The Predicted Downfall of the Turkish Power

THE PREDICTED DOWNFALL

OF

THE TURKISH POWER

THE

PREPARATION FOR THE RETURN

OF THE TEN TRIBES.

BY

G. S. FABER, B.D.

MASTER OF SHERBURN HOSPITAL AND PREBENDARY OF SALIBURY

LONDON:

THOMAS BOSWORTH, 215 REGENT STREET.

MDCCCLIII

[1853]

From the Preface to the above work:

“I. With our best commentators, I consider the Downfall of the Ottoman Power to be clearly predicted in Scripture. Hence, whenever the destined time shall arrive, all the complications of modern political diplomacy will be found totally unable to prevent the Ruin of that once formidable Empire.

But, though its downfall is thus, I think, absolutely certain, we have no warrant for specifying any precise year. . . .

II. The Downfall of the Ottoman Power, let it occur when it may, is a matter of vast scriptural importance.

It will prepare the way for the Return of the Ten Tribes: and their Return will synchronise with the Return of the Two Tribes.

We have no right, however, to conclude, that the Restoration of Israel will immediately follow the Downfall of Turkey. A way will be prepared by the removal of an obstacle: but it does not therefore follow that Israel will instantaneously avail itself of the preparation. . . .

[Of these things] we may be certain in the abstract, without being certain in the concrete.

III. The Subversion of the Turkish Power will evidently occasion, as all seem to anticipate, a fearful general war. . . .

Thus, plainly, the Downfall of Turkey will be, at once, both the signal and the cause of this terrible war.

The Confederation will be formed by the joint intrigues of what are called Three Unclean Spirits: and, by noting the sources whence they had proceeded, we may form no unreasonable conjecture as to their character. Be they what they may, they are spirits of evil. Whence we may be sure, that the gathering of the Roman Kings infers no good purpose.

A general war may clearly, I think, be set down as the consequence of the Downfall of Turkey: and, in the course of its evolutions, Israel will be restored. As to particulars, we must not venture further than Scripture doth, as it were, take us by the hand. Of this, however, we may be sure, that the DOWNFALL OF TURKEY WILL BE THE HARBINGER OF THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL.”

And from pages 32-36:

“Such a course of regular decay [as that which afflicts the Ottoman Empire] has been rarely witnessed. But if we suppose the Effusion of the Sixth Vial to mark the Commencement of such decay and not its Completion, we shall find ourselves compelled to place that Effusion in the year 1699: an arrangement which is plainly intolerable.

V. The Turkish Empire has not yet fallen: therefore the Sixth Vial cannot as yet have been poured out.

1. There is a matter immediately connected with it which I must take this opportunity of noticing: and I do it all the rather because it has led to a good deal of expositorial inaccuracy.

The three unclean spirits like frogs have very commonly been thought to issue respectively, from the mouths of the Dragon and the Wild-Beast and the False Prophet, as soon as the Sixth Vial begins to flow. Hence it is assumed, as a matter of course, that, upon the Effusion of the Sixth Vial, St. John beheld them issue from the three specified mouths.

But nothing of the kind is said in the prophecy.

St. John beheld them, not in the act of issuing, but after they had issued.

What the Apostle describes himself to have seen is the going forth of the three spirits to gather together the Kings of the whole Roman World to the war of the Great Day of God Almighty.

The passage runs thus.

I saw, from the mouth of the Dragon and from the mouth of the Wild-Beast and from the mouth of the False Prophet, three unclean spirits as frogs.

It is subjoined, which had come forth. This makes the sense of the passage somewhat more explicit: but it is not necessary: and Griesbach rejects the past participle, which more fully brings out the sense. Still the sense remains the same. When the Sixth Vial was poured out, the Apostle beheld, stationed upon the Roman Platform, three unclean spirits as frogs, which had already issued from the three mouths of the Dragon and the Wild-Beast and the False Prophet: and then he saw them immediately go forth with the object of forming a mighty Confederacy of the Papal Kings. The formation of the Confederacy is the immediate consequence of the Completed Exhaustion of the Waters of the mystic Euphrates; or, in other words, it is the immediate result of the Downfall of the Ottoman Power produced by the Effusion of the Sixth Vial.

2. From the matters now before us, we may reasonably anticipate, that the Destruction of Turkey will produce the outbreak of that fearful war, which, commencing in Europe, will, at the Time of the End or at the Close of the 1260 years, pass into Palestine and Egypt and the East.

Then, as Daniel speaks, will there be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation: and then Michael, the Great Prince, will stand up for the children of the Prophet's people; and that ancient people, whether Jews or Israelites, will be delivered out of the hand of their enemies.

3. The agents, who stir up this war, will be the three unclean spirits.

As they do not issue from the mouths of the Dragon and the Wild-Beast and the False Prophet immediately upon the pouring of the Sixth Vial, but were beheld by St. John as having already thus issued, we may reasonably suppose them to be even now in existence, though they have not as yet formally gone forth to the Kings of the Earth to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.

This will not occur, until the Sixth Vial shall have been poured out and until the Ottoman Power shall have been overturned.

Meanwhile, supposing them to be even now in existence, and judging of their characters from their parentage, we may easily form no improbable conjecture as to what they are. At any rate, purely as a fact, we may now perceive, ready prepared and harmoniously co-operating for a bad end. Infidelity, and Military Despotism called into action by Anarchy, and Jesuitism of the most arrogant and tyrannical Ultramontane School.

To assure any such co-operation might once have been thought paradoxical: but we have already seen enough of their conjoined practices to feel little difficulty in believing, that they will cordially act together against pure religion, and that they will be the main artificers of the final great Anti-christian Confederation.”

Vampires & . . . Demons? An update to: Churchill, Sandys and "flying saucers"

(The picture above shows Vampire WR139 in No. 93 Squadron Hangar, circa April 1954).

Subsequent to my first posting on this blog, I can now give a slight update to it: the information which I quote below, is taken from UFO researcher David Clarke's latest book; which includes a very brief, sentence-long quote (highlighted at the very end of the quoted sections below) which is taken from Duncan Sandys' note of August 1952, to the then Chief Scientist (which I made reference to in my original post) :

“[In the 1950s] a number of senior figures in the British military establishment [began] to treat the subject [of flying saucers] seriously... At the forefront of these was Churchill's son-in-law and future Minister of Defence, Duncan Sandys. He took a fairly pragmatic view, believing the evidence for flying saucers to be no different to the first reports of the German V-2 rockets during 1943, which the government's scientific advisors 'declared to be technically impossible'.

“Alongside Sandys there were others such as Lord Mountbatten, who began collecting accounts of sightings in 1950 and encouraged his friend Charles Eade, editor of the Sunday Dispatch, to publish them without naming him as the source. . . .

“On 28 July, [1952] . . . the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had sent a memo to his Secretary of State for Air and copied it to Lord Cherwell, one of his most trusted scientific advisors. This demanded:

'What does all this stuff about flying saucers amount to? What can it mean? What is the truth? Let me have a report at your convenience.' (PREM II/855)

“The Prime Minister received a reassuring response from the Air Ministry on 9 August 1952. Preserved alongside Churchill's memo at the National Archives, it said UFOs were the subject of 'a full intelligence study in 1951' that had concluded all incidents reported could be explained by natural phenomena, misperceptions of aircraft, balloons and birds, optical illusions, psychological delusions and deliberate hoaxes. Churchill was told that an earlier investigation, carried out by Project Grudge in 1948-9 had reached a similar conclusion and that 'nothing has happened since 1951 to make the Air Staff change their opinion, and, to judge from recent Press statements, the same is true in America.'

“The government's Chief Scientist, Lord Cherwell (Frederick Lindemann) said he 'agreed entirely' with the Air Ministry and, in a minute circulated to Cabinet members, dismissed the American saucer scare as 'a product of mass psychology'. But not everyone was so convinced. A 2009 release by the Churchill Archives [University of Cambridge, Lord Duncan-Sandys papers, DSND 15/4] included a letter from Duncan Sandys, then Minister of Supply, to Cherwell that stated: 'There may, as you say, be no real evidence of the existence of flying saucer aircraft, but there is in my view ample evidence of some unfamiliar and unexplained phenomenon.' ”

(From: The UFO Files: The Inside Story of Real-Life Sightings by David Clarke; published by, The National Archives, 2009; pp. 41, 47).

Interlude: The Rise of Islam (Part II)

In Part I of this post, I wrote that: “one of Islam's major victories in the East: the capture of Constantinople, would be a part of a series of events, that would have a profound and revolutionary affect on Christianity in Western Europe...”

The main thrust of Islam into Europe after its defeat at the hands of Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours in AD 732, was to be in the East – via its centuries long campaign against the Byzantium Empire – the eastern continuation of the Empire of Rome. After the Crusades, the Turks were delayed no further and rapidly advanced into Europe. Bulgaria fell in 1389; Salonica in 1430; Serbia in 1438; and Greece in 1446. In 1453, Constantinople finally fell to the armies of Islam.

Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), wrote the following concerning the Sixth Trumpet of the Apocalypse (which he believed symbolically heralded the rise of the Turks), and their eventual capture of Constantinople:

“The sixth trumpet [of the Apocalypse (Revelation 9:13)] sounded to the wars, which Daniel's King of the North made against the King [of the South]... In these wars the King of the North, according to Daniel, conquered the Empire of the Greeks, and also Judea, Egypt, Lybia, and Ethiopia: and by these conquests the Empire of the Turks was set up... These wars commenced A.C. [Anno Christi] 1258, when the four kingdoms of the Turks seated upon Euphrates... were invaded by the Tartars under Hulaeu, and driven into the western parts of Asia minor, where they made war upon the Greeks, and began to erect the present Empire of the Turks.... They slew the third part of men [i.e. in prophetic language – they captured a third part of the land area of the old Roman Empire], when they conquered the Greek Empire, and took Constantinople, A.C. 1453. and they began to be prepared for this purpose, when Olub-Arslan began to conquer the nations upon Euphrates, A.C. 1063. The interval is called an hour and a day, and a month and a year, or 391 prophetic days, which are years....” (From: Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John; published posthumously, London, 1733).

As a brief aside: the reprint of Newton's above work that I have, is an exact photographic duplicate of Thomas Jefferson's personal copy. In the 1991, Introduction to this facsimile edition, Arthur B Robinson writes the following:

“In 1988, having learned of this book in the rare books card catalogue of the Library of Congress, I asked to read it. I was astonished when, a few minutes later, I was handed Thomas Jefferson's personal copy. (The book is in excellent condition and has Thomas Jefferson's initials on pages 57 and 137. Two hundred and fifty years ago it was common practice for printers to label the page signatures with capital letters at the bottom of the actual text. Jefferson would turn to the 'J' signature and add a 'T' before the 'J' and then turn to the 'T' signature and add a 'J' after the 'T'. In this way he identified his personal books.)”

In the aforementioned quote, Newton writes: “The interval is called an hour and a day, and a month and a year, or 391 prophetic days, which are years....”, basing his calculation on the Protestant Reformers' Historicist interpretation of Bible prophecy. (In which – unlike the Futurist interpretation predominant in the Church today – these time periods are taken as being symbolic: where a day = a year; rather than being a literal time period. The Reformers' interpretation is based on, Numbers 14:34 and Ezekiel 4:6). Francois du Jon, the Huguenot leader, lawyer, theologian and preacher, wrote thus:

“Daies is commonly taken as yeares, that God in this sort might shew the time to be short, and that the space of time is definitely set downe by Him in His counsaile. The daies must be reckoned for so many yeares, after the example of the Prophets Ezechiel and Daniel.”

Some Historicist interpreters see in the, “hour and a day, and a month and a year” time period given above, a far more accurate, “space of time... set downe by Him (God) in His counsaile”; for they point out, that in the Greek the word translated “year” in Revelation 9:15, is not used elsewhere in the biblical prophecies, and that a more exact translation would be, “that which returns into itself... a full year of three hundred and sixty five and a quarter days, in which time the solar orb returns to the same spot...”; rather than the traditional reckoning of the biblical year, as being a year consisting of three hundred and sixty days.

Using the above measurement, and deducting three days for every 130 years, to keep the Gregorian calendar accurate. And by reckoning, “an hour” as a twelfth part of a day, i.e. a twelfth of a prophetic year, or thirty days – for Christ says (bearing in mind the different method of reckoning time in Eastern lands): “Are there not twelve hours in the day?” (John 11:9); which would give the following figures:

A year = 365 years 91 days

A month = 30 years

A day = 1 year

An hour = 30 days

Less 3 days

A total of 396 years and 118 days.

On the 18th day of January, AD 1057, Togrul Beg and his Turkish cavalry crossed, “the great river Euphrates” to wage war on the Byzantium Empire. Exactly 396 years and 118 days later (to the very day, as ordained by God's word), on the 16th day of May, AD 1453, the prize of Constantine's city of “New Rome”, Constantinople, fell to the forces of Islam under the command of Mohammed II.

Now to move on to what I wrote near the beginning of this post (and at the end of Part I) when I stated that, “the capture of Constantinople, would be a part of a series of events, that would have a profound and revolutionary affect on Christianity in Western Europe...”

The following is quoted from the book, The Jeremiah Diagnosis (published by Highland Books, 2000) and written by Derek Frank – who at the time of its writing was the Anglican Chaplain of All Saints', Vevey with St Peter's, Château-d' Oex, in Switzerland. In the first chapter, he writes the following:

“With the eye of faith it is not hard to see the sovereign hand of God throughout the story of the sixteenth century Reformation... [With] the emergence of the Renaissance.... scholars were consciously living a 're-birth' of classical learning... Though certain classical authors had been known through the Middle Ages, the study of Greek had been almost unknown in Western Europe before 1400.”

Now, here's the part that I find so fascinating: continuing straight on from the above, Derek Frank writes the following:

“However, when in 1453 Constantinople was sacked by the Turks, its classical scholars fled westwards, taking their books with them. With the arrival of both Greek manuscripts and academics who could read them, came two things. One was the opening up of the rational ways of Greek thinking, which was to have such great upside and also such great downside for the Reformation. The other was the technique it brought of going back to the original text, to ask what it originally meant. It was this which was to be critical in Luther's seminal discovery that the Greek word dikaios, 'just', contained two meanings, 'justice' (actually being just) and 'justification' (being counted as just).”

In Revelation 10:1-2, immediately after the Turkish second “woe” of the Sixth Trumpet, there appeared to John a vision of a, “mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire. And he had in his hand a little book open...”: The “Open Bible” of the Reformation.

After the first “woe” of the opening of the “bottomless pit” in the Apocalypse, and its ensuing plague of symbolic “locusts”, Revelation 9:12, states: “One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter”. Having dealt with the second, or “Turkish” woe above; the last or Seventh Trumpet “woe”, was to be subdivided up into seven vials or bowls of wrath, that are poured out upon the earth.

Concerning the Sixth Vial which is: “poured out... upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up...”, in the explanatory notes of our family's Bible (which does not contain the year of its publication – but is inscribed with the year 1866), the following is stated about this vial:

“The Euphrates is here used for 'the empire founded by the Euphratean horsemen [the Turks] of the sixth trumpet,' and the drying up of its waters 'to imply the exhaustion of all the political sources of wealth and power which contribute to the strength and greatness of... [that] empire...'”.

In Isaiah 8:7, God compares the conquests of the Assyrian empire to a river in flood: “Now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria, and all his glory: and he shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his banks.”

In Revelation 16:12, the same imagery is used – but in reverse – to show the drying up of an empire!

All of the Ottoman provinces in North Africa passed into the hands of the European Powers before the outbreak of the First World War. France conquered Algeria 1830-47; Tunisia became a French protectorate in 1881; in 1912 Morocco ceased being an independent sultanate and became French and Spanish protectorates; Libya was conquered by Italy in 1911; and Egypt was under British occupation from 1882.

It was in the dried up left overs of the Turkish Empire in the Balkans – with its ethnic mix and its imperfectly formed borders – that the shots that would throw the world into the horrors of the First World War were fired. Whilst touring Sarajevo, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip, a member of the Black Hand gang.

In The War of the World television series (Channel 4, 19th June, 2006; based on his book of the same name), the British historian, Professor Niall Ferguson remarked:

“The difficult thing to work out, is how an act of terrorism [the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand] in an obscure corner of 'Ruratania', could have such massive consequences? How exactly could the gunshots... have sparked-off the first of the century's two world wars? A conflict that all over the globe raged and claimed nearly 10 million lives. After all, assassinations were ten-a-penny in the early nineteen-hundreds. Terrorism was all the rage amongst extreme nationalists. Why did this one criminal act have such vast world shaking consequences?”

(“There was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.” Revelation 16:18).

Professor Ferguson continued:

“The answer is that when the Archduke was shot, he was driving over one of the world's great fault lines; the fateful historic border between the west and the east – the Occident and the Orient. The trouble with geological fault lines is as the earth's tectonic plates grind uneasily against one another, they're where earthquakes happen. There in Sarajevo it was the geo-political tectonic plates – known as empires, that were shifting. Turkey's was giving way [drying up!]; Austria's was pushing forward; and so too was Russia's...”

“Once, Bosnia had been a part of the Ottoman Empire... but in 1908 Austria had annexed Bosnia. When a Serb murdered their Archduke, the Austrians... demanded redress from Serbia and the Russians felt they could not afford to see Serbia humiliated. All the ingredients were thus in place for an imperial war between Austria and Russia over the balance of power in the Balkans.”

Borijove Jevtic, another Black Hand member, even went as far as stating that the very date of Franz Ferdinand's visit incensed him:

“How dared Franz Ferdinand, not only the representative of the oppressor but in his own person an arrogant tyrant, enter Sarajevo on that day? Such an entry was a studied insult. 28 June is the day on which the old Serbian kingdom was conquered by the Turks at the battle of Amselfelde.... That was no day for Franz Ferdinand, the new oppressor, to venture to the very doors of Serbia for a display of the force of arms which kept us beneath his heel. Our decision was taken almost immediately. Death to the tyrant!”

In the First World War, for the first time in human history, warfare's reign would no longer be confined to the land and the sea – for it claimed for itself a new realm in which to rage its rain of fire, death and destruction: that of the air.

“And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.” (Revelation 16:17)

Ferrar Fenton translates the proclamation as:

“It has come.”

Interlude: The Rise of Islam (Part I)

The Protestant Reformers were of the opinion that the prophecies of the Bible foretold of two great apostasies that would arise during the Christian era. They believed that the first great apostasy had, amazingly, arisen within the very body of the Christian Church itself; and concerning the second: they were overwhelmingly of the opinion that it had arisen within the fiery deserts of Arabia under the tutelage of the prophet Mohammed.

Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), in his, Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John (published posthumously, London, 1733), wrote the following concerning Revelation 9, chapters 1-12:

'The fifth trumpet [of the Apocalypse heralded]... the opening of the bottomless pit, which denotes the letting out of a false religion: the smoke which came out of the pit, signifying the multitude which embraced that religion; and the locusts which came out of the smoke, the armies which came out of that multitude. This pit was opened, to let out smoke and locusts into the regions of the four monarchies... The King of these locusts was the Angel of the bottomless pit, being chief governor as well in religious as civil affairs, such as was the Caliph of the Saracens. Swarms of locusts often arise in Arabia fælix, and from thence infest the neighbouring nations: and so are a very fit type of the numerous armies of Arabians invading the Romans.'

The great Scottish specialist in oriental studies, Sir William Muir (1819-1905), who in 1888 delivered the Rede Lecture at the University of Cambridge on the subject of The Early Caliphate and Rise of Islam, wrote the following in one of his classic historical works concerning the rise of Islam and its rapid conquests of its neighbouring lands:

'Onward and still onward like swarms from the hive, or flights of locusts darkening the land, tribe after tribe issued forth and hastening northward spread in great masses to the east and to the west.' (From: The Caliphate: Its Rise, Decline and Fall).

Another historian, Herbert Adams Gibbons also uses the same descriptive language – he too likens the armies of Islam to an overwhelming swarm of locusts:

'Like locusts, the Osmanlis swarmed in all directions and no village missed their notice up to the very walls of Constantinople.' (The Foundation of the Ottoman Empire: A History of the Osmanlis up to the Death of Bayezid I, 1300-1403; first published 1916).

In AD 633, having raided Persia, the Arab armies – energised by the new faith of Mohammed, turned their attention to Syria – the eastern flank of the the empire of Rome. In AD 632, on the death of Mohammed, Caliph Abu Bakir – Mohammed's successor took charge. In his seminal work Edward Gibbon (1737-94) recounts Abu Bakir's eve-of-battle address to his troops:

'As soon as their numbers were complete, Abubeker [Abu Bakir] ascended the hill, reviewed the men, the horses, and the arms, and poured forth a fervent prayer for the success of their undertaking... “Remember”, said the successor of the prophet, “that you are always in the presence of God, on the verge of death, in the assurance of judgement, and the hope of paradise. Avoid injustice and oppression; consult with your brethren, and study to preserve the love and confidence of your troops. When you fight the battles of the lord, acquit yourselves like men, without turning your backs; but let not your victory be stained with the blood of women or children. Destroy no palm trees, nor burn any field of corn. Cut down no fruit-trees, nor do any mischief to cattle, only such as you kill to eat. When you make a covenant... stand to it and be as good as your word. As you go on, you will find some religious persons, who live retired in monasteries, and propose to themselves to serve God that way: let them alone and neither kill them nor destroy their monasteries. And you will find another sort of people that belong to the synagogue of Satan, who have shaven crowns; be sure you cleave their skulls, and give them no quarter, till they either turn Mahometans or pay tribute.”' (The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. V).

In the Revelation the symbolic 'locusts' are given a command, which is opposite in nature, to the actions of the natural locusts that arise out of the deserts of Arabia.

'And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree...' (Revelation 9:4)

'Destroy no palm trees, nor burn any field of corn. Cut down no fruit-trees...' (Abu Bakir; op. cit.)

In Revelation 9:4 the symbolic 'locusts' are instead commanded (by their leader) to 'hurt... only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.'

'As you go on, you will find some religious persons, who live retired in monasteries, and propose to themselves to serve God that way: let them alone and neither kill them nor destroy their monasteries. And you will find another sort of people that belong to the synagogue of Satan, who have shaven crowns; be sure you cleave their skulls, and give them no quarter...' (Abu Bakir; op. cit.)

In the Authorised (King James) Version the locusts are described as having 'the faces of men'; but in contrast to their manly (or bearded) faces they are described as having 'hair as the hair of women...' (Revelation 9:7-8).

Illustrative of the fact – that in contrast to the customary clean-shaven and short-haired Romans of that time – that the Arabs of Mohammed's day took great pride in their beards and long-flowing hair, are the following lines from the famous Arab poem 'Antar':

'He adjusted himself properly, twirling his whiskers, folded up his hair under his turban drawing it from off his shoulders...', and 'His hair flowed down his shoulders...'.

The NIV (New International Version) renders the Authorised Version's, 'the faces of men', as the gender-neutral: 'their faces resembled human faces'; and thus the contrast with 'their hair... (being) like women's hair', is somewhat obscured in this modern translation.

I have a copy of, The Unity of the Pentateuch: An Examination of the Higher Critical Theory as to the Composite Nature of the Pentateuch, 3rd Edition (1928), by the Rev A H Finn, (of whom, on the title page, we're informed, was, 'Lately Chaplain in Burma and India; at one time Hebrew Lecturer, Leeds Clergy School'). The preface to this work, is by the Right Rev H C G Moule, DD, Bishop of Durham – from which I quote the following:

'Not for a moment does [a book like this]... ask us, for example, to read the first few pages of the Bible with the assumption of a literalism which excludes the presence of symbol and of poetic phrase. But that is a wholly different matter from the other assumption that the majestic narratives [of the Bible] are little more than folk-lore cast into a certain form, or again are due to the halting and inconsistent editing of divers streams of tradition...'

In John Stott's Understanding the Bible, in a chapter on biblical interpretation, he writes:

'The serpent and the tree of life [from the biblical book of Genesis]... both reappear in the Book of Revelation, where they are clearly symbolical, the serpent representing Satan and the tree eternal life....

'In Romans 5:12-21... I have a biblical (New Testament) reason for believing that Adam and Eve were historical, and an equally biblical reason [from the Book of Revelation] for supposing that the serpent and the trees in the [Genesis] story may in some sense be meant to be figurative....'

Since the mid-part of the 19th century, the Protestant Historicist interpretation of the Revelation has sharply fallen out of favour: the overwhelmingly predominant interpretation found in most churches nowadays, is that of the Futurist version – where nearly all of the apocalyptic imagery, and all of the time-periods, are interpreted in a literal fashion.

The following quotes dealing with the 'locusts' of the Apocalypse (from a book with 'NEVER BEFORE so crystal-clear and current an explanation of the last book of the Bible' emblazoned on its front cover) are typical of this now predominant school of interpretation:

'Locusts thrive by devouring rapaciously that which grows and is green; but here these Infernal Locusts will not eat grass or tree leaves. They will, rather, sting and bite humans as do mosquitos. Yet amid the seemingly indiscriminate biting done by these, there is an unseen discrimination! They will in some divine way not be able to bite those who have been sealed.... These locusts shall be armed with the fearful sting of a scorpion. Those on earth will certainly be in torment with such creatures roving....

'These “locusts” may be of the insect or animal variety. Or they may be men... perhaps an army being unleashed from an underground complex.... There already has been invented a flying jet belt. When worn it can fly men at various speeds and altitudes. These men can carry a cylinder on their back which can emit a chemical substance from their exhaust openings. If one of the biological chemicals were used – from this tail area could be sprayed a substance which could cause painful stings.' (From: Revelation Visualized, by Dr Gary G Cohen and Salem Kirban, Future Events Publications, Chattanooga, TN, USA, 1981).

This overtly literal school of biblical interpretation has not confined itself solely to the last book of the Bible - it has also had an immense influence on the interpretation of the Creation account found in the biblical book of Genesis (especially within the United States). But it was not always so – as Dr E K Victor Pearce informs us:

'It is admitted by the present 24-hour Day protagonists that the founders of Creation Science were mostly advocates of Day Periods of unspecified length for the days of Genesis. These founders named their organisation The Evolution Protest Movement. It was founded in 1932 by Sir Ambrose Fleming, a famous scientist. He was joined by other scientists who were Christians. That was the time I joined. Much later, the chairman of the movement, D.T. Rosevear with his committee, renamed the organisation Creation Science Movement, which was better and a more positive title but unfortunately they adopted an exclusive Young Earth policy of 24-hour creation days.

'In his explanation in the Creation Journal, the chairman admits that most of their founders were period-day advocates and he gives their names: Dr Merson Davies, D. Dewar, Professor F.A. Filby, Dr R.E.D. Clark, Walter Beasley and Professor Rendle-Short. The astonishing news is that now the movement only propagates Young Earth theories. It does not allow on its platform anyone who believes that the days were long periods of time. Anyone who holds this opinion is rigorously condemned even though he is a creationist. This greatly harms the effectiveness of the movement and allows the entrance of some serious inaccuracies. My prayer is that they will return to the original policy. This will honour the founders and concentrate on the essentials of God's truth.' (From, Evidence for Truth: The Origin and Destiny of Life, Eagle Publishing, 2001).

I have read an opinion that the two books of the Bible that Satan most hates are Genesis and the Revelation. During the last century and a half, the Historicist interpretation of the Revelation has been overwhelmingly superseded by that of the Futurist school.

So that rather than encompassing the whole of the Church Age (commencing from shortly after their delivery; Rev. 1:1, 'things which must shortly come to pass') the prophecies leading up to the Second Coming have now - by means of the Futurist interpretation - been 'compacted', so that the vast majority of the prophecies of the Revelation are now only applied to a literal seven year (sometimes three and a half year) period at the close of this age.

A not too dissimilar scenario also applies to Genesis, where again the interpretation (in the majority case) is 'compacted', and, is in the main, now confined to a literal 24-hour day; six day creation period.

In Part II of this post (to follow at a later date) I'll delve into the startling fact that one of Islam's major victories in the East: the capture of Constantinople, would be a part of a series of events, that would have a profound and revolutionary affect on Christianity in Western Europe...

In it I'll quote once more from Sir Isaac Newton's writings - this time concerning the Sixth Trumpet of the Apocalypse; which he believed represented the second phase in the conquests of Islam - which recommenced with the conversion of the Ottoman Turks to the new faith that had been revealed unto Mohammed... and which burned relentlessly outwards from the fiery heat of Arabia in its fierce desire to consume the world...

The Seventh Vial

“It is really as if in the atmosphere of the world there was some mischievous influence at work which troubles and excites every part of it. We are passing this year through a period of great excitement. It is so still. Some countries are in revolution, others are at war, and in several countries which are neither in revolution nor at war there are people who seem to delight in discussing how near they have been or are likely to be either to revolution or to war in the past, present, or the future. Really it is as if the world were indulging in a fit of political alcoholism, and the best that can be done by those of us who are in positions of responsibility is to keep cool and sober.”

Sir Edward Grey, the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; debate following the Agadir (or Second Moroccan) Crisis, House of Commons, 27 November 1911; Hansard, vol. 32 cc47-165.

(Revelation 17:2, in which: “the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk” with an unsound vintage – is also in agreement with the above statement by Sir Edward Grey).

What follows below, is quoted from a prophetical work on the Apocalypse (or, Book of Revelation) that was published in the very same year that Marx & Engels unveiled their, 'Communist Manifesto' to the world. To the prophetic expositions of this biblical work - I have added [in brackets] some observations of historical realities:

“We are taught, then, to expect, at the period referred to, some sudden and great derangement of the political atmosphere of Europe [“It is really as if in the atmosphere of the world there was some mischievous influence at work which troubles and excites every part of it.” Sir Edward Grey, 1911, above], – [this derangement of the political atmosphere of Europe shall be] the consequence, most probably, of the action of the three spirits, who will succeed in charging it, as it were, with the most vicious, disorganizing, and antagonist elements which some event [the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand] will suddenly bring into fierce collision; and in a single day, as it were, the whole of Europe... will burst out in violent tumults and insurrections; that these will issue in a revolution of unprecedented magnitude [the Russian Revolution], – unprecedented both in the largeness of its sphere and the complete and radical character of its changes....

“The fall both of the little kingdoms and the great monarchies of Europe is plainly predicted in the Apocalyptic representation; for John saw in the earthquake every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. This revolution will be followed, or, more probably, accompanied, by a war of unexampled severity and horrors [the First World War]. The hail of the first trumpet was fulfilled in the descent of the northern [Germanic] nations; the hail of the seventh trumpet, in the terrible wars of the French Revolution; but here we have a hail-shower whose violence is more terrific, and its effects more destructive still; for every stone is about the weight of a talent. This symbolic hail will fall on Europe from some northern region, – for hail is a northern product... Such is the catastrophe which prophecy reveals as awaiting the... kingdoms of modern Europe. The prophecy of Daniel [also] synchronizes with [that of] the seventh vial, and throws light upon it. The symbols of the two prophecies are different, but their import is most obviously the same. Both portend an entire change in the social and political fabric of Europe, – the fall of its kingdoms, the extinction of its dynasties, the alteration of its laws and forms of government... and the obliteration even of the territorial boundaries of its States. Nothing short of this can fulfil the figures of Daniel and the symbols of the Apocalypse.

“The earthquake of the seventh vial is unequalled since men were upon the earth. Other revolutions strongly affected society: this will change the character of society.... In truth, the change has been going on for a century. It was began by the infidel writers of France, who sowed industriously the seeds which they knew would yield mighty revolutions to the world, after they should have gone to their graves. It next passed into opinion. And now it has completed its third and great stage, and stands before the world a fait accompli. History does not furnish an example of such another revolution, – a revolution which has advanced gradually, yet irresistibly, from its first principles, – which has moulded opinion for itself, – which has never advanced a stage till it had first prepared its ground, – which has required a century for its growth, and, now that it is fully developed, has changed the aspect of the world...

“The source and centre of that movement which shall issue in the great changes of that epoch, – must be held to be symbolized by... [the] sun.... and [also] by the angel that was now seen in this sun... This angel in the sun cried with a load voice, 'saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come, and gather yourselves unto the supper of the great God.' 'The fowls that fly in the midst of heaven' is a new symbol. Some suppose that regular armies are meant.... We are disposed to think that certain parties to arise at that epoch, are here symbolized, – parties holding loose and obscene principles, of predatory habits, and spurning the restraints of law. The doctrines of Socialism, or, as they are termed abroad, Communism, would lead, if carried out, to all that the symbol suggests. The angel invites them to a well-furnished banquet, – 'that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.' The various classes into which European society is at present divided, from monarchs down to citizens and persons in menial condition, are here enumerated. Their flesh is given as a repast to these symbolic fowls. By flesh we are to understand their lands and wealth... this shall be the latter end of those dignities, estates, and revenues, which have so long prostituted to the support of despotism... – even a universal pillage! The changes now in progress have only to proceed a little farther, and the parties indicated above would enjoy unbounded license to carry their principles into effect, and the terrible consummation which seems here to be prefigured would be reached.”

(Taken from: 'The Seventh Vial; Being an Exposition of the Apocalypse, and in Particular of the Pouring Out of the Seventh Vial, with Special Reference to the Present Revolutions in Europe', by Rev James Aitken Wylie, London, MDCCCXLVIII [1848]).

Concerning the three antagonistic “spirits” (mentioned in the above work) which are symbolically pictured in Revelation 16 (verses 13-16), and which between them call the “kings of the earth and of the whole world” to the great “battle” (more properly: 'war') styled in the Apocalypse – Armageddon: those of the Reformed faith were of the opinion that the first of these antagonistic 'spirits', issued forth from the Devil; and that the other two 'personages' mentioned – from which 'they' issue forth – symbolised earthly agencies; and also, that the Sixth Vial, under which they “go forth”: pictured the drying up of the Turkish Ottoman Empire.

Churchill, Sandys and "flying saucers"

“The causes of Armageddon lay deep in European history. Hatreds which had slumbered for centuries burst from their tombs, and nations which apparently had no concern in the main quarrel hastened eagerly to join one side or the other. Our tale therefore recounts the greatest of human catastrophes since the decline and fall of ancient Rome.”

(The Rt. Hon. Winston S. Churchill; Foreword to: 'The Great War', Vol. I; George Newness Limited, London, 1933).

Welcome to my blog 'World War Armageddon'. To begin with (but, by no means solely), I wish to delve primarily into the hidden spiritual causes that propelled the world into the wholesale carnage and slaughter of what was initially termed, “The Great War”; before its even-more evil 'twin' The Second World War ventured onto the scene – to cast its long, dark lamentable shadow over the human race. And thereby, did that first great conflict of the 20th century come into the possession of its more familiar appellation – by which we tend to refer to it now: The First World War.

But before starting on that theme – I thought that I'd first start (for reasons that'll soon become apparent) with the following story:

On 28 July 1952, a minute containing the following was addressed to the Secretary of State for Air and Lord Cherwell:

“What does all this stuff about flying saucers amount to? What can it mean? What is the truth? Let me have a report at your convenience.

[Initialled] W.S.C.”

The initials on the minute were those of the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill.

On 30 July 1952, two days after Churchill drafted the minute cited above, a flight of four de Haviland Vampires FB.9s – from the (then) newly reformed No. 20 Squadron – took off from RAF Oldenburg in West Germany and soared heavenward into the sunlit sky.

The flight's first duty of the day would be logged as, “BATTLE FORMATION”; the exercise in this instance being primarily for the benefit of the radar controller on the ground. On reaching the desired altitude two of the planes peeled off. Once they had put an adequate distance between themselves and the other two aircraft (who were to assume the rôle of 'bombers' in the planned exercise) it was the radar controller's task to guide them back onto the other two planes in a mock attack. The planes, in due course, then reversed their respective rôles – the two that had first played the rôle of the 'bombers' peeling off, to take their turn at being guided in for an 'attack' on the other two Vampires.

On the completion of the exercise the flight reassumed a classic finger-four formation (in this instance an echelon left; i.e. with the flight leader's wingman – the plane in the number two position – being to the flight leader's right). Having been given a “vector” back to Oldenburg the flight was in the process of performing an oblique turn; as they banked in formation to the right, the young, twenty-three-year-old Sergeant pilot in the number two position (being in a position below the other planes – and being the sole pilot looking upwards at that moment) suddenly saw a flash of silver 'light' in the sky high above them.

When he first saw the flash it was only a small dot of light in the summer sky (and looked about the size and brightness of a star) his initial thought was that it was another aircraft banking higher up and that the sun was reflecting off of its unpainted wing surfaces – at that time none of the Vampires in No. 20 Squadron was camouflaged.

In mere seconds, from being a small dot of 'light' in the sky the other occupant of the air raced nearer – rapidly increasing in size, it revealed itself to be a gleaming silver-metallic disc which raced straight downwards at a truly fantastic speed! Looking up through the plane's canopy, the flight leader's wingman was astounded by what he was seeing – and then, as the disc stopped its rapid descent and levelled out, it appeared to be hanging stationary in the sky above his aircraft (but was in fact perfectly matching the flight's speed as it raced along with them). In the long, seemingly stretched-out seconds that it kept pace with them, the pilot – looking up at it in sheer amazement from below – could clearly make out, with astonishing clarity, the disc's highly reflective and absolutely seamless metallic-looking surface. And then, just as rapidly as it had appeared, the disc raced away – heading in the opposite direction from the aircraft in the flight. As it sped off the 'disc' changed its orientation – in a parting display it manoeuvred onto its 'side' to reveal a classic 'saucer' shape – and then accelerated away and upwards at a truly fantastic rate. Seconds later – it was gone!

The man who was the flight leader's wingman on that fateful day back in 1952; and still vividly recalled, even in the last years of his life, the flying saucer's interception of their flight – was my late father.

My father had learnt to fly at No. 4 Flying Training School at Heany, Southern Rhodesia during 1950-51, where he trained on Tiger Moths, Prentices and Harvards.

His journey to Southern Africa had been aboard the RMMV Stirling Castle. On the journey from Waterloo to the docks at Southampton he'd travelled with another young trainee pilot. The other man's father had also accompanied them on the train journey and bid “good-bye” to his son at Southampton. It would be the last time that he'd ever see his son alive: his son would later be killed in a flying accident in Southern Rhodesia when his plane flew into a cable.

On the completion of his flying training, my father was presented with his “wings” by the High Commissioner for Rhodesia.

In January 1952, my father returned back to Britain – attending a Jet Conversion Course at RAF Valley in Wales – where he was instructed on Meteor trainers; after completing seven training flights, he took off in a de Haviland Vampire FB.5 on his first jet “solo”.

From RAF Valley he went on to the Operational Conversion Unit at RAF Chivenor. (Where he was stationed between April and June 1952).

His first operational posting was in July 1952 with No. 20 Squadron (which had initially been reformed during June of that year at RAF Jever, West Germany). Towards the end of July – after the completion of a concrete runway capable of taking jet aircraft – the squadron transferred to Oldenburg – a former WWII Luftwaffe base.

The flying saucer that my father saw on that late July day in 1952, had also given off a radar signature and had been picked up by the radar controller on the ground (but more on this later).

Though the flight had still been in radio contact with ground control during the brief seconds in which my father had witnessed the saucer, he says that he had been too “dumbfounded” at the time to actually report sighting it. It wasn't until they had landed and were back in the hangar that my father enquired of the other three pilots: “Did you see that thing? It looked like a flying saucer?”

None of the other three pilots had seen it.

I recall enquiring at this point in my father's narrative: Why didn't any of the other pilots see it? His initial answer to this enquiry is given below (but there could very well be a lot more to it than just this; as I found out subsequently. More on this later).

My father's initial reply was: that as they banked, his plane was at the bottom of the formation – and so during the manoeuvre he was the only pilot that was looking upwards (towards where his “wingman”, the flight leader, was positioned). The flight leader himself would have been looking forwards – in the direction of their “vector” back towards Oldenburg; the pilot in the number three position (the element leader) would have been looking down towards the flight leader; and the pilot in the number four position (the element wingman) would have been looking down and towards the element leader. So to recapitulate: during that manoeuvre my father was the only pilot looking upwards and in the direction from whence the flying saucer came.

But back to 30 July 1952: The squadron's Flight Lieutenant (whom my father later found out was also the squadron's Intelligence Officer) heard about his sighting of the flying saucer. He spoke to my father about it (my father says that his sighting was taken very seriously). The Flight Lieutenant said he would write up a report about it, remarking, “These things need to be reported.” The report was duly compiled.

On 5 August 1952, my father was instructed to report to the Air Officer Commanding (AOC) at RAF Fassberg who wanted a first-hand account of the incident. So my father got in a Vampire and made the twenty-minute cross-country flight to Fassberg (being mindful of not over-shooting his destination and straying into the Soviet zone).

At Fassberg, he was instructed to go to the Officers' Mess, and report to the AOC there. In the Officers' Mess he found the AOC in the company of the Government Minister, Duncan Sandys (pronounced 'Sands') who – in his capacity as Minister of Supply – was paying the RAF station at Fassberg a visit: a demonstration in which Vampires were to drop Napalm on the airfield's target range, had been arranged for that day – so that Sandys could see for himself Napalm's full fiery potency at close-quarters.

It was at Fassberg that my father would find out that his sighting had been picked up on radar:

Having given the AOC a first-hand account of his observation of the 'flying saucer', he was asked by Duncan Sandys (whom my father thought didn't take the account seriously): “How many beers had you had the night before?”

At which point the AOC interjected: “No. They picked it up on radar – travelling at speeds far in excess of any known aircraft.”

Which, my father says, stymied Sandys from making any more doubting remarks. (Also, that was the first that my father knew about the flying saucer being 'observed' by the radar control on the ground; it would appear, that in response to the report submitted by No. 20 Squadron's Intelligence Officer, that some form of enquiry had been carried out behind-the-scenes to corroborate the veracity of my father's sighting – it's quite probable that if Sandys hadn't openly voiced his scepticism at that moment, that my father might never have learnt about the radar confirmation of his visual sighting. Who knows?)

So, by a strange coincidence (?) two days after Churchill had written his Prime Minister's personal minute concerning, “flying saucers”, my father had a 'close encounter' with one in the skies high above Germany – which would lead to him, six days later (5 August 1952), having to recount the incidence before a small group at RAF Fassberg. Prominent amongst those present was Sandys, who at the time not only held the government post of Minister of Supply (for the Armed Forces) within Churchill's Cabinet; but also happened to be Churchill's son-in-law, through his marriage in 1935 to Diana Churchill...

On 9 August 1952, the Prime Minister received the following reply from the Air Ministry in response to his personal minute of 28 July:

“The various reports about unidentified flying objects, described by the Press as 'flying saucers', were the subject of a full Intelligence study in 1951. The conclusions reached (based upon William of Occam's Razor) were that all the incidents reported could be explained by one or other of the following causes: –

(a) Known astronomical or meteorological phenomena.
(b) Mistaken identification of conventional aircraft, balloons, birds, etc.
(c) Optical illusions and psychological delusions.
(d) Deliberate hoaxes.

2. The Americans, who carried out a similar investigation in 1948/9, reached a similar conclusion.

3. Nothing has happened since 1951 to make the Air Staff change their mind...”

Lord Cherwell wrote to the Prime Minister on 14 August 1952, and concurred with the above: “I have seen the Secretary of State's minute to you on flying saucers and agree entirely with his conclusions”.

The Churchill Archives at Churchill College, Cambridge University, contains amongst its many papers, “The Papers of Lord Duncan-Sandys”. A catalogue of the various papers archived, and a brief descriptions of their subject matter is available online on the Janus website.

Amongst Sandys' papers are listed the following two items (detailed amongst his, “Important correspondence”) which are pertinent to the subject matter at hand – Churchill/DSND 15; (section 4):

“Includes... note from Sandys to the Chief Scientist on 'flying saucers', August 1952, and letter to Sandys from Anthony Montague-Browne (Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill), enclosing an article from the 'Air Ministry Secret Intelligence Summary' of March 1955, March 1955”.

I haven't been able to find a single mention of the contents of Sandys' note to the Chief Scientist (nor any reference to it) in any of the numerous books that I've read on the subject of UFOs; neither have I been able to locate any information, or reference to it (except for that on the Janus website) in any of the many on-line searches that I've carried out: So I think that Sandys' note could very well have been missed – and has gone unnoticed for all these years.

In March [2009], I e-mailed a well-respected UFO author and researcher [Timothy Good] the details of my father's “hitherto undocumented” sighting and his subsequent meeting on 5 August 1952, with the Air Officer Commanding at RAF Fassberg – at which Sandys was present.

The aforementioned author/researcher was “delighted” with this new information. (I also included with my e-mail photo scans of the relevant pages of my father's RAF logbook – which I'll refer to later. The bulk of the text of this post is culled from the e-mail that I sent him – with some slight revisions; and also the addition of some historical, and other information – from various sources).

The letter from Anthony Montague-Browne to Sandys (and Sandys' reply) are available in a PDF file (DEFE 24/1925/1 - UFO reports), that for a small fee of £3.50, is downloadable from the National Archives. [At the time of first writing this I didn't realise that Churchill's minute (and the reply from the Air Ministry) as well as the letter to Sandys and his reply are also available from the National Archives' website as a free (much smaller) two-part download PREM 11-85]. (Montague-Browne's letter to Sandys; and Sandys' reply can be found on pages 34 and 35 respectively [of DEFE 24/1925/1 (and in the 2nd part of the 'PREM 11-85' download)]). Montague-Browne's typed letter, dated: March 14, 1955 reads thus:

“I remember your talking about flying saucers when we were at Chequers some time ago. I enclose an article from the 'Air Ministry Secret Intelligence Summary' [written in by hand: 'Volume 10 No. 3.'] which may be of interest to you though I doubt whether there is anything in it which you do not know already.”

Sandys' reply, dated 22nd March, 1955 (typed on official paper headed with the Royal Arms, around which appears the title of the Office he then held: Minister of Housing and Local Government; followed by the address: WHITEHALL, LONDON, S.W.1) is as follows:

“Thank you for your letter of March 14th. / I am indeed much interested in the article from the 'Air Ministry Secret Intelligence Summary' about flying saucers, and am most grateful to you for thinking of sending it to me.”

Dr David Clarke, in an article entitled, 'MoD's UFO Study - “The Condign Report”', (which can be read in full on the uk-ufo.org website), supplies the following information on the aforementioned, “Air Ministry Secret Intelligence Summary”:

“[This] analysis of 80 reports [of UFOs] received up to 1954 formed the basis for an article published in the Air Ministry Secret Intelligence Summary (AMSIS) Vol 10/3 in March 1955. AMSIS was classified 'Secret – UK Eyes Only.' However, the full report containing a detailed analysis – which ran to 10,000 words – has not been found in the defence archives and MoD claims it has not survived to the present day. Its security classification is unknown.”

Nick Pope, who used to run the British Government's UFO project at the Ministry of Defence, supplies the following follow-up information to events subsequent to Churchill's minute:

“The Flying Saucer Working Party had been dissolved in 1951 amidst a frenzy of scepticism that had clearly been fuelled by the Americans. The response that Churchill received to his 1952 enquiry showed that the sceptics still had the upper hand... But this was soon to change. During the period 1952 to 1957 there were a series of UFO sightings involving the military, which forced... [a] rethink and then... [a reversal of] policy. These included sightings during Operation Mainbrace in September 1952 (including those at RAF Topcliffe), the West Malling incident on 3 November 1953, Flight Lieutenant Salandin's near-collision with a UFO on 14 October 1954, the Lakenheath/Bentwaters radar/visual sightings on 13 and 14 August 1956 and the RAF West Freugh incident on 4 April 1957.

“High-profile sightings such as these, together with the increasing number of reports from the general public, pushed the sceptics... onto the defensive. The Flying Saucer Working Party's recommendation that UFO sightings should not be investigated was overturned and by the mid-Fifties two Air Ministry Divisions were actively involved in investigating UFO sightings. The divisions concerned were S6, a civilian secretariat division on the air staff, and DDI(Tech), a technical intelligence division. Their brief was to research and investigate the UFO phenomenon looking for evidence of any threat to the UK.” (From an article on his website entitled, 'UFOs – An Official History').

Also, in an incident on 21 October 1952, Flight Lieutenant Michael Swiney, a staff instructor at the RAF's Central Flying School at Little Rissington, Gloucestershire, and his student instructor Royal Navy Lieutenant, David Crofts, of the Fleet Air Arm, encountered three elliptical, “lens shaped” flying saucers during a high-level cross-country flight in a Meteor VII trainer jet.

The three UFOs they sighted were also tracked by multiple radar control stations on the ground - and a pair of Meteor jet fighters on 24-hour Quick Reaction Alert duty, at RAF Tangmere, West Sussex, were vectored towards the unidentified radar targets in an attempt to intercept them – but were unsuccessful in making contact. The unidentified blips are reported to have disappeared off the radar scope at speed estimated as 1,000 mph.

At one point during their encounter with the three UFOs, Lieutenant Crofts suggested that they should go after them:

“Oh Lord no” replied Swiney, “don't you remember something that happened on the West Coast of America where a couple of pilots went after one of these things and they all got vaporised and they have never been seen since.”

Which was most likely good advice: The UFO researcher, Timothy Good in his book, 'Need To Know: UFOs, the Military and Intelligence' (2006), includes a small photostat from the executive summary of an over-460-page Scientific & Technical Memorandum by the UK Defence Intelligence Analysis Staff, entitled: 'Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in the UK Air Defence Region' (Crown Copyright, 2000). Originally classified: “Secret/UK Eyes Only/UK Restricted”, it was mostly declassified in May 2006. In the transcript from it below, UFOs are designated as UAPs:

“The flight safety aspects of the findings should be made available to the appropriate RAF Air Defence and other military and civil authorities which operate aircraft, particularly those operating fast and at low altitude.

In so advising:

It should be stressed that, despite the recent increase in UAP events, the probability of encountering a UAP remains very low.

No attempt should be made to out-manoeuvre a UAP during interception.”

Dr David Clarke, in an in-depth article on, “The Little Rissington Incident” (which can be found on his website – and which I highly recommend to anyone who's interested), writes:

“Although the official records relating to the Little Rissington incident are 'missing presumed destroyed' Michael Swiney can still point to his own documentary evidence. In what is probably a unique [record] in the history of RAF flying logbooks, there exists an entry, in Swiney's handwriting, dated 21 October 1952, that reads:

“(SAUCERS!) 3 'Flying Saucers' sighted at height. Confirmed by G.C.I. [Ground Controlled Interception]”.

As well as a photographic copy of Michael Swiney's logbook, the website article also includes a copy of Royal Navy pilot, David Crofts' logbook, which shows a small pictorial sketch of that day's strange encounter: three ellipses – to represent the 'saucers'; and then a question mark. [What were they?]

Michael Swiney's final words concerning his sighting of the UFOs (as given in the interview recounted in Dr David Clarke's article), are these:

“I am completely open-minded. I don't think there are little green men who are going to suddenly land and get out of peculiar-looking craft. But what I do know is that both David Crofts and I saw something, the like of which we had never seen before, and I have never seen since. I cannot explain it. But all I do know is that I did see, as did he, something which was most unusual.”

My father's RAF logbook, which covers the dates mentioned (the first of two logbooks that he had during his RAF service), also contains a hand-written annotation – which in this case was written many years after the event. It reads:

“OBSERVED 'FLYING SAUCER' / REPORT TO A.O.C. AND DUNCAN SANDS AT FASSBURG FOLLOWING OBSERVATION [sic Sandys/Fassberg]. RADAR CONTROLLER HAD OBSERVED 'FLYING SAUCER' AT SPEEDS FAR IN EXCESS OF ANY KNOWN AIRCRAFT!”

In a space below this my father has affixed a pictorial record that dates back to 1952 – which recalls his sighting of the 'flying saucer' – and which could, indeed be unique:

After the incident a member of the ground crew approached No. 20 Squadron's CO and asked if they could paint a picture of a flying saucer on the fuselage of the Vampire that my father usually flew – (Registration No.) WR139. (This wasn't the actual Vampire that he'd been flying when he'd seen the 'saucer' – the actual pane that he'd been flying on the first “Duty” of the day, during which he saw it, is recorded in his logbook as being, No. [WR]183).

The CO duly gave the ground crew his permission for the nose art – on the proviso that it was kept to a reasonable size, and wasn't too big.

My father's nickname in the RAF was 'Sam'; after the nose art was completed a photograph was taken of him standing beside WR139. On the fuselage below the aircraft's windshield, forwards of where he's standing, is a large letter 'E' (“E - for Easy”, to use the RAF's phonetic alphabet of the day); above and just ahead of it, is the completed nose art – with its base down, and tilted forwards at a slight angle appears: a tea saucer sporting two little wings – one on either side of the rim (and painted in the style of those usually depicted on Hermes' helmet); and written in inverted commas underneath:“SAUCER SAM”.

My father's logbook records that the last time he flew WR139, was on 5 June 1953. He says that she still displayed the “SAUCER SAM” nose art up to that time.

Last summer [summer of 2008], whilst undertaking some research, I typed “vampire” and “wr139” into our computer's search engine – and found a picture of Vampire WR139 on the 'RAF Jever Steam Laundry' website. (The website also includes a mention of Duncan Sandys' visit to the squadrons, in its “Operations Record Book [for] August 1952”).

The photograph (taken circa April 1954, when she was in the service of No. 93 Squadron) shows WR139 in the Squadron Hangar – which is jam-packed with a mixture of Vampire FB.5s and 9s – and what is thought to be the squadron's first F-86 Sabre – can be seen at the back of the hangar.

The majority of the Vampires in the photograph are camouflaged – but WR139 is one of the few that is left uncamouflaged – and still sports her original bare metal factory finish. It looks as though she's been re-designated, “D - for Dog”; but unfortunately I was unable to ascertain whether or not she still bore the nose art, as the photograph shows her with her starboard side facing the camera – rather than the port side – on which the nose art had been painted.

I printed off some copies of the picture, and a few days later – whilst paying my father a visit – I presented him with one. He was very impressed with it – and (inevitably!) we got talking about his sighting of the flying saucer. Which I recall:

He sat in his armchair – on the wall to his side were pictures of various civilian airliners that he'd flown, in the livery of the now long defunct British Eagle. Another picture, a photo, showed him about to climb into the cockpit of an F-86 Sabre, to take part in the Cold War exercise, 'Operation Carte Blanche'.

Lifting up his arm at full stretch above his head, he described how the flying saucer came down: curling up his thumb and index finger (so as to make as small an aperture as possible) he rapidly moved his arm down – opening out his fingers at the same time to indicate the circumference of the 'disc' rapidly growing in size. In no time at all his thumb and index finger no longer touched – then they were both splayed out at full stretch and only now represented part of the disc's circumference. Looking up to where his hand now rested stationary, my father said that he was truly amazed by just how rapidly the 'disc' came down... being taken back in his mind's eye to that moment, he said that he could recall it as vividly then, all those years later, as on the day it happened... He compared the disc's highly-reflective surface to that of the shiny side of tin foil – but without a single crease or crinkle on it – he said that he was amazed by just how absolutely seamless it was... He then quickly moved his hand (now flat and side on) away from him to represent the disc's change of direction and orientation – which finally revealed to him its saucer shape – as it accelerated away!

I had asked my father previous to that day, if he could estimate the flying saucer's size – but in the past he'd been reticent to do so, saying that it was too hard to judge. I asked him again on this occasion... and after a brief hesitation, he gave his answer:

“A hundred feet across – about the wingspan of a Lancaster.”

I was utterly dumfounded! Its size – if my father's estimate was accurate – far surpassed anything I ever imagined. (To give some comparison: the Vampire's wingspan was 38 ft. The actual wingspan of a Lancaster bomber being: 102 ft).

Then, immediately following on from his estimate as to the saucer's size, my father said something that – having done some research over the past few years – literally left me speechless for a few moments and stumbling to find my words: my father said – concerning the aspect that none of the other three pilots had seen the flying saucer:

“I sometimes wonder if it had some means of stopping the others from seeing it and only allowed me to see it.”

(Though I didn't go into details) once I regained a modicum of speech, I reassured my father that the very thing that he was speaking of – HAD indeed been noted by some of those who have investigated the UFO phenomenon.

Below (for the benefit of the readers here) I give a couple of instances:

A small group of scientists who seriously investigated the UFO phenomena many years ago, came to the conclusion that there was also a psychical component to the phenomena: Re (amongst others works), 'The Invisible College: What a Group of Scientists Has Discovered About UFO Influences on the Human Race', by Jacques Vallee, and published by E P Dutton & Co., Inc., New York, 1975; and also later published under the title: 'UFOs: The Psychic Solution'. In which the author writes:

“UFOs... are constructed both as physical craft (a fact which has long appeared to me undeniable) and as psychic devices, whose exact properties remain to be defined.”

This psychical component to the phenomena has not only been noted by those within the scientific community; but has also been noted by former military personnel who have held high rank within the British Armed Forces. In one instance, in the Memorandum to a non-official UFO group's 1997 report, which was signed by one of its founding members – no less a figure than a former Chief of the Defence Staff, Admiral of the Fleet, the Lord Hill-Norton – the following observation was included:

“[Though] 'UFOs' actually appear in a physical, material sense... there is certainly a degree of psychical involvement in almost every case...”

In the same report (which became known – after its prime instigator, as: 'The UFO Concern Report on the Hill-Norton UFO Initiative') the following is also noted:

“Your Memorandum is first-rate … but although the religious and psychic implications are evident, at this early stage it might be better to soft-pedal that issue” (Note in the Report from Timothy Good, dated: 31/7/96).

The “religious” implication noted in 'The UFO Concern Report', were reported in The Times of London, in an article by Ruth Gledhill, its Religious Correspondent – under the headline:

“DEFENCE CHIEF WARNS OF 'SATANIC UFOs'”

The article began by stating the following:

“A former head of the Armed Forces has helped to form a pressure group to warn of the satanic nature of many unidentified flying objects. Admiral of the Fleet Lord Hill-Norton, Chief of Defence Staff, 1971-73, is involved with UFO Concern out of worry that some UFO encounters are 'definitely antithetical to orthodox Christian belief'...”

Before moving on to quote from another former Chief of the Defence Staff, I'd like to first quote the following; it's from a mid-nineteenth century work by the Anglican theologian George Stanley Faber (the Dedication inside reads: “To the Most Reverend John Bird Sumner, D.D., Lord Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of all England.”); it's a most remarkable book – but as both time and space prohibit – I'll only quote these small, but relevant, portions:

“[H]owever rare and attenuated [the]... Matter [that these Spirits are formed of] may be [they are]... capable of Visibility, whenever its actual appearance may suit [their]... purposes... [T]his subtle Material Vehicle may, to human eyes, be invisible: even as, for a season, smoke is visible; and then rapidly vanishes into thin air. The necessity of some Material Vehicle, by means of which... [these] Spirits might become visible, was fully understood and felt by the speculative Psychologists....

“[T]hese [Spirits] may appear, in a well defined, though intangible, form. They may severally fade into a variety of fantastic and indefinite shapes. And they may become altogether invisible....

“We have the same reference to the flashing rapidity of Angelic Motion, when we are told, that 'He maketh his Angels Spirits, and his Ministers A FLAME OF FIRE'. They are Spirits, indeed: but, then, like ourselves, they are Spirits embodied in Material Vehicles, which, as occasion serves, may either be condensed into tangible solidity or rarefied into conditions that resembles lightning in marvellous rapidity of locomotion. Tertullian, very rightly, I think, ascribes the same wonderful rapidity of locomotion, both to Angels and to Demons.”

And also:

“[T]he 'Principalities and Powers'... stand immediately associated with Malignant Angels. The whole is confirmed by the remarkable expression, which occurs at the close of the passage. Our Translators somewhat vaguely render the Original: 'against Spiritual Wickedness in High Places' [Ephesians 6:12]. Its proper rendering is: 'against Spiritual Wickedness in the Higher Region of the Heaven'; not, of course, those Heavens which are the regions of holiness and happiness, but, simply and exclusively, the relatively higher region of the Atmospheric Heavens.”

(Taken from: 'The Many Mansions in the House of the Father: Scripturally Discussed, and Practically Considered', by G S Faber; published by Royston & Brown, 1854).

The former Chief of the Defence Staff, Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Louis Mountbatten of Burma, writing to the Editor of the Sunday Dispatch, wrote:

“We should think of the possibility of these flying saucers being not a form of aeroplane from another planet, but being the actual inhabitants of that planet. I know this sounds ridiculous and I am relying on you as a very old and loyal friend not to make any capital out of the fact that I have put forward such a far fetching explanation.”

The late J Allen Hynek, UFO researcher and scientist, in an Interview for Omni magazine pondered over the following:

“There's another feature about the UFO phenomenon that escapes most people. I like to call it the Cheshire Cat effect. In 'Alice in Wonderland', the Cheshire Cat manifested itself, communicated with Alice, and then disappeared. The UFO does very much the same thing. In essence, UFOs appear spontaneously within a limited area, remain visible for a short time, and then disappear without a trace. This peculiar behaviour reminds us of the duality of light, which acts either as a wave or a particle. Perhaps UFOs also have two aspects. They might even be an interface between our reality and a parallel reality, the door to another dimension. I'm [only] just suggesting this, not saying it's so.”

I'll have to leave it at that for now. Except to say the following:

My father never did do any research into the UFO/flying saucers phenomenon. Nor might I add, did he ever have any interest – whatsoever – into the supernatural; or even in science fiction.

Concerning the flying saucer that he saw, all those years back: It was, to him, just something that he saw once – and he told it as it was...

As he once remarked:

“People think you're mad if you say you've seen a flying saucer – I've only ever seen one once; I've never seen one since.”