'Inca City,' photographed by Mariner 9 on Mars. Each rectangle is approximately one mile square, appropriate for a preindustrial walled city -- hence the nickname. Inca City is located at latitude S 82. Coincidentally, this is twice the latitude of the Cydonia Complex -- and exactly the latitude at which the Martian Moon system can no longer be viewed.

8. The Nephilim Connection

We're now going to speculate about the Martians. No probability calculations are offered here. We are simply looking at possible explanations and future scenarios which may have a bearing on our individual and global response to the existence of Martians. As fantastic and startling as these speculations are, the most fantastic and startling speculation of all is that there actually were intelligent Martians. Yet that much we know already.

Now we turn to the Bible and see what it says about the Martians. The evolutionary presumption is that it's going to be silent. It shouldn't even offer clues.

But there are clues.

Within the the historical accounts of the Bible are references to a 'mystery race' of intelligent beings, related to humans yet apart, frequently playing a prominent role in human affairs. This half-human race identifies strongly with the Martian race that built Cydonia's monuments.

They are called the Nephilim. Their story begins before the creation of the universe.

Prior to humanity, God created a race of supernatural beings known as angels.Angels have intellects and bodies like humans, but also possess supernatural abilities. They are immortal, invulnerable to physical harm, travel at tremendous speeds by force of will, pass through solid matter, and render themselves invisible. They are not confined to our physical realm. Most terrifying of all, angels have the power of suggestion: they can put an idea inside our heads so subtly that we think we came up with it on our own. Despite these awesome capabilities, the Bible repeatedly stresses that angels are not to be worshiped. Only God deserves all glory.

At one time, a group of angels rebelled against God, led by an angel named Lucifer. The rebellion in God's spiritual realm known as Heaven failed, and the fallen angels were cast into a desolate spiritual realm called Hell, where Lucifer now rules as Satan, the devil. The fallen angels are now known as demons.

God could destroy Satan completely, but chooses patience. Satan has no power to overcome God, and so turns on vulnerable humanity instead. There is no rational self-interest in Satan's motivation to damn the entire human race in his failed rebellion. The Bible does not express his motives, only his character -- violent, seething hatred toward the human race.

The Bible states that the essence of human consciousness is summed up in the soul, an immaterial entity which will survive death and be resurrected by God at a future date in a new body. That is to say, you will survive death and be resurrected by God in a new body. Both God and Satan see past the boundaries of the material world to the larger spiritual dimension, and past our temporal lives now to the eternal future. In his time, according to his plan, God will call the world to an end, and hold every human soul accountable for what we have done and thought, rewarding those whom he chooses with citizenship in Heaven. Satan also has a plan: to corrupt human souls, destroy and conquer the Earth, and damn as many souls as possible for all eternity in Hell.

In the meantime, a battle goes on between good angels and evil demons, an invisible war of awesome beings that rages around us without our notice. But how does it escape our notice?

Evidentally, it's taking place in another dimension, but it's not that angels don't have physical bodies. The Bible records incidents of angelic appearances. God has given them the power to take on human form so that they can interrelate with us on the physical plane.

Demons, however, are apparently banned from physical manifestation. Possibly, the reason for the ban has to do with the creation of the Nephilim. For the Nephilim are the children of the fallen angels.

The origin of the Nephilim is recorded early in the Bible, in Genesis 6:1-2, which tells of a time before the Great Flood:

When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.

The contrast between the 'daughters of men' and 'sons of God' has caused many Bible scholars to believe the 'sons of God' are angels. If they are, then they must be fallen angels, for they have rebelled against God's will, as expressed in Genesis 6:3:

Then the Lord said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal.; his days will be a hundred and twenty years."

What came 120 years later was the Flood. The intermarriage of humans and angels provoked God into declaring his intention to wipe out the entire human race, save a remnant.

Nor were the angels excused from condemnation. Marriage is not for angels, for Jesus says in Matthew 22:30, "At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in Heaven." The epistle of Jude, verses 6-7, tells of the consequences to those angels who violated this edict:

And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home -- these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgement on the great Day. In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

The implication is that the angels were punished for sins of a sexual nature, having to do with leaving 'their own home.' Genesis 6 is the only account of such an incident in the Bible.

Immediately following the passage describing the intermarriage of women and fallen angels, comes Genesis 6:4 and the first appearance of the Nephilim.

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days -- and also afterward -- when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. These were the heroes of old, men of renown.

By having sexual relations with women, the fallen angels had children. These children were the Nephilim. The words 'and also afterward' indicate that the Nephilim could procreate. A whole new race was born -- contrary to God's will. The word 'heroes' here does not mean champions of good and justice, but powerful warriors. The coming of the Nephilim seems to corrupt the rest of humanity, for Genesis 6:5 says:

The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.

The human race can be corrupt on its own, but the coming of the Nephilim apparently triggered divine judgement. The human mothers of the Nephilim were drowned in the Great Flood, and the angelic fathers were imprisoned into eternal darkness.

But what of the children? Surely, if they were evil, most of them were destroyed. Yet perhaps, as with Noah and his family, God spared a remnant of the Nephilim.

Where did he put them?

There are correspondences between Martians and Nephilim.

There is a 'coincidence of number.' In all the universe, there are only two intelligent biological races -- humans and Martians. In the Bible, there are only two intelligent biological races -- humans and Nephilim. Contrast this with nonbiblical mythologies that populate the world with giants, elves, dwarves, minotaurs, centaurs, faeries, gnomes. Even secular science speculation of a few decades ago held that intelligent life might exist not only on Mars but also Venus, Jupiter, Titan, and even the Moon! But reality and the Bible each have two and only two intelligent races. If Martians and Nephilim are the same, then everything fits.

Martians and Nephilim also coincide in appearance. Cydonia's faces tell us the Martians have human faces. The Bible tells us the Nephilim are half-human in descent. In contrast, evolution tells us human evolution is a random walk, never to be repeated elsewhere in the universe, and nonbiblical religious mythology populates the universe with non-human yet intelligent creatures.

Then there's the coincidence of timing. The Martians appear when the Nephilim disappear. That is, the Nephilim disappear from the biblical account at the time of the Flood. The Martians arise sometime within the past few thousand years. Could the Nephilim have been transported to Mars in some way?

Terrestrial archeology shows the Nephilim on Earth never developed an industrial society capable of space travel. But there is another way the Nephilim could have reached Mars. That is if God willed it. God, who created both Earth and Mars, can certainly move beings from one world to another. But why?

Deuteronomy 24:16 suggests an answer: "Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin."

God flooded the whole Earth to punish those whose sexual sins had created the Nephilim, but if certain Nephilim had not done great evil, they may have been given mercy in accord with this verse. God may have allowed them to continue living -- but in separation from humanity. Exile on Mars would be a possibility.

What we do know: the Nephilim did not all perish in the Flood, for they reappear in biblical history centuries later, around 1500 BC, when the Israelites leave Egypt. Moses sends spies ahead into Canaan (now modern Palestine), and they report in Numbers 13:31-33:

But the men who had gone up with him said, "We can't attack those people; they are stronger than we are." And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, "The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them."

But this was after the Flood! 2 Peter 2:5 says the Flood was universal, and only eight people on Earth survived -- none of whom was Nephilim! So how did the Nephilim come to populate an entire country?

Did more demons cohabit with women? That's unlikely, considering what happened to the first group. Moreover, aside from the temptation of Jesus by Satan himself, there is no record of physical manifestation of a demon after the Flood -- though angels in the service of God appear with regularity. Demons may have been divinely banned from the physical plane after the Genesis 6 incident.

The question of how the Nephilim survived the Flood has been asked by generations of Bible readers. An old Jewish fable even tells of 'Og the Giant,' one of the Nephilim, saving himself by riding the roof of the Ark.[1] But that's not what 2 Peter 2:5 says.

If all the Nephilim drowned in the Flood, they wouldn't be around to terrify the Israelites in 1500 BC, long after the Flood. Some Nephilim must have survived the Flood. But -- everyone on Earth (excluding Noah and family) perished. The only way to reconcile those two facts is to say that the Nephilim who survived the Flood could not have been on Earth at the time.

And here is Mars, a world once inhabited.

God might have exiled the Nephilim to Mars, but then how did they return to Earth? Since God would not have assisted them, technology seems the best explanation.

The theme of 'ancient astronauts' -- extraterrestrial visitors during ancient times -- is not new to the New Age movement. Some New Agers have even suggested that the divine symbolism of the visions of Ezekiel are in fact 'garbled accounts' of extraterrestrial visitation. But the message of Ezekiel surely is not compatible with ancient astronauts -- or with the character of the Nephilim.

One ancient account does point to the return of the Nephilim. It is not in the Bible, but it does bear the markings of a 'garbled account' of the truth.

Decades ago, Carl Sagan investigated alleged ancient-astronaut contacts by delving into the mythologies of ancient civilizations. After much research, he identified only one ancient legend which he felt worthy of serious consideration. He states:

Some years ago, I came upon a legend which more nearly fulfills some of our criteria for a genuine contact myth. It is of special interest because it relates to the origin of Sumerian civilization. Sumer was an early -- perhaps the first -- civilization in the contemporary sense on the planet Earth. It was founded in the fourth millennium BC, or earlier. We do not know where the Sumerians came from; their language was strange . . . .

Taken at face value, the legend suggests that contact occurred between human beings and a non-human civilization of immense powers on the shores of the Persian Gulf, perhaps near the site of the ancient Sumerian city of Eridu, and in the fourth millennium BC or earlier. There are three different but cross-referenced accounts of the Apkallu dating from classical times. Each can be traced back to Berosus, a priest of Bel-Marduk, in the city of Babylon, at the time of Alexander the Great.[2]

Berosus had access to ancient records going back for perhaps thousands of years. Berosus had access to these records because he was a priest in the city of Babylon, which had once ruled over the region known as Sumer. Babylon and Sumer, incidentally, are lands virtually adjacent to Canaan, where the Israelites sighted the Nephilim.

It's easy to construct a scenario. The Ark of Noah set down on the mountains of Arrarat. Sumer is just south of Arrarat. The first wave of human migration after the Flood would populate Sumer. And while humans slowly rebuild civilization on the plains of Sumer, the Nephilim quickly populate Mars, attain a technological civilization, and return to Earth.

Why were the Nephilim so much faster at civilizing their planet? Possibly, more Nephilim were exiled to Mars than there were humans on the Ark. The Nephilim might have been supernaturally directed by the demons. Also, back on Earth, humans engaged in a rebellion against God that ended with a confusion of languages that set back the cause of one-world civilization to this day (see Genesis 11).

But whatever the reason, the Nephilim returned to Earth. They spotted Sumerian cities as the most advanced settlements on Earth, and so there they made contact. The primitive Sumerians would be awed by these sky-descended beings with magic-like technology. If the Nephilim encouraged it, the Sumerians might worship them as gods, and record their visitations as religious scripture. Centuries later, high priest Berosus finds these records. Via Apollodorus, a Greek historian living around 300 BC, we learn:

In the first year there made its appearance, from a part of the Persian Gulf which bordered upon Babylonia, an animal endowed with reason, who was called Oannes. (According to the account of Apollodorus) the whole body of the animal was like that of a fish; and had under a fish's head another head, and also feet below, similar to those of a man, subjoined to the fish's tail. His voice, too, and language was articulate and human; and a representation of him is preserved even to this day.[3]

If Oannes was an ancient astronaut, then his 'fish' head and tail were possibly parts of a spacesuit -- the 'man' head and feet underneath indicate the humanoid being beneath the accouterments. The account continues:

This Being, in the day-time used to converse with men; but took no food at that season; and he gave them an insight into letters, and sciences, and every kind of art. He taught them to construct houses, to found temples, to compile laws, and explained to them the principles of geometrical knowledge . . . so universal were his instructions, nothing material has been added by way of improvement.[4]

The Sumerians attribute all their knowledge to mysterious beings who came among them and taught them. And archeology relates that Sumerian civilization did seem to make a tremendous leap from primitive villages into a full-blown cosmopolitan civilization.

Sagan relates a Sumerian 'contact' myth, in which a Noah-like personage is instructed by a god to create an ark. Asked where he should set sail, the deity replies, "To the Gods."[5] Could there have been a Nephilim counterpart to the Ark, a hermetically-sealed vessel which was levitated by divine power into the sky -- 'to the Gods?'

Sagan observes that the candidate 'ancient astronauts' " . . . are described variously as 'animals endowed with reason,' as 'beings,' as 'semi-daemons,' and as 'personages.' They are never described as gods."[6]

Semi-demons?

Sumerian scholar Samuel Noah Kramer also writes of Sumerian instruction from the gods. He does not relate it to ancient astronauts, of course, but he cites some tantalizing vignettes which whet the imagination. For example, there is a Sumerian poem in which two gods are created for the specific purpose of instructing humankind in the ways of raising cattle and grain. Kramer states, "These two, according to our myth, were created in the creation chamber of the gods in order that the 'Anunnaki,' the children of the heaven-god, An, might have food to eat and clothes to wear."[7] According to Sumerian mythology, the human race exists solely to be the slaves of the 'Anunnaki.' We are instructed in the ways of civilization only so that we can be more productive slaves.

For the Hebrew writers of the Bible, there is only one God, and his name is not 'An.' Even so, there are clear linguistic connections between the Sumerian semi-demons and the Bible's Nephilim. In particular, the Hebrew word 'Nephilim' derives from the root word 'Nephal,' meaning 'to fall'[8] -- which is suggestive of beings descending from the sky.

More striking as a linguistic clue is the close similarity between the Sumerian/Akkadian word 'Anunnaki' -- the children of the heaven-god -- and the Israelites' 'Anakim' (the sons of Anak) who are identified by the Bible in Numbers 13:33 as post-Flood Nephilim. Since Abraham, the patriarch of the Israelite clans, originally came from the Sumerian city of Ur, this linguistic relationship could be direct.

The Anunnaki are mythically associated with demons as well. For although they are children of An, the sky god, they live in the Underworld. And from there comes a connection also with the planet Mars -- for the ruler of the Sumerian Underworld is Nergal, the Mars god!

Ancient-history scholar E.A. Wallis Budge explains of the Sumerian mythological Underworld, "It was ruled over by a goddess called Allatu, or Ereshkigal, who, with the help of the Six Hundred Anunnaki, took charge of the spirits of the dead."[9]

And then, as if to complete the circle, in a Sumerian myth entitled, Nergal and Ereshkigal, Ereshkigal turns her kingdom over to another god, Nergal, who rules as king. She says to Nergal, "You can be my husband, and I can be your wife. I will let you seize Kingship over the wide Earth! I will put the tablet of wisdom in your hand! You can be master, I can be mistress."[10] As to Nergal's identity, Budge states, " . . . his star was Mars."[11] Here, in ancient Sumerian myth, is a connection between the Nephilim and the planet Mars!

The legends bear the appearance of a revision. Originally, the Underworld is ruled by Ereshkigal. Could this have been the state of Sumerian myth when the Nephilim astronauts arrived? Then the Underworld is turned over to Mars. Could the arrival of Martians have prompted the Sumerians to 'update' their mythology?

As for the intentions of the Martians, there are the chilling words of Ereshkigal to her Martian husband: "I will let you seize Kingship over the wide Earth!"

Most of Sumerian mythology is likely just embellished folklore. For example, the apkallu -- the 'wise fish' which tutor the Sumerians -- are said to appear before the Flood, but it might well be that the Sumerians got their chronology confused along the way, and mistook for the Noachian Flood a more recent local flood (for which there is archeological evidence). Likewise, the Sumerian 'king list' with ages of hundreds of thousands of years looks very much like the early genealogies of Genesis grossly multiplied -- suggesting a translation error.

But within it all is a startling three-way coincidence -- Martians, Nephilim, and Anunnaki. Therein might be a grain of truth.

Is it all just chance? In The Encyclopedia of Religion, twenty-five major Sumerian gods are listed, and Nergal is an inauspicious second-to-last.[12] Yet out of those twenty-five gods, it is Nergal, god of Mars, who is given dominion over the Anunnaki -- the race of beings for whom the human race is to be enslaved! If the Anunnaki are merely fabrications of ancient Sumerian storytellers, then there is only one chance in twenty-five that they would randomly come under the dominion of the planet Mars -- but that is what happened. There are brighter lights in the sky than Mars, but Mars is the one that was chosen for this important myth.

Linguistically and thematically, then, there is a clear correspondence between the Nephilim of the Bible, the Anunnaki of Sumerian myth, and our Mystery Race of Mars.

Another remarkable correspondence between Martians and Nephilim may have to do with the size of the Nephilim. The Bible asserts that the Nephilim are giants. In Numbers 13, when comparing themselves to the Nephilim, Moses' spies said they felt like 'grasshoppers.' Deuteronomy 3 mentions a Nephilim king whose bed is thirteen feet long -- implying that he himself is of similar length! Centuries later came the famous encounter between David and Goliath; Goliath, who lived in the same area where the Nephilim settled, is recorded as over nine feet tall.

Yet, significantly, prior to the Flood, in Genesis 6, there is no mention of larger-than-average size for the Nephilim. This distinction is important, because it relates directly to the anticipated effect of the lower planetary gravity of Mars on the height of humanoid offspring on that world.

Giants strike the modern mind as the stuff of children's stories. Surely, Swiftian skyscraper-giants are a physical impossibility -- but the far more modest heights mentioned in the Bible, of up to thirteen feet, are quite feasible. Twentieth century medical science records human beings who have grown to nearly nine feet in height, a mere half-head shorter than Goliath. Giantism is an actual medical condition, the result of the brain's pituitary gland producing an excess of growth hormone.

Unfortunately for giants, when body size increases, weight outpaces strength. Above eight feet, the burden of the additional weight universally causes giants to become slow and sickly. They seldom live along enough to parent children with their genetic characteristics. This is probably why giants are rare on Earth, the product of rare mutations that typically die out in one generation.

On Mars, the lower surface gravity -- only four-tenths that of Earth -- makes a difference. With over half their weight lifted off their bones and muscles, giants on Mars could live a vigorous life. Giants would live long enough to breed, spreading their genes among the general population.

Not that all Martians would become giants, but whenever the giantism mutation occurred, it would far more likely survive and spread in the common racial gene pool. Living alongside humans of normal size would be those with the gene causing their pituitary gland to produce massive amounts of growth hormone, causing them to grow to towering heights.

Martian astronauts sent to Earth would probably be chosen for normal stature, since giants would become sluggish in the higher gravity. But perhaps some of these astronauts were carriers of the giantism gene. If they bred with the local population, then giants would appear on Earth. And that would explain what the Israelite spies found in Canaan, circa 1500 BC.

This fits with the biblical account of the Nephilim. In Genesis 6, before the Flood, they are mighty warriors but not mentioned as giants. Following the Flood, in Numbers 13 and on, they are giants, and their military record is spotty -- just what we would expect from sluggish giants.

We would expect to find giants among Martians. We do find giants among Nephilim. Maybe that's because Nephilim are Martians.

We'll consider one last correspondence. It is perhaps the most graphic one. It is found right back where we started -- at the Cydonia Complex. Suppose the Nephilim were exiled to Mars. During their long sojourn, a story is told of their origins, distorted and garbled in the transmission from generation to generation until it becomes myth. But one key element is so fundamental that it is never forgotten: their race is descended from a woman and a demon.

Then the Martians look up and see two moons. What could be more natural for their mythic storytellers to associate one moon with the woman, and the other with the demon? In the Martian mind, the guardian moons of the planet Mars are none other than their racial parents, elevated to godhood.

The First Face at Cydonia is of normal human proportions. The hair is long at the sides and bangs cover the forehead. It is arguably the face of a human woman. The other face at Cydonia is long, curved, and distorted, sporting a sinister leer. It is a face we've seen before in many ancient drawings and sculptures, which may after all have a basis in the mists of time. It is the face of a demon.

What we see at Cydonia is an artistic interpretation of the most important myth of the Martian people. And it portrays graphically the words of Genesis 6.