UFOs flew over Phoenix in '97, Symington says

ARIZONA DAILY STAR ^ | 3/23/07 | Tom Beal

[Pro-Bush]

The Arizona Daily Star Published: 03.23.2007

UFOs flew over Phoenix in '97, Symington says By Tom Beal ARIZONA DAILY STAR

"The universe is a big place, and we're conceited to think we're alone." Fife Symington, former Ariz. governor Former Gov. Fife Symington says now that those strange lights that appeared over Phoenix a decade ago were from another world and that he had a close encounter with an alien craft on March 13, 1997.

"I'm a pilot and I know just about every machine that flies. It was bigger than anything that I've ever seen. It remains a great mystery. Other people saw it, responsible people," Symington said Thursday. "I don't know why people would ridicule it."

Symington, who was in his second term as governor of Arizona during the Phoenix Lights incident, recently told a UFO investigator making a documentary that he had kept quiet about his personal close encounter because he didn't want to panic the populace. He repeated his story Thursday on CNN, saying the craft he saw was "enormous. It just felt other-worldly. In your gut, you could just tell it was other-worldly."

[Alamo-Girl]

Hi Sam Cree! So glad to see you!

[js1138]

But then Enoch was found at Qumran (Dead Sea Scrolls) and was carbon-dated there to around 200 BC.

Do you have a reference or citation for this? I'm particularly interested in whether the prophetic elements You cite were found and dated.

[Quix]

Thank you.

I usually do find very interesting things in your extended posts.

[Alamo-Girl]

As I recall, chapters 1 to 36 of 1 Enoch were found at Qumran. See 4Q201, 4Q202, 4Q204-4Q212 and 4Q247

Dead Sea Scrolls – Enoch (200 BC)

Online Critical Pseudepigrapha

[norton]

"Literally thousands of people in Phoenix witnessed the lights. Nobody bothered to photograph them with they supposedly drifted over the city?!?!?"

In about 1967 and about a hundred miles south of Phoenix I was involved in a similar sighting.

Not 'three miles' but a reportedly huge and consistently described vehicle, lights, low flying, ozone (the whold nine yards) and reported by several dozens of diverse sources.

IIRC - When it was all over, there were no photos, no radar images, and zero feedback from our reports (common experience). Control tower SAW it, pilots and military SAW it, I did not see it; no one offered up photos.

Although I've recited this tale before, it's kind of fun:
During another night time sighting (attributed to obsolete USN aircraft where they were almost never seen) I called Mt Lemon radar to advise them - then could not raise them on a return call.
About that time I'd have believed anything might have happened.
An hour or so later I did get through to learn the entire crew had rushed outside to SEE something after my alert call - the screens were left untended.

[Quix]

THANKS TONS FOR THE DETAILS.

Fascinating.

Especially the radar folks leaving their screens to get a gander themselves.

[Alamo-Girl]

Oops, I should have mentioned Broshi's Law.

NOVA: Ancient Refuge in Holy Land

ELISABETTA BOARETTO (Weizmann Institute of Science): We are going to take a very small amount of samples, and we are going to burn the sample in order to recover the carbon in the form of CO₂.

NARRATOR: The test measures the amount of radioactive carbon present in the sample, an amount that decays steadily over time at a known rate. The technique cannot pinpoint a precise year, but it gives a probable range of dates for the material. The rope comes from sometime between the years 70 and 260—hardly conclusive results. It could be, as Freund believes, from the time of the First Revolt when the temple was destroyed, but it could also be from Bar Kokhba's time.

RICHARD FREUND: Is it the older extreme or the newer extreme?

NARRATOR: Freund is not discouraged. As he presents his findings at a conference at New York University, he has one more card to play, a well-accepted test by an Israeli archeologist to narrow the range.

RICHARD FREUND: It's called Broshi's Law. Magen Broshi came up with a law when they carbon-dated all of the Dead Sea Scrolls but they still had a 200 year gap, and they couldn't figure out. And Broshi's Law was an experiment that they did on letters from the Cave of Letters. Why? Because the Cave of Letters has dated documents.

NARRATOR: Using three letters from Bar Kokhba, archeologist Magen Broshi compared the actual dates appearing on the letters to the results of the carbon-14 analysis. In each case, the actual date of the letters corresponded almost exactly with the older date in the carbon-14 range.

RICHARD FREUND: Broshi's Law is, "You always follow the older extreme." That's what they use in the Dead Sea Scrolls; I didn't make this law up. But I also want to start to show you something very interesting about the carbon-14 dating we did.

University of Arizona, Department of Physics: New Radiocarbon Age Dates for Dead Sea Scrolls Agree With Paleographic Dates

[Lancey Howard]

I think Symington is trying this guy's M.O.

Vincent "The Chin" Gigante

[js1138]

I was referring to the alleged mention of Herod. Is that found in the Dead Sea Scrolls?

[Alamo-Girl]

Enoch was interpreted by Richard Laurence in The Book of Enoch the Prophet to mention Herod - as does this 1882 translation and commentary by Schodde.

[js1138]

My question is whether the mention of Herod is in the fragment dated to 200 BC. I've asked this specific question three times now. I don't know how to make it any clearer.

I have looked for sources myself; otherwise I wouldn't be asking.

[Alamo-Girl]

The Herod inference in Enoch was drawn from The Book of the Watchers which in Charlesworth’s book was scholarly dated at late pre-Christian and from The Book of the Similitudes for which fragments have not been found at Qumran.

From Charlesworth’s Pseudepigraphra - speaking of chapters here – fragment IDs and current scholarly dating (also taken from Charlesworth’s book) are mine:

The discovery of these fragments of 1 Enoch has awakened new interest in the structure and dating of 1 Enoch. Following to some extent the former views that this work is a collection of independent writings, Milik has argued for the categorization of the Ethiopic version into five primary books with the last chapter being taken as a much later addition.

1. The Book of the Watchers (1-36)– 4Q201, 4Q202, 4Q205, 4Q206 – late pre-Christian

2. The Book of the Similitudes (37-71) – 105-64 BC

3. The Book of Astronomical Writings (72-82) – four copies 4Q208-211 – 110 BC

4. The Book of Dream Visions (83-90) - 4Q205, 4Q206,4Q207 – 165-161 BC

5. The Book of the Epistle of Enoch (91-107) - 4Q205, 4Q206,4Q212 – 105-104 BC and pre-Maccabean

Milik argues for a pre-Christian Enochic Pentateuch which contained a much longer version of the astronomical writings, and, most importantly, instead of the Similitudes, another work entitled The Book of Giants (1Q23-24, 2Q26, five copies 4Q203,530-533). He bases his argument on the fact that fragments of only four of the five constituent parts of the Ethiopic Enoch have been discovered at Qumran. No fragments from the Similitudes has been recovered.

Most other scholars disagree with Milik, by the way – and say the Similitudes and not The Book of Giants belongs in the Enochic Pentateuch.

My book on the Dead Sea Scrolls probably has the carbon dating on each of the fragments. Unfortunately, it is boxed up somewhere in the basement since we recently moved. But here is an online sample showing how the radiocarbon dating comes in with a earlier date:

From Radiocarbon Dating of Scrolls and Linen Fragments from the Judean Desert (1995), 4Q208 has Radio Carbon dates of 166-102 BC and 186-92 BC - and a Paleographic date 200 BC

I must leave now but I’ll see what more I can find on the subject in the books which are not in storage.

[js1138]

Your original post on the subject strongly implied that Enoch made specific predictions regarding Herod, and that these predictions had been carbon-dated to 200 BC.

I have been unable to unable to substantiate this claim from any online source, nor have I found anything in your posts -- a quotation from a reference, for example.

What, specfically, is the "Herod inference"?

[Quix]

Interesting.

Thanks.

[Quix]

Hmmmmm. Plausible.

[Quix]

Impressive. Thanks.

[donmeaker]

Aside from telling Jack Northrop that he could have the Bomber contract for the relatively stealthy B-49 only if he moved all the work to Texas, and merged with Convair....

Then doing everthing he could to ruin Northrop for the sin of refusing his corrupt demands.

Instead we got the "aluminium overcast" B-36 with propellors and a RCS as big as a smallish planet, and slow enough to give the world a weeks notice that they were on the way.

Well, I take it personally.

[donmeaker]

Symington once formally requested a report from military sources regarding the possible existence of subterranean superhumans.

Per wikipedia....

[Alamo-Girl]

What, specfically, is the "Herod inference"?

There are several scholarly discussions of the Herod inference in page 21-22, 24-25 of The Book of Enoch (Schodde) 1882, but you may find this from page 59 most interesting:

In trying to determine when the Parables were written we are again restricted to internal evidences alone. The only place where an historical event could be regarded as having been before the eyes of the writer is the prophesied invasion of the Parthians and Medes in 56:55 sqq. It has been argued that the author here had in his mind the invasion of Parthians, 40-38 B.C., that consequently the book was not written until soon after that time, and that the time of composition would then fall somewhere in the reign of Herod the Great, 37-4 B.C. But the allusion here is so vague that it does not necessarily rest on an armed invasion into Palestine, but seems rather to be developed from a general idea that these nations were at that time formidable, and thus the author in seeking for the last enemies, who in apocryphal systems occupy a place of prominence, selects these. The possibility, however, that the author does refer to this historical fact cannot be denied, as other things point to the composition of the Parables about the time of Herod. The author’s complaints of the untheocratic and impious character of the rules and the aristocratic class of his day can best be explained from his period. It is a well-known fact that Herod, as an alien and not a true Jew, was a thorn in the eyes of the true Israelistes, while his introduction and encouragement not only of Hellenistic culture, but even of strange gods, and his alliance with the free-thinking wealthy class of the Sadducees, made him perfectly detestable. His government, in the eyes of all the faithful, was justly considered one that was the exact opposite of what it should be according to the Old Testament idea of royalty and consequently it was endured with murmurings that found expression in conspiracy. From such a historical basis, the origin of the Parables, as well as the peculiar eschatological prophecies in them, especially the character of the Messiah finds a suitable explanation, and it would probably not be far from the truth to say that they were written some time during his or his immediate successor’s reign. This conclusion must of course be regarded as a probable one only, since it is simply impossible to come to anything like certainty as long as we have no better indices of the time of writing than are at our disposal at present.

Again, this was long before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and their carbon dating - and further advances in PaleoGraphic dating.

As I said before, the presupposition of scholars dating ancient manuscripts is that prophesy cannot happen. Thus the mention of an event which is a verifiable bit of history causes them to date the manuscript after that historical event.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your encouragements!