Much the same what that someone looking at a medieval religious painting sees a UFO in the sky, where the painter and his contemporaries saw a hole on the floor of Heaven, with a ring of angels looking down on Jesus and Mary.
I think the theory that eating cattle brains may have infected some people with prion disease has merit. CJD shows up in about one in a million persons. Here in the U.S. they’ve also discovered two alternate forms of ‘mad cow’ disease different from the BSE form that was common in England and Europe 20 years ago. Given the size of the U.S. cattle population (90-100 million) and the number slaughtered for food each year (30 million), they may be finding a naturally occurring form.
No biggie - I also like to read old primary sources and see if they are talking about something we can only now classify with science. And I love me some ancient alien TV series so...