A friend asked for my thoughts on “ The Spaceships of Ezekiel ” by Josef F. Blumrich in 1974. I hadn’t heard of the book before. But the topic sounded fun, even if speculative in a way that warrants skepticism. So I decided to give it a read. The Book of Ezekiel is part of the Hebrew Bible. Ezekiel probably wrote the core text in Babylon during the early sixth century BCE. And others probably made changes and additions over time. In the book, Ezekiel describes six visions. The visions include strange beings and objects – including the wings and wheels alluded to by the logo of the Mormon Transhumanist Association. And many modern readers have wondered about the possibility of a relationship between the visions and what we might describe today as ETs or UFOs. One of those modern readers was Erich von Daniken, who wrote “ Chariots of the Gods ” in 1968. I don’t know much about that book. But apparently it attempts to make a case for the UFO connection. And it caught the attention of Blumrich, who was an aircraft and rocket professional. Blumrich set out to refute Daniken’s case. At first, Blumrich had “the condescending attitude of someone who knows beforehand that the conclusions presented can by no means by correct.” But that changed. And at the end, Blumrich commented that “seldom has a total defeat been so rewarding, so fascinating, and so delightful!” Blumrich on Ezekiel In chapter one, Blumrich states that he’s “presenting engineering proof of the technical soundness and reality of the spaceships described by Ezekiel, as well as of the related events and procedures.” He observes that archeological evidence would be an important complement to his efforts. But that’s beyond the scope of his work. So let’s see whether and how he does what he claims. In chapter two, Blumrich describes Ezekiel as a well-educated and broadly-experienced person. This is important, Blumrich notes, because it would lend credibility to Ezekiel’s reports. To the best of my knowledge, Blumrich’s description of Ezekiel is reasonable, based on what little we have from historical records. In chapter three, Blumrich quotes long passages from the Book of Ezekiel, followed by interpretive re-tellings of the narratives. The re-tellings include elaborative explanations of how Ezekiel may be describing a spaceship and its occupants. The explanations do reflect the text, although to me they seem to be more creative than observational. Blumrich doesn’t quote all the text from the Book of Ezekiel. He skips the religious parts, which he considers tangential to his goal. And he quotes only a sampling of the descriptive parts, which he considers exemplary of Ezekiel’s style. I was disappointed that Blumrich didn’t offer an explanation for an occasion when Ezekiel has a vision while sitting in his house with other religious leaders. It seems like they would have seen a visiting spaceship. But neither does Ezekiel bother to say how the other religious leaders react to his visionary experience. In chapter four, Blumrich describes his conception of a spacecraft that would be consistent with Ezekiel’s observations. It sounds pretty cool. I’m not a rocket scientist, so I can’t reliably comment on the technical feasibility. But he certainly sounds like a legitimate rocket scientist. I can, I think reliably, comment on the relationship between the spacecraft conception and the text. It’s speculative. As mentioned before, Blumrich’s ideas do reflect the text. But they seem more creative than merely observational. Blumrich doesn’t spend much time in this chapter actually tying his spaceship conception to the Ezekiel text. And he makes some conjectural leaps that I’m not comfortable with, while characterizing them as more objective than they actually are. For example, he mentions “the mission that the spaceships described by Ezekiel obviously had.” Unfortunately, that mission isn’t at all obvious to me. Chapter five is the core of Blumrich’s case for a spaceship interpreta ...