The "Locusts" of Revelation 9, what are they?

As I came to the end of Tal Brooke's Riders of the Cosmic Circuit I turned to a book by Hal Lindsey, Vanished, that had been recommended to me as possibly able to resolve my ongoing vacillations about a Pretribulation Rapture. I wouldn't ordinarily have sought out a book by Lindsey because he's so often ridiculed for some extreme positions he's taken, but I figure it's worth a try since I appreciate the ministry that recommended it.

One of his far-out positions was his interpretation of the "locusts" of Revelation 9 as possibly Cobra helicopters. This seemed so nutty to me too that I pretty much gave up on Hal Lindsey as any kind of trustworthy exegete of the Bible.

Rev 9:1 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment [was] as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man. And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

And the shapes of the locusts [were] like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads [were] as it were crowns like gold, and their faces [were] as the faces of men. And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as [the teeth] of lions. And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings [was] as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle. And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power [was] to hurt men five months. And they had a king over them, [which is] the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue [is] Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath [his] name Apollyon.

Lindsey mentions this in Vanished:

The most common criticism leveled against me by my adversaries is that I see "Cobra helicopters" as possibly being described in Revelation 9:5-10. This was presented as an opinion in my book The Apocalypse Code, in which I gave a detailed explanation for it. Whatever this passage means, it is a composite desription from may different things that is obviously intended to be symbolic. There is no insect, beast, or man in nature that fits what is described. Ample evidence can be found within the Book of Revelation to establish that John wrote about things he saw and heart while projected into the future. I believe John actually saw and heart things by Direct Divine revdelation that wree centuries future to his own time and still future to us. He was commanded to write about what he had seen. He therefore had to describe very advanced scientific creations of a much lateral time ihn terms of his first-century knowledge and experience. This is my opinion, and I believe it makes good sense. If you don't buy that, it's okay with me; show me something better.

There seems to be a problem here with an assumption that what John saw was necessarily an "advanced scientific creation." That's not the first thing that comes to my mind when I read the passage. I think of some kind of demonic creature from the deep abyss with special characteristics and special powers. I haven't read Hal Lindsey's argument for helicopters, though, and perhaps he should be given the benefit of the doubt that he finds something in the scriptural passage that fits his interpretation of a machine of some sort.

But then I as I picked up his book today and reread this description it reminded me of something I'd just read in Tal Brooke's Riders of the Cosmic Circuit that might actually vindicate Lindsey's interpretation somewhat, not entirely but somewhat.

Eckart Flother is describing some strange supernatural occurrences he experienced in Poona, India, at Rajneesh's ashram.

"And I was getting paranoid after some time. I was not so much getting paranoid, I was asking the people around me, 'Do you see this?' ... And the peak event was when I was standing with several people and we were going to cross the street. And there was something, an 'Entity,' I don't know what it was..." He laughed in irony.

"Go on," I said.

"It looked like a mixture of a big truck but with a lot of lights approaching at high speed, two hundred kilometers per hour, or about one hundred and twenty miles per hour. It also looked a little bit like a dragon. And this entity or whatever came down the road like ... 'whhhhshhhh' ... and I was standing there ... "

I had to ask just to make sure, "Were you stoned at the time?"

"No, I was straight," Eckart replied in earnest. "I was stoned occasionally, but in all these major experiences I was straight".

"When you say Entity, it was alive?" John and I asked.

"It was very tangible and in the first place the image was like an old locomotive, chugging, but the interesting thing was a lot of light all over it."

"You never find anything on an Indian street going two hundred kilometers an hour. That's an impossibility." My years in India were surfacing.

"And you see the interesting thing was it was like ... normally Indian roads are full of people ... and this street was empty, a perfect set-up."

"What was the feeling you had when it went by."

"It was a mixture of entertainment and being a bit frightened... I couldn't see it properly. But nothing flies down a narrow INdian road at two hundred kilometers an hour. It is physically impossible. This was very tangible... So I had the feeling that something was going on, especially at the Poona ashram."

"It's an evil city," I said. "A lot of these gods in temples actually look like locomotives. I remember the huge Kali form in the temple in Calcutta ... looked just like a locomotive. And the Bible speaks of the forms that idols are based on as being elemental spirits that are demonic."

Certainly what Eckart had seen fit the pattern. I was convinced, with Eckart and John, that it was a rare demonic manifestation. It sounded like a massive collective entity.... [p. 180-1]

As, in a way, do the "locusts" of Revelation 9, or in their case separate collective entities, each made up of multiple parts.

And although I don't see much of a mechanical component in those locusts it's interesting that Eckart's entity had such a component, first seeming like a large truck, and also like a locomotive, but it was also like a dragon and had a quality that suggests the whole thing was alive in some sense.

It's also possibly relevant in this regard that Ezekiel describes in his first chapter a vision he had of four creatures that together could appear to embody something like a chariot with four wheels, and the wheels have a living spirit in them.

So if Lindsey is right to find anything resembling a Cobra helicopter in the locusts, it would most likely not be the actual machine itself but something along these lines, a living creature or composite living creature with attributes of a machine as part of the composite.

And of course all this also reminds me of speculations about the increase in UFO phenomena as a clue to a likely last days major UFO invasion of sorts in which they are to contribute to the mass delusion of the Antichrist, and probably make a handy excuse to explain away the Rapture of the Church if it does occur. While as far as I know nobody has yet suggested the UFO "vehicles" themselves could be alive in the sense the truck entity appeared to be or Ezekiel's wheels, the fact that they don't behave according to any known laws of physics, and that we (Christians) know the whole UFO phenomenon to be a demonic manifestation, makes something like that also a possibility -- a composite demonic creation of some sort, as Tal suggests.

Such possibilities make my old bones ache to get off this planet, but I can't be very happy thinking of all the people who may have to experience such demonic manifestations and worse if they live into the very last of the last days.