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Atmospheric
'Miracles'?
Roberto Volterri ©
“Then Yahwe
said to Moses: ‘Then I will make breads pour down from
heavens....” (Exodus, XVI, 4).
What did really
rain from the skies in the XIII Century B.C. in the land of
Israel?
What did pour
down, in 358 Anno Domini, on the mesmerized Roman citizens –
from more than a thousand kilometres distance – who were
idling about on the Esquiline Hill in a hot August day in the
4th Century? Who did annotate in the “Ancient Chronicles” the
details of such unusual atmospheric phenomenon?
Many centuries
later, in 1244, Brother Bartolomeo of Trent used this
information to write his book “Liber Epilogorum in Gesta
Sanctorum”, in which he described both the “oneiric
(dream-like) message” grasped by Pope Liberio (352 – 366) and
the wealthy Roman patrician Giovanni, and the very strange
‘Atmospheric Miracle’, when a circumscribed area of the
Esquiline Hill was covered with a layer of strange white
stuff. And only that area....
Who so
meticulously described the very unusual ‘clouds’ aligned in an
almost aerial formation, some of them having a discoidal and
lenticular shape, and from which a kind of white snowlike
material came out? But this was not snow....
We are not able
to give an answer to these questions, but this does not
matter. What it is important is to outline the fact that, not
as a result of the human imagination, in those biblical times
in Israel something whizzed about its skies. Also, in late
Imperial Roman times, snowflakes could fall only from ‘real’
clouds and certainly not on the 5th of August!
At those times
‘something’ attracted the eyes towards the sky and left, even
if slightly, a tangible sign for these simple-minded fellows.
The recall of those memories was for many years handed down by
word of mouth, until somebody finally wrote of it in “Ancient
Chronicles”, a precious source of information for Bartolomeo
of Trent, and for the mature and talented artist Masolino of
Panicale. As Lippi, or somebody from his “School”, had already
done, with the famous painting “The Madonna and the Little S.
John” (Florence, Palazzo Vecchio) and later also the Sienese
artist Ventura Salimberi with the well-known painting “The
Eucharistical Glorification” (Montalcino, Siena). Masolino
worked with Masaccio and Paolo Schiavo on the realisation of
the “Triptych of the Snow” (ended in 1429) and of which two
works were lost.
Today, however,
not only Masolino’s painting (Capodimonte Musem, Naples),
brings our attention to this very odd ‘Atmospheric Miracle’,
and this phenomenon should at least be studied on the supposed
basis that in the old times our planet is been ‘visited’ by
some outsider civilisations. As a matter of fact, within the
S. Maria Maggiore Basilica, also known as the “Sancta Maria ad
Nives” or “Liberiana” from the Pope who witnessed the
‘phenomenon’, exist at least three more representations of the
‘miracle’.
This writer,
armed with the usual and reliable camera, walked among
Japanese, English, French and German tourists attracted by the
architectural and artistic wonders of the Roman Jubilee
Basilica. He documented the presence of a marvellous mosaic
that covers the entire facade realised by Pope Eugene III
(1145 – 1152), one bas-relief in the Borghese Chapel made by
Mimo of the Reame in the 15th century, and a curious painting
representing the Esquiline ‘snowfall’ itself. The writer is
also conducting a detailed research, here and there, among the
sanctuaries consecrated to the Madonna of the Snow, hoping to
find the some documents to prove the existence of other
similar summer ‘Atmospheric Miracles’. The quest continues...
Let us go back
to the odd ‘snowflakes’ that Pope Liberio, the patrician
Giovanni and the astonished citizens of ancient Rome labelled
as a ‘miracle’. What were they in reality? Certainly not snow,
taking in consideration the date when this ‘snowfall’ took
place (5th of August!)... Who knows? Maybe it was the same
substance the “Manna”, the food miraculously provided for the
Israelites guided by Moses in the wilderness of the desert?
Perhaps it was
the same stuff that fell in France in the 1950’s and also in
Florence, Italy in 1954. In this beautiful Tuscan city during
one of these strange ‘snowfalls’, an engineering student had
the bright idea to pick up a small quantity of it and bring it
the Chemical Institute University for a closer analysis. Here
the professors Giovanni Canneri and Danilo Cozzi carried out
some spectroscopic analysis and discovered the presence of
Boron, Magnesium, Silicon and Calcium, very different
composition from that of the ‘fribroine’ (C15 H25 N5 O6), the
main component of some cobwebs brought, here and there, by the
wind in certain period of the year.
So this is
something completely different!
The white
filamentous substance fell down from ‘objects’ similar to
those represented in the Masolino of Panicale’s painting, and
has been named ‘Silicious Cottonwool’ (due the large amount of
this element found on it) or, more poetically ‘Angel’s Hair’.
Let us try to
confront the two events, the two ‘Atmospheric Miracles’
separated from each other by more than sixteen centuries.
Earlier I
mentioned Manna, that odd white stuff that apparently fell
down from the sky in theDesert between Elim and the Sinai,
when “...in the morning a layer of dew formed around the
field. Then the layer evaporated and on the surface of the
desert remained a fine flake shaped thing, fine as frost on
the ground...(Exodus XVI, 13-14)
At this amazing
view – which we can read about in a 19th Century version of
the Old Testament – the Israelites repeated to each other the
word Man-hu meaning “What is this?” because they did not know
what it was...hence the use of the word Manna to describe the
whitish material with which the Israelites nourished
themselves and which made it possible for them to survive in
the desert "...for forty years until they arrived to a
populated town...to the frontiers of this town..." (Exodus,
XVI), 35).
Another
‘Atmospheric Miracle’?
Maybe not,
because in this case the most reasonable explanation could be
classified under the realm of the Natural Sciences; however,
it brings out some ‘strange’ aspects of eso-biologic nature.
Already in
1483, the Dean of Magonza Cathedral, Bernard von Breitenbach,
described the ‘bread from the sky’ that “...rains down early
in the morning and like daw and frost forms many drops on the
grass, stones and tree branches...”
Successively,
in 1823, the German botanist Eherenberg suggested the idea
that the Manna was nothing more than the secretion of the
Tamarisk tree, a species of Acacia wide-spread in that region.
In 1925 two botanists of the Jerusalem University – Friederich
Simon Bohenheimer and Oskar Theodor – after long
investigations done in the Sinai area, confirmed that the
secretion of the bush-tree Tamarix Gallica, when pierced by
the Coccus Manniparus or Fossiparia Mannifera, a lady-bug
typical of that area, presents a secretion the size and the
shape of a white coriander seed, that after a while it
crystalises in sweetish, white-yellowish grains. Just like
what the Israelites saw when “...they turned the face to the
desert and there the Glory of Yahwe appeared in the cloud...”
(Exodus XVI, 10), when the morning after "...a fine
flake-shaped thing was found on the surface of the desert
(Exodus XVI, 14), similar to a “...white ...substance...
tasting like the thin honey cakes...” (Exodus XVI, 31). Is it
all clear now? Not really...
Perhaps the
naive people confused the white substance similar to
‘silicious cottonwool’ or ‘Angel’s hair’ falling from an
‘anachronistic’ object from...the ‘cloud’ with the whitish
stuff secreted by the Tamarix Gallica tree that made possible
survival in the desert wilderness for so many years.
Maybe the two
phenomena happened contemporaneously, creating confusion first
in the oral and then in the written tradition. What, in
reality, was the omnipresent “Glory of Yahwe”? That glory that
appeared “...in a line-up of clouds guiding them through the
journey, and by night in a line-up of fire...” (Exodus, XIII,
21).
We do not know
it, but we can imagine it!
I entitled my
recently published book “Ancient Chronicles narrate...” (Hera
2002 Publishing) with the intention to give, with the help of
the omnipresent Personal Computer, some ‘exobiologic’
explanations to a wide range of phenomena of pictorial and
architectural evidence. My intention is also to ‘curiously’
search for ‘above suspicious’ signs (they are a lot of them!)
of biblical ‘Ancient Chronicles’ that may allow us to be more
pragmatic about these Phenomena, which are traditionally set
in a religious context.
These ‘events’,
‘pictorial witnesses’, ‘architectonic witnesses’ and ‘biblical
chronicles’ are truly real ‘memories from the ....future’! –
that I prefer to list, just like any vocabulary could do, as
‘anachronisms’. Thus,“…chronologic mistakes that erroneously
associate things and facts to a different period of time than
the real one when it really happened!” The odd ‘discoid’
object behind the Virgin, visible in the painting attributed
to the ‘School’ of Filippo Lippi, titled “The Madonna and the
Little S. John”; the even stranger ‘clouds’ of the already
mentioned Masolino of Panicale’s painting and similar
representations were unusual ‘Atmospheric Miracles’, or
demonstrations of some ‘exobiologic’ presence on our planet?
The well known “Vision of Ezekiel”, inspiration for the
talented graphic artist Alberto Forgione who created the cover
of the book, shows “...while the heavens spread apart...and
appeared ....a large mass of clouds and quivering fire...”
while “...something looking like torches was moving from one
to the other side of the living creatures; the fire was bright
and from the its radiancy a lighting burst out...”, when
“...the living creatures raised up from the ground, the wheels
raised...” Is this another unusual ‘Atmospheric Miracle’ or
another witnessing that ‘something’ extremely ‘anachronistic’
happened in the skies of Israel?
In another
Continent, Mexico, in Palenque many centuries later, in 7th
century of our era, what did the unknown Mayan artist see when
he engraved on the sarcophagus of the King Pacal a person
that, strangely enough, ‘rides’ a bizarre ‘machinery’ fitted
inside an ‘ogival’ structure spitting out smoke and fire.
Maybe the same
‘anachronistic’ object that, in 8th century BC, another
unknown artist saw and remembered in sculpture - an image
totally similar in which ‘El Rey’ the ‘Lord of Chalcatzingo’
is sitting inside an ‘ogival’ structure spitting out smoke and
fire...
What really did
take place in Medjugorie? Father Slavko Barbaric, vice-parrish
of the ‘miraculous’ place located twenty kilometres from
Mostar in Herzegovina, asserts that the Sun at sunset suddenly
‘rotated’ and ‘danced’ in the sky.
What happened
in Fatima on the 13th of October 1917, when the Sun appeared
to ‘rotate’ for at least twenty minutes? Was it really the Sun
or....’something’ round-shaped?
More
‘Atmospheric Miracles’?
“Sun, remain
still over Gabaon, and Moon on the Aialon lowland!” ordered
Joshua to the Star around which our small planet rotates.
(Joshua, X, 12). “Therefore the Sun remained still, and the
Moon also stopped... And the Sun was standing still between
the skies and it did not rush to set down for at least and
entire day...! (Joshua, X, 13).
Another
‘Miracle’ that could turn insane any astronomer or researcher
of Atmospheric Physics! Is it conceivable that the terrestrial
globe rotation could be stopped by the will of a biblical
Prophet?
Of course not!
And so what did happen in the Gabaon skies? We remain faithful
to the biblical tests when we try to interpret those phenomena
with a wider point of view, open to the possibilities that the
Earth has been ‘visited’ in past centuries and millennia by
‘somebody’ coming from ‘somewhere also’.
We could
suppose that the presence of a non-identified anachronistic
‘object’ erroneously identified as the Solar Disc was observed
in the Israel skies, at first in its revolving phase, and
then, for at least a day, in a geo-stationary position, in a
such low altitude as to be confused with the Sun. An ‘object’
that made Johsua and his people believe that a ‘Miracle’ was
taking place.
Are we flying
too... high? Maybe so, but I find it very interesting, and I
have the opportunity to emphasise on these pages, to analyse
with an attentive and wide-open eye biblical ‘Ancient
Chronicles’, pictorial ‘Ancient Chronicles’ and archaeological
‘Ancient Chronicles’. My real purpose is to collect more and
more evidence, ‘hints’ to finally prove the validity of my
argument: we are not alone in this Infinite Universe.
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