Rainbows and the number eight

With seven each of creatures clean;

Of unclean, two -- yet I have seen

How mercy doth prevail in Heaven:

Though man's an unclean creature, seven

The Lord permitted to embark

Along with me into the ark.

My sons, my wife, my sons' three wives --

He saved their five-too-many lives!

-- Yes and No

Early this morning I was reading in a coffee shop, as is my wont. I read the two Epistles of Peter and then turned to The Eighth Tower by John Keel.

Both Epistles mention Noah as one of eight survivors of the Flood: "the ark . . . wherein few, that is eight, souls were saved" (1 Pet. 3:20), and "saved Noah the eighth person" (2 Pet. 2:5). The story of the Flood is, among other things, a just-so story about the origin of the rainbow.

The Eighth Tower has that word eighth in its title, and the cover illustration shows the seven traditional colors of the rainbow plus an eighth color, black:

The author's name as given on the cover -- John A. Keel -- contains an anagram of Noah. (John A. is also an anagram of that other nautical prophet, Jonah.) A keel is part of a ship.

In the book, Keel provides a diagram of part of the electromagnetic spectrum -- including eight "colors" -- and then discusses how UFOs often appear first as red or violet and then move through the spectrum:

Just as I was reading this, the background music in the coffee shop was a song called "Inside a Rainbow":