Ancient Aliens, Ark of the Covenant = A+

The Ark of the Covenant is drawing a lot of interest these days. It always has been big with these fringe shows and with good reason. It is one of the strangest things in the Bible, Merlin-like, or even Moses-like. That’s redundant. Last week in a rather weak show, Scott Wolter took a shot at putting it in Arizona. But, after several uninspired seasons, Ancient Aliens put together a good show on the Ark.
Even before Chariots of the Gods, I found strange undercurrents in the story of Moses: the burning bush, the staff that turned into a snake, the ark, the plagues of Egypt, and so on. In A Far Traveler, I wrote a fictionalized version of this. I have Ahmose align with the shipwrecked alien, Gimish, then return to Egypt to free his people. It is Gimish, however, who is in fear of the humans, not the other way around. The advanced alien has trouble with sorcerers.
As I said in my previous post, The Sign and the Seal, by Graham Hancock, presents a well researched theory regarding the Ark’s current location. Too bad he made innocuous statements on the show. Of course, the audience will assume he supports the show’s point of view, because, well he was on the show.
Hancock reports that its design matches things found in Egypt. People can argue against that, but a hat is a hat. This one fits. It’s possible that Moses was the leader of an Egyptian sect that still followed the principles of Akhenaton’s monotheism, and they migrated from Egypt to pursue religious freedom. I suggest something along that line in A Far Traveler.
Then there are all these tales regarding the deadly powers of Ark, whereby it zaps people, good and bad, rather indiscriminately. I have no explanation for that and find many of the proposed explanations to be farcical, like the idea that it was a giant electric capacitor. I didn’t calculate the charge that could be stored on the Ark, but it should be a relatively simple process since it is equal to the surface area of the Ark times the permittivity of the dielectric (wood) that separates the inner and outer gold plates divided by the thickness of the dielectric. If it sparked between the wings of the Cherubim, then it was discharging, and the voltage could never get higher than what it took to jump that gap. Maybe while its bearers shuffled through the dry desert this thing picked up enough charge that it could zap someone. Even if it could kill someone, how would you recharge it? Leave it out in an electrical storm?
Radioactive? As in most of these fringe science shows, they argue one direction to explain one story, then go in the other direction to explain another. Radiation poisoning happened to the Philistines immediately, but not the Hebrews. The Hebrews were zapped, occasionally, but the Philistines made off with it without being zapped. It was a rather random dispenser of tragedy.
I don’t think the box alone, capacitor or not, was capable of doing all the magic associated with the Ark. The tablets within it were written by the “finger of God.” That could be ominous. Who knows what that means? Maybe they weren’t even stone, just looked like it. Maybe the stones are pitchblende, and slowly emit radiation. Anyway, Moses and the Ark are fertile ground for entertaining schemes of alien influence, whether presented as real or used as the basis of a fiction novel.
If you have an interest in A Far Traveler, I’ll warn you, it’s not a fast read. It’s intended to be a fun read.