete picture of Heiser’s academic credentials. For the sake of disclosure he openly posts his areas of professional study here:
http://www.sitchiniswrong.com/MHeiserCV.pdf
You’ll note that while it does focus to a large degree on Hebrew and Semitic languages, he also has graduate coursework completed (presumably as a part of his Ph.D) in Akkadian (a Mesopotamian language), Aramaic (also Mesopotamian), and…well, you can read his resume’ for yourself.
From an interesting site dedicated to Sumerian in particular,
http://www.crystalinks.com/sumerlanguage.html
we read:
“The Sumerian language of ancient Sumer was spoken in Southern Mesopotamia from at least the 4th millennium BC. Sumerian was replaced by Akkadian as a spoken language around 2000 BC, but continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial and scientific language in Mesopotamia until about 1 AD. Then, it was forgotten until the 19th century. Sumerian is distinguished from other languages of the area such as Hebrew, Akkadian, which also comprises Babylonian and Assyrian, and Aramaic, which are Semitic languages, and Elamite, which may be an Elamo-Dravidian language…Leaving aside the problems of classification and typology, however, linguists have pieced together what might be termed a “framework” descriptive grammar of the language, aided lexically by lists of Sumerian words with Akkadian counterparts left to us by ancient scribes.
These lists were necessary as Sumerian was, apparently, the “official language” of Mesopotamia for some time after the language ceased to be spoken by the local population.
It is this grammar, albeit incomplete and often frequently revised and updated, that we can use to read the basic meanings from a wide variety of the extant texts found throughout Mesopotamia and the surrounding lands.”
In Heiser’s presentations he makes copious use of these ancient lexicons providing links and resources so that even a non-specialist can look at them, compare a text and come up with a fair idea of the text’s meaning. This is in fact, one of his most scathing criticisms of Sitchin’s “translation” work; that we have veritable dictionaries compiled by native speakers of these ancient languages which Sitchin ignores entirely in favor of his own rather dubious “translations”. Heiser repeatedly advises his audiences not to take his (Heiser’s) word on his translations, but to look things up in these lexicons for themselves and verify that he is in fact providing accurate translations.
So I don’t discount his academic work because he may or may not hold some religious views that I personally don’t agree with. I’m more concerned with his academics, particularly with the fact that he provides the technical references to support his work and repeatedly advises people to go to these sources and look things up for themselves.
With regard to the word “Nephilim”, Heiser writes extensively about its origins here:
http://www.michaelsheiser.com/nephilim.pdf
Read it for what it’s worth and compare it to what you referenced above.
~R~
May 31st, 2008 at 7:18 pm
Going out on a limb, with Shirley MacLaine…
If one to believe that the US (or other) government had in fact been experimenting with some rather advanced technology, as rumored to come partly out of Nazi Germany, and we consider things such as the Philadelphia Experiment, what if they managed to work with some type of time dilation/viewing/travel?
That would explain some of the sightings in these ancient works, and the gold trinkets in Inca shaped like airplanes, and the Egyptian hieroglyphs at New Kingdom Temple (Google for “egyptian ufos”), once which looks hauntingly like an Apache Helicopter that we’re all familiar with.
I could go on and on; but my point is it’s rather difficult to reconcile all these apparent “coincidences” in something simple like local symbology.
My theory is that we’re dealing in part with a real alien presence as well as gov’t projects. And who knows what variables exist in between.