Showing posts with label UFOs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UFOs. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 14, 2025

UFOs in Jewish History

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                     

Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) are now officially referred to as Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs) by the Pentagon and other government agencies. This change was made in 2022 to broaden the scope of the term and encompass objects detected in the air, sea, and space. The new term, UAP, is considered more neutral and allows for a wider range of objects to be studied, including those that may not be extraterrestrial in origin, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. 


The Forward once ran a short piece entitled “Putting Israel’s UFO Frenzy Into Historical Perspective,” after videos surfaced purporting to show UFOs hovering over the Jerusalem skyline. 

Unidentified flying objects are no stranger to the Holy Land. The Bible is full of accounts of sightings of heavenly beings.

 Indeed, a cornerstone of Jewish liturgy is the line from Psalms 19:2 — “The heavens declare the glory of God” —- which some sages read to mean that we earthly inhabitants are not alone among the creatures in the universe who praise Hashem.

While there aren't specific Jewish essays explicitly confirming UFOs since the Exodus, some contemporary Jewish thinkers and theologians have explored the relationship between Jewish belief in an omnipotent God and the possibility of extraterrestrial life, suggesting that it's not contradictory to consider the existence of other worlds and creatures. Rabbi Benjamin Blech wrote that a belief in an all-powerful God doesn't forbid the possibility of other planets with other life formsSome also point to the Book of Ezekiel and its descriptions of strange beings and vehicles as potential evidence, says The Forward. 


In the Jewish tradition, the pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night in Exodus 13:21-22 represent God's presence, guidance, and protection of the Israelites during their journey through the wilderness. The cloud symbolizes God's glory, while the fire represents His power and presence. 

The image you're looking for is a depiction of the Israelites following the pillar of fire during the Exodus. This pillar of fire, described in Exodus 13:21, was a manifestation of God's presence, guiding the people through the desert at night and providing light. By day, the pillar was a cloud, according to the BibleRef.comThe pillar of fire symbolized God's protection and guidance, and the people would not move until the pillar lifted. The pillar of fire and cloud only disappeared when the Israelites entered the Promised Land, according to Ignite Church Sunshine Coast, a church in Australia.  

  • As a result of his personal meeting with the late Pope John Paul II, the future Pope Leo XIV was instrumental in securing the loan of precious Jewish manuscripts for exhibition in Israel and he is presently involved in further negotiations for the return of precious Judaica held by the Vatican that may well prove to be of historic significance.

  • Jewish Theology and Extraterrestrial Life:
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    Some contemporary Jewish scholars argue that a belief in an omnipotent God actually supports the possibility of extraterrestrial life, as it suggests there are no limits to God's creative power and the scope of the universe. 
  • Rabbi Benjamin Blech's Perspective:
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    Rabbi Blech has written that a strong belief in an all-powerful God cannot logically exclude the possibility of other worlds populated by other creatures. 
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    The Book of Ezekiel,(1)  particularly its descriptions of strange beings and vehicles, has been interpreted by some as potentially hinting at the possibility of extraterrestrial beings or technologies.  
  • from the midst of the fire there was the likeness of 4 Chayos.  They had the likeness of a man; each one had 4 faces, and each one of them had 4 wings;  their legs were  a straight leg, and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a rounded foot, and they glittered with the color of burnished copper;  there were human hands under their wings on their 4 sides.  Their faces and their wings [were alike] on the 4 of them;  their wings were joined to one another.  'They did not turn as they went;  each in the direction of its faces would they go.  As for the likeness of their faces:  There was a human face; and a lion's face to the right for the 4 of them; and an ox's face to the left for the 4 of them, and an eagle's face for the 4 of them.  As for their faces:  Their wings extended upward [over them];  for each [face]two [wings] were joined to each other;  and two [wings] were covering their bodies.  Each in the direction of its faces would they go;  toward wherever there was the spirit to go, they would go;  they did not turn as they went.  As for the likeness of the Chayos:  Their appearance was like [fiery coals, burning like the appearance of torches;  it spread about among the Chayos;  there was a brilliance to the fire, and from the fire went forth lightning.            
  •                                                               
                                      2005 Uri Geller doing his spoon trick in Switzerland
      
  • Uri Geller:
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    Israeli psychic and mystifier Uri Geller has also been involved in UFO-related reports, including a photo he shared of a UFO in Israel, which was later identified by social media users as a streetlight. Geller has claimed his feats are the result of paranormal powers given to him by extraterrestrials.  Andrija Puharich met Geller in 1971 and endorsed him as a genuine psychic. Under hypnosis, Geller claimed he was sent to Earth by extraterrestrials from a spaceship 53,000 light years away. Geller later denied the space fantasy claims, but affirmed there "is a slight possibility that some of my energies do have extraterrestrial connection." Puharich also stated that Geller teleported a dog through the walls of his house. Science writer Martin Gardner wrote that since "no expert on fraud was there as an observer” nobody should take the claim seriously.

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    A video surfaced in 2011 showing a bright light descending over the Dome of the Rock and then rapidly accelerating upwards. This video went viral and sparked significant interest and debate. While some believe it to be a real UFO sighting, others have argued that it was a hoax or a natural phenomenon. 
  • Resource:
  • Tanakh, the Stone Edition
  • The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia


Monday, September 4, 2023

The Tall People and the Short People of Israel; How Did This Happen?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                 

                He died in 1912 in a horse and wagon accident at age 40, born in Telsiai (Telz) , Lithuania. My Zaida was 6' tall or 183 centimeters-most likely.   

My grandfather, Nathan Abraham Goldfus/Goldfoot, was tall;  at least 6 feet tall.  His wife, my grandmother or Bubba, as we knew her, was  very short.  She had a broken leg from a pogrom in her home town of Lazdijai (Lazdey), Suwalki, Lithuania and it helped her to be shorter than normal. She had lived in Cuprum, Idaho, then Council, Idaho where she met Nathan.  She was 4 foot 6 inches tall. In men and women, the sole requirement for being considered a dwarf is having an adult height under 147 cm (4 ft 10 in) and it is almost always sub-classified with respect to the underlying condition that is the cause of the short stature.   My father turned out to be 5' 8" tall, pretty normal for most Jews. I had a very tall boyfriend, Sam Arnstein.  He was a good 6 feet, with German or Austrian ancestry.  I had another, Mort Shurkin, also about 6 feet tall, most likely Russian ancestry.  I wondered at the time why they were so tall.  I was only 5'4".                              

                              Our very short Bubba

This was his 2nd marriage; before marrying in Dublin, Ireland to Lena Goldberg but had no children. My grandparents married in Boise, Idaho November 20, 1905. Bubba used to tell us how she had to stand on a chair to kiss him.  I used to use her as a measuring tool to see how much I had grown. 

          Bubba and her daughter, Ann, granddaughter Harriet

Mel Brooks was 5'5" or 165 centimeters; belonging to the short people like my Bubba's family.     

Why was Bubba so very short?  Bones increase in length because of growth plates in the bones called epiphyses. As puberty progresses, the growth plates mature, and at the end of puberty they fuse and stop growing.   Normal height ranges can vary between continents, races or ethnic groups of people, so the height of a person who is medically or socially defined as ‘short’ or ‘tall’ can be different depending on where they live or their ethnic background.  Lazddijai went through more starvation days than Telsiai did, looking at their height.  Bubby's siblings were all very short, showing it was also a DNA factor of height as well.  

 My 5'6" tall mother with Bubba's half sister, Aunt Jenny, the hat makes her appear taller, who is taller than Bubba.  

Doctor measuring height of young girl.

Doctor measuring height of young girl.

There are also variations in the height of each individual population, and most people who are very short or very tall are completely healthy, but just at the top or bottom end of the normal range for that particular population. A medical problem that affects growth is more likely if a child is growing slower or faster than expected.

Causes of a child growing too slowly include:

  • Deficiency of thyroid hormone or growth hormone.
     
  • Conditions where the hormones controlling growth are normal but the skeleton does not respond normally. This can be caused by, for example, Turner syndrome and achondroplasia.
     
  • An illness that can affect growth, for example, a child with a serious gut or chest problem may grow slowly because of this.

Almost everyone who is very tall is normal and has no medical problems. Marfan syndrome and Klinefelter's syndrome can cause very tall stature, and extremely rare tumours of the pituitary gland producing too much growth hormone can result in very rapid growth (gigantism)

When Moses sent 12 spies into Canaan, they reported that the people were giants.  They were very tall; taller certainly than they were.  It scared them, and they didn't want to tackle attacking such people.  So we can deduce that the population of Canaan, a land of many different tribal units, were tall people.  They had enough of the right things to eat that their growth plates could grow and mature. The people on the Exodus, being slaves for most of the 400 previous years, were denied food needed for growth.  

If you get the proper foods that go to growth, you should reach the height your genes expect you to reach. It all depends on the DNA of both your parents and what they had inherited. Starvation days, like the Holocaust, played a number on the survivors, who came out shorter than they would have.    

11 Foods That Make You Taller:  All or some of these were not available for slaves in Egypt;  Possibly they were not getting enough protein, the chicken.  They should have had plenty of Fava beans, though.   
 Ful Medames (also known as fūl mudammas or foul medames), is a nutritious Egyptian staple made primarily of mashed fava beans. It can be compared to forms of Mexican re-fried beans but with Egyptian flare. In Egypt the beans are boiled down, mushed together and seasoned with salt and olive oil.  With evidence of their incorporation into diets dating back to at least 6000 BC, fava beans are one of the oldest cultivated plants. Their hardiness and ability to endure cold climates contributed to their endurance as a crop.  Slaves should have had access to the Fava beans for protein.  Fava beans, or broad beans, are a type of bean that's eaten around the world. They're high in protein and other important nutrients. Eating fava beans can help with weight loss, aid in your body's immunity, and provide other health benefits.     
11 Foods Necessary to Grow Tall (in today's age) 
  • Beans. Beans are incredibly nutritious and an especially good source of protein ( 5 ). ...
  • Chicken. Rich in protein along with a range of other essential nutrients, chicken can be an excellent addition to a healthy diet. ...
  • Almonds. ...
  • Leafy greens. ...
  • Yogurt. ...
  • Sweet potatoes. ...
  • Quinoa. ...
  • Eggs.                                   

  There was something out there.  Miraculously, Manna was ready to be picked every morning. Were UFOs or UAPs up there?                                   
      Picking Manna every morning 

 Our Jewish ancestors had only manna to eat for the 40 years !  They had started out with 603,550 and ended with 601,730 from fighting off attackers and old age of population, so had only lost 1,820.  They even lost Moses who died outside the walls of Canaan just before entering.  

"During the journey the Israelites murmured because of a lack of food. The Lord blessed them with manna and instructed them to gather it every morning except on the Sabbath. The children of Israel also murmured because of thirst. The Lord commanded Moses to strike a rock in Horeb so that water would come forth".  

 I can imagine this was food dropped from a spacecraft by space aliens, space food with nutrients.  I can imagine this today since spacecraft, UFOs have been spotted by our pilots and that fact has been vetted.  My only argument in this is that the spacecrafts could be Chinese, as our scientific community has invented many unusual items that would be important to space travel.  The USA could be far more intelligent in all this that we people have not been told about.  Our technology has become Far Out!  When our government opens up about spacemen that they have hidden away, show us the bodies, the pictures when first discovered, then we will all get serious.  I believe it now, but seeing is believing.  Chinese people are very intelligent.  They could be ahead of us in this.  It's quite possible.  


Resource:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarfism#:~:text=In%20men%20and%20women%2C%20the,cause%20of%20the%20short%20stature.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKsLK_Na7iw

Saturday, March 18, 2023

A Few Jewish Men Who Knew All About UFOs

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

1. Stanton Terry Friedman (July 29, 1934 – May 13, 2019) was an American nuclear physicist and professional ufologist who resided in New Brunswick, Canada. He was the original civilian investigator of the Roswell UFO incident.  The Roswell incident started on 2 July 1947 when UFO sightings were reported during a thunderstorm. Next morning a rancher, Mac Brazel, discovered strange wreckage in a field. When the impact site was located, a UFO craft and alien bodies were allegedly found. On 8 July 1947, the Roswell Daily Record announced the capture of a flying saucer. The official statement was that a weather balloon had crashed. Conspiracy theorists believe that the true events were kept secret. There is now a tourist industry in Roswell, which includes the International UFO Museum and Research Center, and an annual UFO festival. Photographed in 1997.

Friedman was Ashkenazi Jewish. He was married twice. His first wife was Susie Virginia Porter, with whom he adopted three children, but they divorced in April 1974. He had one daughter with his second wife, Marilyn. Friedman relocated to Marilyn's native Fredericton, New Brunswick in the early 1980s.  On May 13, 2019, Friedman died of a heart attack at the Toronto Pearson Airport

Friedman was the first civilian to document the site of the Roswell UFO incident, and supported the hypothesis that it was a genuine crash of an extraterrestrial spacecraft. In 1968 Friedman told a committee of the United States House of Representatives that the evidence suggests that Earth is being visited by intelligently controlled extraterrestrial vehiclesFriedman also stated he believed that UFO sightings were consistent with magnetohydrodynamic propulsion.

MHD propulsion has been considered as the main propulsion system for both marine and space ships since there is no need to produce lift to counter the gravity of Earth in water (due to buoyancy) nor in space (due to weightlessness), which is ruled out in the case of flight in the atmosphere.

In 1996, after researching and fact checking the Majestic 12 documents, Friedman said that there was no substantive grounds for dismissing their authenticity.  He said his belief in extraterrestrials was based on data about UFO events he found buried in U.S. government documents over the years.

2. Seth Shostak was born July 20, 1943, in a Jewish family in Arlington, Virginia, the son of Arthur and Bertha Shostak (née Gortenburg); his father was an electrical engineer. He earned his BS in physics from Princeton University and a PhD in astrophysics from the California Institute of Technology.
  Jill Tarter and Seth Shostak:  Jill Cornell Tarter (born January 16, 1944) is an American astronomer best known for her work on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Tarter is the former director of the Center for SETI Research, holding the Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI at the SETI Institute. In 2002, Discover magazine recognized her as one of the 50 most important women in science.

In 2004, on George Noory's Coast to Coast radio show, Friedman debated Seth Shostak, the SETI Institute's Senior Astronomer.  Seth Shostak is an American astronomer and author, and is currently the senior astronomer for the SETI Institute. Shostak hosts SETI's weekly radio show/podcast Big Picture Science, has played himself numerous times in TV and internet film dramas, and has acted in several science fiction films.                                      

The SETI Institute is a not-for-profit research organization incorporated in 1984 whose mission is to explore, understand, and explain the origin and nature of life in the universe, and to use this knowledge to inspire and guide present and future generations, sharing knowledge with the public, the press, and the government. SETI stands for the "search for extraterrestrial intelligence".The institute consists of three primary centers: The Carl Sagan Center, devoted to the study of life in the universe; the Center for Education, focused on astronomy, astrobiology and space science for students and educators; and the Center for Public Outreach, which produces "Big Picture Science", the institute's general science radio show and podcast, and "SETI Talks", its weekly colloquium series.                   

Radio telescope
            
 Like Friedman, Shostak also believes in the existence of intelligent life other than humans; however, unlike Friedman, he does not believe such life is now on Earth or is related to UFO sightings.  Shostak used radio telescopes in the US and the Netherlands, searching for clues to the ultimate fate of the universe by analyzing galaxy motion. In 1999, he produced twelve 30-minute lectures on audio-tape and video titled "The Search for Intelligent Life in Space" for The Teaching Company. An updated overview about the search for extraterrestrial life was presented in 2019.                                      
The McMinnville UFO photographs, also known as the Trent UFO photos, were taken by a farming couple, Paul and Evelyn Trent near McMinnville, Oregon, United States on May 11, 1950.Magnification of second Trent UFO image.

Friedman hypothesized that UFOs may originate from relatively nearby sunlike stars.(p. 217)Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our own, is still 40,208,000,000,000 km away. (Or about 268,770 AU.)Dec 8, 2020

     Some of our constellations of stars 

A piece of evidence that he often cited with respect to this hypothesis is the 1964 star map drawn by alleged alien abductee Betty Hill during a hypnosis session, which she said was shown to her during her abduction. Astronomer Marjorie Fish constructed a three-dimensional map of nearby sun-like stars and claimed a good match from the perspective of Zeta Reticuli, about 39 light years distant. The fit of the Hill/Fish star maps was hotly debated in the December 1974 edition of Astronomy magazine, with Friedman and others defending the statistical validity of the match.

Friedman was outspoken in his articulation of positions and in his criticism of UFO debunkers, often stating he was not an "apologist ufologist". His positions are regarded as controversial in mainstream science and media, but Friedman claimed to have received little opposition at his many lectures, most of which were at colleges and universities, many to engineering societies and other groups of physicists (p. 24). He had a number of debates in the mainstream media, including one with UFO skeptic Michael Shermer on CNN.

Friedman was criticized both by skeptics and other Roswell researchers for taking the position that there are no substantive grounds for dismissing the authenticity of some Majestic 12 documents although Friedman was the first to provide evidence that some of the documents are clearly hoaxes. For example, he showed that a supposed memo from Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter to President Truman, dated February 17, 1948, was actually the emulation of a letter from Marshall to Roosevelt that was featured in the book The American MAGIC. Friedman researched the MJ-12 documents since first becoming aware of them from Wiliam Moore and Jaime Shandera in 1984. He addressed criticisms of the original documents in both sources. As an example, Philip J. Klass claimed lexicographic inconsistencies based on the use of Pica typeface in the Cutler-Twining memo and offered $100, in a challenge to Friedman, for each legitimate example of the use of the same style and size Pica type as used in the memo. Friedman provided 14 examples and was paid $1000 by Klass.

Friedman earned Degrees in Nuclear Physics from University of Chicago, Bachelor of Science in 1955 and Master of Science in 1956.
He wrote, UFOs Are Real in 1979. I counted that he has written 38 books on UFOs which are listed on Amazon.com 
The famed UFO researcher died at Toronto's Pearson International Airport on his way home to Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada from a speaking engagement in Ohio.
3. Carl Edward Sagan b: November 9, 1934-d: December 20, 1996  was an American astronomerplanetary scientistcosmologistastrophysicistastrobiologist, author, and science communicator.
We can't leave out Carl Sagan, astronomer.   Sagan was born in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, on November 9, 1934. His father, Samuel Sagan, was an immigrant garment worker from Kamianets-Podilskyi, then in the Russian Empire, in today's Ukraine. His mother, Rachel Molly Gruber, was a housewife from New York.   According to Sagan, they were Reform Jews, the most liberal of North American Judaism's four main groups. Carl and his sister agreed that their father was not especially religious, but that their mother "definitely believed in God, and was active in the temple; ... and served only kosher meat". During the worst years of the Depression, his father worked as a theater usher.  His best known scientific contribution is his research on the possibility of extraterrestrial life, including experimental demonstration of the production of amino acids from basic chemicals by radiation. Sagan assembled the first physical messages sent into space, the Pioneer plaque and the Voyager Golden Record, universal messages that could potentially be understood by any extraterrestrial intelligence that might find them. Sagan argued in favor of the hypothesis, accepted since, that the high surface temperatures of Venus are the result of the greenhouse effect.                         

 4. Haim Eshed alternatively romanized as Chaim 
Eshed (Hebrew: חיים אשד; born 1933) is a visiting 
professor of aeronautics and astronautics at various space 
technology research institutions. A retired brigadier 
general in Israeli Military Intelligence, Eshed was director of 
space programs for Israel Ministry of Defense for nearly 30 
years, is former chair of the Space Committee of the 
National Council for Research and Development for 
member of the steering committee of Israel 
SpaceAgency. Eshed is responsible for the launch of 20 
Israeli made satellites, and he is widely cited as the father 
of Israel's space program.  In 2020, Eshed became notable 
for claiming that world governments were secretly working 
with aliens.

In December 2020, Eshed claimed in an interview with 

Israeli national newspaper Yediot Aharonot that the United 

States government had been in contact 

with extraterrestrial life for years and had signed secret 

agreements with a "Galactic Federation" in order to do 

experiments on Earth, and that there is a joint base 

underground on Mars where they collaborate with American 

astronauts. He also stated that US president Donald 

Trump was aware of this and was "on the verge" of 

informing everyone of their existence, but was stopped by 

the "Galactic Federation", who wished to prevent mass hysteria.

The interview, in Hebrew, gained traction after parts were 

published in English by The Jerusalem 

PostUFO investigator Nick Pope told NBC News that 

the ufology community wanted to know whether Eshed's 

account is primary or secondary information:

"Either this is some sort of practical joke or publicity stunt 

to help sell his book, perhaps with something having been 

lost in translation, or someone in the know is breaking 

ranks."


The book is The Universe Beyond the Horizon: 

Conversations with Professor Haim Eshed written by 

author Hagar Yanai, published in November 2020. In the 

book, Eshed makes implausible claims that include stories 

of how aliens prevented potential nuclear disasters, 

including an unspecified nuclear incident during the Bay of 

Pigs Invasion.                    

              Born July 26, 1949  Isaac Ben-Israel

5. Isaac Ben-Israel, current chairman of the Israel Space 

Agency, remarked to The Times of Israel that although 

Eshed is the father of Israel's space capabilities, he went 

"too far" with his claims, and it is unlikely that human-alien 

encounters are occurring. He added that for decades 

Eshed  fancied unconventional interpretations of incoherent 

space signals that most consider to be of natural origin. In 

response to queries by NBC News, a NASA spokesperson 

reaffirmed that "we have yet to find signs of extraterrestrial 

life".  Ben-Israel is one of Israel's top experts on Space, 

Cyber and technological related security. He holds a PhD in 

Philosophy and a BSc in Physics and Mathematics from Tel 

Aviv University. In 2020, he declared that Covid-19 would 

play itself out within seventy days, regardless of 

intervention levels. (Boy, was he ever wrong!  It's mutated!) 

My daughter in law just came down with it.  

Resource:
https://www.sciencephoto.com/media/1033592/view/stanton-t-friedman-roswell-ufo-researcher
https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3AStanton+T.+Friedman&qid=1679108711&ref=sr_pg_1
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/roswell-66-years-of-alien-lore/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetohydrodynamic_drive#:~:text=MHD%20propulsion%20has%20been%20considered,of%20flight%20in%20the%20atmosphere.
https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/features/cosmic/nearest_star_info.html#:~:text=Proxima%20Centauri%2C%20the%20closest%20star,(Or%20about%20268%2C770%20AU.)