The Angels of Berwick Law

© Brian Allan 2002

Word count 5,311

Foreword

What follows is one mans version of a series of bizarre encounters with what he believes were the 'hosts of heaven'. He is utterly convinced that this 'host' is extraterrestrial in nature and Christ Himself is likewise by definition an alien. There is a certain logic in this interpretation because if the terms 'extraterrestrials' or 'spacemen' are substituted for many of the expressions used in the bible, then it makes a lot more sense to modern readers. The people who wrote the texts on which the bible is based simply did not have the vocabulary to adequately convey the images they saw to future generations, therefore anything or anyone that came from the sky had to originate in heaven. Included in this article is a verbatim account of a talk given by this man, Russell Penman, at a UFO conference in which he describes his 'conversion'. Since it is verbatim, it includes slang expressions; I have Anglicised or translated these where necessary. While I do not necessarily subscribe to Russell's opinions, nevertheless, they make compelling and fascinating reading.

The Angels of Berwick Law

The hill that is Berwick Law sits hunched against the skyline, a mute, impassive sentinel presiding over the small, Scottish seaside town of North Berwick. Over centuries, the 'Law' has gained a reputation for strange, bizarre, often alarming sightings. Apparitions, floating lights, UFOs, all have allegedly been sighted here, some seen by individuals others by groups of people. Of all the reports, one stands out from the rest; the claims of one man have attracted and focussed the attention of research groups from all over the country. The man is Russell Penman, and the claims? Russell says he can call down 'angels.'

Many hills and mountain ranges have been ascribed as places of legend; traditionally thought to be home to both gods and demons, they were places to be revered and respected. Perhaps the seeds of legend were sown when our ancient ancestors, hypoxic through lack of oxygen, hallucinated strange images and visions, possibly the images were also the result of shamanic experiences using natural hallucinogens. Could the fearsome sight of piercing stabs of wild energy striking at the high ground during thunderstorms have overawed them, sending them cowering in fear to their dwellings at the sight? To them this must have appeared as the work of awesome, powerful and mighty beings. This ancient mythology by association gradually transferred itself to virtually any mound standing proud from the Earth's crust, particularly those that seemed anomalous and out of place; a lone hillock on an otherwise featureless plain.

Such a hill is Berwick Law, although only 615 feet high it still dominates the landscape around the town. The history of North Berwick especially during the 17th century was in many ways in keeping with modern claims regarding Berwick Law: witchcraft. Due to ingrained and widespread superstition and ignorance, there was a continual fear of the occult and the supernatural. This situation was not helped due to the fact that King James the 6th of Scotland and 1st of England had a particular and perhaps unhealthy interest to the point of obsession in the subject of witchcraft. This served to exacerbate an already volatile situation based on fear and ignorance and compounded by the dour taint of Calvinism stalking Scotland at that time. Indeed, such was the rivalry between church and state that both tried to outdo one another in deeds of religious fanaticism.

Unfortunately for the populace, this meant that should the crown try to restrain the worst excesses of witch hunting, the church would urge its ministers to seek out witches in every parish. If on the other hand the church was deemed lax in its efforts, the crown issued decrees beginning a fresh hunt. Between church and state, the entire area was is a state of fear and upheaval for much of the 17th century. Such was the paranoia that it led to the persecution, trial and eventual execution of a group of Berwick women accused by King James of creating a storm and delaying the return of a ship bearing his wife from Denmark. Before departing from this dark era of Scots history it is worth noting that the dour brand of Calvinistic Christianity practised in Scotland at the time was often misogynistic and there was therefore an added incentive to accuse women of being in league with Satan. This work closely paralleled the thinking behind the notorious, earlier Catholic treatise on witchcraft, the 'Malleus Malefacorum' (Hammer of the Witches) penned by two Dominican monks, Spengler and Kramer.

Of course, there are alternative, perhaps more scientific explanations for the birth of the myths and legends; one possibility may lie in the geology beneath the hills and mountains. It is possible, even probable, that the roots of these bizarre sightings and apparitions lie within the multi-faceted arena of electromagnetic radiation in the form of naturally and artificially occurring geo-magnetism. While there is a gradual but marked increase in sightings of alleged 'paranormal' events in recent times, many of the events date back centuries, even millennia. The recent increases are easily explained in terms of artificially generated EM fields caused by - amongst other things - high voltage electricity pylons, commercial and military radar systems, the burgeoning market in Cellphone and microwave masts, local and national radio stations and of course the police and other emergency services. The already huge and still growing number of domestic electrical appliances compounds the situation and this is before taking individual mobile phones into the equation.

A veritable broth of electromagnetic (EM) fields and we, each one of us, lives in it. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that more and more people are succumbing to a condition known as 'electrical hypersensitivity' (EH). Although natural causes of sensitisation still occur, because of abundant artificial sources of EM radiation, people increasingly can and do become sensitised to this recognised medical condition. They display a range of symptoms, i.e.: headaches, nausea, rashes, weakness, the inability to tolerate fluorescent lights and allergies etc. States that at first sight appear to have no obvious cause. Another strange symptom, and one that the sufferer seldom relates to the condition, is the involuntary ability to interact with or create electrical fields. Bear in mind that the human body is an electro-chemical device of infinite subtlety and complexity and external EM fields can and do upset it. Most people have heard of individuals who cannot wear a watch because it either stops or fails to keep time, or in whose presence electrical equipment regularly malfunctions. Television sets mysteriously change channel, light bulbs don't last for any time, the loading drawer on CD players opens and closes by itself etc. As we shall see there may be a rational explanation for this.

In fact, a whole range of physical manifestations, including some that have frequently been attributed to 'poltergeists' and other supposedly ghostly manifestations. While I do not claim this relatively new, or should I say recently recognised, medical condition to be the sole cause of strange and bizarre sightings and events, there can be little doubt that it is a powerful contributing factor. Poltergeist types of activity where household items are seen to move around, doors open and close all with no sign of human agency are a case in point. This unusual condition was discovered by accident when a Canadian researcher John Hutchison witnessed just such anomalous occurrences in his laboratory. These strange events were due to intermodulated EM energy fields generated by electrical equipment within his laboratory. The catalyst in all this was Hutchison himself; he is electrically hypersensitive and his presence in the laboratory caused the anomalous movements to occur. As far as treatment for this condition is concerned, the majority of conventional medical practitioners tend to view sufferers as candidates for neuropsychiatric evaluation. In fact, many other environmentally created conditions, e.g. asthma, sick building syndrome, multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) and chronic fatigue syndrome etc. are often incorrectly attributed to psychological states rather than physical causes.

In past times victims of EH were sensitised by naturally occurring EM fields created by either geo-magnetic 'hotspots' caused by different types of rock and /or magnetic fields created by tectonic movement. Another rather more dramatic, and probably traumatic, cause was by close proximity to lightening strikes. This last method is due to the 'splash' effect created as the massive electrical charge of the lightning bolt earths itself into the ground. One of the mechanisms by which the EH condition manifests is through the presence of magnetite within the human body. Magnetite is a ferrous substance that is present naturally within the body in tiny amounts; it is a factor of the iron present as part of our physiology. In effect, because of elevated levels of magnetite, the EH individuals' body become polarised in its own right and generates its individual magnetic field. This magnetic field interacts, like the effects in Hutchison's lab, with the EM fields created by for example, TV sets etc. It actually reflects the artificial field, intermodulating and redirecting it at the device generating it, causing static sensitive components (integrated circuits are a good example) to malfunction, hence the bizarre behaviour exhibited by TV sets changing channel by themselves.

There is a vast range of recorded symptoms and phenomena associated with EH, particularly hallucinations, which contain all the factors to qualify as a subjective reality. Sight, sound, smell, touch and even taste, all senses are brought onto the equation. Anyone experiencing such a powerful illusion is naturally going to accept that it is real, so real in fact that even when confronted with the truth they often refuse to accept it. This is especially true in cases where due to the type of experience the recipient has received a share of media attention, and or financial reward. In the case of Russell Penman, neither of these parameters is present, if anything, Russell, rather than gain fame has attracted notoriety. For this reason I approached this case with an open mind, the phenomena as described by independent witnesses and the conditions under which it occurs cannot be produced either by deception or sleight of hand. Some of Russell's comments are insightful and revealing; what follows is taken verbatim from a talk given by him at a conference during October 2000

Russell's Account

"I've got an incredible story to tell you, a lot of you will not believe it, but I'm not interested…Jesus says it doesn't matter if they believe you or not Russ, you have to tell them. So…1974, my mate and me (sic) stood outside his house at Dysart and looked up in the sky, and from the North, coming from the North and going to the West was a block. In the block were smaller blocks and each block had a hundred halos in it. They stretched as far as you could see to the West and as far as you could see to the North. We got the corner, as it were, of the block, couldn't see the end of it…halos, right? Wee groups of them, wee blocks of a hundred and there wasn't that in between them, (Russell pinched his fingers together) not one out of line, this was an armada coming in. My mate phoned the observatory in Edinburgh and they said. 'Don't worry son, its only weather balloons'. My mate proceeded to smash up the phone box and generally 'lose the place'.

"I said to myself, this has something to do with God, right? Wee halos, this has something to do with God. That was it; nothing else happened after that, they were moving in, but awful, awful slow. They were above the top of the plough star; they were at the back of the plough star. The star goes up into a bucket shape then you've got a wee pointed one at the top point there, they were coming across at the back of that, right? If they're at the back of the stars that means that the stars that you can see there aren't stars, OK? We'll get that sorted first; nothing happened". (*Presumably Russell means the Plough constellation not a star, BA*)

The narrative jumps forward…

"1985…right? After, well in 1978 my best mate got killed, he got shot by a shotgun, my wife left me, in October, in fact it was today, the very day, today. In 1978 he died, eh, my wife left me, it was Christmas eve; down I went, wasn't getting any better; met another woman, she was just as bad down I went. Umm, down I went, down I went, things can't get any worse, can't get any worse. So eventually in 1985 I couldn't take any more, I said, I can't live any more but I know I'm not allowed and I'd been through this a hundred before, but this is it. I said I know you're out there and I know it's you that's doing this to me and I can't take it any more. You need to show me, if you don't show me a sign, I know your there just now, I'll try to live if you show me, but if you don't show me I'm coming up to get you because I know your there just now. I believe Jesus what he said, 'you're living when you die'. You've got five minutes, that's shouldn't be hard to a man of your calibre I said. You being God and all that, I said I want it sorted just now: two seconds, ten seconds later the skies were opened, right? Blue, it had been raining for three days, from there to Berwick Law, from where I stayed, Dallas Drive at the time. From there, right across to Berwick Law. The point was at Berwick Law, big white cloud over the top of it and the skies were opened…like opened; glass. Opened, blue sky.

In the left there was a fleet of spaceships, not just one or two, from here to Edinburgh all the way along just sticking out of the cloud and no more, all along the one side. One up there was hanging two-thirds out of the cloud and this other one was above the house. Another one came out from between the two of them, stopped in the front of me like that, just stopped and wiggles up and down, then flipped up like that and legged it to Edinburgh, like that, gone. Big one came down, says 'Check me out Russ, right'? Quite the thing, 'Who can bother us Russ'? I just stood there amazed. Looked about, looked up again, looked about, shouted on my girlfriend, kept shouting, she wouldn't come through. 'You'll have to see this,' wouldn't come through. Meanwhile this big ship kept going back and forward, it was a pure silver disc, there were no windows on it, nothing sticking out from it, no jagged bits, nothing, like a discus you would fling. Pure highly polished silver and thin, really thin. I thought, either the folk must have been lying down in it or they're awful wee folk. Meanwhile while all this is going on all these other ones in the cloud were coming and going four on top of each other, the sun was reflecting off them at the back of the house, it was half past five at night, I had just finished my work. All of them, they kept coming, swooping around the house, then the big one, it just flipped up on end and then just up into the clouds and everything came together like that. The rays that were sticking out of the clouds were still here and the ones in the middle were still there then it came together and they just went away. I was knackered to say the least…ahhh, blown out. I said was I right in what I'm thinking. I believe in Jesus and he was a spaceman.

He showed me the spaceships, this is right; 'I am Lord of hosts, father of lights'. So, the Saturday came and I was still walking about numb and I went down to the shops. I went into the shop for my messages and I came out, and I thought why is nobody looking sat this, the huge, huge white light? Sitting right in there middle of the shopping centre. Where I had been knocked down when I was seven years old. Funnily enough the exact spot… [I was] seven years old".

I heard a voice say, 'Do you remember this Russ? I was there at that time'? Right there where I was run over by the car, right there in the middle of the shopping centre and nobody else was looking at it. I was like 'How can nobody see this?' I panicked, I jumped into my car and went to get my camera and get photo's of this, nobody's going to believe this. I drove round and round and I slowed down and looked at it and it was just…a cloud. Pure, white, luminous cloud and it just sat there, huge, eight feet in diameter, no bother, and whoomph, lit up the whole shopping centre. Why nobody was looking at it I don't know. Went up to the house, grabbed my camera and just when I was getting into my cat again, I saw this wee white light, coming from the direction of the shops and I took a photo of it, and I've got the photos. I was just going to take the second photo, when it gave a little squiggle; it did that in a hundred and twenty-fifth of a second, right? It knew when I was going to press the shutter; they know your thoughts, right? And it moved the precise time I went click it went whiz, and then went back again. I never actually saw it moving when I was talking the photo. I went over to my pal's house and it just changed into red, blue, green then it went out. I said 'you're doing my head in; you're doing my head in. I was thinking there must be wee probes out of the spaceship or something like that. I'm just ordinary the same as you all, just ordinary folk, but only because of what I was thinking of in the first place did he start to do these things to me. Since because I was wee I thought, 'Jesus was a spaceman', definite, had to be, this was all working out. This is why Jesus says 'Them that have more will be given, them that have not got, what they have got will be taken from them and given to them that have'. He's talking to the churches and the people who think that they know what's going on. Whereas it's not like that, he's giving it to the likes of me, just, well are you with me, and ordinary folk like my brother and his pals, just ordinary folk.

After that, it like I was pumped up, like I was going to burst, like I was going to explode and the white lights were everywhere, the place was alive with white lights, everywhere I was going they were in front of me. This had been building up with all this happening to me, stress I suppose it would be. It was like they were going 'Russ, calm down, calm down'. I'm going 'I can't calm down', driving everywhere at ninety miles an hour, I crashed my car and that was that, slowed down now right? Nothing but more white lights, more white light, they were coming down to me in the middle of thunderstorms, under the clouds. They could go faster than you could look, you would see them leaving and they were back before your eye could follow them, they're too fast and this is them slowing down so you can see them. I was going home from my work one night in the car, there were three girls in the car, and the lights were following me, one of the girls says 'look at that light there'. It was low down, about a quarter of a mile away, and it was following us on the hospital roof. We stopped at the traffic lights and it stopped. We started to go and it went. We went up the hill and it went, behind us, it went. I said right! Get out, wave to it, I said wave to it, wave to it, see if it does anything. It'll do something, so were all standing on top of the hill waving to it. The girls said 'I'm not doing this' but I said 'Keep waving, keep waving'. It came don to us, twenty feet away from us and I was like wow! I want you I my hands. It came a bit closer, about a foot away from my hands, the girls were at the back of me, and then it shot away. They were all going 'Look, look, look' and we waved to it and it shot back and it stayed there and I ran up to it and I said' I want you in my hands, I want you in my hands' and it went 'uh uh' and it went out. Turned round and I said 'did you see that, did you see that' and they were running up into the house. So I just stood there, I said ' I know your still there, I know you're just doing this to me' I was standing there in the middle of the street like a nutter, 'I know your still there'. I wasn't saying anything; I was just thinking it, right? 'I'll need to see you going away, this is no good, it's doing me head in. It just, 'whooshes' about hundred and fifty yards, it missed the pavement by two inches and turned back on itself and it was out where the jets are, whoosh! just like that. Left a steam trail this time, like someone with a giant paintbrush had done it, it was out there and it had left a steam trail. It was just sitting there waiting on the steam trail, catching up on it, which would have been about another thirty seconds. And it was a yellow halo, right? Like it was on fire, and when I saw it, it knew I had seen it, it did a 'Star Trek' job, just swoosh, offski, gone, I was like Wow! Wow! I've been like…Wow! Ever since

About this time, I messed up and I felt I had to go over the Law. (Berwick Law) because this was where showed me in the first place, over the Law. There's a wee church up there, so I said a prayer and went down the side [of the Law] and it appeared, not long, about thirty seconds or a minute and then it went out again. I said 'Well, that's it he's forgiven me but I'll still have to get punished for what I've done, so I 'got my tatties' again (*note, was punished again, BA*). Then my brother, he started asking, well all my pals thought I was mad, then he got shown, then eight years later it happened to him again and it's never stopped happening to him again since. If you can deal with it, if you ask and you want with all your heart and mind, 'You've got to take the water of life freely' says Jesus. If you ask him, this is the only way to find out if I'm telling you the truth…all you folk… right? Ask him yourself, 'Did Russell tell me the truth, did these things happen to him?' and he'll tell you. If you want this; sorted; if you believe this; sorted, if you can handle this; sorted. It'll maybe not happen for another eight years yet, you'll maybe see something, far away. 'Look the stars are moving. Then they get closer, they get closer, and then they come down to your hand, then you're Wow! You're sitting there and it's a ball of pure white mist, but that's you when your dead; that's your brother; that's Jesus; that's God; that's in every living thing that breathes the air. These white lights, these white lights are angels, they're spirits; they're you when your dead but you're not dead when your dead.

I can tell you this because when they took me up, after all these things had happened, I was going to the airport at half six in the morning, we were suppose to be there but I was late, the usual. I was flooring it, ninety miles an hour job all the way over, it was between Christmas and New Year, nothing there, no cars on the road. My pal, a merchant seaman, he had to go to Panama to pick up a boat, there were three of us in the car and I was talking about Jesus being a spaceman. I still didn't have it sussed yet, like Jesus isn't a spaceman. He was made in space and he was born on Earth, he was an introduction for us to the spacemen: the host. You don't need bodies, but you can do things with them, right? Anyway, on the way to the airport, fire, unfolding itself, with brightness round about it and it came from the north, Ezekiel…right? That was six hundred and fifty years before Jesus', Ezekiel; Nimrod; not in the bible Nimrod; and Zoroaster; not in the bible either. Zoroaster was the gaffer of the Magi, right? The three wise men that the angel came down to, the white lights came down to them and told them 'Follow me'. I've seen the boys arguing in the church on TV, I just couldn't believe it, what they were saying. This is grown men we're talking about here, not a clue. I had realised these things since I was that size and then I was shown that they were true. Obviously he's put them in my head from I was that size anyway to bring me on, to be this. It's his entire plan and its all his doing, it's to do with God and nothing goes past him, nothing happens down here but he knows about it or he's got something to do with it. Now, if you can savvy that, and soak it up you are going to be better folk, you are going to be better off, you are going to have it sussed.

What you have to do now is go and read it in the bible. Jesus tells you these things, he'll tell you and if you read it, it'll jump right out at you. Corinthians, you read Corinthians; there are bodies celestial and there are bodies terrestrial, they differ, spirits are host. Put it this way; God's a spirit, sperm, body, and genetics. God being a spirit doesn't carry genetics about in his pocket. He has these in the host, 'I want you to make this; I want you to make that. This is the design, do this. My spirits, the battery, the power, the thought, my design, on you go, my creature. You didn't evolve from monkeys there's nothing evolved, you didn't evolve from anything, and you were made specifically for the job. Like the mountains in the middle of Africa, all the little creatures, desert on one side and jungle on the other, the have to live on this bit, how did they get there? They didn't evolve they were placed there; they were beamed down, beamed up, beamed down easy as that. God is lord of hosts, father of lights. If you can understand that, then Jesus says he will give you the knowledge.

What about Enoch? His body was never found; his body would have been lying there if God had taken him up in spirit. You don't need a body when you're a spirit; I didn't need a body when I was a spirit; I was taken up in spirit'.

As we have seen, there is ample biblical evidence to support claims like those made by Russell, up to and including alien abduction. Jacobs Ladder is an excellent example, 'And he, [Jacob] dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending upon it. And, behold, the Lord stood above it and said…thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and though shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and thee and thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest…and Jacob wakened out of his sleep…and he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place!'[Genesis28: 12-17] When Russell alludes to Christ himself being an ET, once again there is biblical evidence to support this, consider the virgin birth, 'The angel Gabriel was sent from God unto the city of Galilee, named Nazareth to a virgin who was espoused to a man named Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And the Angel came unto her, and said 'hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee…and when she saw him she was troubled at his saying…and the Angel said unto her, 'Fear not Mary, for thou hast found favour with God'. The story goes on to reveal the purpose of the visit. 'And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus'. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest'…Then said Mary unto the angel. How shall this be since that I know not a man? And the Angel answered and said to her, 'The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee, therefore also that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called The Son of God'. And Mary said 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word'. We can see that Mary agrees to become a 'handmaid', which also meant concubine, she also agrees to be impregnated and bear the king of Israel. The story of Christ's birth is another example of either scriptural hyperbole or evidence of otherworldly assistance. The Star of Bethlehem that led the Three Wise Men to Christ's birthplace cannot have been a star and therefore by inference may have been some type of spacecraft. It is interesting to note that along with the implication that that the entire village was in suspended animation during the birth, two other apocryphal books (Protevangelion and Infancy) mention lights and shining clouds in the sky.

Conclusion

Whatever the historical and biblical evidence, Russell's experience although highly subjective is utterly convincing to him at least and I have no doubt that he is completely sincere in his beliefs. According to his account, other people have witnessed the 'host' and been privy to sightings of UFO's and other anomalous events. More recently, he claims to have video-taped evidence lights in the sky that he interprets as 'Motherships' with attendant smaller craft entering and leaving them, suspended in the night sky over the River Forth. Certainly the tapes show something, but what the 'something' actually is, is open to various interpretations. Nevertheless, what he describes deserves close scrutiny, and when compared with other, similar accounts, it appears that whatever is creating the phenomena is not a local occurrence. Hopefully sustained investigation can supply some badly needed answers.