Source: Paul Dong, China’s Major Mysteries: Paranormal Phenomena and the Unexplained in the people’s Republic of China (China books, 2000), 68-9.
637, Japan: The Barking of the celestial dog
A great star floated from East to West and there was a noise, like that of thunder. The people of that day said it was the sound of the falling star. Others said that it was earth-thunder. Hereupon the Buddhist Priest, Bin, said, “It is not the falling star but the Celestial Dog, the sound of whose barking is like thunder.”
Source: Nihongi or Chronicles of Japan (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1956). Quoted by W. Raymond Drake in Gods and Spacemen in the Ancient East (London: Sphere, 1973), 104.
24 March 639, Japan, exact location unknown
Noisy star
A big star flew from east to west with a roar like thunder. Min, a Buddhist priest, said it was star Amagitune, which is said to mean, “Fox lives in the sky.”
In spite of the reported sound, we would argue this was a meteor. For a long time, scientists discounted reports of sounds in connection with meteors, because the speed of sound is so slow compared to light that any sound should only be audible well after the passage of the meteor. Only recently was it realized that the perception of sound can be created inside the skull of the witness by microwaves propagating at the same speed as the light itself.
Source: Morihiro Saitho, Nihon-Tenmonshiriyou, Chapter 7, “Meteor, The messenger from space.”
640, Faremoutiers-en-Brie, France
A Virtuous Virgin is taken to Heaven
“In the year of our Lord 640, Eadbald, king of Kent, departed this life, and left his kingdom to his son Earconbert, who governed it most nobly 24 years and some months. His daughter Earcongota, as became the offspring of such a parent, was a most virtuous virgin, serving God in a monastery in the country of the Franks, built by a most noble abbess, named Fara, at a place called Brie. Many wonderful works and miracles of this virgin, dedicated to God, are to this day related by the inhabitants of that place; but for us it shall suffice to say something briefly of her departure out of this world to the heavenly kingdom. The day of her summoning drawing near, (…) she let (others) know that her death was at hand, as she had learnt by revelation, which she said she had received in this manner:
“She had seen a band of men, clothed in white, come into the monastery, and being asked by her what they wanted, and what they did there, they answered they had been sent thither to carry away with them the gold coin that had been brought thither from Kent. Towards the close of that same night, as morning began to dawn, leaving the darkness of this world, she departed to the light of heaven. Many of the brethren of that monastery who were in other houses, declared they had then plainly heard choirs of singing angels, and, as it were, the sound of a multitude entering the monastery. Whereupon going out immediately to see what it might be, they beheld a great light coming down from heaven, which bore that holy soul, set loose from the bonds of the flesh, to the eternal joys of the celestial country. They also tell of other miracles that were wrought that night in the same monastery by the power of God.”
Source: Bede the Venerable, Ecclesiastical History of England, trans. A. M. Sellar (London: George Bell & Sons, 1907).
Circa 685, Lindsey, England
Miracles from Heaven chase the Devil away
How a light from Heaven stood all night over King Oswald’s relics, and how those possessed with devils were healed by them: “I think we ought not to pass over in silence the miracles and signs from Heaven that were shown when King Oswald’s bones were found, and translated into the church where they are now preserved.
“It was revealed by a sign from Heaven with how much reverence they ought to be received by all the faithful; for all that night, a pillar of light, reaching from the wagon up to heaven, was visible in almost every part of the province of Lindsey. Hereupon, in the morning, the brethren of that monastery who had refused it the day before, began themselves earnestly to pray that those holy relics, beloved of God, might be laid among them. (…) Then they poured out the water in which they had washed the bones, in a corner of the cemetery. From that time, the very earth which received that holy water had the power of saving grace in casting out devils from the bodies of persons possessed.
“Lastly, there came to visit her (the queen) a certain venerable abbess, who is still living, called Ethelhild, the sister of the holy men, Ethelwinand Aldwin, the first of whom was bishop in the province of Lindsey, the other abbot of the monastery of Peartaneu; not far from which was the monastery of Ethelhild. When this lady was come, in a conversation between her and the queen, the discourse turning upon Oswald, she said, that she also had that night seen the light over his relics reaching up to heaven. The queen thereupon added, that the very dust of the pavement on which the water that washed the bones had been poured out, had already healed many sick persons.
“The abbess thereupon desired that some of that health-bringing dust might be given her, and, receiving it, she tied it up in a cloth, and, putting it into a casket, returned home.
“Some time after, when she was in her monastery, there came to it a guest, who was wont to be grievously tormented with an unclean spirit at night; he being hospitably entertained, when he had gone to bed after supper, was suddenly seized by the Devil, and began to cry out, to gnash his teeth, to foam at the mouth, and to writhe and distort his limbs. (…) When no hope appeared of easing him in his ravings, the abbess bethought herself of the dust, and immediately bade her handmaiden go and fetch her the casket in which it was. As soon as she came with it, as she had been bidden, and was entering the hall of the house, in the inner part whereof the possessed person was writhing in torment, he suddenly became silent, and laid down his head, as if he had been falling asleep, stretching out all his limbs to rest. ‘Silence fell upon all and intent they gazed,’ anxiously waiting to see the end of the matter. And after about the space of an hour the man that had been tormented sat up, and fetching a deep sigh, said, ‘Now I am whole, for I am restored to my senses.’”
Source: Bede the Venerable, Ecclesiastical History of England, op. cit.
April 750, Córdoba, Spain: Three suns, a sickle of fire
“In the nones of April, on Sunday during the first, second and almost the third hours, all the citizens of Cordoba saw three suns which shone and twinkled in a wonderful way preceded by a sickle of fire and emerald; and, from its appearance, by order of God, his angels devastated all the inhabitants of Spain with intolerable hunger.”
Source: Cronica Mozarabe of the year 754 (or “Continuatio Hispana de San Isidoro”).
778: Notre-Dame de Sabart (Ariège, France)
Luminous virgin
Tradition states that the Sabart sanctuary, near Tarascon, dates from the Great Charlemagne. The emperor dedicated a chapel to Notre-Dame in recognition of her help in his fight against the Saracens. The sanctuary is the site of a pilgrimage on September 8th. According to legend, a luminous virgin was unearthed at this place by two heifers led by Charlemagne himself. The chapel is adorned with a wonderful stained glass window dating from the thirteenth century, the oldest such window in the Midi.
Source: René Alleau, Guide de la France Mystérieuse (Paris: Tchou, 1964).
793, Northumbria, England: Fiery Dragons, Evil Men
According to the Anglo Saxon chronicle, “Here in this year, dire portents appeared over Northumbria, and sorely terrified the people. They consisted of immense whirlwinds and flashes of lightning, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the air.
A great famine immediately followed those signs, and a little after that in the same year, on 8 June, the ravages of heathen men miserably destroyed God’s church on the island of Lindisfarne, with plunder and manslaughter.”
These descriptions are consistent with electrical storms, possibly associated with tornadoes.
Source: G. P. Cubbin, ed., The Anglo Saxon Chronicle, A Collaborative Edition, vol. 6 (Cambridge: Boydell & Brewer, 19
96), 17.
819, Clent, Shropshire, England: Beam of light
A column of white light projects a beam towards a thorn tree where rested the head of murdered King Kenelm.
The connection with aerial phenomena is very tenuous indeed, yet this event is quoted in the literature of the field as if it was unidentified.
Source: Delair J Bernard, UFO Register (1971), quoting the Chronicles of Richard of Cirencester.
About 1000, Europe: Flying cross
A rare book entitled Aragón reyno de Cristo y dote de María SS. ma fundado sobre la columna immobile de Nuestra Señora de su Ciudad de Zaragoza, published in Zaragoza in 1739, mentions all kinds of celestial prodigies associated with religious images over the centuries. Among these, two incidents of flying crosses are recorded. Neither case is dated but they occurred at some time between the 10th and the 11th centuries. One of these was the “Miraculous appearance of the Sacred Cross over the carrasca in the Royal Field of the Town of Aynsa,” when Captain Garci-Ximenez, soon to become the first king of Sobrarbe, conquered the Moors of the town, “freeing it from Muslim tyranny.”
Among so many fears, Garci-Ximenez turned his eyes to the Sky, asking the God of Armies for help, and, as a presage of victory, He gave him a marvellous sign, a Sacred Red Cross that appeared over a carrasca. The sight of this spurred Garci-Ximenez on, as if he had heard the voice that Constantine the Great heard from the sky: “With this sign of the Holy Cross you will overcome.”
And, of course, they overcame. The second reference to a cross in the sky, under the heading “Prodigious apparition of the Holy Cross over the valley of Arahones in the ancient Kingdom of Sobrarbe.” On this occasion, when the Christian troops, led by Iñigo Arista, try to reconquer a place called Campo del Rey, in Aragues, they are surrounded by the Moors and ask Heaven for help. A cross then appears in the air, giving the Christians the spirit they need to fight on.
29 June 1033, England: An eclipse and the Antichrist
“Just as the superstitious idolatries of Antichrist were arrived at their height by overspreading the Christian world, upon June 29 (which is by some called St. Peter’s day) at six o’clock in the morning, a terrible eclipse of the sun happened, in which he became like sapphire; so that it made men’s countenances look pale, as if they had been dead; and every thing in the air seemed of a saffron colour.”
There is no unusual aerial phenomenon here, only an assumed connection between a religious incident (the arrival of the Antichrist) and a solar eclipse.
Source: John Howie, An Alarm unto a secure generation…, (Glasgow: John Bryce, 1780).
1066, River Setoml near Kiev, Ukraine
Red star and little man
The initial story we found stated that “in 1065” a dwarf-like entity was pulled out of the river by a fisherman and thrown back, while local residents observed a strange sign in the sky – a huge star with blood red beams of light.
“This phenomenon lasted for seven straight days. It was seen only during the evening. Around the same time a child-like dwarf type entity was found by fishermen in the river Setomi (this river does not exist at present). The dwarf was pulled out of the river in a net. The fishermen kept watch over the strange entity until late afternoon and then threw it back into the river out of fear and repugnancy. The dwarf like entity was very strange with a very wrinkled face and other “shameless” details on his face and body.”
Review of this case disclosed several problems: First, the year itself was incorrect: in the “Povest Vremennyh Let” (Tale of Bygone Years) the date of incident is given as 1066. Second, the “star with red beams” was none other than Halley’s Comet! Its nearest approach to the Earth was March 27, 1066. The “monster” was only a deformed child who was dropped in the river Setoml (not Setomi) by his mother. His body was accidentally found by the fishermen (the manuscript clearly stated this). This child even had its genitalia on the face! Russian manuscripts often stated that the birth of “monstrous” children was an omen or a curse for all peoples.
Source: Povest Vremennyh Let (an ancient manuscript), and Dmitri Lavrov in Ukrainian News 18 Feb. 1998. Further research by Mikhail Gershtein, Magonia Exchange (Magoniax) Project.
1 March 1095, Piacenza, Italy
Blue luminous dove, a great cross
In the public square, in front of the church of Saint Maria di Campagna, there was a meeting of the most powerful figures of the century. It was March 1st, 1095, and the preparations for the first crusade were under discussion. According to the legend, during the assembly, just as Countess Matilde di Canossa began to speak, a blue, luminous dove descended from the sky. Later, when these powerful leaders officially announced the launch of the crusade, the clouds opened miraculously, the public square was bathed in a powerful light, and a great cross appeared in the sky, identical to that which appeared before Emperor Constantine, with the words “In hoc signo vinces” written upon it. Probably just a bit of Christian brand management at the time of the crusades…
Source: P. Carpi, Magia e segreti dell’Emilia-Romagna (Borelli: Modena, 1988), 114.
Eleventh-century Europe: Astronauts in trouble
A new genre of folktales developed in Medieval Europe between the 11th and the 13th centuries. In these stories, a member of the aerial crew of a cloud ship runs into trouble as he descends to retrieve a lost spear or loosen a trapped anchor. These wonderful tales were told for a long time. Although it is likely they all derived from the same original source, certain details were slightly altered in each retelling.
Aside from the issue of whether actual UFOs were seen during this period, which we discussed in Part I of this book, tales of ‘cloud ships’ were retold and embroidered to support the argument that mysterious beings traversed the sky with the ease that humans travel over the sea in ships.
There was an almost universal belief that the world was composed of three levels or ‘decks’: the earth, the heavens and the marine kingdoms under the sea, between which it was not impossible to travel in the right conditions or by following certain instructions. For this reason, surreal stories of celestial sailing vessels dropping anchors upon the earth or divers from above drowning in our air became believable urban myths in medieval times. Consider the following account from Bishop Patrick’s Hiberno-Latin Mirabilia (1074-84 AD):
There was once a king of the Scots at a show
With a great throng, thousands in fair array.
Suddenly they see a ship sail past in the air,
And from the ship a man then cast a spear after a fish;
The spear struck the ground,
and he, swimming, plucked it out.
Who can hear this wonder
and not praise the Lord of Thunder?
Other Irish documents, such as the Book of Glendalough, composed in 1130, repeated the same story of the airship and the fish in every detail. However, the Book of Leinster (ca.1170), while stating that it occurred at the royal fair of Tailtiu, speaks of three ships in the sky, and alleges that King Domhnall, son of Murchad, was among the witnesses. This is interesting: Domhnall was the 161st Monarch of Ireland, reigning between 738 and 758 AD, and a report that a flying ship was seen in the sky in that period does in fact exist. The Annals of Ulster, which covers the years 431 to 1588, states, albeit with no reference to the fair or to the king, that as early as the year 749, “Ships with their crews were seen in the air above Cluain Moccu Nóis.”
Another, much later work, The Annals of the Four Masters, a series of historical chronicles compiled between 1632 and 1636 by four friars of the Abbey of Donegal in Bundrowes, near Bundoran, states that, “Ships with their crews were seen in the air” in 743. As this book contains numerous errors we are more inclined to take the date of 749 as the correct one. Was Domhnall, as opposed to Congalach, the royal witness in the original version of the airship sighting?
We see these stories as interesting forerunners of the ufology era, with a series of episodes in which the pattern shows either a
erial voyagers in trouble, or airship operators who adopt a posture conveying a message, such as an outstretched arm.
Source: Aubrey Gwynn, ed., The Writings of Bishop Patrick 1074-1084 (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1955), cited in Anchors in a three-decker world, Miceal Ross, Folklore Annual 1998. Note that the term “Scots” here refers to the Irish.
1211, Britain: Death of a sky visitor
But where is the Alien body?
In later retellings of the above story the motive behind the sailor’s descent is a trapped anchor, thus substituting the traditional spear for an object more suited to navigation.
Gervase of Tilbury collected a similar tale in his work, Otia Imperialia (1211 AD):
“As people were coming out of church in Britain, on a dark cloudy day, they saw a ship’s anchor fastened in a heap of stones, with its cable reaching up from it into the clouds. Presently they saw the cable strained, as if the crew was trying to pull it up, but it still stuck fast. Voices were then heard above the clouds, apparently in clamorous debate, and a sailor came down the cable. As soon as he touched the ground the crowd gathered around him, and he died, like a man drowned at sea, suffocated by our damp thick atmosphere. An hour afterwards, his shipmates cut the cable and sailed away; and the anchor they left behind was made into fastenings and ornaments for the church door, in memory of this wondrous event.”
It is not reported whether the dead sailor’s body is shipped home in the airship, or whether the deceased is given a Christian burial on earth. In either case, this would be the first account of an aerial navigator that dies in an accident on our planet, some seven centuries before Roswell.
Wonders in the Sky Page 33
