Wonders in the Sky

by Jacques Vallee

  The rudiments of science arrived in Europe from the Middle East, with primitive astronomical instruments, early tables of star positions, and knowledge of Greek medicine and philosophy transmitted by Arabic scholars. The first cathedrals were built, the gothic style appeared at Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris, and the first account of the use of a mariner’s compass was noted (in 1125). During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a new invention started its slow spread into Western Europe from Spain, with the adoption of paper as a replacement for parchment. Far less expensive, paper greatly accelerated the spread of knowledge. The twelfth century would also see the founding of Cambridge University in England, the compilation of the Edda mythologies in Scandinavia, and the teachings of Albertus Magnus. Early in the thirteenth century Fibonacci introduced Arabic numerals into Europe, and the great University movements expanded in all countries, from Brussels and Salisbury to Salamanca, Siena, Toulouse and Vicenza, supported by great scholars like Roger Bacon (1214-1294). Libraries appeared everywhere, preserving ancient knowledge and contemporary chronicles.

  Travelers became increasingly ambitious, encouraged by Marco Polo’s voyage to China from 1271 to 1295. Knowledge about the world began circulating more widely, while the Crusades ended (in 1291) with the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem settling in Cyprus. Things took a disastrous turn in the mid-fourteenth century when the Black Death devastated Europe, killing a third of the population of England (1347). Early in the fifteenth century the Chinese compiled the first Encyclopedia (in 22,937 volumes!), a civil war began in France, Joan of Arc led the French armies against England, and Portuguese navigators found the first Negroes near Cap Blanc in western Africa, starting the slave trade again.

  Everything suddenly accelerated in the last years of the fifteenth century: Leonardo da Vinci made his famed scientific discoveries, Copernicus studied at Cracow, the first terrestrial globe was constructed in Nuremberg, Johan Gutenberg used metal plates for printing and the king and queen of Spain, against the advice of their committee of experts, financed the voyage of an Italian navigator named Christopher Columbus. The world had changed.

  76.

  25 April 1001, Foggia, Italy

  Strange flashes and a luminous lady

  The count of Aviemore, tired after a day of hunting, decided to spend the night in a rustic hut. In the middle of the night he was awakened by servants and friends frightened by strange flashes, who urged the hunters to flee with them, fearing a forest fire. He decided not to run away with his companions but to cautiously study the strange phenomenon. Heading for the place where the flashes came from, the Count realized that there was no fire or burning trees, but a strange light. Among the flashes he saw a beautiful lady, whom he took to be the Virgin Mary.

  A farmer named Nicholas, nicknamed Strazzacappa, who was going to work, saw the vision as well and reportedly heard a request from the apparition for a place of worship to be erected there. The case received publicity and a small chapel built at the spot became a center of pilgrimage. After a few years the Verginiani, led by William of Vercelli, settled there. When they merged with the Cistercians, the now famous monastery passed to the care of these monks. The church was elevated to the dignity of basilica by Pope Paul VI on 31 May 1978.

  Source: Marino Gamba, Apparizioni mariane nel corso di due millenni (Udine: Ediz. Il Segno, 1999).

  77.

  Circa 1010, Ostium, Italy

  Five-year old child abducted

  Peter Damian, Cardinal-Bishop of the Italian city of Ostium (1007-1072), recorded what would be regarded today as a typical abduction involving the five-year-old son of a nobleman: “One night he was carried out of the monastery into a locked mill, where he was found in the morning. And when he was questioned, he said that he had been carried by strangers to a great feast and bidden to eat; and afterwards he was put into the mill through the roof.”

  What we see here is an early instance of a thread that will become increasingly important as the chronology develops, focusing on alleged interaction between human witnesses and creatures of another order. While a simplistic Christian interpretation classifies them as “demons,” more sophisticated scholars recognized they did not fit easily within the biblical definitions of good and evil. In the Moslem world they would be recognized as the Djinni. In the later medieval world they will become the Fairies, the elves, the Elementals of the Alchemical tradition, the “Good Neighbors” of the Celtic world. The parallels are obvious between the beliefs in such beings and contemporary abduction stories made popular by television.

  “Great feasts” are a staple of fairy folklore. Abductees were usually “bidden to eat” when the fairies whisked them off to their hidden palaces, just as people often claim to be given pills or liquids to swallow in today’s accounts. Even being pulled, pushed or dragged through the roof has its parallel in modern UFO lore.

  Source: Malleus Maleficarum, written in 1486 by Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, translated with an introduction, bibliography and notes by Montague Summers (London: Bracken Books, 1996), 105. The works of S. Peter Damian, which have been more than once collected, may be found in Migne, Patres Latini, CXLIV-CXLV.

  78.

  7 July 1015, Kyoto, Western Japan

  Objects emerge from ‘mother stars’

  The Director General of Saemonfu [the Royal Guard] said that he had witnessed two stars meeting at night. “The circumstances were as follows: Both stars flew slowly towards each other and the moment they were 10 meters or so from each other, there came little stars rushing out of each big star, coming towards the other big star, and soon returned to their respective mother star, then the two mother stars flew away swiftly. After this meeting, clouds appeared and covered the sky. I hear that people in ancient times also witnessed such a phenomenon, but recently it was so rare that I was impressed not a little.”

  Source: Masaru Mori, “The Female Alien in a Hollow Vessel,” Fortean Times, 48 (1987): 48; Inforespace 23:35.

  79.

  Autumn 1023, France: A ballet of stars

  “There were seen in the southern part of the sky in the Sign of the Lion, two stars that fought each other all Autumn; the largest and most luminous of the two came from the east, the smallest one from the west, the small one rushed furiously and fearfully at the biggest one which didn’t allow the speck to approach, but he struck her with his mane of light, repulsing her far towards the east.”

  Source: Adémar de Chabannes, Chronicon, book 3, ch. 62, in J. Chavanon, Adémar de Chabannes, Chronique (Paris: A. Picard, 1897).

  80.

  1036, Taichang, China

  Bedroom visitation, abduction

  A cloud carrying a female from the sky is said to have come down to the bedroom of Wang’s daughter and flown away with her. Chinese writer Sheng Gua reports: “Under the reign of Jinyou (1034-1038) a scholar from Taichang named Wang Lun saw (goddess) Zigu flying down into his daughter’s bedroom. This goddess knew how to write and was very pretty. A cloud floated under her feet, and she moved fast without effort. Zigu asked Wang Lun’s daughter: ‘Do you want to travel with me?’ She agreed with a sign of her head. At once, clouds formed in the courtyard and the girl was lifted, but the clouds could not carry her. Zigu said at once: ‘There is dust on your shoes, take them off before coming up.’ The girl did as she was told and she rose in the clouds that lifted her to the sky.”

  Source: Shi Bo, La Chine et les Extraterrestres, op.cit., 27.

  81.

  1045, England: A “witch” gets abducted

  “When Henrie the third of that name was Emperour of Rome, in England a certain southsaying Witch was caried away by the Divel, whyche being drawen after him uppon his horsse with a horrible crye, he caryed away up into the ayre, the cry of whiche old woman was heard for certaine houres almost foure miles in that Countrey.”

  This constitutes only one of hundreds of similar stories about witches carried away by paranormal means or by non-human beings, usually thought to be demoni
c.

  Source: Lycosthenes, Prodigiorum ac Ostentorum Chronicon (Basel, 1557). Translation from the Latin by Stephen Batman, The Doome, warning all men to judgment… (London, 1581).

  82.

  Ca. 1050, Vinland (Newfoundland): Woman in black

  The Greenlanders Saga includes a report about a woman named Gudrid who was sitting near the doorway beside the cradle of her son Snorri when “a shadow fell across the door and a woman entered dressed in a black close-fitting dress. She was rather short, wore a band round her head and had light-brown hair; she was pale and had such large eyes that their equal had never been seen in a human head.”

  The entity walked over to where Gudrid was sitting and said: “What is your name?”

  “My name is Gudrid, but what is your name?”

  “My name is Gudrid,” she replied.

  “Then Gudrid the housewife held out her hand, that she should sit by her. But it happened at the same moment, that Gudrid heard a great crack, and was then the woman lost to sight, and at the same time one Skraling was killed by a house carle of Karlsefne’s, because he would have taken their weapons. And went they now away as usual, and their clothes lay there behind, and their wares; no man had seen this woman, but Gudrid alone.”

  This episode, an early instance of the meme of a “Woman-in-black,” took place in the days of Thorfinn Karlsefni, the son of Thord Horsehead, the son of Snorri Thordason of Hofdi. Karlsefni was a companion of Leif Eirikson at Brattahlid. The two authors have disagreed about this case, since it could be considered a ghost story rather than a UFO case, but numerous modern claims of alien visitation fall in the same category and follow the identical model.

  Source: Helge Ingstad, Westward to Vinland (London: Jonathan Cape, 1969).

  83.

  14 April 1054, Rome, Italy

  A bright circle in the midday sky

  In their paper “Do We Need to Redate the Birth of the Crab Nebula?” astronomers Guidoboni, Marmo, and Polcaro quote from the Tractatus de Ecclesia S. Petri Aldeburgensi, written by a monk or a clerk of the church of St. Peter in the town of Oudenburg, in present-day Belgium, regarding aerial phenomena observed at the time of the death of Pope Leo IX. They argue that the event described was a supernova, which is possible but unlikely.

  “The most blessed Pope Leo, after the beginning of the construction of the aforementioned church of St. Peter, in the following year, on the 18th day before the first of May (i.e., 14th April 1054), a Monday, around midday, happily departed this world. And at the same time and hour as his leaving of the flesh, not only in Rome, where his body lies, but also all over the world appeared to men a circle in the sky of extraordinary brightness which lasted for about half an hour. Perhaps the Lord wished to say that he [the Pope] was worthy to receive a crown in Heaven between those who love Him.”

  The supernova that gave rise to the Crab Nebula was first seen by Chinese astronomers who noted a “guest star” in the constellation Taurus on July 4, 1054, fully three months after the Rome sighting. Simon Mitton lists 5 independent preserved Far-East records of this event (one of 75 authentic guest stars – novae and supernovae, excluding comets – systematically recorded by Chinese astronomers between 532 BC and 1064 AD). This star became about 4 times brighter than Venus in its brightest light, or about magnitude -6, and was visible in daylight for 23 days. It was probably also recorded by Anasazi Indian artists (in present-day Arizona and New Mexico), as findings in Navaho Canyon and White Mesa as well as in the Chaco Canyon National Park (New Mexico) indicate.

  The astronomers note that the English translation of the Latin terms “circulus” and “corona” is not perfect, because they do not convey the original sense of “disc” that the Flemish writer expressed in his text. “The fact that corona was conceived as a bright disk (or shield) makes us understand that also circulus in this context must mean the same object. In conclusion, the Flemish chronicler saw a bright disk in the sky, and not a halo. Furthermore, we can observe that in this document, the author describes the phenomenon in neutral terms, unaffected by any set of beliefs: the disk-like shape, the intense brightness and the duration of the phenomenon are all elements common to very different cultures. The author separates the description of the phenomenon from his cautious symbolic interpretation, showing a clear awareness of the different levels of discourse.” Note that the text of the Tractatus does not give the correct date for the Pope’s death, which was 19 April 1054.

  Source: E. Guibodoni, C. Marmo and V.F. Polcaro, “Do we Need to Redate the Birth of the Carb Nebula?” Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italiana 65 (1994): 624.

  84.

  Circa 1059, Fanliang, China

  The bright pearl in the lake

  Sheng Gua, a Chinese scholar of the Song Dynasty, recorded an interesting sighting in Chapter 369 of his Stories on the Bank of a Stream of Dreams:

  “In the middle of the reign of emperor Jia You [1056-1063], at Yangzhou, in the Jiangsu province, an enormous pearl was seen especially in gloomy weather. At first it appeared in the marsh of the Tianchang district, passed by the lake of Bishe and disappeared finally in the Xinkai lake. The inhabitants of that region and travelers saw it frequently over a period of ten years. I have a friend who lives on the edge of the lake. One evening, he looked through the window and saw the luminous pearl near his house. He half-opened his door and the light entered, illuminating the room with its brightness. The pearl was round, with a gold-colored ring around it. Suddenly, it enlarged considerably and became bigger than a table. In its centre, the luminary was white and silvery, and the intensity was such that it could not be looked at straight on.”

  The light it emitted even reached trees that were some 5 kilometers away and as a result these cast their shadow on the ground; the faraway sky was all alight. Finally, the round luminous object began to move at a breathtaking speed and landed on the water between the waves, like a rising sun.

  As the pearl often made its appearance in the town of Fanliang in Yangzhou, the inhabitants, who had seen it frequently, built a wayside pavilion and named it “The Pearl Pavilion.” Inquisitive people often came from afar by boat, waiting for a chance to see the unpredictable pearl.

  Source: Shi Bo, La Chine et les Extraterrestres, op.cit., 26. The case is also mentioned by Paul Dong in China’s Major Mysteries: Paranormal Phenomena and the Unexplained in the People’s Republic of China (China Books, 2000), 69-71. Dong quotes from an article in Peking’s Guang Ming Daily of February 18th 1979, “Could It Be That a Visitor from Outer Space Visited China Long Long Ago?” written by Professor Zhang Longqiao of the Chinese department of Peking Teachers College. The actual account comes from the book “Meng Qi Bi Tan” (“Essays of the Meng Hall”) by Shen Kua of the Song Dynasty (960-1127).

  85.

  1067, Northumbria, England

  Fiery sign revolves, moves up and down

  “In this year, truly, several people saw a sign; in appearance it was fire: it flamed and burned fiercely in the air; it came near to the earth, and for a little time quite illuminated it; afterwards it revolved and ascended up on high, then descended into the bottom of the sea; in several places it burned woods and plains. No man knew with certainty what this divined, nor what this sign signified. In the country of the Northumbrians this fire showed itself; and in two seasons of one year were these demonstrations.”

  The original account, in Gaimar’s History of the English (in Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1889, Kraus reprint, 1966) runs thus:

  Many folks saw a sign

  In likeness of fire it was,

  In the air it greatly flamed and burned:

  Towards the earth it approached,

  For a little it quite lighted up.

  Then it revolved above,

  Then fell into the deep sea.

  In many places it burnt woods and plains.

  Source: C. E. Britton, A Meteorological Chronology
to A.D. 1450 (London: H.M.S.O., 1937), 44. Britton comments: “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gives the date of the return from Normandy as December 6 but does not mention the auroral appearances.” Also mentioned by Geoffrey Gaimar in L’Estoire des Engles solum la Translacion Maistre Geffri Gaimar, a 12th century manuscript.

  86.

  December 1071, Zhengjiang, China

  Light rising from the river

  Scholar Su Dongpo saw a big light emerge from the Yangtse River, scaring away the mountain birds.

  Source: Shi Bo, La Chine et les Extraterrestres, op.cit., 26.

  87.

  July 1085, Estella, Navarra, Spain: A great star, and the Holy Virgin

  Estella, in Navarra, is another place named after an unusual aerial sighting. The Virgin and a great star are said to have appeared to a group of shepherds on the mountain. The consequent worship of the area brought in pilgrims by the hundreds and King Sancho Ramirez built a sanctuary there. A sign on its capilla reads:

  Ésta es la estrella

  This is the star

  Que bajó del Cielo

  That came down from the Sky

  a Estella

  to Estella

  Para reparo de ella.

  To observe it.

  Source: Javier Sierra and Jesús Callejo, La España Extraña (Madrid: Editorial EDAF, 1997), 131-2.