Saint Antony & the UFO

15/5/2004

  Nowadays, it is not usual to hear people saying, “We do not hear about flying-sauces anymore. Yes, in the ‘60s was a common recurrence.”

Then, I cannot help but retort, “On the contrary, in my daily surfing the Internet the mention of UFO is constant and on the rise. There is not a single day that the sighting of an unidentified flying object has not documented somewhere around the globe.”

Now to be honest I have to say that I cannot call myself a UFO fan or believer, in the sense most people might think. I do believe, though, that they appear sometimes, but as soon they appear in some place they just as suddenly disappear into space to reappear somewhere else to the consternation of whoever happened to be there to witness.  

You might then ask what I think of them. Well, the answer to this very question might come from “St Antony of the Desert [251-356]” by St Athanasius – Tan Books and Publishers, INC. Rockford, Illinois 61105 – page 16; chapter 4:

Alone In The Desert

(At Pispir, now Der el Memun)

The next day, going out with still greater zeal for the service of God, Antony met the old man before mentioned and asked him to live in the desert with him. He refused because of his age and because this was not as yet usual, but Antony at once set out for the mountain. Yet once more the enemy, seeing his zeal and wishing to check it, threw in his way the form of a large disc of silver. Antony, understanding the deceit of the Evil One, stood and looked at the disc and confuted the demon in it, saying, “Whence a disc in the desert? This is not a trodden road, and there is no track of any faring this way. And it could not have fallen unnoticed, being of huge size. And even if it had been lost, the loser would certainly have found it had he returned back to look, because the place is desert. This is a trick of the devil. You will not hinder my purpose by this, Satan; let this thing perish with thee.” And as Antony said this, it disappeared like smoke before the face of the fire.