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William Branham was hunting on Rattlesnake Mesa just after March 4th, 1963, when his hunting companions heard a loud blast. After the hunting trip, William Branham said that he was caught up into a constellation of seven angels while hunting on Sunset Mountain, and that these angels formed a mysterious cloud after this event that was photographed in the May issue of Life Magazine.
Problems with the Prophecy
Location of the Hunt
William Branham said that he was hunting a number of different locations, including:
- Exactly Northeast of Flagstaff, or Prescott. [1]
- Exactly forty miles north of Tucson, upon Sunset Mountain in the Coronado Forest. [2]
Based on the testimony of Gene Norman[3] and Pearry Green [4], William Branham was hunting on Rattlesnake Mesa when the Angels appeared. Rattlesnake Mesa is about 10 miles north of Sunset Peak.
Technically, there is no place called “Sunset Mountain”, although there is an area called “Sunset” just to the east of Sunset Peak. Rattlesnake Mesa was also where William Branham returned to in 1964, after which he told of a blast that prophesied judgment for the West Coast. The cloud appeared north of Flagstaff, around 200 miles away from Sunset Peak.
The timing of the Hunt and the Cloud
Based on the following testimonies of William Branham and his daughter, he met angels while hunting with Gene Norman and Fred Sothman after March 4th, 1963.
- On Marcy 3, 1963 William Branham preached a sermon called “An Absolute” in Texas, during which he talks about having to drive back to Arizona that night after interceding for a boy on death row.
- In the sermon “Trying to do God a Service” (Shreveport, LA, 11/27/65) William Branham says that he went hunting with Fred Sothmann and Gene Norman after he returned from pleading for the life of a boy on death row in Texas.
- In the Sermon “The Seventh Seal”, preached on March 24, 1963, William Branham says that he was hunting with Fred Sothman and Gene Norman when the Angels appeared.
- Rebekah Smith (William Branham’s daughter) wrote an article called “Road to Sunset” in the final issue of the “Only Believe” magazine where she confirms that William Branham’s hunting trip occurred after March 4th, 1963.
In the sermon “Shalom” (January 19, 1964), William Branham said that the picture of a large, mysterious cloud in the May 1963 issue of Life magazine caught the Angels’ flight (or evidence of the angel’s flight) on camera. This statement does not seem to agree with the facts as:
- The Angels appeared to William Branham in the morning time.
- The cloud appeared over Flagstaff in the evening time.
- Life magazine reported that the cloud appeared just north of Flagstaff (but was visible as far as Mexico) on the evening of February 28, 1963.
- William Branham went hunting after March 4th, 1963.
Another interesting fact is that there was not just one cloud, but two. The second cloud is noted in the Life Magazine, and appears in a smaller photograph off to the north-west.
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 Rattlesnake Mesa, where William Branham was hunting in March 1963.  The campsite at Rattlesnake Mesa  North side of Sunset Peak. |
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- And it shall be Light at the evening time upon Sunset Mountain in the Coronado Forest, forty miles north of Tucson. Get on the map and see if Sunset Peak there. That's exactly where it happened. Sermon, July 25, 1965
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The Cloud, the Crater, and the Peak
The attached map is near-to-scale, and shows the size and location of the cloud as it would have appeared from space. From William Branham's testimony, it was morning when the blast hit Sunset Peak, 40 miles north-east of Tucson in Arizona's Coronado National Forest, and a constellation of seven angels appeared from the west.
It was evening when the cloud appeared just north of Flagstaff, Arizona. More specifically, the southern edge of this cloud rested above Sunset Crater (called Sunset Mountain until 1930), which is 10 miles north of Flagstaff and 190 miles north of where William Branham was located. In spite of this great distance, the cloud was visible from Sunset Peak, Tucson, and beyond.
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