The Four-Faced Visitors of Ezekiel

Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction March 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
Ezekiel, they say, saw de wheel —but he saw somewhat more than that. And Orton suggests that what he saw made perfectly good sense ... to the understanding!
e are told from our Sunday School days that the Bible is a living book, the oldest of man's written works that is read and used anew, from generation to generation. It remains living because we are able to find new meaning to fit our daily lives. Although it is not the usual kind of new meaning, I believe that I have found something of the sort in the very old prophesies of Ezekiel.
Bible scholars have long recognized the first chapter of Ezekiel as a strange and nearly unfathomable account of a vision. I suggest that it is strange only because it is written by a man far removed from us in time and experience, about a subject totally unfamiliar to men of his time. I do not think that this was a vision in the usual sense, nor was it meant to be mystical. This particular chapter has been called Science fiction in the Bible and many attempts have been made to unravel the meaning of the original author, along both spiritual and mundane lines. I am convinced that this chapter is the account of an actual happening; the landing of extraterrestial beings, reported by a careful, truthful and self-possessed observer.
I am not a student of theology and therefore you may feel that I am being presumptive in attempting to throw light on a mystery as old and well-studied as Ezekiel's first chapter. I feel that any success that I may have in doing so will be due to the accident of my birth at the very beginning of an era when the events I have to describe are fact, or are about to become fact.
If, as I believe, this is an account of an actual encounter with men from space, I may be better able to interpret the meaning than a student of theology, who by training and interest, is looking for a theological meaning. I have worked with mechanical things, and as an instructor of aircraft mechanics for most of my adult life. During this time I have had to untangle a lot of mechanical misconceptions and misunderstandings. I think that this gives me some insight into this problem.