The literature and mythology of ancient cultures is filled with accounts of dragons, flying serpents, and other winged lizards.

Who, then, were these flying, fire-breathing creatures that seem to have coexisted with early Man, sometimes as his benefactor but many more times as his tormentor?

Perhaps they were just fabulous creatures, the product of Man's fertile imagination.

On the other hand, it is possible they were the manifestation of something else - of traumatic events so disturbing and deeply rooted in his past, that knowledge of their true nature has been subconsciously suppressed and remembered only in allegorical terms.

Quite a few civilizations of this world trace their ancestry to such dragon-like lizards or flying serpents.

In most cases, they are credited with bringing the benefits of civilization to Mankind.

And quite often they are described as his actual creator.

Ancient man portrayed these creatures as superior beings or gods, who could effortlessly move about the skies in their "fiery chariots" or "boats of heaven."

They usually lived in a "heavenly abode" and often descended to interfere in the affairs of Man.

The earliest and the most important of cultures, that of Mesopotamia, was probably founded by these serpent-like gods.

The colonization of this planet by these creatures is described in one of the most dramatic and significant of ancient documents.

It is the so-called Sumerian King-List.

Dated to the Third Millennium BC, this document provides the succession of the Kings of Sumer and their successors, the length of their reigns since, what was to the Sumerians, the beginning of time when their ancestors came here and "descended" to Earth to establish a number of cities on the alluvial plain of Mesopotamia.

Calling themselves Anunnaki, these Proto-Sumerians are credited with the establishment of Western, if not World, civilization.

Surprisingly enough, there is considerable data on these early civilizations - the Sumerian, later to be replaced by the Akkadian and the Babylonian cultures.

From the numerous cuneiform tablets, monuments, and artifacts that have been unearthed in recent times, it is possible to reconstruct the events which transpired in the early days of Mankind.

There is also a mass of evidence, which was originally derived from the same source, but was given a religious interpretation by being transmitted through priestly channels.

It was from this vast reservoir of ancient sources that the stories of the Old Testament were derived.

From a combination of these ancient secular and religious sources, it is thus possible to piece together the story of our ancestry which lies in the coming of the alien serpent-gods or astronauts who colonized Earth many eons ago.

It will be found that our ancestors started a colony on Earth in order to obtain metals for their home planet.

In order to process and transport these metals by air freighter to the orbiting mother ship, they built five operational cities in Mesopotamia.

One of these served as a space launch platform.

The Sumerian people referred to these "gods" as Anunnaki, literally the sons of An, their chief god and leader.

The Anunnaki were an alien race.

In reality they were a race of sapient reptiles.

They required a cheap labor force and for this reason they created a primitive man.

By combining the characteristics of the native ape-man or Neanderthal type man, with their own saurian nature, they produced the "Adam" of the Old Testament.

This Adam was half-human and half-reptile, however, and being a clone could not reproduce himself.

As conditions began to change on Earth and the climate dried out, it became necessary for them to modify the Adam to better adapt it to the variable climate.

The Homo saurus was modified and given more mammalian traits.

This was the Biblical "Fall of Man" where Adam achieved "knowing" or the ability to reproduce sexually.

As a result of this genetic modification, Man lost most of his saurian appearance and nature, his shiny, luminous skin, and scaly hide.

He no longer ran around naked. He now had to wear clothing for comfort and protection.

For all purposes, Man was now a Homo sapiens.

Modern man or Cro-Magnon Man had arrived upon the scene.

Man soon populated the Earth as slaves for these saurian masters.

He was sorely tested by the astronauts who descended to Earth and mated with the daughters of Man.

Known in the Scriptures as the Nefilim, they not only produced mixed offspring, but also conducted genetic experiments which went awry and produced many monstrous forms.

This was a trying period for Mankind, for in this era he was literally food for the gods.

It is the time of the Biblical Patriarchs and the Sumerian god kings.

The turmoil on Earth was abruptly ended by the onset of a natural worldwide catastrophe, known as the Deluge or Great Flood.

At this time, the gods retreated to their spaceship, leaving behind their semi-divine offspring to perish with Mankind in the world flood.

After the waters had subsided, they descended once more to establish new cities on the plains of Mesopotamia.

Again, mating with Mankind, they produced a race of semi-divine beings to rule their empire on Earth. In addition, a race of warrior-gods was established in the lands of the Levant.

Descendants of the Nefilim, but known by the name of Rephaim, this barbaric race plagued humanity for thousands of years and were eliminated as a threat until the First Millennium BC.

In ancient Mesopotamia, the gods resided in a temple atop a ziggurat, a stepped pyramid raised above the plains and were shielded from the general public and accessible only to a few trusted priests.

Here they ate in privacy, surrounded by curtains, so that even the attending priests could not see them dine.

One wonders if their table manners were so atrocious that they had to be hidden even from their retainers.

Or was it something more sinister?

In the Old Testament, the overriding need for privacy is also true.

During the event known as the Exodus, the deity lived in a tent and was never seen, nor did he dine in public.

Specific instructions were given to Moses on how to prepare the food which was left on a grill near the quarters of the deity for him to snack on in privacy.

It was forbidden for humans to see him.

Moses was told flatly by his God that,

And this prohibition against being seen by humans is carried to an extreme throughout the Scriptures.

It became an injunction of not to make "a graven image" or a likeness of the deity.

Thus, Man is not only banned from seeing what his god looked like but even to make an image of what he thought he looked like.

Why the taboo?

Could it be that its appearance would be so foreign and repulsive that it had to be withheld from man?

One would logically assume that if the deities were so superior and grand as the Scriptures indicate, that they would be flattered and pleased to allow man to see and copy their magnificence!

Only a privileged few were allowed to even approach the deities.

In Mesopotamia they were the demi-gods, the offspring of the mating of a god or goddess and a human.

These formed the aristocracy and were entrusted by the gods to see to their needs and to form a barrier with Mankind.

Even these demi-gods or "changelings," as they were called, were somewhat strange in appearance and probably had certain reptilian characteristics.

The fabled Gilgamesh, for example, had something odd in his appearance that made him stand out from normal men.

The Biblical Patriarchs also had something unusual about their looks as is shown by the irrational behavior of Noah when he was seen naked by his sons.

Berossus (/bəˈrɒsəs/) or Berosus (/bəˈroʊsəs/; Ancient Greek: Βηρωσσος, romanized: Bērōssos; possibly derived from Late Babylonian Akkadian: 𒁹𒀭𒂗𒉺𒇻𒋙𒉡, romanized: Bēl-reʾû-šunu, lit. 'Bel is his shepherd') was an early-3rd-century BCE Hellenistic-era Babylonian writer, a priest of Bel Marduk and astronomer who wrote in the Koine Greek language.  His original works, including the Babyloniaca, have been lost but fragmentarily survive in some quotations, especially in the writings of the fourth-century CE Christian writer Eusebius. Berossus has recently been identified with Bēl-reʾû-šunu, a high priest of the Esagila Temple mentioned in a document from 258 BCE.

According to the ancient Babylonian tradition, as reported by Berossus, the Babylonian priest writing in Athens in The Third Century BC, Man's ancestry and origin can be traced to one Oannes, an amphibious creature that came out of the Persian Gulf to teach the arts of civilization to Man.

Apkallu or and Abgal (𒉣𒈨; Akkadian and Sumerian, respectively) are terms found in cuneiform inscriptions that in general mean either "wise" or "sage".  In several contexts the Apkallu are seven demigods, sometimes described as part man and part fish or bird, associated with human wisdom; these creatures are often referred to in scholarly literature as the Seven Sages. Sometimes the sages are associated with a specific primeval king. After the Great Flood (see Epic of Gilgamesh), further sages and kings are listed. Post-deluge, the sages are considered human, and in some texts are distinguished by being referred to as Ummanu, not Apkallu. Another use of the term Apkallu is when referring to figurines used in apotropaic rituals; these figurines include fish-man hybrids representing the seven sages, but also include bird-headed and other figures. In a later work by Berossus describing Babylonia, the Apkallu appear again, also described as fish-men who are sent by the gods to impart knowledge to humans. In Berossus, the first one, Oannes (a variant of Uanna), is said to have taught humans the creation myth, the Enūma Eliš.

Berossus called them "annedoti" which translates as "the repulsive ones" in Greek.

He also refers to them as "musarus" meaning "an abomination."

In this way, Babylonian tradition credits the founding of civilization to a creature which they considered to be a repulsive abomination.

If the tradition had been invented, a more normal attitude would have been to glorify these creatures as splendid gods or heroes.

Yet the fact that they chose to describe their ancestors this way argues for the authenticity of the account.

The reptilian appearance of the Biblical gods was a well-kept secret and only occasionally is it perceptible in the Old Testament, as for example, the obvious worship of the "seraph" or "brazen serpent" in the incident during the Exodus.

There are many more references, many of them explicit, in the mass of religious literature which forms the basis for the books of the Old Testament.

The view is now accepted that the Old Testament went through considerable editing and selection by the priestly transcribers.

But elsewhere in the religious literature, not subject to their heavy hand, there is found a different picture.

In the Haggadah, the source of Jewish legend and oral tradition, it is revealed that Adam and Eve lost their "lustrous and horny hide" as the result of eating the forbidden fruit.

The Gnostics, rivals to the early Christians, relate that as a result of eating the fruit, Adam and Eve achieved knowledge, part of which was to realize that their creators were "beastly forms."

The sad fact is that we have created God in our image and not the other way around.

In this way, we have hidden the true identity of our creators.

Most of the world mythologies and religions refer to their ancestors as flying serpents or dragons who brought the arts and crafts of civilization to Mankind.

The oldest of Chinese books, the mysterious "Yih King," claims that the first humans were formed by the ancient goddess Nüwa who was a dragon.

Nüwa, also read Nügua, is a mother goddess, culture hero, and/or member of the Three Sovereigns of Chinese mythology. She is a goddess in Chinese folk religion, Chinese Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism. She is credited with creating humanity and repairing the Pillar of Heaven. As creator of mankind, she molded humans individually by hand with yellow clay. In other stories where she fulfills this role, she only created nobles and/or the rich out of yellow soil. The stories vary on the other details about humanity's creation, but it was a tradition commonly believed in ancient China that she created commoners from brown mud. A story holds that she was tired when she created "the rich and the noble", so all others, or "cord-made people", were created from her "dragg[ing] a string through mud".

compare linguistically to Ninhursag.

Ninḫursaĝ (Sumerian: 𒀭𒎏𒄯𒊕 Ninḫarsang; DNIN-ḪAR.SAG̃), sometimes transcribed Ninursag, Ninḫarsag, or Ninḫursaĝa, also known as Damgalnuna or Ninmah, was the ancient Sumerian mother goddess of the mountains, and one of the seven great deities of Sumer. She is known earliest as a nurturing or fertility goddess. Temple hymn sources identify her as the "true and great lady of heaven"[This quote needs a citation] (possibly in relation to her standing on the mountain) and kings of Lagash were "nourished by Ninhursag's milk".[This quote needs a citation] She is the tutelary deity to several Sumerian leaders.  Her most well known myths are Enki and Ninhursag describing her dealings with Enki resulting from his sexual exploits, and Enki and Ninmah a creation myth wherein the two deities compete to create humans. She is referenced or makes brief appearances in others as well, most notably as the mother of Ninurta in the Anzu Epic.

The early Chinese emperors claimed to be descendants of this dragon goddess.

The oldest and most famous of the Hindu classics, the "Ramayana" and the "Mahabharata," concern the intercourse of early man with the serpent-gods who were also their ancestors.

Central American and African mythology relate how flying serpents and dragon-like beings descended from the heavens to teach them the basics of civilization.

The dragons and flying serpents that so permeate ancient mythology were actually large-legged lizards, who also had the ability to travel about in their airborne craft.

How else could the ancients illustrate this fact except by providing them with wings?

Even the Old Testament implies that the serpent of the Garden of Eden was a lizard or reptile for, if he had lost his hands and feet as a result of the Fall of Man, then logically he must have previously been a legged snake or reptile.