Last edited July 4, 2000
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FIREBALL ABOVE THE GALAXY

  In December, 1989 the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite
began mapping infrared radiation emitted by the cosmic dust
between the stars and galaxies.  For most of 1990, the data
poured in.  Gradually a picture was assembled of the heat of
intergalactic dust, most of which turned out to be a uniform
haze spread across the vast expanse of the universe.

  But not entirely.  Hovering above the heart of our galaxy
in the finished computer-assembled image is a curious, faint
sphere of slightly warmer cosmic dust.  This globe of heated
dust is centered about 30 degrees over the core of the Milky
Way in the area of Scorpio and Libra on the ecliptic.

  Ordinarily one would assume the sphere of hot dust emerged
from a supernova explosion--but this sphere extends over the
galaxy some 60 degrees, which is about 70,000 light-years if
the center of the explosion were as far off as the center of
the galaxy.  And this sphere's lower limb is cut flat by the
intervening core of the Milky Way, showing that it is indeed
located just about right over the core.

  Supernovas are impressive explosions, but this event is on
a scale difficult to ascribe to a single exploding star.  If
it were visible to your naked eye, this sphere would stretch
across a third of the sky.  It may be the result of the rare
cosmic collision of a neutron star with a black hole or some
other strange event.

  Given this apparent location about 30,000 light years away
from the earth, the blast-wave of heated dust should already
have spread past the earth. Moreover, the brilliant flash of
light that probably would have accompanied the initial blast
might have been visible on the earth thousands of years ago.
In theory, if it occurred recently enough, the explosion may
have been seen by mankind.  If so, there could be legends or
other preserved memories of this awesome event.

  And, as one might expect, there are.

  Scorpio and Libra were once one big sign--a giant scorpion
with Libra known as the "Claws" of the insect.  But it's the
word "Scorpio" that is the clue: It is derived from "scarab"
which is another desert insect of Egypt, a beetle.  And this
beetle is shown with a large red orb in its claws. That puts
the large red orb in the sign of Libra.

  When Libra was changed from the "Claws" to the "Scales" of
justice, its astrological symbol was not a pair of scales as
one would expect, but a picture of an "orb" rising above the
horizon.  What orb was this?

  Most have assumed, without checking, that it's the sun. In
fact, the Egyptian name of Libra is "The Place where the Sun
rises"--the EASTERN horizon.  But the Egyptian deity who has
rulership over Libra is in charge of the NEW moon, and it is
visible only at SUNSET on the WESTERN horizon. So what could
be rising in the EAST--as both the sun and the moon are just
setting in the west?  

  Libra appears to depict a large red orb rising in the east
as the sun and moon are setting in the west.  What large red
orb was glowing in the dark of night in the sign of Libra...
in the very "jaws" of Scorpio's Scorpion, the sign of Death?

  The glowing blood-red orb in the Jaws of Death was located
right where the ancient mega-nova explosion occurred.  There
in the mouth of the the great Scorpion was a glowing blot of
blood in the sky.  And the moment of the year when it should
have been easiest to see--at its brightest--was on the night
when it lay opposite both sun and moon, the night when Libra
would have the darkest sky and rise to the zenith at midnite,
the night of the new moon that falls in Libra, precisely the
moment Egypt depicted in its myths.

  It appears the titanic burst was indeed seen--and seen for
years afterward.   More than seen, it entered into the heart
of ancient myth and legend, transforming imagery and symbols
in ways we are now so immersed in, we have not even begun to
grasp their significance.  That burst of "blood" was a grand
cosmic display of heavenly anguish, the foretaste for divine
pain in a most auspicious place and the memorial of a murder
never to be forgotten in the primal reach of human history.

  For when Libra rose, it was Aries "the Lamb" that set: The
sign of the Shepherd of Heaven, the innocent Abel, whom Cain
slew.  And Cain's sign?  The Scorpion, of course.

  We learn that Cain killed Abel not long after the harvest,
for it was then that he brought his grain to offer God upon
the Sacred Mount.  Libra's Scales are said to represent the
weighing of the harvest.  Today Libra has shifted well into
November, but thousands of years ago it was in the beginning
of the harvest.  As a farmer, Cain's sign was Scorpio/Libra.

  There is a more direct link to Cain and Abel's story when
the names of the stars of Libra are examined.  Three bright
stars dominate Libra: "The Price Sufficient" and "The Price
Deficient" and "The Price of Conflict" are the meanings for
their names.  The entire sign was called "The Sacred Mound"
or "Altar" in some cultures.

  Abel brought the "Sufficient" sacrifice to the Altar, but
Cain's offering was "Deficient" which led to the "Conflict"
and Abel's blood being shed.

  Ancient rabbinical tradition insists that Cain had Abel's
blood in his mouth when God confronted him and asked "Where
is Abel, thy brother?"  Their implication was that Cain had
eaten Abel...like a cannibal or ghoul.

  The red blotch in the night sky, when Cain's sign rose in
the east, was smeared across the Mouth of the Scorpion--The
Jaws of Death.  It was the blood of Abel whose sign, Aries,
was setting in the west at the same moment.

  In the "First Book of Adam & Eve," in the Pseudepigrapha,
[chapter LXXIX, verse 7],it says that Cain "weltered in his
(Abel's) blood," and that there was a violent shaking and a
repeated trembling of the earth for many long minutes after
the murder.  Genesis 4:11 says the earthquake rent open the
ground as the earth "opened its mouth to swallow" the blood
of Abel.   That Pseudepigrapha text says that the earth was
a symbol of Cain, who was also bloody and trembling.  There
was an old tradition, then, that an earthquake had occurred
and that Cain had blood in his mouth, the "Jaws of Death."

  Why would Cain drink Abel's blood or eat his flesh?

  We are told that Abel was a keeper of sheep and that when
he offered his sacrifice, he presented to God the blood and
fat of the "firstlings" of his flock. The Levitical priests
would always eat the meat of those animals they sacrificed,
which would be a practice derived from ancient customs.  It
is likely that Abel would have eaten of his sacrifice also,
although some feel he was a vegetarian.

  After killing Abel, Cain asks God if he is his "brother's
keeper," suggesting that, if he is responsible for Abel the
same way Abel kept his sheep, then he had a "right" to kill
and eat him as a "sacrifice," since God seemed to prefer an
animal sacrifice over Cain's offering of grain.

  Genesis says Cain's motive for murder is "anger" over his
offering being rejected in favor of Abel's blood sacrifice.

  But is there a tradition of a glow or light in the heaven
in connection with the Cain and Abel story?

  Absolutely.  In the Pseudepigrapha text, in chapter LXXV,
verses 2-3, it says:  "And Adam offered up the offering (on
his altar) and he besought God to accept his offering. Then
GOD 'ACCEPTED' Adam's offering and SENT A LIGHT FROM HEAVEN
THAT SHOWN UPON THE OFFERING.  Then Adam and his son (Cain)
DREW NEAR THE OFFERING, but Eve and the daughter ("Luluwa,"
also named "Lilith": See our link to LILITH: THE UNCENSORED
VERSION below) DID NOT APPROACH IT (the fire and that light
from heaven atop the mountain)."

  Notice that the "LIGHT FROM HEAVEN" was so brilliant that
it "SHOWN UPON THE OFFERING" and lit up the area around the
altar atop the mountain (which we feel likely was on Petra,
where indeed a very ancient stone altar can be seen to this
day and was once called "the Mountain of Adam").  Any light
bright enough to be distinguished(in daylight) from the sun
must have been an enormous flash indeed.  No wonder Eve was
afraid to approach it. If near evening, it would still have
been extremely bright to be seen enlightening an altar that
would have been blazing with fire.

  So the author of this text understood this "light" in the
sky to be a great burst of brilliance, able to outshine the
sun and a fiery altar for SEVERAL MINUTES... This certainly
does not sound like anything common to the ancient world or
even our own.  (Some commentators think it must have been a
"UFO" and that the "God" who accepted the offering was some
kind of alien hovering over the mountain in his craft.  But
nothing else in the text supports this interpretation.   It
is obvious the Pseudepigraphal author was only describing a
brilliant cosmic light which had erupted in the sky and was
not "flying" around or a physical object.

  The text goes on to describe that God gave a similar kind
of light on further occasions when offerings were made.  No
doubt the child Cain would, in theory, have been dazzled by
these great cosmic displays--the way a young boy is excited
by fireworks.  Abel received a similar display when he made
his sacrifice, but this text says none occurred when Cain's
offering was presented on the altar.  The sky was dark.

  It would surely have been disappointing to Cain, after he
finally got his chance to "make the sky light up," if there
were no celestial response at all.

  This tradition of repeated flashes from the sky, followed
by a cessation of these outbursts, seems very much like the
behavior of a "gamma-ray burster," or "Magnetar," which has
the most powerful magnetic field yet observed in the cosmos.
These are super-massive neutron stars that erupt in titanic
outbursts at uneven intervals until they reach equilibrium.
They are formed by huge supernova explosions, but even the
gamma-ray bursts are spectacular [See NEWS & UPDATES for a
report on an August 27, 1998, event; also described in our
"DAWN of The MILLENNIUM Chart" page].  It is possible that
the lights attributed to the "Jaws of Death" visible in the
heavens were caused by Magnetar outbursts from an object on
the cusp of Scorpio/Libra, about 30,000 light-years away.

  Genesis twice refers to Cain's face "glowing" brightly in
his "wroth" [Gen 4:5,6].  The usual interpretation has been
that his face was glowing red in "anger"--like the heavenly
glow of the Jaws of Death.  The idea may be that because he
saw no red glow in the sky, Cain's own face began to "glow"
red in color.

  The ground then cursed Cain:  "Henceforth, when you till
the ground, it shall not yield unto you her strength.  You
will be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth" [Gen 4:12].
Cain was going to leave off his planting of grain at Petra,
and head out wandering to the east of Eden toward the land
of Mesopotamia where the Tower of Babel would later rise--
a fertile valley.  But Genesis says he will face a famine.
So at the time Cain fled, there apparently was a time when
crops failed.

  Cain reacts to this by saying "Everyone who finds me will
kill me" [Gen 4:13], suggesting he expected a famine so bad
people might kill him for FOOD.  Cain may have expected his
punishment to include being eaten by cannibals because he'd
eaten Abel.

  Indeed, in the parallel stories of other cultures, there
are dozens of references to famine and cannibalism in the
days following the heir who murders his brother.  In fact,
there is scarcely a tale of the pre-flood age that does not
involve "gods" eating or swallowing "gods"--and "gods" and
giants or titans eating humans or drinking their blood.  In
the event any of these beings survive into the present age,
they continue to roam the earth abducting and eating human
victims and imbibing their blood.  In the Pseudepigrapha,
the Nephilim also turn to cannibalism before the Flood.

  In our "LILITH: THE UNCENSORED VERSION" pages, we show
that Cain's twin sister "Luluwa" or "Lilith" was, like him,
linked to compulsive cannibalism.  Children are especially
vulnerable to these predators.  The legends of the eating
of children raise the spectre of Cain and Luluwa consuming
their own children in the famine that followed the murder
of Abel.  Several Lilith-derived tales refer to her eating
her own children.  Cain was sowing the field when he rose
up and killed Abel, leaving the field half-sown.  Even if
he took all the remaining seeds with him, he had little
time left to sow after wandering for weeks and finding new
land to till.  If some further ecological upheaval struck
the earth when Abel died--and the great quake hints that
something devastating was occurring--then Cain's struggles
to grow food may have been even more difficult.

  In the days after Cain and Luluwa were exiled, it seems
the earth was in a state of violence, with men killing any
person they found.  A great quake had struck the area, and
something was now disturbing agricultural productivity--
which usually means climate has changed.

  Can these things be linked?  Cain fails to see the same
"light" in the sky as before.  A great quake shakes earth,
opening up a fissure in the ground.  The climate changes,
crops fail, and people descend into cannibalism.  People
migrate to find new farmlands.

  If the earth had tilted on its axis, the light Cain had
expected to see might not be there.  The whole earth would
be shaking, and great cracks would open up.  The climate
would be utterly different.  Crops would fail, and seasons
might even reverse.  Peoples would wander over the earth,
seeking more temperate lands.  Famine, cannibalism, and a
state of murderous anarchy would inevitably follow.

  What might have suddenly tilted the earth?  Perhaps the
earth had been struck by an asteroid.  Meteor Crater in
Arizona is of the right age, by our chronology [See our
page on the GARDEN OF EDEN].  Perhaps a nearby supernova
sent a shock-wave through the solar system.  The explosion
supernova is of that age.  And the Scorpio/Libra outbursts
might be able to do the job.  There certainly is no lack
of candidates which might have disturbed the tilt of our
axis.

  Immanuel Velikovsky's "Worlds in Collision" details many
ancient reports of axis-tilt phenomena, which he assumes
had all occurred between 1500 bce and 600 bce.  He links
them to close passages of Venus and Mars.  But he failed
to explain what might have caused Venus and Mars to divert
from their orbits in the first place.  Any jolt that might
tilt the earth might also divert smaller planets like Mars
or Mercury, which could then later cross the earth's path.

  Therefore, the events that began when Cain killed Abel
could in theory have led to what Velikovsky's books argue
were the plagues of the Exodus and the other Old Testament
upheavals.  A stellar shockwave would also disturb the sun
--and that could cause a cycle of solar imbalances leading
to deluges.

  Perhaps.  Or perhaps not.

  Yet it would indeed be unsettling if the first murder of
our human family resulted from the failure of a teenager
to see a light in the sky, and having drunk his brother's
blood, to have discovered the reason for the light failing
was a cosmic explosion that shook heaven and earth and led
to famine and a deluge and thousands of years of upheavals
for his descendents.

  The star-burst scenario could tie history together in the
prophetic sight of God.  Having known mankind's murderous
tendencies, God could have foreseen the need for a stellar
"messenger" to deliver at a single stroke the consequences
of evil for millennia to come.

  And that star, if that's what it was, could have begun
its destined course millions or billions of years before,
ultimately set in motion by the initial conditions of the
primal creation event itself.

  Now, that's foresight.

  The "Jaws of Death" opened on earth and in heaven, and
it would appear, have swallowed us all.

BLOOD DROPS FROM ON HIGH...

LILITH: THE UNCENSORED VERSION

What's for Dinner, Lil?

MEGALITHS OF BLOOD

Titanic Dinner Tables

THE GOLEM HIDES

Guess What's Coming for Dinner...

GARDEN OF EDEN

Where & When Mankind Began

NEWS & UPDATES

Back to the future...

SCORCHING HOT LINKS

Further Scary Things