Wonders in the Sky

by Jacques Vallee

  At 9:00 P.M., “the sky being very calm, without there being a single cloud in it, (Jose Pellicer reported) an extremely black and dark cloud, that approached from somewhere between the east and the north, dilated and narrow, crossing between the west and Midday, that was stationary for some time” – giving the impression that Pellicer may have seen something resembling the ‘cloud cigars’ dealt with in modern reports.

  Pellicer goes on to mention a burst of sound of unknown origin in the sky over Molina de Aragón. The people there heard “loud noises, bugles, drums, as if an invisible ferocious battle were happening but without anything to be seen.”

  Source: José Pellicer de Salas y Tobar, Avisos históricos, op. cit.

  239.

  14 September 1641, Akhaltsike, Georgia

  Blue wheel descending

  Armenian chronicler Zacharia Sarcofag saw a strange phenomenon at sunset. The sky was not yet dark when suddenly “the ether on the eastern side was torn up and a big dark-blue light began to descend. Being wide and long, it came down approaching the Earth and it illuminated everything around, more brightly than the sun.”

  The forward part of the light “revolved like a wheel, moving to the north, calmly and slowly emitting red and white light, and in front of the light, at a distance of an open hand, there was a star the size of Venus. The light was still visible until my father had sung, weeping, six sharakans, after which it moved away. Later we heard that people saw this miraculous light up to Akhaltsike.”

  A sharakan is a brief prayer sung over two to three minutes, so the phenomenon would have lasted at least 15 minutes, according to researcher Mikhail Gershtein.

  Source: Zacharia Sarcofag, On the Fall of Light from the Sky. Cited by M. B. Gershtein, “A Thousand Years of Russian UFOs,” RIAP Bulletin (Ukraine) 7, 4, October-December 2001.

  240.

  3 July 1642, Olesa de Montserrat, Catalonia, Spain

  Globe, changing its appearance

  Joseph Aguilera and others saw a globe changing to “three moons,” later an enormous light seen for one hour.

  Source: Guijarro, Josep, Guía de la Cataluña Mágica (Barcelona: Ediciones Martínez Roca, 1999), 48.

  241.

  18 January 1644, Boston, Mass.: Luminous figures

  Three men coming to Boston saw two “man-shaped lights” come out of the sea. About 8 P.M. several inhabitants of an area of Boston located near the sea saw a light the size of the full moon rise in the northeast. Shortly thereafter, another light appeared in the east. The witnesses observed a curious game of hide-and-seek between the two objects.

  During this celestial ballet, several persons known to be sober and pious, who were aboard a boat between Dorchester and Boston, claimed they heard a voice in the sky uttering the following words in a most terrible voice: “Boy, boy, come away…” These calls were repeated about 20 times, coming from various directions.

  Source: John Winthrop, Winthrop’s Journal, “History of New England” (1630-1649) (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1959).

  242.

  25 January 1644, Boston, Massachusetts

  A Voice from the light

  Luminous objects were seen sparkling, emitting flames. Again, the aerial ballet of the previous week was observed and a voice calling out: “Boy, boy, come away.”

  Source: John Winthrop, Winthrop’s Journal, “History of New England” (1630-1649) (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1959).

  243.

  April 1645, Caudan, Brittany, France

  A Procession of sky beings

  A sixty-year old man named Jean Coachon, who lived in Calan, near Lanvodan and Vannes, stated that he had witnessed a procession of sky beings he called “angels,” circling above the church, with the Virgin among them. This was related by the Lord of Lestour, who collected such stories.

  Source: Eric Lebec, ed., Miracles et Sabbats. Journal du Père Maunoir, missions en Bretagne (1631-1650) (Paris: Les éditions de Paris, 1997), 85-86.

  244.

  11 November 1645, Location unknown

  Unidentified planetoid near Venus

  A body large enough to be a satellite was seen near Venus from Naples by the astronomer Francesco Fontana. He made further observations of the “satellite” on December 25th 1645 and January 22nd, 1646. Jean-Charles Houzeau, director of the Royal Observatory of Brussels, baptized the satellite with the name “Neith” in the 1880s.

  Source: Francesco Fontana, Novae coelestium terrestriumq[ue] rerum observationes… (Naples, 1646).

  245.

  April 1646, St. Teath, Cornwall

  Abductee becomes a healer

  A woman named Anne Jefferies fell ill and claimed to have acquired healing powers after being abducted by six ‘small people’. Anne Jefferies was the daughter of a poor laborer who lived in the parish of St. Teath. She was born in 1626, and is said to have died in 1698.

  When she was nineteen years old, Anne went to live as a servant in the family of Mr. Moses Pitt, where she suffered a sudden loss of consciousness. A letter from Moses Pitt to the Right Reverend Dr. Edward Fowler, the Bishop of Gloucester, dated May 1st, 1696, explains how one day Jefferies had been knitting in an arbour in the garden when something so shocking happened to her “that she fell into a kind of Convulsion-fit.” Soon afterwards members of the family found her writhing on the ground and carried her indoors, where she was taken to her bedroom and allowed to rest. When she regained consciousness she startled everyone gathered at her bedside by crying out, “They are all just gone out of the Window; do you not see them?” This and similar outbursts were immediately “attributed to her Distemper,” her employers supposing she was suffering a bout of feverish ‘light-headedness.’

  Anne Jefferies remained in an unstable condition for some time, unable even to “so much as stand on her Feet.” Gradually, however, she managed to recover from her sickness and by the following year was able to reassume her duties as a maid but she had not exactly become her old self again. Pitt writes that the first indication that Jefferies had acquired new skills came “one Afternoon, in the Harvest-time,” when his mother slipped and broke her leg on the way back from the mill. A servant was told to saddle a horse and fetch Mr. Hob, the surgeon, from a nearby town. “Anne Jefferies came into the room and saw Mrs. Pitt with her leg outstretched. She asked her to show her the wound, which the woman did after some persuasion, and to rest the leg on her lap. Stroking it with her hand, Anne asked whether the woman was feeling any better. My Mother confess’d to her she did. Upon this she desired my Mother to forbear sending for the Chyrurgeon, for she would, by the Blessing of God, cure her leg.”

  What surprised Mrs. Pitt the most was not the maid’s newfound healing powers but the fact that she seemed to know exactly when and where her fall had happened. Yet how could she? Moses writes that his mother demanded an explanation.

  Anne said “You know that this my Sickness and Fits came very suddenly upon me, which brought me very low and weak, and have made me very simple. Now the Cause of my Sickness was this. I was one day knitting of Stockings in the Arbour in the Gardens, and there came over the Garden-hedge of a sudden six small People, all in green Clothes, which put me into such a Fright and Consternation that was the Cause of this my great Sickness; and they continue their Appearance to me, never less that 2 at a time, nor never more than 8: they always appear in even Numbers, 2, 4, 6, 8. When I said often in my Sickness, They were just gone out of the Window, it was really so; altho you thought me light-headed (…) And thereupon in that Place, and at that time, in a fair Path you fell, and hurt your Leg. I would not have you send for a Chyrurgeon, nor trouble your self, for I will cure your Leg.”

  From that time on, Anne Jefferies became famous throughout England as a faith-healer and fairy contactee. Moses Pitt writes that “People of all Distempers, Sicknesses, Sores, and Ages” travelled from far and wide to Cornwall to see the girl and receive her magical treatment. She charged no fee for her work.”

  Unfortunately, so many s
trange goings on and her growing reputation as a seer worried the local authorities. They sent “both the Neighboro-Magistrates and Ministers” to question the maid on the nature of her supernatural contacts. Despite hearing Anne Jefferies’ “very rational Answers to all the Questions they then ask’d her,” her interrogators concluded that the spirits she spoke to were “the Delusion of the Devil,” and they “advised her not to go to them when they call’d her.” Not long after this, the Justice of the Peace in Cornwall, John Tregagle Esq., issued a warrant for her arrest.

  Jefferies spent three months in Bodmin Gaol. When she was finally freed it was decided that she could not return to the house of the Pitts, so she went to stay with Moses Pitt’s aunt, Mrs. Francis Tom, near Padstow. There “she liv’d a considerable time, and did many great Cures,” but later moved into her own brother’s house and eventually married.

  Source: Letter from Moses Pitt to the Bishop of Gloucester in Robert Hunt, Popular Romances of West England (1871).

  246.

  May 1646, The Hague, Netherlands

  Fleet of airships, occupants

  Unknown people and animals were seen in the sky of The Hague. A fleet of airships came from the southeast, carrying many occupants. It came close to the aerial spectacle. A huge fight ensued.

  When the phenomenon vanished, people saw “something like a huge cloud that appeared at a place where nothing was visible before.”

  Source: Signes from Heaven; or severall Apparitions seene and hearde in the Ayre… (London: T. Forcey, 1646).

  247.

  21 May 1646, Newmarket & Thetford, England

  Vertical pillar of light

  “Betwixt Newmarket and Thetford in the foresaid county of Suffolk, there was observed a pillar or a Cloud to ascend from the earth, with the bright hilts of a sword towards the bottom of it, which piller (sic) did ascend in a pyramidal form, and fashioned it self into the forme of a spire or broach Steeple, and there descended also out of the skye, the forme of a Pike or Lance, with a very sharp head or point (…) This continued for an hour and a half.”

  Source: Signes from Heaven: or severall Apparitions seene and heard in the Ayre… (London: T. Forcey, 1646).

  248.

  1648, Edinburgh, Scotland

  Flight aboard a fiery coach

  In the spring of 1670, Captain of the Town Guard and highly respected preacher Major Thomas Weir (ca. 1596-1670) and his sister Jane Weir confessed to a series of terrible offenses. Thomas’ confession began with a detailed summary of his sex crimes which was horrible enough in the eyes of the city officials in Edinburgh. But it was when he admitted to being a witch and a sorcerer that the authorities became truly anxious. Weir said that he and his sister had had dealings with demons and fairies, to whom they had duly sold their immortal souls.

  The Devil appeared to Jane in the guise of a midget-like woman. Both she and her brother had been carried off by strange entities on several occasions. They said that in 1648 they were transported between Edinburgh to Musselburgh in a fiery “coach,” and they had also been taken for a ride in a similarly fiery “chariot” from their house in the West Bow (a z-shaped street near Edinburgh Castle) to Dalkeith.

  It is interesting that Thomas Weir was driven to coming clean about his private life because of the guilt he felt from having consorted with devils. Major Weir was an active member of a strict Protestant sect. Betraying God was, for him, his least forgivable crime. However, he was old and sick and he had been an important figure in society for as long as people could remember, so at the beginning he had trouble persuading the courts to arrest him. When at last he and his sister were remanded in custody she alone was convicted of witchcraft, while he was “only” found guilty of fornication, incest and bestiality (!).

  Jane Weir was hanged and burnt at the stake at Grass Market on April 12th, 1670, and her brother the day before. Tradition holds that both refused to repent on the scaffold, crying out that they wished to die as shamefully as they deserved. When requested to pray on the eve of his execution, Major Weir answered, screaming, “Torment me no more–I am tormented enough already!” This gives the impression that he was convinced of the physical nature of his acts and of his contact with malign spirits, as does his reply on the scaffold when asked to beg God for mercy: “Let me alone – I will not – I have lived as a beast, and I must die as a beast!” Jane Weir’s final words were along the same lines.

  Source: Charles McKay, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841).

  249.

  1650, Limerick, Ireland: Flying globe with light beam

  A luminous globe brighter than the Moon shed a vertical light on the city, and then it faded as it passed over the enemy camp.

  Source: Dominic O’Daly, History of the Geraldines (1665).

  250.

  Circa 1650, Fisherton Anger, Wiltshire, England

  Contact with Spirits

  A woman named Anne Bodenham, formerly a servant to Dr. Lamb of London, was accused of witchcraft and commerce with devils. She was eventually put to death in 1653 at the age of 80.

  The cleric who recorded her trial noted that:

  “Arrived at the place of execution, she attempted to go at once up the ladder, but was restrained. Mr. Bower pressing her to confess, she steadfastly refused, and cursed those who detained her.”

  Fig. 21: The spirit creatures in Anne Bodenham’s magic, emerging from a circle of fire.

  A maid testified at the trial that she had seen Anne Bodenham invoke the Devil. After Anne had made a circle with a stick, and filled it with burning coals,

  “Then appeared two spirits in the likeness of great boys with long shagged hair, and stood by her looking over her shoulder, and the Witch took the maid’s forefinger of her right hand, in her hand, and pricked it with a pin and squeezed out the blood, and put it into a pen, and put the pen into the maid’s hand, and held her hand to write in a great book, and one of the spirits laid his hand or claw over the witches, whilst the maid wrote, and when she had done writing whilst their hands were together, the Witch said Amen, and made the Maid say Amen, and the Spirits said Amen, Amen.

  “And the Spirits hand did feel cold to the maid as it touched her hand, when the witches hand and hers were together writing.”

  Source: James Bower, The Tryal, Examination and Confession of mistris Bodenham, before the Lord chief Baron Wild, & the Sentence of Death pronounc’d against her, etc. (London: printed for G. Horton, 1653). See also Doctor Lamb revived, or, Witchcraft condemn’d in Anne Bodenham a Servant of his, who was Arraigned and Executed the Lent Assizes last at Salisbury…by Edmond Bower an eye and ear Witness of her Examination and Confession (London: printed by T.W. for Richard Best, and John Place, 1653).

  251.

  22 December 1651, Almerdor, Holland

  Flying dutchmen

  Dutch sailors saw a fleet of ships in the air, with many people and soldiers.

  Source: A report made before the harbormaster (Seville: Juan Gómez de Blas, 1652).

  252.

  May 1652, Near Rome, Italy

  Huge object drops strange matter

  A single luminous object, 80 meters in size, was seen in the air. A mass of “gelatinous matter” fell to the ground.

  Source: Edinburgh Philosophical Journal 1 (October 1819): 234.

  253.

  1656, Cardiganshire, Wales: Bedroom visitation

  In a letter written in 1656, John Lewis of Cardiganshire (Wales) described the experience of an acquaintance of his:

  “A man lay in bed at night while his family were all fast asleep. Just after midnight “he could perceive a light entering [his] little room.” Suddenly a dozen or so little beings “in the shape of men, and two or three women, with small children in their arms” walked in.

  “The room seemed different somehow. It was illuminated, and appeared to be wider than before. The beings began to dance around and tuck into a special feast, inviting the witness to try the meat.
This went on for four hours, and in the meantime, “he could perceive no voice” except for the occasional whisper in Welsh “bidding him hold his peace.” He found it impossible to wake up his wife. Finally, the party of little spirits moved their dancing on to another room, and then departed. Until the man cried out at last and woke up his family, for some unexplained reason “he could not find the door, nor the way into bed.”

  John Lewis described the man as “an honest poor husbandsman, and of good report: and I made him believe I would put him to his oath for the truth of this relation, who was very ready to take it.”

  Source: William E. A. Axon, Welsh Folk-lore of the Seventeenth Century. Y Cymmrodor Vol. XXI (1908), 116.

  254.

  1659, Leicester and Nottinghamshire, England

  Flying coffin

  Starting at 1 P.M. people observed an object “in the perfect figure and form of a black coffin, with a fiery dart and a flaming sword flying to and again, backwards and forwards the head of the said coffin, which was with great wonder and admiration beheld by many hundreds of people.” This was seen until 3:15 P.M., when it broke up with great brilliance.

  Fig. 22: Wonders in England

  Source: The five strange wonders, in the north and west of England as they were communicated to divers honourable members of Parliament, from several countrey gentlemen and ministers, concerning the strange and prodigious flying in the air of a black coffin betwixt Leicester and Nottingham, on Sabbath day last a fortnight, with a flaming arrow, and a bloody sword, casting forth firearms of fire… (London: W. Thomas, 1659).

  255.

  1660, New England, American Colonies

  Aerial phenomena to the rescue of Puritanism

  Some remarkable phenomena having appeared in the air, one of which is described as “resembling the form of a spear, of which the point was directed towards the setting sun, and which, with slow majestic motion, descended through the upper regions of the air, and gradually disappeared beneath the horizon,” (note: possibly the zodiacal light) the magistrates and clergy availed themselves of the deep impression which these signs created, to promote a general reformation of manners among the people.