A week or so ago, I purchased an envelope of ephemera from the estate of Ms. Daphne Hudson. Enjoy.

Found – One Lost Day

GOING B ACK IN TIME. Those who wrestle with the space program and doubts about an Almighty, might find some consolation in this article, reprinted from the Spencer, Indiana Star. Harold Hill, president of Curtis Engine Co. in Baltimore, and a consultant in the space program relates the following development:

I think one of the most amazing things that God has for us today happened recently to our astronauts and space scientist at Green Belt, Maryland. They were checking the position of the sun, moon and planets, out in space where they would be in 100 years and 1,000 years from now. We have to know this so we don’t send a satellite up and have it bump into something later on in its orbit. We have to lay out the orbits in terms of life of the satellite, and where the planets will be so the whole think will not bog down. They ran the computer measurement back and forth over the centuries and it came to a halt. They computer stopped and put up a red signal, which meant that there was something wrong either with the information fed into it or with the results as compared to the standards. They called in the service department to check it and they said, “It’s perfect.” The heads of operation said, “What’s wrong?” “Well, they have found there is a day missing in space in elapsed time.” They scratched their heads and tore their hair. There was no answer.

One religious fellow on the team said, “You know, one time I was in Sunday School and they talked about the sun standing still.” They didn’t believe him, but they didn’t have any other answer so they said, “Show us.” He got a Bible and went back to the book of Joshua where they found what they thought was a pretty ridiculous statement for anybody who has ‘common sense.’ There they found the Lord saying to Joshua, “Fear them not; for I have delivered them into thine hand; there shall not a man stand before thee.” Joshua was concerned because he was surrounded by the enemy and if darkness fell they would overpower them. So Joshua asked the Lord to make the sun stand still. That’s right, “The sun stood still, and the moon stayed… and hasted not to go down about a whole day.” They checked the computers going back into the time it was written and found it was close but not close enough. The elapsed time that was missing back in Joshua’s day was 23 hours and 20 minutes – not a whole day. They read the Bible and there it was “about (approximately) a day.”

There little words in the Bible are important. But they were still in trouble because if you cannot account for 40 minutes you’ll still be in trouble 1,000 years from now. Forty minutes had to be found because it can multiplied many times over on orbits. This religious fellow also remembered somewhere in the Bible where it said the sun went backwards. The space men told him he was out of his mind. But they got out the Book and read their words in II Kings: Hezekiah on his death-bed, was visited by the prophet Isaiah who told him that he was not going to die. Hezekiah asked for a sign as proof. Isaiah said, “Do you want the sun to go ahead ten degrees?” Hezekiah said, “It is nothing for the sun to go ahead ten degrees, but let the shadow return backwards ten degrees.” (II Kings 20:9-11) Isaiah spoke to the Lord and the Lord brought the shadow ten degrees backward. Ten degrees is exactly forty minutes. Twenty three hours and 20 minutes in Joshua and 40 minutes in II Kings make the missing day in the universe.

There is no date on this document, but my best guess it that it was typed in the 70s.  I decided to check Snopes and found this.