The truth is out there. In fact, the truth is really far out there. Imagine living an episode of the X-Files. Everyday reality, inasmuch as "reality" has any meaning anymore, is spent watching the skies in love or fear waiting for God to come in his flying saucer. This is the world according G. Cope Schellhorn. A world that lacks Scully and Mulder but has the full supporting cast of Aliens, Apparitions, Fulfilled Prophecies and question marks behind every horizon.

Whether extraterrestials will ever land there, I cannot say. But they will continue their presence in the sky until the fateful last hours of this cycle of civilization are played out.... Their presence in numbers, I am certain, tells us that we are living in those last hours.... After all, where the body (messiah) is, there the eagles (UFOs) gather. -- page 376

The basic premise of this book is that there is no "God" per se. "God" is instead the metaphor by which a primitive tribe identified the interference in their life by a group of well-meaning extraterrestials. Science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke postulates that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." This concept, commonly referred to as Clarke's law, is the underlying thesis of the book.

Apparently disregarding most current thinking on the part of Biblical scholars, Schellhorn interprets the text literally in search of this metaphor. Many of the most famous Biblical images and many less famous ones are reinterpreted in light of this thesis. Genesis becomes the tale of the "terraforming" of the Earth, followed by the attempts of humans forcibly evolved from the primates being driven from a state of paradise by their alien masters because they ate of the fruit of the tree. The burning bush that appeared to Moses in the desert and the appearance of God on Mt. Sinai were a spacecraft whose exhaust fumes and shiny metal surfaces confused the unsophisticated tribesmen into believing in a omnipotent God. Revelations, the millennialistic message at the end of the Bible, becomes St. John of Patmos's attempts to explain his encounters:

The most extensive description of earth changes during "end time" are found in the Book of Revelations. John has his encounter with what appears, suspiciously, like an extraterrestrial craft. (Rev 1:10-20, 4:18) An "angel" astronaut, acting as a message of the greater God, brings him a message.... -- page 272

The second "angel" blowing his trumpet ushers in the Second Trumpet Plague.... The "great mountain, burning with fire" that strikes the sea sounds very much like a meteorite or foreign body hit.... This catastrophe... adds misery to misery, but it is not the only foreign cosmic body to terrorize the earth at this time. -- page 273-4

No one could accuse Schellhorn of not doing his research. However, there are a few things that people might accuse him of. Schellhorn discourses in a standard academic tone on subjects that are most often shouted from streetcorners. The best part about his book is the way he organizes and interprets vast reams of evidence that may or may not be relevant to his topic. Without the evidence and close textual analysis of a number of passages within the bible, this book would be nothing more than a series of disconnected rants.

The question remains whether the grey-skinned four-foot humanoids who are involved in the majority of abduction cases today are the same extraterrestrials we meet in the Old Testament. Possibly but probably not. -- p 368

I have offered evidence that the Sumerian-Babylonian planet Nibiru... has caused periods of great earth changes at [3600 year] intervals in the past. I am, as far as I know, the first person to recognize it as the "Wormwood" of Revelation, and by my calculations, its return is probable at any time from the present moment to the next one hundred fifty years. [sic] -- p. 380

Unfortunately, the worst part about his book is the analysis of some of the evidence. The scholarship in the book ranges from sophisticated textual analysis referring to other current works of Near Eastern Archaeology to confusing and sometimes confounding literalism about coincidences in phrasing of certain biblical passages.

I highly recommend this book. I found it aggravating, annoying, and amusing. I think I liked it most because it attempts to challenge many traditional views about society. The main thing that I disliked about the book was its unfulfilled potential; the rather uneven editing and occasional yawning chasms in the flow of the argument detract seriously from Schellhorn's thesis. This book is not for everyone. I recommend it for X-Files fans, Biblical scholars, Christians and Jews both devout and casual, and anyone who's ever wondered about how far out there the truth is.