The cargo cults
Can a possible UFO sighting millennia ago be seriously considered, or should it be left only to the tabloid press?
The organization founded by Gene Philips, the "Ancient Astronaut Society", has the aim of providing reliable evidence of alien sightings in ancient times.
A theme that can best represent all the contacts of alien intelligences in the past is that of cargo cults.
These cults arise when a culture comes into contact with another culture more technologically advanced. An excellent example is that of Christopher Columbus who, after having landed on one of the islands of the Bahamas archipelago, wrote in his logbook:
"They welcomed us with reverence as if we had descended from heaven"
In the same way as Columbus, Sir Francis Drake was also mistaken for a divine and otherworldly entity by the Native Americans settled in the area where San Francisco currently stands:
"We tried to explain to them that we were not gods, but to no avail"
It is written in the logbook.
Jean Rimbault, captain, in 1565 had a monumental column erected in Florida depicting the emblem of his nation. After a few years, the local indigenous population began to venerate this column, making it the center of religious worship, adorning it with garlands and placing sacrifices in front of it as a gift.
Captain James Cook was then mistaken for the God Rongo who returned to men, according to legend, after having left Haiti on a cloud-like boat. Similar episodes also happened in the 1900s, for example with the naturalist James Hurley in the 1920s, who noticed that the population of New Guinea sacrificed a pig to him and his seaplane, considered a divine entity, every evening.
In 1943, however, other white men arrived in the eastern highlands of New Guinea, where they noticed a strange ritual of the indigenous populations. In fact, they handled strange objects consisting of a bamboo rod with threads deriving from vegetables and at the upper end of the carved wood similar to a microphone. It was later understood that the natives were only imitating the behavior of the American soldiers, observed at the nearby air base, from whom they expected gifts, through their "large metal birds".
Precisely from this hope of receiving gifts these cults were called "goods" (in English "cargo").
The most curious case, however, happened during the 1920s on Tanna, a small island in the South Seas, where John Frum, an American soldier, lived for a short time. Even today the entire life of the place is centered on the figure of him: he is considered a divinity, from whom the return from the "promised land" (America) is awaited with great hope to receive rich gifts.
Suffice it to say that some of the soldier's coins and banknotes are considered precious relics, and that a small bamboo temple was erected in his honor; finally, the islanders have the letters "USA" and the tribal chief of the time, who had John Frum in his dream, tattooed on their arms.
It is then interesting to hear the words used to describe the technical instruments of "foreigners" through concepts borrowed from the same lexicon, for example the airplane called "Thundering Bird" or "Big Bird" or the telephone cables "Singing Wires" or the locomotive called "Fire Horse". Among the Apache, then, the components of a car are defined through human anatomical parts: for example, the engine is called "intestine", the headlights "eyes" and so on.
Let's try to compare these cargo cults with the religions known to us. We can notice surprising commonalities. The legends handed down to us orally which tell of gods descending from heaven to earth on chariots of fire to punish sinners, to reward men or to demand services from them, are undoubtedly present in all cultures, traditions and religions of the world. The "Gods" of the indigenous Americans of the 15th century as well as those of the 20th century are well known to us, but who were those who, in remote times, determined the formation of the current cults now strongly rooted in the cultures of all the peoples of the planet?
