In the dusty lands of ancient Babylon, a prophet named Ezekiel looked to the skies—and what he described has baffled scholars and stoked conspiracy theories for centuries. His vision of “wheels within wheels,” accompanied by strange, glowing beings and thundering skies, has long been interpreted as divine. But to modern eyes—and UFO enthusiasts—it reads like a close encounter of the fourth kind.

The Vision in the Sky

Ezekiel chapter 1 doesn’t pull any punches. The prophet describes a whirlwind coming from the north, a massive cloud flashing with fire and brightness all around. From within the fire emerges four living creatures, each with multiple faces and wings. But then—Ezekiel notices something else:

“The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the color of a beryl: and they four had one likeness: and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel.”
— Ezekiel 1:16 (KJV)

These wheels could move in any direction without turning. Their rims were high and awesome, full of eyes all around. And wherever the creatures moved, the wheels moved with them. When the creatures rose from the ground, so did the wheels.

It doesn’t take a modern UFO researcher long to raise an eyebrow at that.

Divine Chariot or Flying Saucer?

Traditional interpretations suggest Ezekiel was witnessing a divine throne-chariot—an otherworldly vehicle carrying the presence of God. The “eyes” could represent awareness or divine perception. The multiple faces on the creatures might symbolize omnipresence.

But alternative theorists ask: What if this wasn’t just metaphor? Could Ezekiel have witnessed an actual craft of non-human origin? The wheel-within-a-wheel construction, multi-directional flight, glowing lights, loud noise—these aren’t far off from what modern witnesses report in UFO sightings.

Some researchers propose that Ezekiel, a man of his time with no concept of aircraft, described what he saw using the only frame of reference he had—wheels, fire, and heavenly beings. Was he attempting to describe advanced technology in the only way he could?

The Ancient Astronaut Theory

This vision sits at the heart of the “ancient astronaut” hypothesis—the idea that extraterrestrial beings visited Earth in antiquity and were interpreted as gods. Figures like Erich von Däniken, in his controversial book Chariots of the Gods?, claim that Ezekiel’s wheels weren’t visions at all, but documented encounters with spacecraft.

NASA engineer Josef F. Blumrich even tried to reconstruct Ezekiel’s vision into technical diagrams. His analysis, while widely dismissed by biblical scholars, fueled the imagination of countless UFO researchers and believers.

Eyes in the Sky—or in the Mind?

Skeptics, of course, offer psychological and symbolic explanations. They argue that Ezekiel’s visions are highly stylized prophetic language, never meant to be taken literally. The “eyes” may symbolize omniscience; the wheels, divine mobility; the creatures, aspects of God’s nature. It’s apocalyptic literature—coded, not concrete.

Still, one thing is certain: Ezekiel’s wheels have rolled straight into the center of paranormal speculation. Whether they’re divine metaphors, mental projections, or real encounters with something otherworldly, they continue to challenge how we interpret the mysteries of the past.

Could a 6th-century BCE prophet have recorded one of the earliest UFO sightings in history? Or are we simply projecting our own cosmic questions onto a spiritual vision?

Either way, Ezekiel gave us a riddle that continues to spin—like a wheel within a wheel.