(John Collins is a regular contributor to the jonestown report. His collections of articles for this site may be found here. More information about Rev. William Branham prepared by John Collins may be found at the informational website, https://william-branham.org. His latest book is Preacher Behind the White Hoods: A Critical Examination of William Branham and His Message.)
In the spring of 1978, just a few months before the Jonestown Massacre, 14-year-old Jonestown resident Alfred March approached Rev. Jim Jones to discuss a subject that was troubling his mind: Unidentified Flying Objects.[1] Alfred had recently heard information released by the United States Air Force describing the incredible speed and maneuverability of UFOs, and wanted to get Jones’ spiritual insight. Another person joined in the conversation, expressing fears that the United States Government would soon develop a weapon in response. Instead of responding to the question, however, Jones suddenly felt a rise in blood pressure and changed the subject.[2]
It wasn’t the first time that UFOs and thoughts of extraterrestrial beings had impacted Jones. During the early years of his ministry, Jim Jones was a recognized leader[3] of a religious sect that was obsessed with the UFO phenomenon. After the public perception of UFOs turned from excited curiosity to fear of invasion from extraterrestrials, leaders of the sect seized the opportunity to push their agenda through fears of apocalypse. By 1961, Jones was so convinced of their doomsday predictions that he began claiming that extraterrestrials were warning him of attacks on Chicago and Indianapolis.[4] Their sect became known as “The Message.”[5]
Like the recent media frenzy created by the release of the National Intelligence report on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,[6] the 1950s saw Unidentified Flying Objects become a hot topic of discussion. Television, radio, newspapers, and magazines were publishing even the slightest bit of information – whether true or not – about “flying saucers.” Why? The subject matter sold copies, and quickly! Even within the religious community, the mystery surrounding the phenomenon could be used to attract itching ears and wandering eyes with open purses for freewill offerings – if the End of Days was at hand, people had no use for money. Multiple issues[7] of The Voice of Healing publication (which advertised revivalist leaders in The Message) used the topic of flying saucers for fearmongering and to substantiate end-of-the-world doomsday prophecies.[8]
In light of that fact, it should come as no surprise that the history of The Message sect aligns with the UFO phenomenon. The term “flying saucer” was coined in 1947 after Kenneth Arnold noticed flying objects moving “like saucers skipping on water” and newspapers mistakenly stated that he saw “saucer-shaped” objects.[9] That same year, the leader of The Message sect, William Branham, changed his stage persona to include an “angelic visitation” as part of his “faith healing” performances.[10] In 1948, the excitement UFOs increased to a new level when Colonel William Nuckols admitted that the United States Air Force was investigating the “saucers.[11] That same year, the healing revivals led by William Branham[12] merged with the “Latter Rain”[13] sect to create the “Latter Rain Revival” of 1948.[14] Over time, the “Latter Rain Message” became simply known as “The Message,” which Jones later referred to in private letters.[15] In the years leading up to Jones being ordained into the sect through Rev. Joseph Mattsson-Boze in Chicago,[16] the Air Force testing greatly intensified the fear of invasion. Dummies with latex skin and aluminum bones were dropped across New Mexico to identify ways for pilots to survive falls from a plane – causing misinformation that aliens were falling from the skies in an unseen war with the military.[17] Leaders of the sect began claiming that “wee men” were sent to the Church to test “the power of God.”[18]
Jim Jones became a familiar face in The Message as early as 1951 when he started holding revivals of his own in Los Angeles, California hosted by the Rev. Orval Lee Jaggers. Jaggers was an editor for Branham’s Voice of Healing publication[19] and shared the belief that UFOs were a “revelation of God’s power.”[20] The Voice of Healing publication thrilled its readers with doomsday countdowns,[21] clouds that allegedly looked like Jesus descending in an “imminent” return,[22] and “spiritual” explanations of the “Mystery of the Flying Saucers.”[23] Leaders of the sect claimed that UFOs were “celestial warnings of an impending Divine interruption of the course of world events”[24] – or in simple terms, Armageddon.[25] These extraterrestrial “wee men” in “flying saucers” were not to be feared, but were sent to warn members of the sect that the End of Days was near. Those who did not heed their warning would be eternally doomed.[26] Over time, the UFOs made their way into the sect’s theology by interchanging the word “sign” in the Bible with “flying saucer” when reading passages of apocalyptic prophecy.[27] Gordon Lindsay, Branham’s campaign manager and publisher of The Voice of Healing, wrote several articles and books about UFOs to further promote the sect’s doctrine of UFOs.[28] Branham began to claim that humans were made of “cosmic light” which would transition to another dimension,[29] and that dispensational “ages” were led by a prophet of “light.”[30]
In 1956, when it was announced that Jim Jones would host the international convention of ministers at the Cadle Tabernacle in Indianapolis,[31] the sect began claiming that along with the UFO “signs” in the sky, God would soon be showing signs on the earth in the form of a tidal wave that would destroy Chicago,[32] home of Joseph Mattsson-Boze’s Philadelphia Church. According to William Branham, Chicago was the focal point of Nahum’s prophecy[33] [34] in the Old Testament book of Nahum – instead of the city of Nineveh and the Assyrian Empire as described in the book itself.[35] Chicago had already seen a “freak wave” in 1954,[36] and because of its unexplained nature, the sect claimed that God himself was coming to destroy Chicago in the form of a much larger tidal wave. Later that year after Government officials began to release the information about UFOs[37] collected under code name Project Blue Book,[38] leaders of the sect used the information as vindication of their UFO doctrine.[39] They also began claiming that just as the UFO sightings had increased, the signs on the earth would increase in the form of tidal waves that would kill thousands of people.[40]
Chicago was obviously never destroyed by tidal wave, but that did not lessen the impact that the doomsday predictions had on Jim Jones, or decrease the number of doomsday threats raised by the sect. Even though Peoples Temple had left The Message to join the Disciples of Christ in 1959,[41] Jones apparently remained interested in the doomsday predictions of The Message. In 1961, William Branham informed sect members in Chicago that Chicagoans were “cannon fodder” – not worth saving – and that they would soon be destroyed by atomic bomb[42]instead of a tidal wave. That same year – and shortly before Jim Jones and his family fled the United States to South America[43] – Jones confessed his belief of extraterrestrials and fear of the destruction of Chicago by atomic bomb to Archie Ijames, a leader in Peoples Temple.[44] According to Jones, he had received this information from an “extraterrestrial being.” While the mystery of the UFOs may never be solved, answers to the mystery of who these “extraterrestrial beings” were may be found within the transcripts of recorded statements of Jones and Branham.
The Message sect that strongly influenced Jones’ theology during the 1950s claimed that humans had “lost [their] origin” in the Garden of Eden and historically did not always assume the same form. Instead, they were vessels containing other beings and originally took the form of other animals. According to Branham, they may have taken the form of monkeys, apes, and even bears.[45] Branham also taught that his own human vessel came from “another dimension that the world knows nothing about.”[46] As late as 1972, Jones still taught Branham’s theology of the evolution of man, from the animal to the extraterrestrial/extra-dimensional.[47] According to Branham’s Manifested Sons of God Theology,[48] humans were vessels for the manifestation of God, some having more “manifestation” and some less. Jones believed that both he and his son Stephan had a high level of “manifestation,” evolved from the “extra-dimensional/extraterrestrial.”[49] Leaders in The Message taught that God Himself was in the “seventh dimension,” and humans were vessels made of “cosmic light and petroleums [sic]” in the present dimension.[50]
Throughout his life, Jones continued to instruct Peoples Temple members in their journey into the “higher dimensions of an extraterrestrial world.”[51] Like Branham,[52] Jones claimed that his “healing power” came from another dimension (extraterrestrial),[53] and that he had been visited by beings from those higher dimensions described by the Apostle Paul as “third heavens.”[54] Though Jones did not mention these beings by the names of their “earthly vessels,” he was describing theology introduced to him by William Branham. Branham frequently claimed to have had out-of-body-experiences in the “third heavens,”[55] and claimed that when he performed his healings on stage, he entered other dimensions[56] and spoke with the “voice of God”[57] while teaching.
In February of 1963, while Jim Jones and his family were living in Brazil, a set of spectacular cloud formations in the shape of “giant smoke rings” floated across the state of Arizona. The largest of the two was 26 miles high and 30 miles across – much larger than any cloud should be and at a much higher altitude.[58] UFO chaser[59] James McDonald, researching the strange formation as professor of meteorology and climatology at the University of Arizona, was unaware that Vandenberg Air Force Base was testing intercontinental ballistic missiles[60] [61] on the day the cloud appeared.[62] When McDonald calculated the cloud’s altitude at 140,000 feet – 40,000 feet higher than any cloud previously reported[63] – it set both the UFO and The Message communities ablaze.
Though William Branham was in Houston, Texas at the time of the missile detonation,[64] he began claiming that the “cloud” was really a “pyramid” of angels[65] from the other dimension that came down to visit him after another unknown being allegedly gave him a physical “sword,”[66] and instructed him to open up the apocalyptic seven seals from the Book of Revelation in the Bible.[67] Branham’s UFO theology had become more strongly focused on doomsday events during Jones’ time in South America, and he had begun claiming that UFOs were angels sent to investigate before the final destruction, similar to the angels that visited Abraham before the Biblical destruction of Sodom.[68] Though it is evident that Branham believed himself symbolically to be the “Abraham” from the passage, [69] it was also evident that Jim Jones did not. To Jones, it would have felt more like he was the symbolic Abraham, and he needed to separate himself from the Biblical Lot (Branham) to leave for the “promised land,” which would eventually become Jonestown, Guyana.
Whether or not Jim Jones’ decision to move Peoples Temple to Guyana was influenced by The Message, after his return to the United States, he did just that. The same year of Branham’s alleged angelic visitation that formed the cloud rings, Jones returned with his family from Brazil to the United States. Two months later, Jones was ordained as a minister by the Disciples of Christ, and by July of 1965 Peoples Temple moved from Indianapolis, Indiana to Ukiah, California, far away from the blast radius of the “doomed” Chicago. Branham had already moved his family away from Jeffersonville, Indiana in 1963.[70]
Like Abraham parting with Lot in the Old Testament, Jim Jones did part with William Branham after learning that Branham allegedly did not believe the Bible.[71] That does not necessarily mean that Jones fully abandoned Branham’s unusual theology, however. Jones later admitted to agreeing with Branham, claiming that King James “put lies in the Bible,” and for the rest of his ministerial career Jones continued to teach Branham’s doctrines on dispensationalism, which claimed that each “dispensation” must have a “prophet”[72] to rightly divide the truth from the error.[73] In Jones’ eyes, Branham’s “age,” or “dispensation” ended with his death in 1965. Jones then assumed his position as “prophet God of light” for his “age,” which he referred to as the “revolutionary age.”[74] It also does not mean that Jones had become atheist or non-Christian in the literal sense; Jones remained within the boundaries of Branham’s theology concerning the “prophet” for a dispensation; He did abandon parts of the King James Bible, but the Bible itself was not necessary under the Manifested Sons of God theology. Jones was the Bible, the Word of God – He was the fulfillment of the Word, or Bible, in what he believed to be his current dispensation in his current dimension. He believed others would rise after him, in another dispensation, possibly in another life, to be the Word of God to their people.
Man must live by every word. They say, well, what is the Word of God then? How do I know? I just told you. I am the fulfillment of that in this dispensation. You can be the fulfillment in your dispensation.[75]
REFERENCES
[1] Q590 Transcript. Accessed 2021, Aug 9 from https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=27475. Alfred March: “Well, Dad, the thing I was going to say about television was already said, but Lew [Jones] asked me to say that they use it for propaganda, and that they said that they was going to get everybody having a television, even the poor people, and I had another thing I was going to say, they said that UFO’s come, and you had said, they come in groups of four and sixteen, and the Air Force has tried to go out and catch up with them, but they went up to them, [but] they went fast or sometimes, they just went up higher, they just completely stopped.”
[2] Q590 Transcript. Accessed 2021, Aug 9 from https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=27475. Another person: “I want to add on to what Alfred has said, in the UFO’s. America already knows that there’s UFOs, and they trying to find out if it’s going to help capitalism or if it’s going to destroy it. And if it ain’t gone help them none, then they gone try and make some kind of weapon that could destroy them.” Jones: “I don’t know, I think I ought to have something to eat, probably, putting this stuff on, plus they ought to have the blood pressure pill there, as my blood pressure seems to be going up. I missed that. What was that, sweetie? I missed it.”
[3] Branham, William. 1956, Oct 2. Accessed 2021, Aug 9 from https://william-branham.org/site/transcript/56-1002A.”Happy to see, today, is our host pastor, Brother James Jones, from Indianapolis, back there.”
[4] Reiterman, Tim. 1982. Raven. “In October 1961, Jones apparently was ’hearing’ what he had told Ijames were voices from extraterrestrial beings. One day as he strode into the house and started up the stairway, he had wheeled around suddenly, holding his eyes. He had seen a big flash of light, he told his people: a vision of a nuclear explosion in Chicago that burned down within miles of Indianapolis. Indianapolis too would come under attack. To religious people, this vision of apocalypse summoned up terrible images of hell on earth, of the judgment day, of fear. Coming from Jim Jones, one who had healed and revealed so expertly in the past, the warning assumed prophetic proportions.”
[5] Collins, John. Duyzer, Peter. The Message Connection of Jim Jones and William Branham. Accessed 2021, Aug 9 from https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=65112. “In a handwritten note from Rev. Jim Jones to Earl Jackson, believed to be dated between 1957 and 1965, Jones refers to a movement that he describes ‘the Message’.”
[6] 2021, Jun 25. Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. Accessed 2021, Aug 9 from https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf
[7] Lindsay, Gordon. 1952, Oct. The Voice of Healing. What is the Mystery of the Flying Saucers. Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from https://william-branham.org/site/resource?key=voh_1952_10_october.pdf&parent=voice_of_healing&voh=true. “TWO YEARS ago we carried an article on THE PROPHETIC SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FLYING SAUCERS. {…} THERE ARE FLYING SAUCERS!”
[8] Ex: Lindsay, Gordon. 1952, Oct. The Voice of Healing. What is the Mystery of the Flying Saucers? Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from https://william-branham.org/site/resource?key=voh_1952_10_october.pdf&parent=voice_of_healing&voh=true. “The Flying Saucers are a mystery that none of the learned of this world is able to explain. The explanation may be only found in the words of Jesus, ‘Signs shall there be from heaven.’ What is the purpose of these signs? They are to warn men of the coming of judgment.”
[9] History of UFOs. Accessed 2021, Aug 9 from https://www.history.com/topics/paranormal/history-of-ufos. “The first well-known UFO sighting occurred in 1947, when businessman Kenneth Arnold claimed to see a group of nine high-speed objects near Mount Rainier in Washington while flying his small plane. Arnold estimated the speed of the crescent-shaped objects as several thousand miles per hour and said they moved ‘like saucers skipping on water.’ In the newspaper report that followed, it was mistakenly stated that the objects were saucer-shaped, hence the term flying saucer.”
[10] Collins, John. 2020. Preacher Behind the White Hoods: A Critical Examination of William Branham and his Message. “By 1946, he [William Branham] was holding ‘healing revivals’ all across the United States. In the fall of 1946, W. E. Kidson launched a ‘healing’ campaign that would quickly change William Branham from a small-town preacher to an internationally recognized ‘faith healer.’
“When I thought about the ‘prophet’s’ early years as a ‘faith healer’, in the ‘Message’, I thought about late 1947 and 1948. We were told that an ‘angel’ gave him his ‘gift of healing’ in May of 1947.”
[11] Checking Flying Saucers, Air Force Colonel Admits. 1948, Jul 29. The Cincinnati Enquirer.
[12] Liardon, Roberts. 2000. God’s Generals. “Branham became the leader in the Voice of Healing revival, which originated in the late forties.”
[13] Crowder, John. 2006. Miracle Workers, Reformers, and the New Mystics. “Known simply as the healing revival, Voice of Healing Revival, or Latter Rain Revival.”
[14] The Latter Rain. Accessed 2021, Aug 9 from https://latter-rain.com/eschae/latter.htm. “a sectarian movement that started in 1948.”
[15] Jones, James. Note to Earl Jackson. Accessed 2021, Aug 10 from https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=13782.
[16] For more info see. The “Full Gospel” Origins of Peoples Temple: https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=92702.
[17] History of UFOs. Accessed 2021, Aug 9 from https://www.history.com/topics/paranormal/history-of-ufos. “The flames of conspiracy were further fanned in the 1950s, when dummies with latex ‘skin’ and aluminum ‘bones’ that looked eerily like aliens fell from the sky across New Mexico and were hurriedly picked up by military vehicles. To those who believed in the earlier Roswell sightings, this seemed like a government cover-up. For the Air Force, these ‘dummy drops’ were a way to test new ways for pilots to survive falls.”
[18] Branham, William. 1955, Feb 23. Job. Accessed 2021, Aug 9 from https://william-branham.org/site/transcript/55-0223. “All these things coming up like little saucers—flying saucers is going to come to the church, and little wee men coming through testing the power of God, all this fanaticism, stay in the Word. Said, “Stay right there.” Don’t you go from every tossed about here, and there. Stay right with the Word; believe the Word. All right.”
[19] 1951, Jan. Associate Editors. Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from https://william-branham.org/site/resource?key=voh_1951_01_january.pdf&parent=voice_of_healing&voh=true. The Voice of Healing. (Listed as O. L. Jaggers).
[20] The Universal World Church (Hawaii Fellowship). Accessed 2019, May 27 from http://www.letusreason.org/Cults2.htm. His belief in astrology was confirmed through occult teachings which included that UFO’s were a revelation of God’s power.
[21] Ex: Lindsay, Gordon. November in Prophecy. 1948, Nov. The Voice of Healing. Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from https://william-branham.org/site/resource?key=voh_1948_11_november.pdf&parent=voice_of_healing&voh=true. “The cold war is on now – the hour approaches for World War III to break in its fury.”
[22] Ex: Signs In Earth, Air and Sky Foretell Imminent Return of Christ. 1951, Sept. Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from https://william-branham.org/site/resource?key=voh_1951_09_september.pdf&parent=voice_of_healing&voh=true. The Voice of Healing (Front Cover).
[23] What Is the Mystery of the Flying Saucers? 1952, Oct. Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from https://william-branham.org/site/resource?key=voh_1952_10_october.pdf&parent=voice_of_healing&voh=true. The Voice of Healing (Cover photo).
[24] Lindsay, Gordon. What Is the Mystery of the Flying Saucers? 1952, Oct. The Voice of Healing. Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from https://william-branham.org/site/resource?key=voh_1952_10_october.pdf&parent=voice_of_healing&voh=true.
[25] Branham, William. 1953, Dec 1. God’s Provided Way. Accessed 2021, Aug 9 from https://table.branham.org. “flying saucers through the air and everything else. Jesus said, “There’d be signs in the heaven above and in the earth below, pillars of fire and vapors of smoke; it shall come to pass before the great and terrible day of the Lord shall come.”
[26] Branham, William. 1955, May 22. The Ark. Accessed 2021, Aug 9 from https://william-branham.org/site/transcript/55-0522. “He is in the world today, showing signs and wonders {…} Signs! Signs of flying saucers through the air, where even the Pentagon and all don’t know what to think of it, ‘Signs in the heaven above. ‘ ‘And on earth,’ the healing of the sick, the raising of the dead, the opening of the blinded eyes, the casting out of evil spirits, the Gospel being preached, signs before His Coming! “Not willing that any should perish, but that all might humbly, sweetly bow to repentance.’ But, those who reject Christ, have to walk blind.”
[27] Ex: Branham, William. 1955, May 22. The Junction of Time. Accessed 2021, Aug 9 from https://william-branham.org/site/transcript/56-0115. “And it shall come to pass,” saith God, “in the last days, I’ll pour out My Spirit. Your sons and daughters shall prophesy,” prophets promised. “Your young men shall see visions. And I’ll show wonders in the heavens above,” flying saucers and everything.”
[28] Example Books: The Mystery of the Flying Saucers in the Light of the Bible, 1954. The Antichrists Have Come, 1958. The Signs of the Times in the Heavens, 1972. Example Voice of Healing articles: Signs in the Heavens, 1953. The Mystery of the Flying Saucers, 1954. Further Developments on the Flying Saucers, 1954. Men in the Flying Saucers Identified, 1954. Flying Saucers, Atomic Bombs and the Second Coming of Christ, 1955.
[29] Branham, William. 1955, Apr 3. Fellowship by Redemption. 55-0403. After you go out of this body, out of cosmic light and petroleums, and what you’re made up of, and you go into the fourth dimension; out of that, into the fifth dimension, then the sixth dimension. Then, God is in the seventh. You’re right under His altar.”
[30] Branham, William. 1964, Mar 12. Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from https://william-branham.org/site/transcript/64-0312. “Moses was the light of his age. Jeremiah was the light of his age. It was the God’s light shining forth for the Word that was promised for that age. Every age has its promised Word. God sends His prophets and reveals that Word; vindicates His prophet, first, then reveals that Word and makes It live.”
[31] Salvation-Healing Campaigns of the Voice of Healing Evangelists: William Branham. 1956, Jun. The Voice of Healing. “Host pastor: Rev. James Jones.”
[32] Branham, William. 1956, Apr 4. The Infallibility of God’s Spoken Word. Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from https://william-branham.org/site/transcript/56-0404. “flying saucers and everything, all kinds of mystic signs in the heavens above. Signs on the earth below, there’ll be sea a roaring, tidal waves breaking along Chicago.”
[33] Branham, William. 1956, Jan 29. The Supernatural. 56-0129. “See, Nahum called them broad ways. And then standing on the Outer Drive in Chicago I thought of that many time, how that a three and four abreast going each way, the broad ways.”
[34] Branham, William. 1957, Jul 14. As The Eagle Stirreth Up Her Nest. Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from https://william-branham.org/site/transcript/57-0714. “That great eagle called Nahum, four thousand years ago, went up so high in the Spirit of God until he seen Outer Drive in Chicago, four thousand years later. Said, ‘The chariots shall rage in the broad ways: they shall run like lightning, they shall seem like torches, they’ll justle one against another.’”
[35] Nahum 1:1. “A prophecy concerning Nineveh.”
[36] Briscoe, Tony. Lake Michigan’s deadly ‘freak wave’ of 1954 is Chicago folklore. Turns out it was a meteotsunami. And they happen pretty often. 2019, Apr 25. Chicago Tribune.
[37] Ruppelt, Edward Cap. 1956. The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects.
[38] Project BLUE BOOK – Unidentified Flying Objects. Accessed 2021, Aug 10 from https://www.archives.gov/research/military/air-force/ufos .
[39] Branham, William. 1956, Nov 25. A Blushing Prophet. Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from https://table.branham.org. “You seen it in the paper the other day where they’re requiring science, the pentagon, to answer the flying saucers. It wasn’t myth. It wasn’t something it imagined. It was real. It was an intelligence. They flew in battle formation. They could stop. They could start. They could stop. They could tell. It was an intelligence. They know it. The people laughed. They said, ‘Flying saucers?’ made a fun out of it.”
[40] Branham, William. 1956, Dec 9. Jehovah Jireh. Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from https://william-branham.org/site/transcript/56-1209E. “Great sights in the air, fearful sights in the skies, flying saucers, all kinds of things in the air, man’s heart failing… More heart trouble than anything else today, perplexed of time, The sea a roaring, great tidal waves breaking the banks of the seas that’s never been known in history, killing thousands.”
[41] 100 Events in History of Peoples Temple. Accessed 2021, Aug 10 from https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Timeline100.pdf.
[42] Branham, William. 1961, Apr 27. Only Believe. Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from https://william-branham.org/site/transcript/61-0427. “Now, Father, we’re once more again in this great crossroads of the world here tonight, Chicago, Illinois. How people has longed to say, ‘Oh, if it could be shook, if it could be shook…’ O God, that atomic fodder running out there on the street will never be shook. It’ll be shook with an atomic bomb.”
[43] 100 Events in History of Peoples Temple.
[44] Reiterman, Tim. 1982. Raven. In October 1961, Jones apparently was “hearing” what he had told Ijames were voices from extraterrestrial beings. One day as he strode into the house and started up the stairway, he had wheeled around suddenly, holding his eyes. He had seen a big flash of light, he told his people: a vision of a nuclear explosion in Chicago that burned down within miles of Indianapolis. Indianapolis too would come under attack. To religious people, this vision of apocalypse summoned up terrible images of hell on earth, of the judgment day, of fear. Coming from Jim Jones, one who had healed and revealed so expertly in the past, the warning assumed prophetic proportions.
[45] Branham, William. 1949, Dec 25. The Deity of Christ. Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from https://william-branham.org/site/transcript/49-1225. “But there was no man to till the soil, so God made man out of dust of the earth. And that man, He might have give him a hands like a monkey, He might have give him feet like a bear. Whatever He did, He just throwed it together and made a man. But this man, He put this immortal spirit, that never dies, into this man, and he become more than a brute; he became a man. Then this man here, that’s what I think that atheists and some of them standing around, arguing. But the hour has come when God shed forth His Light, there is an hour here that when God is doing things. That’s right. And so now when they argue, ‘Well, his feet look like a bear, and his hands look like a—a ape or a—a monkey, or so forth,’ and they try to say his origin come that. That has nothing to do with it. This is the body of flesh that he is just living in, like a house, it’s going back to the dust of the earth. But the spirit is immortal; it comes from God. That’s the image of God. God is a Spirit. That man lost his origin in the garden of Eden.”
[46] Branham, William. 1952, Jul 13. God Testifying of His Gifts. Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from https://william-branham.org/site/transcript/52-0713E. “Now I… Now, your doctor, he can tell you about your—your body, your anatomy, but I’m here, I… My work is in the realm of spirits. That’s where I live a big part of my life, is in another dimension, that the world knows nothing about. And I speak that in the Name of the Lord.”
[47] Jones, James. 1972, Jun 12. Q1059-2 Transcript. Accessed 2021, Aug 9 from https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=63541. “You don’t ever believe you had a tail, but it’s right down there. You been talking about your tailbone long as you been living. (Mimics Disbeliever) I hurt mah tailbone. (Normal tone) Look at it on the skeleton. It’s stickin’ right out there. That’s the beauty of it. We evolved from the little things, on up through the animal, the vegetable, the mineral, up to the human, and then the human to the extraterrestrial, the extra-dimensional, or God. There’s no end to growth, there’s no end to evolution, that’s the beauty of life, that’s what makes it so thrilling.”
[48] For more info see Collins, John. Joel’s Army: The Manifested Sons of God. Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=102213
[49] Jones, James. 1972, Jun 12. Annotated Transcript Q1059-3. Accessed 2021, Aug 9 from https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=63560. “I could live 150 years, if I didn’t have to fool with church. See, I’m a superman. That’s not being egotistical, I’m a superperson. I have just a certain evolution, a paranormal, a precognitive. I have just an extra-dimensional, extraterrestrial, some evolvement. I don’t know what’s responsible for it. My natural son [Stephan Jones] has the same instincts coming forth. I’m gone teach my adopted ones [Jim Jones Jr., Lew Jones], too.”
[50] Branham, William. 1955, Apr 3. Fellowship by Redemption. Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from https://william-branham.org/site/transcript/55-0403. “After you go out of this body, out of cosmic light and petroleums, and what you’re made up of, and you go into the fourth dimension; out of that, into the fifth dimension, then the sixth dimension. Then, God is in the seventh. You’re right under His altar. 236 Then when God let’s your spirit loose, it picks up what? Comes out of the sixth dimension, into the fifth, cosmic light; come out of the light, into petroleums; out of petroleum, into the senses.”
[51] Jones, James. 1972, Jun 12. Annotated Transcript Q1059-4. Accessed 2021, Aug 9 from https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=63587. “If you seek that first heaven or that extra dimension, then they that will be worthy shall not enter into, will not give nor receive in marriage. Jesus did not say, those that get into heaven would not marry, he said, those that would be found worthy to enter into heaven would have laid that aside and separated themselves from that plane of consciousness, because marriage is a part of the propertied system in this stage of the revolution.”
[52] Branham, William. 1953, Nov 3. 53-1103. Taking God at His Word. Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from https://table.branham.org. “You believe that I’m able to do this through God? {…} You heard, that was my voice. It was me speaking. It was my voice, but It wasn’t me speaking. Now, ever what it was, I don’t know what it was cause it’s another dimension, you see. It’s another world.”
[53] Jones, James. 1973, July 21. Annotated Transcript Q1015. Accessed 2021, Aug 9 from https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=78014. “But I’m telling you something that’s been proven to me as a metaphysician that called up the woman that spit the cancer up in the aisle, and I told her things about her life, and healed her back, from their neck, where it had been broken in an accident. I can only tell you my experience level. My experience level is that there are some rare cases where people do not have any existence after their body passes. What little spark of extra-dimensional talent or extraterrestrial talent or heavenly aspect integrates with another body, and they never survive as a personality.”
[54] Jones, James. 1973, Sept 14. Q1023 Transcript. Accessed 2021, Aug 9 from https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=27309. “Our own point of view is that we have been visited from higher dimensions. Paul called them third heavens – he was carried away to the third heaven once in a vision – or we say extra planetary realms. We have been visited from time to time by saviors from outer space. We see all over the planet today mentioning of unidentified flying objects. It has even been said on the great body of scientific study, that the Ark of the Covenant was a monitoring device from some spaceship outside, because when people touched it, they died from some electronic power, and it would speak to the people, and the people worshipped it in Jeremiah’s day (or in Joshua’s day. They rent their clothes before that Ark of the Covenant. Then it disappeared, it was lifted, and Jeremiah said we will remember the Ark of the Covenant no more.”
[55] Ex: Branham, William. 1960, May 15. Adoption #1. Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from https://william-branham.org/site/transcript/60-0515E. “I’ll never forget what happened last Sunday morning, as a week. It has done something to me that’s revolutionized my life. {…} God let me be caught up to see something, I would refer to the first Heavens. And then I believe, one in the Bible, by the name, I believe it was Paul, that was caught up into the third Heavens. {…} I don’t know whether was in this body or out of the body. Only thing, it was just as real as I’m looking at you.”
[56] Branham, William. 1956, Feb. Contending for The Faith. Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from https://william-branham.org/site/transcript/56-0200. “Where you’re standing now, a real humble, sweet feeling is around you, (isn’t that right?) like Something near. Not your brother; but Something supernatural. If that’s right, raise your hand. See? It’s the Angel of the Lord. See? I am living now in another dimension, see, in a spirit world.”
[57] Branham, William. 1951, May 5. My Commission. https://william-branham.org/site/transcript/51-0505. “I am God’s Voice to you. See? I say that again. That time was under inspiration.”
[58] And a High Cloud Ring of Mystery. 1963, Apr 10. Life. Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from http://en.believethesign.com/index.php/The_Cloud. “the cloud was at least 26 miles high and 30 miles across – ‘a lot higher and bigger,’ he says, ‘than a cloud should be.’ The circle was too high to be made by a jet plane, and so far as Dr. McDonald can determine, there were no rockets, rocket planes, or bombs being tested nearby that day.”
[59] UFO Buff Found Dead Near Tucson. 1971, Jun 14. “Dr. James E. McDonald, well known for his controversial stands on unidentified flying objects and the supersonic transport planes.”
[60] Letter to Chaplain George Greene. Accessed 2021, Aug 11 from http://people.delphiforums.com/JohnK63/CloudAirForceLetter1.jpg. “In any event, the sighting reported in Life was the result of a military operation, not divine intervention.”
[61] Letter to Chaplain George Greene. Accessed 2021, Aug 11 from http://people.delphiforums.com/JohnK63/MeinelLetter.jpg. “Aden was involved with the launch of rockets from Vandenburg AFB, California, and immediately recognized the McDonald cloud as from an explosion of a rocket the afternoon of 28 February 1963. We told McDonald of the event.”
[62] Vandenberg AFB Launch History. 2021 May 23. Accessed 2021, Aug 10 from https://www.spacearchive.info/vafblog.htm
[63] Rare Cloud. 1963, May 9. Fresno Bee. “Dr. McDonald places its height at 140,000 feet. This is 40,000 feet higher than any cloud previously reported.”
[64] George Smith. 2018, Aug 31. Conviction (YouTube video). Accessed 2021, Aug 10 from https://youtu.be/uZh7nW8pxps?t=1123. “Let’s see February 28. What kind of a prophet do you have, he’s out there out-of-season. That didn’t match. It doesn’t compute. But then you go to the “Message” itself, he’s in Houston on March the 4th, then he goes hunting. He says, “First I went to Houston, then this happened. So it’s not a contradiction, it’s just a clarification of the fact that he was not out there on February the 28th, but a week later and it was in another dimension.”
[65] Branham, William. 1963, Jun 23. Standing in the Gap. Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from https://william-branham.org/site/transcript/63-0623M. “And now, the ‘Life’ Magazine picked it up. And I have the-the article here this morning in the “Life” Magazine there, of the show… Now, here it is, the same time I was there. See the pyramid or the Cloud? I was standing just below this.”
[66] Branham, William. 1963, Mar 17. The Breach Between the Seven Church Ages and the Seven Seals. Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from https://william-branham.org/site/transcript/63-0317E. “I was standing there, in prayer, and something happened. And, now, something fell in my hand. And I know, if you don’t understand spiritual things, it may seem very strange. But something struck in my hand. And, when I looked, it was a sword.”
[67] Branham, William. 1965, Apr 10. Easter Seal. Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from https://william-branham.org/site/transcript/65-0410. “I saw seven angels come. Didn’t ‘Life’ Magazine pack it, just a fog of It floated across here twenty-seven miles high and thirty miles across. Is not Fred Sothmann and these others, Gene Norman and them setting back there, stood right there when them seven angels appeared right there on the hill? It shook the hills for miles around like that. There stood seven angels and throwed a sword in a hand and said, ‘Go home and open these Seven Seals that are given.'”
[68] Branham, William. 1963, July 28. Christ Is the Mystery of God Revealed. Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from https://william-branham.org/site/transcript/63-0728. “Did you notice the Angels that come down, investigated Sodom before Sodom was destroyed? You remember that? [Congregation says, “Amen.”—Ed.] There was a bunch of them come down, three of them. One of them stayed with Abraham. You remember that? [“Amen.”] They were Lights from Heaven, that came down in the investigating judgment. One’s… Look where they’re all found. Around the Pentagon, and things, they find them. That’s the world judgment, Sodom. And there is One represented, will be represented amongst the churches, will be Christ Himself, vindicating Himself.”
[69] Branham, William. 1965, Nov 27. Trying To Do God A Service Without It Being God’s Will. Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from https://william-branham.org/site/transcript/65-1127. “But the Elijah of this day is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is to come according to Matthew the seventeen-…Luke 17:30, is, the Son of man is to reveal Himself among His people. Not a man, God! But it’ll come through a prophet.”
[70] Branham, William. 1962, Dec 30. Is This the Sign of the End, Sir? Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from https://william-branham.org/site/transcript/62-1230E. ”I’m going to Tucson, to establish my family in school.”
[71] Jones, James. Q612 Transcript. Accessed 2021, Aug 10 from https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=27492. “Billy Graham came right to us – Ijames [Archie Ijames], Jack [Jack Arnold Beam], and me – in Claypool Hotel, said I don’t believe a thing in that Bible hardly. But he said, it’s the way to make a living. Billy Graham, who I prophesied his death, Billy Branham rather, I said he’d lose his head. His head was cut off in Texas. [Author’s note: The reference is to William Branham, an evangelical preacher and acquaintance of Jim Jones during the Temple’s Indianapolis days. Branham died in an automobile accident on Christmas Eve 1965 in Texas, but was not decapitated.] He said you can’t preach the truth about that Bible.”
[72] Branham, William. 1964, Mar 12. When Their Eyes Were Opened, They Knew Him. Accessed 2021, Aug 12 from https://william-branham.org/site/transcript/64-0312. “Go back to the Scripture, search the Scripture, They’ve got the Truth. We get It so twisted. “How do we know It’s the Scripture?” When it’s a Scripture promised for that age. 57 Now, He didn’t go back and say, ‘You remember Moses, what he done?’ See? He revealed to them the Scripture pertaining to Himself, for that age. He was the Light of that age. Moses was the light of his age. Jeremiah was the light of his age. It was the God’s light shining forth for the Word that was promised for that age. Every age has its promised Word. God sends His prophets and reveals that Word; vindicates His prophet, first, then reveals that Word and makes It live.”
[73] Jones, James. Q953 Transcript. Accessed 2021, Aug 10 from https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=27625. “Only for practical reasons. But King James put lies in the Bible, and that’s why you have to have a prophet in every dispensation, to teach you, to show you the truth from the error.
[74] Jones, James. 1973, Oct 20. Annotated Transcript Q1059-4. Accessed 2021, Aug 10 from https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=63587. “In the kingdom, in the revolutionary age, there will be those that are counted worthy to enter into the kingdom. Those that are counted worthy to evolve beyond this birth of the natural flesh and constantly be coming back into the earth plane. If you seek the higher dimensions of an extraterrestrial world, a perfect socialist world, the first heaven, if I might say, in the vernacular that would perhaps be closer to your relationships, if you seek that first heaven or that extra dimension, then they that will be worthy shall not enter into, will not give nor receive in marriage.”
[75] Jones, James. Q971 Transcript Accessed 2021, Aug 10 from https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=77981