A book by journalist Arthur Shuttlewood (1920-1996) published
in 1968 reporting on the series of alleged sightings of Unidentified Flying
Objects in and around Warminster in Wiltshire which began at Christmas 1964. The
blurb claimed that ‘The Warminster Mystery is a dramatic unfolding of these
sightings, with eyewitness accounts of strange "things" seen by day
and night; of bewildering mushrooms of smoke, crescents of fire, weird and
disturbing sounds and even accounts of conversations with those from outer
space.’ Shuttlewood wrote several books
in which he claimed to have had personal contact with aliens intent on
preventing the human race from destroying the planet.
I borrowed The
Warminster Mystery from the library with enthusiastic anticipation, shortly
after it was released, and naively didn’t question the truth of what I read. I found the theme of alien encounters in
Shuttlewood’s work disturbing. He combined
mysticism and pseudo-science, and I was shocked to come across a sentence to
the effect that the UFO activity over Warminster was an indication that the
return of Jesus Christ was imminent, and specifying the year in which it would
happen. In writing this, I suspect
Shuttlewood (who is said to have claimed to have been visited by Jesus Christ) had in mind the then-popular theory that ‘God
is an astronaut’, and that religions are explained by encounters with an alien
race. However, I read his words in the context of the Christian teaching about
the Rapture and the second coming of Christ with which I was so familiar, and I
was smitten with fear as the specified time approached.
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