The Sonic Hitchhiker Podcast

Biblical Prophecies and Supernatural Wonders

• billy shadow • Season 1 • Episode 4

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     Have you ever wondered if the stories of UFOs could be tied to ancient biblical texts? Join me and my long-time friend Daniel Van Cleave as we navigate our shared histories and explore our unique upbringings, deeply rooted in our fathers' ministry work. This episode of the Sonic Hitchhiker Podcast takes a heartfelt look at Daniel's journey into and out of ministry, as he reveals the twists and turns of faith and personal revelation that have shaped his life. Our candid conversation uncovers the profound impact of growing up in religious families, and how those experiences have evolved into a respect for diverse spiritual perspectives.

     Shifting gears, we dive into the mysterious world of UFOs and their potential biblical connections, offering a thought-provoking examination of unidentified flying objects through the lens of scripture. From the Leviathan to angelic encounters, we discuss the possibility that what were once considered divine phenomena might now be viewed as extraterrestrial. Daniel and I share personal anecdotes that defy simple explanation, like a surreal encounter with a mysterious light in Georgia, emphasizing the enigmatic nature of supernatural experiences. Our exploration reflects on how scripture can both illuminate and mystify these phenomena, leaving us with more questions than answers.

     As we wrap up, the conversation turns to the power of belief and how it influences our interpretation of both supernatural events and religious teachings. We consider how faith, whether in the resurrection or quantum physics, demands a leap of conviction. Daniel and I highlight the enduring teachings of Jesus, particularly the commandment to love, amidst discussions of dark forces and the manipulation of sacred texts. By examining personal experiences and biblical prophecy, we invite listeners to ponder the remarkable odds of divine truth in their lives. Through it all, our preference for the teachings of the New Testament emerges, as we seek to unravel the complexities of faith and the unexplained.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Sonic Hitchhiker Podcast dedicated to all things strange, mysterious and just plain out of the ordinary. Your guide on this audio odyssey is Billy Shadow. Billy has led a life full of experiences that have put him on his current path, from his humble beginnings in the ghettos of southwest Georgia to the Great Plains of Oklahoma. Billy has led a life full of experiences. As a youth, billy traveled with his family on a bus while his father preached in churches across the country. As a young man, billy spent time in the military, became an entrepreneur, met and worked with multiple celebrities, became a singer-songwriter. Billy's travels and experiences have led him to witness exorcisms, cult mind control events, ghosts and other supernatural phenomena. It is because of his interest in these experiences that this podcast was created. And now your host, billy Shadow.

Speaker 2:

Welcome my friends again to the podcast. Today we have a very special guest, daniel Van Cleave. Daniel and I actually go back a ways. We grew up together, seventies To the seventies, the seventies. We go back quite a ways. We may not sound it, but we're ancient. But Daniel's a friend of mine. But I'm going to let Daniel talk about himself for just a minute to give you an idea. He is a minister of sorts. So let me let Daniel Van Cleave tell you about himself for just a minute and then we'll get to the topics that I want to talk about today. Go ahead, daniel.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so thanks for having me on. I hope it's helpful, we'll see. I grew up in and around the church by vocational dad who pastored a variety of different churches across the nation. One of our commonalities is that both our dads pastored in Oklahoma but primarily South Georgia had 17 addresses by the age of 14. I don't recommend that parents, I know about that. If your children have some stability, that's not a good idea.

Speaker 3:

But we did what we had to do, wanted nothing to do with the church, burned as a teenager pretty hard at a church that I considered kind of turned cultish and we escaped that and we, you know. So I didn't want anything to do with the church but felt increased call to ministry. Pastored for 17 years or so and just recently, the first of this year, I've taken a break from full-time pastoring. I work with Pirose Prison Ministry and have just slowly started doing a little bit of saying yes to a few speaking engagements. But I'm doing a little bit of saying yes to a few speaking engagements, but for the most part right now I'm working back in the family business in construction and I'm married for 28 years Two weeks ago to the same woman.

Speaker 2:

That's awesome, she's going to keep me. That's awesome.

Speaker 3:

She tells me it's been the best five years of her life is what I hear. So I think she's going to keep me, but I have three wonderful children, billy, which blows my mind to say 24, 21, and 18 are not children. I'm not a grandpa yet, so I'm not there, I'm not your level, but could be. So we're thankful and blessed, and so that's a little bit about me.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you and I, we do have commonalities. I too know what it's like to you know, you know my story, and we as a family, we traveled the country in a bus where my dad was a I don't. I don't, you don't, you don't really, you wouldn't really call that a missionary. I'm not sure what, I'm not sure what it was. It was like the Partridge family, except your dad is a preacher, and we even had to sing songs at churches for money. And you have to beg for money. You know, and it's you, live in if they, if you get a chance, I mean, you live where you could. You, that bus sometimes was parked in a field behind someone's church, behind someone's house. We took showers in creeks. Uh, we, you know it's, it's it. It wasn't an easy life. Uh, all the way around. And I too know about some cultish, cultish. I probably have been a lot further down that track than you have. And, um, no, I don't recommend any of that. But what I will say, what I will say, it is, it is and we're going to get into some of this it is people's lives.

Speaker 2:

When you're raised in a religion, that is, it becomes your nature to just believe what you're told and I'm not saying it's a bad thing I have come to realize as an adult to be thankful for everything. I don't look back at my life. I used to. I used to be depressed about a lot of things. Now I look back and say you know, I am blessed to have gone through a bunch of things that not many people go through, because it gives you a different perspective on life. And now, in growing up also working hard as it, from a nine-year-old working my butt off from a nine-year-old to my life for now is easy, easy. People tell me their problems. I'm like it's not that hard. Life for me now is great. But also as an adult, I studied the Bible for myself because being and I don't want to say this in a bad way I love my parents. They also, they did what they thought they had to do. I love them. I don't.

Speaker 2:

I don't have any animosity toward them at all but, I will say this I I just my perspective on on life is so much different as an adult because I can look at something like the Bible and see it in a totally different way than I did growing up, and I have so much more respect for other religions because they grow up in their religions just like we grew up in ours. That's all they know, and so I don't really hold any animosity toward any other religion as well. I don't. But one thing that I have always been interested in, which is why this podcast was created, as I, as is stated in the the intro, I I have always been fascinated with things that I that is hard to understand or I just can't explain, because there are real phenomena out there that we don't explain, that we can't explain, and the Bible is full of it. And people will read the Bible and just want to get the what they call the quote religious aspect out of it, when there is so much more from creation to revelation, from visions burning bushes, the flood of Genesis, ezekiel talking about chariots of fire, which is what I want to get to first. There are many accounts of what they call now. They used to call them UFOs, I think now they've gotten more sophisticated. They call them unidentified aerial phenomena. I don't know, I like the old one and I don't say this as a slight against the Bible. As a matter of fact, I say you should, we should, if we are interested in a religion that we are a part of and I am a Christian by faith, but I don't. I never force it on anyone, but I'm happy to talk to people about it, but I have a different perspective on it than most people do. I'm not like the Bible-thumping holy roller. You got to do it or else Because I grew up that way, and that's no way to get people to come around to a way of thinking. People are people and their lives may not be susceptible to what you're trying to teach them. So you've got to let them learn for themselves. But to get off of the really serious stuff, I'm going to get right to it as a minister, as someone who has studied the Bible and as someone who has been in similar experiences like I have throughout your life religiously.

Speaker 2:

What do you think about UFOs? Because I am fascinated by it. Ufos go back thousands, if not millions of years to cave in Mesopotamia, where in ancient Egypt, where they show flying machines on fire going above people's heads, like people following them. The Bible talks about the children of Israel being led by an object in the sky by day and a pillar of fire by night. You have in Ezekiel. It talks about chariots with blinking fire, what we would call blinking lights. They call blinking fire. So, on a bit of a fun topic, but yet a biblical topic as well. As a minister, what do you think about UFOs? I'm going to call them UFOs. I like that better. What do you think about that and how it relates to the Bible Good or bad too. What do you think about it?

Speaker 3:

Well, I think, defining the terms. I apologize, I need to figure out how to mute this. If I don't mute this, my phone is connected to my laptop. I'm sorry.

Speaker 2:

You're fine. You're fine. My phone I had to put mine on there, but you're fine, don't worry about it. By the way, for those listening, this is a form of Skype, I think, so there may be a few noise discrepancies, but it's okay, we're live, so it's fine.

Speaker 3:

So my first thoughts define the terms Well. Ufo is an unidentified flying object. I was at an air show last week where there were jets flying around that were unidentified until they came into view All of a sudden. I'm like was that a blue angel, or is that the Thunderbird? Yeah, I do think there are ways to explain away certain things, like the cave paintings. Maybe that was a dragon. I do believe there were Leviathan, as mentioned in Scripture. Yes, I believe there were perhaps larger, much larger beings, like whales.

Speaker 2:

Job, also in the book of Job, talks about an animal that could drink the rivers dry.

Speaker 3:

Dinosaurs maybe, but do I think there's extraterrestrial beings from another planet? Maybe beings from another planet, maybe? I don't think that. You know, I'm a realist, so when it comes to a lot of that, I'm like, well, where's the body? You know all these years of technology and where's the body? I don't think anyone's ever produced a body. I think you explain a lot of the Area 51. Your grandfather worked at Area 51, and your grandfather, your uncle, worked at Area 51 and told me in his latter days of his life, I was fascinated with Jets as a, you know, as a 16, 17, 18, 16, 17 year old, and I was, you know, talking to him about.

Speaker 2:

Which uncle? Because I have quite a few. Which one are you talking about?

Speaker 3:

I'm Fred Johnson. Oh, yeah, yeah, gotcha.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, he was in the Air. Force. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he did, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:

And so he, you know, when I was talking to him about the Hawker Harrier and I was like man, that's really cool, this new jet that will just raise up and it'll take off, and he's like that stuff. We had that stuff in the 50s and 60s. It's like what we're just now hearing about it in the late 80s, and so I think there's a lot of that stuff out there that we don't know about. Technology out there. I mean, you have drones flying all over the place July the 4th. I'm watching fireworks and I look up and I was like, oh, there's a linked chain of lights. What is that? It's a UFO. And somebody in the group was like, oh, that's Elon Musk.

Speaker 2:

That's his.

Speaker 3:

Starlink strand of satellites.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah.

Speaker 3:

And there are just thousands of satellites out there. I don't know that we have any proof that they're extraterrestrial or aliens or beings from other planets or whatever you want to call them. I do know that there are. According to Scripture, which is the barometer for me, we know that Satan was banished from heaven, along with a third of the angels that are against God, and so I know there's an angelic host. Many times in Scripture you see mention of beings. I have encountered both sides. I think there are two sides. I think there's a side, under the influence of Satan, that are manipulated by his commands, directly reporting to him as their commander-in-chief. There's a host as well that are directly reporting to Yahweh, to Jehovah, to Jesus, as his messengers, and we speak.

Speaker 3:

Throughout Scripture we see a plethora of examples of how we can entertain angels and not even be aware of it, and I've experienced both sides. I've entertained angels, I experienced both sides. I've entertained angels, I've seen them, I've met them, um, but I've also, um, stared probably not stared Satan in the face. One of my friends said um, don't kid yourself, you're not that important. Satan doesn't know Um and he's like, but his minions do, his, his demons do, and they, they hate, they hate, they hate, they hate us. They. They want to destroy um christianity.

Speaker 3:

They always have wanted to destroy anything that has to do with christ but um but yeah that's um sort of my um 30 000 foot foot view of of of that well, a couple of things that you said there that I want to hit on.

Speaker 2:

And yes, I also have heard similar stories from Uncle about some phenomena. I've heard a couple of stories I heard even one from my father, which I talked about, on an episode coming up that we've already recorded, where my dad actually was traveling with another preacher down an old road I think it was in Georgia, a country road and a light appeared out of the sky and got bigger and bigger and just landed in the road to the point to where it scared them so much they turned around and went back the other way because they did not know what it was or how to explain it, and I don't know what that was. And you say something fascinating to me when you say we have no body. We have, you know, even though they say we have these things. But I've thought that in the past too.

Speaker 2:

But here's another thing you know, our faith alone is a lot of what we believe in there's no, when I and don't get me wrong, it's a faith thing which, even if you're, by the way, even if you are someone who doesn't have any religious ties, but you believe in the Big Bang Theory, that takes to me just as much faith to believe as the virgin birth, for instance, because you don't really have any physical proof, it's just something you choose to believe. As the virgin birth, for instance, because you don't really have any physical proof, it's just something you choose to believe.

Speaker 3:

I've said it yesterday, I think it takes more faith to be an atheist, it takes more faith to believe in some of those things and principles than it does to believe in Christ, because my faith is not rooted in some you know thought or some system of sequence of you know mind farts, if you will. My faith is rooted and grounded in a knowledge of God, and so my faith is informed by my knowledge of God. So I have irrefutable proof that God is who he says he is, irrefutable proof that Jesus is God and from the greatest miracle that ever took place was the resurrection, the empty tomb, documented by thousands of people, hundreds, five hundreds or so known witnesses of the empty tomb. And he did everything else he said he was going to do. And so all of that culmination in the metanarrative scripture from Genesis 1-1, which is arguably the most disputed and critical verse in the Bible. In the beginning, god created From Creator God all the way through Jesus in the empty tomb. We have all this proof and my faith is rooted in that proof.

Speaker 3:

That he is who he said he was is irrefutable to me and it shapes my faith. My faith shapes my actions. My beliefs shape what I do. I believe in gravity, why, like me and you, we jumped off the bridge. We've thrown the rocks off of high buildings before and they go smack at the bottom. I believe gravity exists, so therefore it shapes what I jump off of. You know, I'm 48 years old and I jumped off of a six-foot. I tried to do a backflip. It turned into a back buster.

Speaker 3:

Um off a pontoon boat last weekend, um, and, and at six foot, the gravity that took me. I knew it was going to be a smack If I landed wrong. It's going to burn a little bit, much less 60 feet, but because I know the laws and the elements of what gravity does, therefore I'm not going to go jump off that building. And so my experience of Christ.

Speaker 3:

I think the greatest evidence is an empty tomb, but there are layers and layers and layers of evidences from that and before that typology, leading to all of these, um, all of these prophecies that said, hey, this is going to happen. You mentioned ezekiel, this is going to happen. And 700 years later, what happens? That very thing happens. I mean that odds of that happening is so many.

Speaker 3:

Somebody said there's 245 prophecies that Christ fulfilled alone and the odds of doing that is like filling a 40-foot swimming pool or maybe it's a 40,000-gallon swimming pool with scrabble pieces and pulling out randomly, blindfolded, reaching into that pool of scrabble pieces and pulling out all these letters and forming the longest English word blindfolded. That's the odds of fulfilling the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled, and so that shapes my faith. I think you mentioned religion earlier, billy, my distaste for a lot of what the church is doing today is that religion is man-made principles. For the most part, it's a set of rules Take your hat off when you walk in the church, fold your hands and close your eyes when you pray. You and I were cram-fit all of that.

Speaker 2:

And if we didn't?

Speaker 3:

do it. We weren't told twice. You and I were cram-fit all of that and if we didn't do it we weren't told twice. We feared our dads as much as we did, or more than we feared God. All of those man-made principles, those man-made rules. A lot of it leads to bondage. Some of it's in place to guide and protect us.

Speaker 3:

But when I draw the line in the sand I go back to Jesus. What did Jesus say? Jesus said a new commandment I give to you that you love one another. I don't think he was abolishing the Ten Commandments. I think the greatest commandment ever written. What he said? A new commandment I've given to you that you love one another. He mentioned the great commandment he said the second's likened to it love your neighbor as yourself. So I think fear God is a critical command that we have to adhere to. But it's not fear as in. I'm not scared of God. My fear of Him is reverence and knowing that the whole of who he is is.

Speaker 3:

You know from 48 years of experience. I also wanted to echo your experience and you mentioned you know you wouldn't take anything back and I get that. You didn't say it exactly like that. I think you were alluding. You appreciate even the sorrows that we went through. Your mother made me fold clothes, for it seemed like a whole half a day when I could have been playing with tractors with you and your brother in the yard and I was folding, because you remember, when she was ready to fold them clothes and she's doing that laundry, it was everybody chipped in. So that's some of my first memories of your mom, back in like 78 um, folding clothes. I hated it, but to this day I was folding clothes on Friday or Thursday night. To this day I'm folding a club. I'm folding the sleeves like your mom taught me, I mean from all that time later. And so life shapes us. Even though we may not like it, it's preparing us for something beautiful.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I believe that Well, yeah, I appreciate all of that, what you say, because I can definitely relate. And when it comes to one thing I appreciate about the life I've lived, and I'm sure you do, is the fact that, yeah, I too, I'm confident that I can say I have seen I guess you could call it dark forces, you could call it Satan demons I have witnessed in my life. I've witnessed so-called exorcisms. I've witnessed ultimate mind control. When I say ultimate mind control, I mean to the point to where you would kill. You would literally kill, if the word was told, if the word came down the pike, that that's what you needed to do. If the word was told, if the word came down the pike, that that's what you needed to do. So I understand the power of the mind and how people can control it.

Speaker 2:

There's a movie called the Book of Eli with and we're maybe getting off topic, but that's okay I think people will find this interesting that have never experienced it. But there is a movie called the Book of Eli with Denzel Washington great movie. Gary Oldman is the bad guy in it and Gary, it's a post-apocalyptic movie where all the Bibles in the world have been burned and they no longer exist. But there is one that exists. Denzel Washington is in control of it and he has divine protection. He's going through this new world with this Bible, keeping it safe, and Gary Oldman is having trouble controlling his minions and says, man, if we can just get that Bible, we can control everyone, which is a fascinating statement, because it's true, even though the Bible is good for a lot of people, the Bible can also be manipulated. Not because the Bible itself may be, it of people. The Bible can also be manipulated, not because the Bible itself may be. It's not something that it can do alone, but you can use people, use that all the time for manipulation. I have also witnessed some supernatural stuff in my life and to me, the very idea of God, the very idea of angels, the very idea of demons, resurrection, all of those things we see in the Bible, the parting of the Red Sea, premonitions. At one point in the Old Testament an animal is suddenly given the gift of voice and can talk, and can talk to his handler and give him a warning from God. And if you're not familiar with the Bible, I apologize if you're listening to this and you're like, what are they talking about? But if you are familiar with it and then maybe you'll appreciate this. So the Bible itself is full of what I would call supernatural phenomena. It just is.

Speaker 2:

There is not a lot of explanations for things in the Bible. You just either believe it and accept it as what it is, or you don't. And that's true with every religion. There are religions before the Bible was written that have similar stories, so people can make of that what they will.

Speaker 2:

The reason I decided to stay with Christianity, for example, had a lot to do with the New Testament, had a lot to do with the teachings of Jesus. We no longer stone our children for lying like they did in the Old Testament. God himself would command. We talk about abortion and these are getting way off topic. We talk about abortion, but yet God in the Old Testament would say when you go into an intimate territory, you kill everyone, babies, pets.

Speaker 2:

So there is, there is the. There. There are so much in the. There is so much in the Bible that fascinates me. I wouldn't even say contradictory, I would just say it's different times.

Speaker 2:

And Jesus comes along and says well, you know what? Everything that was in the Old Testament, all the laws, everything that was put in place, why don't we just put it this way Do unto others what you would have them do unto you? Let's simplify it. But even with Jesus, he did so many supernatural things. There were so many supernatural events Hard to explain. You say you choose to believe, and that's true. You choose to believe what you believe because a lot of it our minds just can't wrap our head around it. We don't see a lot of those things anymore that you see in the Bible Miracles like they had then, these supernatural phenomena that we see throughout the scriptures which, again, you and I could talk about this for hours and hours and still have so much more to talk about. When it comes to the Bible itself and it's fascinating to me, but the Bible does reference, like you say, ufos, but how you see it is how you see it and someone else may see it differently I myself have wondered God is a spirit, and I do believe God is a spiritual being and being.

Speaker 2:

That we just can't, and the Bible does say that no one's ever met God face to face, and what I mean by that is if he's a spiritual person, we in these fleshly bodies cannot. We cannot see him in his form. That's what I take from it. And what is that form? It's a spiritual form, and if he is a spiritual being, that means inside of us is a spiritual being. That also means that there are good and evil spiritual beings out there.

Speaker 2:

Some people call them demons. There are good and evil spiritual beings out there. Some people call them demons. Join us for the next podcast episode where we will continue our discussion with Daniel, because this one went longer than expected, but that's a good thing, because I was hoping it would. That way, we can put this into two different episodes for you guys, and I hope you'll really learn something. And I hope you'll find this conversation with Daniel Van Cleve very fascinating, as I did. And, with that being said, I will see you next time on the Sonic Hitchhiker podcast that'll do it for another edition of the show.

Speaker 1:

Join Billy Shadow next week for another all-new Sonic Hitchhiker podcast. Thanks for checking out the Sonic Hitchhiker podcast. Thanks for checking out the Sonic Hitchhiker podcast. Follow us on Instagram at Sonic Hitchhiker podcast and get new episodes Wednesdays, wherever you get your podcasts.