Once again I am indebted to a good friend for bringing another interesting painting to my attention, one that has fascinated UFO enthusiasts who went looking for historical evidence. So here we have a 1350 fresco from the Visoki Decani Monestary in Kosovo, Serbia, artist unknown, with two details highlighted below:
“Aha!” say UFO fans: spaceships at the Crucifixion. Let’s start by getting something out of the way that I discussed fully in a previous article: this was painted 13 centuries after the event, so it cannot be taken as evidence of what happened on that day without us being completely irrational. So let’s dismiss it as evidence of UFOs actually being at the Crucifixion immediately, because that would be a foolish line of reasoning.
What remains is to look at the intentions of the artist. Was he trying to portray spaceships in his painting? Might the artist have seen UFOs being piloted in this way, and incorporated that into his art?
The first problem with that idea is that they aren’t the same as each other. If these are space shuttles, why wouldn’t they look the same? Why would one of the pilots be facing the back of his ship, and flying it backward? Is he showing off? So we’ve got a problem there straight away.
Now look closely at the “ship” on the right. Does something look familiar, in that shape? Yes, it’s a crescent moon. What we have here is in fact a representation of the sun and the moon. Have a look at the following quote, from the Gospel of Luke:
It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two.
So the artist here is representing that aspect of the Crucifixion by showing the sun and the moon both present in the sky at the same time. Why do they have people inside them? Well, you’ve heard of the man in the moon? That’s very much a Renaissance art thing. Here’s one from 1463 that shows the moon with a face:
And here’s a German woodcut from 1493 showing the sun and the moon with faces. If you do a search online you will find endless similar examples:
Now the interesting thing about the Crucifixion example is that it shows whole humans (not alien blobs or Cybermen, note) inside the sun and the moon, and I haven’t found any other example of that in Renaissance art. Use the comments section if you know of any. But either way, I don’t think we can reasonably take much from that other than an artist trying to do something a bit different and avoid producing an entirely derivative piece of art. Then again, looking at other areas of the painting, such as Jesus’ feet standing comfortably on a platform, might just lead us to another conclusion. Whoever this anonymous painter was, maybe he just wasn’t a very good artist. RP
Further reading: The UFO Baptism
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The View from the Junkyard 
I remember a picture book with some historical artwork of possible ET encounters. At least I can remember one picture from that book where the ET or ET ship resembled the Monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey, which as I remember was floating in the air and wrapped in vines. This makes me contemplate even more now how ancient artists could depict such possible ET encounters for which SF, like Scaroth’s scroll picture in Dr. Who: City Of Death, can always make use of.
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The artist who knew too much ?
Or perhaps we could rephrase that as the artist that knew things he could not possibly know … unless ?
There are some subtle details that the artist has incorporated that does not stand up to the explanation you have described.
There is a symbol on the leading craft. This is extremely significant. And opens a whole can of worms that leads down an extraordinary path.
That symbol is very ancient, but hadn’t been seen in this form for nearly 3000 years. It is the Sumerian symbol for their gods “Those that from heaven to earth came”. This symbol eventually evolved into a crucifix. The symbol that the crucifix evolved from, the civilisation of the birthplace of Abram, was lost to the sands 3000 years ago, and was not uncovered until just over 100 years ago, in Iraq. This same symbol was engraved into the side of the craft encountered at Rendlesham Forest. It is also evident in the painting that the artist included some sort of control mechanism for the occupant.
If all this holds any relevance, then the second following object depicted by the artist is the comet, or wandering star, spoken of in Sumerian writings. The home of their gods. “Those that from heaven to earth came”.
I have also heard a theory that the symbol depicts a crater on the moon, in the same vein as your suggestion. However, no-one had seen a crater on the moon until the development of the telescope 300 years after this painting.
Irrationally, the artist could have no knowledge of the things I have suggested … unless …. someone knew all the time ?
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Thanks for commenting! I have some other articles in this series you might find interesting, and I am planning to write a few more when I can find the time: https://junkyard.blog/history/
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What symbol are you talking about, by the way? The Sumerian cuneiform for Anu is the closest I can find, but it’s clearly not a match for the star symbol in the painting.
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I’m very religious, but if anyone can think that we are God’s only creation, well I think that thinking is a bit dated. To think that the massive Universe that God created and that we are the only creation in it seems to me to be a little naive. If Sience and religion stopped butting heads and arguing about the creation of Earth and the Universe they might actually see all the evidence that has been right in front of us for thousands of years,were never going to evolve to the next step if both sides don’t give a little and realize that there’s misinformation and teachings that aren’t absolutely correct and accept the fact that the Scientific world and the Religious world might have different outcomes then what might be in writing. Humanity has a hard time accepting anything different or paranormal,they don’t want anything to change and that is actually hurting Mankind. People of the Church want to stick to the Bible word for word and People of Science don’t want to accept anything else except for what they think they know.
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Welcome to the Junkyard, and thanks for your comment. I think most reasonable scientists and reasonable people with religious beliefs (bearing in mind plenty of people are both) already fit the description of what you advocate, and I also think it’s important to recognise that nothing in my article claimed or suggested that aliens do not exist at all. I was simply shining the light of some facts on a what is basically a conspiracy theory about a work of art, built on (perhaps wilful) ignorance of historical context. So what we have here is an ignorance of history, not science, fuelling a theory that collapses under basic scrutiny.
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