#200: Angels, Aliens, and UFOs

0:00Welcome to my 200th episode. When I started this podcast five years ago, I never thought I would reach this milestone. I had told myself that I wouldn't start recording until I had at least 20 good ideas for episodes, but I gave that up when I could only come up with 17 ideas and so I started with that. I apologize for the delay in getting this episode out, but it's going to be quite different and it has taken a fair bit of research to put it all together. It's a complex subject and so I thought it best to take my time with it and hopefully get it right, or at least coherent. So I think a little explanation is in order before we get started. Back in the early 2000s, President George W. Bush supposedly wanted to make a disclosure about the existence of alien spacecraft and alien beings in possession of the U.S. government. He was allegedly advised not to do so by people close to him and so it is claimed that

1:05he formed a small committee of advisors to study the effects disclosure would have on the world, the economy and on the people. That committee looked at a number of things, including not surprisingly, the effect such a revelation of objects and species from other worlds would have on religion and by extension people's faith in God and a sense of well-being. To make a long story short, it was decided that disclosure would generally be a negative event and that people might panic and or that religious people might lose faith and that religions would suffer and so he never took that bold step. Today, President Trump has expressed his desire to go ahead with the disclosure and so, preparatory to that, he has instructed all branches of government to make public any documents, films, photos and whatever other evidence they have of UFOs and alien visitation.

2:09Not surprisingly, many people in high government positions are fighting him vigorously on this. Still, we are now in our fifth tranche of released documents and videos and files and it is apparent that we are moving quickly forward towards that eventual disclosure goal. And so, since religion and faith are a big part of the reluctance to make this happen, I felt it would be appropriate and important to discuss with you how the LDS faith and we, as faithful members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, might be affected by all of this. Today we are going to explore ancient scripture, ancient traditions, even ancient art and many of the ongoing, purported extraterrestrial experiences that many have claimed over recent years. I think you'll find this interesting and I want to assure you that my message is that

3:10you have no need to fear, neither the truth nor the effect it might have on our faith in Jesus Christ and in our Church. I have always maintained that science and religion are much more closely connected than one might think, particularly good science and good religion. Obviously, bad science or bad religion would break down at the first sign of conflict and

4:13in fact, I'm pretty sure that that is what will happen to a number of religious sects when the truth about all of this comes out. But of all the religions in the world, I feel comfortable in saying that the LDS faith is almost certainly the best positioned doctrinally and the most closely aligned with good science. I spoke from before on the relationship between science and religion as it is one of my favorite subjects. Recently, episode 188 spoke on time, space and the kingdom of God. Episode 153 spoke of Quarks, computers and heaven next door. That was discussing dimensions next to us. One of my favorite episodes was episode number 37, Napoleon, Einstein and the Book of Abraham. About Einstein's special relativity and how that theory is introduced in the Book of Abraham.

5:16I love speaking about quantum physics in the Gospel and in all of my efforts, I have not found any conflict between our faith and the deeper things of science that are developing right now. In fact, just the opposite. Let me give you an example. For many years, skeptics argued that UFOs could not possibly come from the stars because of the distances involved. Einstein had postulated and science had proven over and over that the speed of light, 300,000 kilometers per second or 186,000 miles per second, is an absolute speed limit for travel through the universe. And even if one could travel at that extraordinary speed, it would take visitors from the stars many, many years to get here. And the fact is that no physical object with mass can even come close to the speed of light,

6:18which further makes it an inhibiting possibility and limitation. I won't bother you with the science here, but trust me, Einstein was right. But it turns out that extraordinary speed isn't the only alternative now. Scientists and theoretical physicists are very seriously considering the idea of multiple dimensions and parallel universes. And I know that sounds far out, but perhaps not so far out as you might think. You should realize that we have been teaching about other dimensions and parallel universes since the beginning of the church in 1830. How you say? Well, I'm glad you asked. Tell me, when our loved ones pass on, where do they go? Where do we teach that they go? The spirit world, right? And where do we teach that the spirit world is? Well, Brigham Young taught that the spirit world is right here all around us.

7:22In the journal of discourses, we read this. He said, where is the spirit world? It is right here. Do they go beyond the boundaries of organized earth? No, they do not. This is what brought forth upon this earth for the express purpose of inhabiting it to all eternity. And also from the journal of discourses, we get this from Brigham Young. Is the spirit world here? It is not beyond the sun, but is here on this earth. So the essence of Brigham Young's teaching was quite literal and has been supported by all of the church leaders' sense. The spirit world is associated with the earth and is around us. So why don't we see spirits then? It's because they are separated from mortal perception by the veil, not by some distant location in the universe. The veil is an integral part of our teachings and doctrines.

8:24We teach that we had a veil placed over us when we came to earth, a veil of forgetfulness that blocks our memory and access to the pre-existent world we came from. We teach about the veil in the temple, which is representative of the veil that separates us from heaven. We teach of Maroni coming through the veil to speak to Joseph Smith, and we read about the brother of Jared passing through that same veil in the other direction to stand in the presence of the Lord. In every case, we teach that it is the veil that separates us from other worldly beings and places, not distance. In fact, distance is never mentioned when referencing spiritual things. Except for saying we metaphorically distance ourselves from God through sin and wickedness. So what is the veil? How does it work? What is its substance? And what's on the other side of it?

9:25Well, simply put, it is nothing more than a dimensional barrier, a separation between dimensions. We are on one side of it, and on the other side of it is another world where our parents and grandparents and all our loved ones, and for that matter, even those who are not so lovable here on earth, all reside. And it is a very real place. And the bottom line is, there is life all around us on the other side. We have our parents who watch over us, and guardian angels, and Jesus, and God who hear our prayers, and angels who minister to people on earth. They are just as real as we are, but they are separated from us by this veil, a dimensional barrier that we can occasionally breach, and which they can breach whenever they are sent to us. Now you may have never thought about the veil in scientific terms, but everything that happens in this, or any other world in the universe, happens because of physics and

10:30scientific principles, and in the case of the veil, physics separate us from our loved ones. I don't know how exactly, whether it is by a slight shift in time or some other temporal rift, but quantum physics tells me that it is so, and I trust the science, just not Dr. Fauci. And we have numerous accounts of messengers passing from one side of the veil to the other all the time. I often think of Moroni appearing at Joseph's bedside on the night of September 21, 1823. He appeared suddenly in Joseph's room in a shaft of light. Although to the Father and the Son appeared in a column of light, three years earlier during Joseph's first vision. I turned to Moroni, though, because the Father and the Son are gods, and as such hold a unique place in the human experience. Moroni, on the other hand, was a mere mortal just like us during his lifetime, and yet he

11:35appeared to Joseph Smith in a similar fashion to the Father and the Son. The question must be asked, where did he come from? How did he get here? And where did he go when he was done delivering the message he was sent to deliver? Well, it is clear that he came from somewhere because he told Joseph he had been sent from the presence of God. But how did he get to Joseph's bedside? He did not come through the door and up the stairs? No one saw him coming down the road. He did not fly through the sky like a comet or a meteor, and he left in the same column of light that he descended in. He made it known that he needed to return to the presence of the Father to report his visit, which must have taken some time, and yet Joseph says, I lay musing on the singularity of the scene, and marvelingly greatly at what had been told to me by this extraordinary messenger.

12:35When in the midst of my meditation, I suddenly discovered my room was again beginning to get lighted, and in an instant, as it were, the same heavenly messenger was again at my bedside. This happened three times at night, and once more the next morning. So how did Marone I get from the presence of the Father to Joseph's bedside, and back again three times in one evening? Well, according to Einstein, he couldn't have if he went to the abode of God, because the pearl of great price tells us about the great governing star Kolopp, which must be very far away. That is nearest to the residents of God. So something is out of alignment here between Einstein's theory and the story of Marone I. But here's where quantum physics comes to the rescue, and modern theorists are answering that question for us.

13:36Their idea of multiple dimensions, the multiverse as they call it, is gaining momentum with each and every experiment that is performed. By their way of thinking, Marone I did not travel uncounted light years and immeasurable distances of empty space back and forth three times in one night. Much more likely, he merely stepped through a dimensional barrier, i.e. he stepped from one dimension into another to deliver his message. If we read the account of the brother of Jared in ETHER CHAPTER 3, we find him kneeling in prayer before the Lord on the top of a mountain. He cannot see him just yet, but he is talking with him, and then something strange happens. The Lord reaches forth his hand to touch the stones that the brother of Jared has set before him and his finger comes through the veil and is seen by the astonished man.

14:37Nothing else at the moment, just the finger. Now here we have an account of a body part on one side of the veil, while the rest of the body is on the other side of the veil, and this leads to a number of questions, among which are just how far apart are the dimensions of space? And just what does the veil separate? Is it distance or time or a combination of both? Is space as we observe it with telescopes, or is it just the part we can see with them? It's a slightly disconcerting fact that the space we see with a telescope does not really exist. It's a representation of space given to us by photons of light that have traveled infinite numbers of distances separating one star from another. Some are only a few light years away, and others are millions and even billions of light years away.

15:39The light from the Andromeda galaxy, which is visible on a clear night, have been traveling for at least two and a half million years to get to our eyes, while Alpha Centauri's light has only been on the road for four years. So the universe we see has never really existed as we see it. We are looking back in time with each and every star we see, and different times with each star. Beetlejuice, for example, the bright orange star on the left shoulder of Orion, is 700 light years away. That means that what you're looking at is Beetlejuice as it was 700 years ago. And scientists think that it's very possible that Beetlejuice could have exploded in Gannova in the intervening time. But each and every star is in a different place and orientation now. But we know that the dimension we live in and perceive is only one of many, because as

16:44far as we gaze, we cannot see the abode of God, nor can we see the place where our loved ones are, and yet we know they exist. That demarcation between dimensions, be it time, even a mere fraction of a second, or just an inch out of phase, or some other temporal displacement, is what we call the veil. In this account, when the brother of Jared crossed the veil, the Lord said, because now knows these things, he are brought back into my presence. So we can infer from this that the brother of Jared stepped into where the Lord was, and it seems he wasn't very far away at all. Basically one step, two at the most. So was it a spiritual miracle, or was it science? Well, the answer is yes. It was both.

17:44In either 12, we read something very interesting. There in verses 19 through 21, Moroni is speaking of faith, which by the way is very unique, because we are reading about the Jaredites, along dead civilization, and here we find Moroni giving us his own sermon on faith. Anyway, he says, and there were many whose faith was so exceedingly strong, even before Christ came, who could not be kept from within the veil. That truly saw with their eyes the things which they had be held with an eye of faith, and they were glad. And behold, we have seen in this record that one of these was the brother of Jared. For so great was his faith in God that when God put forth his finger, he could not hide it from the sight of the brother of Jared, because of his word which he had spoken unto him, which he had obtained by faith. And after the brother of Jared had be held the finger of the Lord, because of the promise

18:49which the brother of Jared had obtained by faith, the Lord could not withhold anything from his sight. Therefore he showed him all things for he could no longer be kept from within the veil. I find it remarkable that it says that there were many who could not be kept from within the veil. This brings to mind a remarkable man you may never have heard of before. His name was Emanuel Swedenborg, and he was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1688. He could be considered another of the early Christian reformers, except for the fact that he did not start a church of his own. Rather, he hoped his teachings would inspire others to seek truth in their churches, and in fact he did communicate with John Wesley and Wesley referenced many of his teachings. Emanuel Swedenborg believed that Christianity needed renewal and restoration of true doctrine,

19:52and his writings criticized much of the established Christian theology of his days. He completely repudiated the doctrine of the Trinity, and he claimed to have a unique gift, which is why I bring him up here. But before I tell you what it was, let me recall your minds back to an episode I did called I Speak Into All Men. That was episode number 51. In that episode I showed how the Lord declared that he speaks unto all men of all nations, kindreds and tongues, and one could assume that that might be throughout generations of time. In 2 Nephi 29 he says, For I command all men, both in the east and in the west and in the north and in the south, and in the islands of the sea, that they shall write the words which I speak unto them, for out of the books which shall be written, I will judge the world. Every man according to their works, according to that which is written.

20:53For behold I shall speak to the Jews, and they shall write it, and I shall speak unto the Nephites, and they shall write it, and I shall also speak unto the other tribes of Israel, which I have led away, and they shall write it, and I shall also speak unto all nations of the earth, and they shall write it. You need to understand this because we never ask ourselves how, and to whom does the Lord speak, when he speaks to those other nations. Well, I believe Emmanuel Swedenberg is one of those special men to whom the Lord spoke. A voice among men when the restoration of the gospel had yet to be fully enacted, but who was able to share in his own way great truths which had been lost. So here is what is so special about Emmanuel Swedenborg. He could cross the veil at will, and peer into and dwell for a time in heaven, or at least the heaven as he understood it.

21:54And the remarkable thing is that his descriptions and teachings sound remarkably like our own LDS doctrines of the restoration today. He was a true outlier in the 1700s, but would be right at home in our church today. But wait, you say, he didn't have the priesthood, and he hadn't been in doubt in the temple, how could he pierce the veil? Well, you may be right, but then we don't know all of the story, do we? Where was the temple in the brother of Jared's day? Where was the account of his endowment, or of the other men of whom Marona speaks in ether 12? I've learned to keep an open mind to these things when I don't have all the facts, but the fact remains that Swedenborg had remarkable insight that he got from somewhere. So let's see what he has to tell us. In 1758, Emmanuel wrote a book for which he is most famous, called After Life, Heaven and Hell.

22:56He claimed that book was written after a spiritual awakening in which he received a revelation from Jesus Christ. He had a number of fascinating teachings which he said he received by visiting the spirit world on occasions and that he could go and come as he pleased. One of the things he taught was about the nature of heaven, or at least the spirit world that one enters upon death. He said, when you die, you are essentially still yourself. You retain your memories, personality, habits, loves, prejudices, and desires. In fact, some people don't even realize they've died because their surroundings seem so familiar. Now, that sounds an off-lot like Amulic's statement, in Al-Math 34, where he says, you cannot say when you're brought to that awful crisis that I will repent, that I will return to my God, nay, you cannot say this for this, that same spirit which does possess your bodies

23:56at the time that you go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in the eternal world. And other leaders of the church have taught us that we will carry with us the same desires that we have here on earth. For three decades, Swedenborg claimed that he had free access to the spirit world, returning with information for us about the true nature of life and death. He spoke of going to that place which was between heaven and hell, which again sounds a lot like our concept of the spirit world before the judgment day in which our true character and nature is revealed to us. He said, the world of spirits sits between heaven and hell, a vast intermediate realm where the newly dead undergo a kind of revelation of character. Eventually, each person moves toward the community that corresponds to who they have actually become. These two agrees with our teachings in Doctrine and Covenants 88, where we read, for he who

25:02is not able to abide the law of a celestial kingdom cannot abide a celestial glory, and he who cannot abide the law of a terrestrial kingdom cannot abide a terrestrial glory. And he goes on to speak of those who cannot abide any of the laws of the three degrees of glory. And then he says, they shall return again to their own place, and again, listen to this, to enjoy that which they are willing to receive because they were not willing to enjoy that which they might have received. So you see, those scriptures are telling us that people will be in the place where they are most comfortable and most able to thrive and exist. One of the things most interesting to me is Swedenborg's description of the next world. We are not a geologist, call it strangely concrete, but it sure rings true to any latter-day saint. And in this, we again see the reality of alternate or parallel dimensions or universes.

26:03He describes the spirit world not merely as clouds, disembodied souls and divine light, which was the predominant teaching in his day, but rather as a real, tangible place. He said that people still look like people. They have bodies. They live in houses. They walk through cities and landscapes. They meet one another, form communities, work, converse, learn and travel. He said there are gardens, roads, buildings, libraries, schools, with one important distinction. He said, your thoughts, loves, desires and character aren't hidden inside you anymore. They begin to determine what you see and where you naturally go. And distance isn't measured in miles. If you genuinely think of a person, place or community because you love and respect what it represents, you are drawn to it. The landscape itself responds to the mind. I know that is some far-out-sounding stuff, but upon deeper reflection, I find that it

27:07really isn't that far from what we teach in the church. And as a real-world description of what will actually transpire with us, I find the blend of theology and science refreshing and reassuring. So I wonder to what degree modern-day experiences with angels and demons, and also with aliens and UFOs, are allowing us to experience some of these other world-y realities. I can see that we are peering into dimensions and worlds that we were here to for unaware of. A case can be made for scientific principles and effects showing up in so many of the events in the Bible. For example, Moses parting the Red Sea. It was a miraculous event to be sure, but the miracle wasn't actually that the Red Sea parted. The Red Sea has parted a number of times in history. No, the miracle was that it parted when it did.

28:10The best records I can find say that it has parted at least seven times in recorded history. And the scientists that study such things attribute this to a specific and rare wind pattern that causes it to part. Seven times in history is not very many times. On average, only about once every 500 years or so. So the fact that it parted just as Moses needed it to, that was the miracle. And we heard how scientists say that science part of the sea. So what does the Bible say? Exodus 14 tells us this. And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. And the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong wind all that night and made the sea dry land and the waters were divided. So you see, the Lord used meteorology to bring about a miracle. And if he was willing to do that once, then of course he should be able to use the sciences

29:12in all things. Long ago, the great philosophers saw God in nature and in all things in the observable world. It could barely be said that God and science or natural philosophy, as it was called early on, were one of the same thing. But since the formalization of Christianity in the fourth century, there has been this separation, this idea that we place our faith in either God or science, but not in both. But that's unfortunate because even God has placed His faith in His natural laws to hold the world in place and to regulate all of its times and seasons. Alma recognized this. He used that fact in his rebuttal to Corohoor. In Alma 30, Corohoor challenges him, saying, if that will show me a sign that I may be convinced that there is a God, ye show unto me that he has power, and then I will be convinced of the truth of thy words.

30:13And Alma's reply shows where he sees God. He says. How has had signs enough? Will ye tempt your God? Will ye say, show unto me a sign when ye have the testimony of all these thy brethren? And also all the holy prophets? The Scriptures are laid before thee. You see, as natural that Alma would call upon the testimony of teachers and prophets in the Scriptures, after all, he was a prophet of God. But listen to what he says next and pay close attention. He says, and all things denote that there is a God, ye, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it. Ye, listen to this, and its motion, ye, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a supreme creator. That my dear listeners is science. And consider for a moment that Alma is recognizing the regular motion of planets in 75 BC, well

31:14before Ptolemy and Copernicus and Galileo. We might think that this was an anachronism except for the fact that we now have well-documented evidence that the pre-Columbian indigenous people had remarkable understanding of astronomy, including the ability to predict eclipses and other celestial events, including comets. They understood solstices and equinoxes and their importance. For the people of Alma's day and for all the prophets of the Book of Mormon, there was no conflict between science and theology. And the pre-Columbians were not alone. We find the same evidence in the study of other ancient cultures. Anthropologists have decided that Stonehenge in England was an ancient observatory to monitor and mark the seasons, so too many other sites around the world. Egypt with its pyramids and other great structures, Gleb Beckley-Teppe and Turkey was absolutely an observatory.

32:14So too ancient monuments throughout Europe and Asia, all show that the stars and sun and planets were of great importance to the early people. They planted their crops based upon their observations and life and death hung in the balance. I spoke in episode 168 about Abraham's journey into Egypt. He was sent there by the Lord specifically to teach Pharaoh and his wise men about astronomy and mathematics. This is recorded in the Book of Abraham, but also in a book called The Antiquity of the Jews, a book written shortly after Christ by an historian named Josephus. It was in this same book of Abraham that we read about the relativity of time and how it is governed by the size and the speed of rotation of the planet upon which one stands. And it clearly states that one day to God, who according to the text Wells near Kolob,

33:16the great governing star, is equal to a thousand years here on Earth, a much smaller heavenly body with much less gravity and rotational speed. In these few passages in Abraham 3, we see the foundation of the special theory of relativity as put forth by Albert Einstein some 63 years after Joseph Smith translated it. Again, I'd say that was a fair bit of science in a book of Scripture. Now we started this episode by talking about UFOs and disclosure, so let's get back to that. The great debate today centers around the existence of UFOs, unidentified flying objects, now more recently renamed unidentified anomalous phenomena or UAP. But this is not a new or recent phenomena. Throughout history, objects have been cited in the skies all over the world.

34:19For centuries, people have seen strange objects in the skies. We see that in the Renaissance paintings, perhaps most stunningly in a painting called the Madonna with Saint Giovannino. That's a 15th century painting by Domineco Hirondayo. In it, the Madonna has her head bowed to the left and behind her in the sky is a flattened oval that very definitely was not intended to represent a bird. Others in the painting seem to be observing it. The painting has come to have the nickname Madonna della UFO. And it's not the only one. A perhaps even more spectacular painting is the annunciation of Saint Erasmus by Carlo Crivelli, painted in 1486. That one appears to show a large circular structure with a powerful beam of light coming

35:20out of it down to the earth. And then there's the Miracle of the Eucharist by Ventura Salombeni. That was painted in 1600 and it shows a sphere with two protruding structures that evoke the first man-made object to grace the heavens, Sputnik, which was launched by Russia in the early 60s. And on top of that, there's the strange account of Christopher Columbus, only a few hours before reaching the Americas. He was standing on the stern of the Santa Maria when he saw a mysterious light in the distance. He was confused by what he was seeing so he called over Pedro Gutierrez, a member of the Royal Household who had accompanied him on the journey. They described the light as best they could with the words they had at the time. They said it appeared, quote, like a small wax candle that seemed to rise and fall.

36:23At 2 a.m., later that same night, they cited land and Columbus subsequently regarded the sighting of the strange light as a sign from God that they were approaching land. There are literally thousands of reports of unidentified craft or UAP each year, from all around the world, as seen by pilots and sailors at sea and people on the ground and government officials and astronauts. Since the beginning of manned spaceflight, astronauts have reported strange objects, sometimes following them. And in reports that have long been held top secret but are now coming out, it seems that our men who stepped on the moon reported that they were not alone. Now we also have video of objects flying by our military aircraft, video taken by the military. And this is backed up by radar and other sensory equipment to verify those reports.

37:25And numerous reports are coming out now about craft that have actually been recovered by various militaries and of beings within many of them. All of this has been held highly secret for decades and has only now beginning to come out. And we are now getting reports from serious people that there are at least four different types or races, if you will, of beings that have visited or are on the earth at this time. I told you how President Trump has ordered the various government agencies and military organizations to start releasing the files that they have long held secret concerning these events. And this is actually what has motivated me to speak on this subject today. In a very recent interview aired on the podcast Mystery Wire on August 3rd of this year, Robert Bigelow of Bigelow Aerospace told investigative reporter George Nap about a visit he had

38:27with President Trump in February. He said that he went with papers he had written on seven different subjects, the economy, technology, employment, etc. And included with those papers was a paper on the Alien UFO situation. Let me play a clip of George Nap and Bob Bigelow in the interview where he tells about his visit with the President. When I first knew you back in the late 80s, the idea of disclosure was such a far off concept that really wasn't even, you know, we're trying to figure out what's real, what do people know, what do we need to know. But the idea of someone announcing disclosure whether that's the President or the Pope or something like that was just such a far away idea. Well, the subject was made fun of. It was a joke. Yeah. And mostly by the lot of the media propagated that, right? Right. Right. I've been on the receiving end of that that you have too. But now it's not so far away anymore. I mean, the idea of disclosure is being discussed early this year.

39:28The President issued a directive said start releasing information on these files. Now, it's been a little disappointing what's been released so far. And I don't know who's in charge of what gets released, but at least it's happened and he's acknowledged that it's something he wants to share with the public. That's an amazing step to come that far. But you had a chance to speak directly with the President and urged him to go even further earlier this year. When did that happen? So I was in the process for several months putting together a series of reports on seven different topics. And UEP's ET and disclosure was one of the topics. And so when I was ready, I asked to see him. And so January, February the 6th, I was in the Oval Office with the President. You don't know how much time you got with him. I haven't a clue. I figure it's probably more than 30 minutes, but I don't know.

40:31And as it turned out, we were finished in about an hour and 15 or 20 minutes. But I could have taken two days because these were complex subjects. And on the disclosure, UAP ET subject, which is always great fun to talk about, that's a really important one. It's super important. What was your goal going in? What was the one thing you wanted to convey to him on that topic that you wanted to come out and have him understand? In such a short period of time, I only had an average of like 11 minutes per paper to talk about the paper. I wish I had had a lot more. But let me read to you something I told him. I wanted him to say verbatim. And I described where he should say it. Where a podium existed and a lot of media existed. But I said, I want you to, for example, deliver this statement. As you are getting on to Air Force One and you're about to go through the hatch way through

41:33the door, but you stop and talk to the media. And you might say something like, I just want you to hear something. I want to make a statement. And I would say, and this is what I want you to say, Mr. President. A non-human intelligent presence has been on Earth for a very long time. Using spacecraft with performances completely beyond our capabilities and our human physics. And that's it. To say nothing else. That's it. That's all because what this is is disclosure and it's actually confirmation. And confirmation has not been officially made by any president that I know of. Wow. That's extraordinary. And I hope the President Trump takes his advice eventually. Bigelow's insistence on this disclosure comes from his own deeply held beliefs on the matter of extraterrestrial beings, some of whom he claims are here now.

42:39In an interview with CBS's 60 Minutes, Bigelow was asked by reporter Lera Logan about this same subject. Do you believe in aliens? I'm absolutely convinced that's all there is to it. Do you also believe that UFOs have come to Earth? There has been an existing presence in 18 presence. And I spent millions and millions, I probably spent more as an individual than anybody else in the United States has ever spent on this subject. Is it risky for you to say in public that you believe in UFOs and aliens? I don't care. You don't worry that some people will say that you hear that guy sounds like he's crazy. I don't care. Why not? It's not going to make a difference. It's not going to change reality of what I know. Do you imagine that in our space travels we will encounter other forms of intelligent life? You don't have to go anywhere. You can find it here. Where exactly?

43:40It's just like right under people's noses. Oh my gosh. Wow. Bigelow's statement that they are among us is supported by statements from Robert Dean, a former US Army command, Sergeant Major, who claimed to have seen a classified NATO UFO assessment. He said in a 1994 lecture at the Civic Theater in Leeds, England that one group of alleged extraterrestrials looked essentially human. In that lecture he said, they could sit next to you in an airplane or in a restaurant and you would never know. He also repeated that claim later in an interview with the radio host, Art Bell, who had an enormously popular radio show called Coast to Coast AM. And Robert Bigelow told the film maker James Fox, they are walking among us.

44:42It seems that in general they pose no threat and can in fact be very benevolent. A profound event occurred in Virginia, Brazil in 1996. It has been thoroughly documented and has been declared authentic by the Brazilian government. One of the beings on a crashed craft there was rescued and taken to a local hospital where the head surgeon worked on him and sealed up his wounds. That surgeon, Dr. Marco Vinicio Nevis and a neurosurgeon that was with him, Dr. Italo Vinicio Nevis and Dr. Marco Vinicio Nevis were able to communicate with the being telepathically and they said he was very sweet and calm and very understanding of what they were doing. Now Dr. Nevis has passed away, but Dr. Vinicio Nevis was interviewed by American alchemy's Jesse Michaels in January of this year. And there Jesse said to him, you mentioned that the being almost seemed to have control

45:46of the room. What did you mean by that? And his response was the feeling was that he understood what was happening. He wasn't afraid. He was highly intelligent, at least more than I was. He was brought into Humanitus Hospital. He was alive and according to Dr. Roger Lear who wrote a book on this event, he said that the entity felt sorry for the human species because they did not realize their potential of who they really are and what their potential was. And they don't realize as a race who we really are. Another indication of this view came to us in 1989 when a man named Bob Lazar spoke with KLS reporter George Napp about his assignment by the Air Force to work at Grum Lake, better known as Area 51 in the Nevada Test Range. He claimed that he was assigned to a place called S4 where his job was to work on reverse

46:49engineering a propulsion unit from one of the craft that had been retrieved. In a briefing manual that he was given prior to beginning work and pertaining to the history and progress so far on that effort, he told George Napp that the aliens that provided that information claimed that we were just vessels for our souls. Now the media made a big deal out of this and made it sound like that was something threatening as if we were just cattle being raised and heard so that our souls could be consumed by the aliens one day or something crazy like that. But when you think about it, don't we as Latter-day Saints teach that this body of ours is, in fact, merely a vessel for our spirits? We call it a temple to be sure and gaining possession of it was one of the primary reasons for coming to Earth in the first place. But in a very literal sense the body is just that, a vessel, a holder for our spirits.

47:55And when we lay it down in death to move on to the next phase of our existence, it becomes empty and lifeless. It is at that time just a biological specimen. I think that those aliens were telling us that we are so much more than the bodies and the humans that walk on this Earth. Like the being in Varginia, they're telling us that our potential goes beyond this life. That in a very real sense we are citizens of the universe, eternal citizens, which agrees with our LDS doctrine on the eternal nature of life and mankind. So many of our near-death experiences have commented that as they separated from their bodies, they looked down on it with little regard for it. It had served its purpose and was of no more use to them. And returning to it was reported as very painful by many who came back.

48:59As we consider this notion of other beings being among us and interacting with us in one form or another, we must realize that this is not a new idea or concept, nor is it contradictory to our canon of Scripture. To begin with, we should turn to our own book of Moses, where it says, beginning in Moses 1, verse 33, and worlds without number have I created. And I also created them for my own purpose. And by the sun I created them, which is my only begotten, and the first man of all men I have called Adam. And the Lord God spaken to Moses saying, The heavens, they are many, and they cannot be numbered unto man, but they are numbered unto me for they are mine. And as one Earth shall pass away, and the heavens thereof, even so shall another come. And there is no end to my works, neither to my worlds.

50:05Moses had only asked about this Earth and the inhabitants thereof, and that's what the Lord shared with them. But He did say very clearly, But only in account of this Earth and the inhabitants give I unto you, for behold there are many worlds that have passed away by the Word of my power. And there are many that now stand, and innumerable are they unto man. But all things are numbered unto me for they are mine, and I know them. We should note that while telling Moses only about this Earth and its inhabitants, the Lord did not say that there never would be interaction between worlds. In fact, it could be argued that every angel and every heavenly messenger sent to humans as a being from another dimension, another world. Moroni and Peter, James and John, and John the Baptist, and the three Nephites, and Gabriel,

51:07and all the other messengers who have ministered to us, live somewhere not identifiable by our reckoning. For that matter our loved ones who have passed on are somewhere we cannot see or identify other than theoretically. If we believe in God, then we must believe in life outside our own physical world. The Book of Abraham makes it perfectly clear that such is the case. As do all the books of Scripture that talk about God, the Lord, and ministering angels. But the Book of Abraham gets into the astronomy, the science of it all as well. The second facsimile in the Pearl of Great Price, known by scholars as a hyposephaly, which was a prayer written down and folded up and placed under the head of a deceased person, is divided into 21 parts. And the explanation for the very first part of that hyposephaly says,

52:10Kolob signifying the first creation nearest the celestial or the residents of God. First in government, the last pertaining to the measurement of time, which celestial time signifies one day to a qubit. One day in Kolob is equal to a thousand years according to the measurement of time on this earth. And year four of that same facsimile answers to the Hebrew word Raoqi Yang and is interpreted as signifying expanse or the ferment of the heavens. Also a numerical figure, in Egyptian signifying one thousand, answering to the measuring of time on Olyblish, which is equal with Kolob in its revolution and in its measure of time. And then figure five speaks of Ke Van Rache, another place, and it calls it the governing

53:13power, which governs fifteen other fixed planets or stars. How interesting that we would find writings within our own scriptures that speak of stars and of times and revolutions of planets and of fifteen other fixed planets or stars? Why would any of this matter if the rest of the universe were inert, empty, and lifeless? Moses claimed he beheld many lands and each land was called earth and there were inhabitants on the face thereof. Could these beings that Bob Bigelow and the others spoke about be from other worlds that the Lord has created? And as to their different appearances, could those simply be caused by differences in their worlds, different gravity, different atmosphere, different food, environments? After all, when you think about it, we have a very broad range of human beings right here

54:16on our own planet. We have a wide range of skin color, as well as physical features, such as height and such as body structure. We have Pygmy's in Africa, more commonly called now, a fe or imbouti, with an average height of about four feet ten. While the neighboring tribe, the Watusi, who are now more commonly called Tutsi, can be as tall as six and a half to seven feet tall. We also have wide varieties between Asians and Caucasians and Northern Africans and Europeans. But the Scriptures themselves offer even more than that. The most startling account, but by no means the only one we find in the Scriptures, is found in Ezekiel. That account has inspired art and poetry and books, and even a very popular song for the 70s called The Windmills of Your Mind.

55:16Its opening line is, round like a circle, like a wheel within a wheel, like a never-ending spiral on a never-ending real. And you'll see in a minute where that comes from. A man named Joseph Blumrech, who started out as a skeptic, attempted to debunk the myths that had arisen from the book of Ezekiel, and in the end was convinced that it indeed did speak of other worldly visitors. He was even moved to write a book entitled The Spaceships of Ezekiel. Among his research was an extensive set of conversations with the Native American named White Bear, who spoke of Hopi traditions of worlds before hours on this planet. Frank Waters wrote a book about those conversations in his own book called Book of the Hopi. So let's take just a minute and look at Ezekiel.

56:17The heading to chapter 1 says Ezekiel sees a vision of four creatures, four wheels, and the glory of God on his throne. And the chapter begins. Now, it came to pass in the 30th year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the Ruvro Chebar that the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God. In the fifth day of the month, which was the fifth year of King Choyachin's captivity, I should say here that the Israelites had been taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar and carried back to Babylon, and Ezekiel went with them. The word of the Lord came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi in the land of the Chaldeans by the Ruvro Chebar, and the hand of the Lord was there upon it. When I looked and behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire

57:20infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof was the color of amber, out of the midst of the fire. Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures, and this was their appearance. They had the likeness of a man. And everyone had four faces, and everyone had four wings. And their feet were straight feet, and the soul of their feet was like the soul of a cast foot, and they sparkled like the color of burnished brass. And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides, and they four had their faces in their wings. Their wings were joined one to another. They turned not when they went, and they went every one straight forward. As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion on the right side, and they four had the face of an ox on the left side.

58:23They four also had the face of an eagle. Thus were their faces, and their wings were stretched upward. Two wings of everyone were joined one to another, and two covered their bodies. And they went, everyone straight forward, whether the spirit was to go they went, and they turned not when they went. As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps, it went up and down among the living creatures. Let me stop for just a second. That sounds a lot like the story I told you about Christopher Columbus, with the light which they described as a candle that went up and down. Anyway, continuing, and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning. And the living creatures ran, and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning. Now as I be held the living creatures behold one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures

59:27with its four faces. The appearance of the wheels, and their work, was like unto the color of barrel, and they for had one likeness, and their appearance and their work, was as it were, a wheel, in the middle of a wheel. When they went, they went on four sides, and they turned not when they went. As for their wings, they were so high that they were dreadful, and their rings were full of eyes round about them for. And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them, and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up. Whether so weaver the spirit was to go, they went! Thither was their spirit to go, and the wheels were lifted up over against them, for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels. When those went, these went. And when those stood, these stood. And when those were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up over against them, the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.

1:00:32And again in Ezekiel chapter 10 we read this one verse, and when I looked behold the four wheels by the cherubims, one wheel by one cherubim, and another wheel by another cherub, and the appearance of the wheels was as the color of a barrel stone. And as for their appearances, they forehad one likeness as if a wheel had been in the midst of a wheel. Now, that language of strange and the story is a little strange, the Pentax, all of it is odd, and some of that we can attest to the translators who tried to translate this work. But, underneath it all, the fact remains that Ezekiel saw something very, very strange and very difficult for him to describe. He didn't have many words. When we read in 2 Kings chapter 2 about Elijah being taken away, there it says, and it came to pass as they still went on and talked, that behold there appeared a chariot of fire

1:01:38and horses of fire, and part of them both ascender, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. So again, I don't know what a chariot of fire, nor horses of fire are, but perhaps those are the only words they had to describe that. And the whirlwind could have been any number of things, including a helicopter, or a rocket or an airplane. But to put a point on this, in our own 1800s when steam-powered locomotives and trains began crossing the great plains of the American Midwest, the Indians had no words to describe them. So, they used the only words they had. They called trains iron horses, which actually is a pretty appropriate name. And later years when airplanes began flying overhead, they were called silver birds. So you see, people use what they have to describe what they see, and often it doesn't

1:02:40work. Even today, we hear people who have had a strange experience say, I can't really describe it, or there's no words to describe it. So I, for one, am willing to let Ezekiel talk about the wheel within the wheel, or a chariot of fire and horses of fire, and Elijah going up by a whirlwind. And I guess we'll just have to wait to find out the full truth of that. There's even Moses' account of the pillar of fire and cloud that guided them through the desert, could be considered something extra-dimensional or extra-worldly. There we read, and the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud to lead them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light to go by day and night. He took not away the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night from before the people.

1:03:42And apparently this pillar had conscious intent as it moved to protect the Israelites from the Egyptians. It says in verse 19, and the angel of God which went before the camp of Israel removed and went behind them, and the pillar of the cloud went from before their faces and stood behind them. And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel. I don't know what caused the pillar of fire, and I'm perfectly happy to just accept it as a sign, or perhaps better described as a guide and messenger from God, but some physical force generated that fire and that cloud, and I think it's fair to say that powers from an unseen dimension were at play. My point in all of this is simply to say, if we really take the time to ponder and consider the stories in our own scriptures, we must admit that angels, demons, and spirits from

1:04:43other dimensions and places are replete within them. And the name we give them shouldn't remove them exclusively from the bigger discussion of whether or not we are alone in the universe. So let me ask you this. Could it be merely a problem of semantics that makes the popular UFO world of enthusiasts separate from us? Could we be all talking about essentially the same things, the same beings? Not that all aliens experienced are angels or demons, but there are many reports of benevolent alien encounters in which the people who encountered them ended up being healed of some life threatening or terminal malady. And there are others who had encounters that were more frightening and threatening. But isn't that the same way we describe encounters with angels and with demons? I wonder where both aliens and angels come from.

1:05:44For angels it's easy to say, they come from the presence of God. But does that really tell us where that is? As for demons, they must reside someplace also when they're not tormenting mankind, but just where is that? Joseph Smith pondered that and Dr. and Covenants, section 130, tries to answer. Joseph asked if angels dwell on some particular planet or sphere, and he received an answer in verses 4 through 6. In answer to the question, is not the reckoning of God's time, angels' time, prophets' time, and man's time, according to the planet on which they reside? I answer yes, but there are no angels who minister on this earth, but those who do belong or have belonged to it. But then the next verse says, the angels do not reside on a planet like this earth, but they reside in the presence of God on a globe like a sea of glass and fire where all things

1:06:48for their glory are manifest. Now that sounds pretty definitive, although I could talk at length about it, but I wonder when I think of Peter James and John as they met with Joseph and Oliver on the banks of the Susquehanna River, they seemed pretty human-like. Likewise, Moroni, when he was encountered by David Whitmer, as David was carrying Joseph and Oliver to the family farm, he appeared as an older man in dusty clothing, as one would expect to find on any local farmer. And there is no indication that David thought anything more about him than that he was just an old man on the side of the road who might need a ride. That is until he disappeared. That's when Joseph told David that the man was Moroni, a name he had not heard before, and that he was on his way to Camora to get the plates, to bring to the Whitmer farm

1:07:48so that they could continue the translation there. We are told in other places that these special messengers eat, and in many other ways enjoy the same sociality that we have here on earth. Dr. N. Covenant's 27 says, Behold, this is wisdom in me. Therefore, marvel not for the hour cometh that I will drink of the fruit of the vine with you on the earth, and with Moroni, whom I have sent unto you to reveal the Book of Mormon. And I just can't help but think that their environs are more like earth than we might imagine. The truly countless accounts of people that have had near-death experiences all speak of meadows and mountains and fields full of beautiful flowers. They describe sounds of music filling the air and a feeling of pure love and light. But what they describe sounds an awful lot to me like this earth in a glorified state.

1:08:54Not to the sea of glass and fire might not be beautiful, but I think I like the mountains and meadows a little more. This whole subject of angels and demons and aliens and UFOs is quite fascinating, but it's also confusing and still mysterious on the whole. We have the Scriptures, we have the words of our prophets, and we have countless stories of experiences with all of these entities by people from all over the world. I've only scratched the surface of this subject, but the one thing I feel confident to say to you right now is there is no need to fear. This earth resides in the hands of a loving and gentle creator who only wants the best for us. Though we may at times mess things up terribly with wars and oppressions and other forms of subjugation and cruelty towards one another, still in the end the Lord is watching over

1:09:56us. We are not going to be dominated by an alien race, and we should not have our testimonies tested or shattered by visitors from other realms who themselves might also be searching for the same answers we are. I've often thought, you know, our astronauts, when they go to the moon, they are the aliens. When we send probes to Mars, our probes are the alien probes. And if we ever send people to Mars, they will be the aliens. If beings that were on the moon were to approach our lunar astronauts years ago and they were walking around there, and if they were to query them and say, tell us about God, well, they would have gotten different versions of God. They would have gotten Catholic versions and Protestant versions, maybe an agnostic or an atheist mixed in there. You see, we're not all 100% dialed in, perhaps they are not as well.

1:10:56I want you, brothers and sisters, to go forward in faith, you know the Book of Mormon is true. You know the church is true. You know the gospel has been restored in its fullness. So the things of the world should not scare you or terrify you or cause you fear or cause you to question your testimony. I would remind you in the strongest possible terms I can that in 1830 and in the years remediatly after that, when the Book of Mormon was first published, wise men, smart men, scholars, studious people, decided that there were at least 200 anachronisms in the Book of Mormon. That is, things that didn't belong, things that were wrong, things that were out of time, things that couldn't be. But as science and technology have progressed over the years, 200 years now almost to be exact, science and technology have answered virtually all of those anachronisms.

1:12:01We are down to just a handful, maybe 14 or 15 anachronisms that are still mysterious to us. But you should have, and I do have the faith that with continued knowledge and gaining of scientific truths and whatever things we need to know, those anachronisms will fade just as did the other 185. Brothers and sisters, the church is true. The Book of Mormon is true. Perhaps these alien stories are true as well. I'm not afraid. I personally have seen anomalous things in the air. We'll call it that. I have seen them multiple times. I've seen the same ones several times. I've pointed them out to my flight crews on different flights because I know where to look. I know, for a fact, there are strange things in the sky, and I am not afraid, one, I am, not one tiny bit, nor should you be. Brothers and sisters, I love you so much. Thank you for having an interest in my podcast.

1:13:03Thank you for listening to my ramblings. I don't get everything 100% right, but I try, I continue every week to study, and learn more and more and more. It's been a blessing to me, and I hope it's been a blessing to you. I'll see you again next week. In the meantime, have a wonderful week. I'm Mark Swindt. Thank you for listening.