A UFO figure floats above a burning church in a painting that hangs on the wall of a 700-year-old monastery in Romania. The location of the monastery and its painting also has another eerie connection: the monastery resides in the birthplace of Vlad Tepes, aka Vlad The Impaler and Vlad III Dracula.
Tourist Catalina Borta snapped the photo of the painting and sent it to UFO experts at the Israeli Extraterrestrials and UFOs Research Organization (EURA) for evaluation, according to Yahoo News. The experts analyzed the painting and the caption found at the bottom that read, "Israel, put your hope in the Lord," and determined the artwork dated back to around 1523, the same year the Bible was first translated to German.
Vlad Tepes was born in Sighisoara, Romania, in 1431, shortly after the monastery's construction. He acquired the nickname "Vlad the Impaler" after his death around 1477 because he would impale his enemies on a stake and put their bodies on public display.
Irish author Bram Stoker used the former Romanian leader as his inspiration for the title character in his 1897 novel "Dracula." The experts made no direct links between Vlad and the painting.
UFO and other unearthly figures have appeared in all works of art throughout human history, according to Yahoo News. The 1710 painting "Baptism of Christ" by Aert de Gelder and "The Madonna with Saint Giovannio" by Domenico Ghirlandaio both depict objects that look like flying saucers.
"Flying saucers, UFOs and other weird objects in the sky have been depicted throughout the history of humanity," Nigel Watson, author of the Haynes UFO Investigations Manual told Yahoo News. "What appear to be UFOs and aliens appear in the cave paintings of ancient man, the religious paintings of the Renaissance period and in the works of chroniclers and storytellers."
The painting in the Romanian monastery showed a tower of smoke billowing out of the top of the possible UFO spacecraft. The church also appeared on fire with smoke coming out of the front and back.
"An explanation for these Biblical paintings is that they are symbolic representations of angels and that the beams of light from them represent the Holy Spirit," Watson said. "These beams of light can also represent the miraculous impregnation of Mary that led to the birth of Jesus. Ironically, people today are literally seeing objects like this in the sky and associate their activities with the concept of ancient astronauts that it is speculated we worshipped as Gods in the past."
