Wonders in the Sky (17 page)

Source:
Flodoardi Annales
, in
Monumenta Germaniae Historiae
, trans. G. H. Pertz, Tome III (Hanover, 1839).

70.

944, Trans-Rhenan Germany: Iron Globes chased away

“In some districts, burning iron globes were seen in the air, some of which, while flying, burnt some farms and houses. But in some places they were repelled by opposing them with crucifixes, episcopal blessing and holy water.”

 

Source:
Flodoardi Annales
, in
Monumenta Germaniae Historiae
, trans. G. H. Pertz, Tome III (Hanover, 1839).

71.

9 September 967, Japan, exact location unknown
Triangular formation

Numerous objects in
triangular formation flying under the rain clouds
, trajectory east-west. This description, if it is reliable, excludes the meteoric interpretation.

 

Source:
Brothers
III, 1, 1964. No original source given.

72.

989, Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey
Erratic “comet”

“The star appeared in the west after sunset; it rose in the evening and
had no fixed place in the sky. It spread bright rays, visible from a great distance, and kept moving, appearing further north or further south, and once when it rose changed its place in the sky, making sudden and fast movements.
The people who saw the comet (sic) were stunned, in awe, and believe that such strange movements are an evil omen. And just as people expected, something happened: in the evening of the day when they usually celebrated the memory of Velikomuchenik (a martyr of early Christianity), a tremendous earthquake brought down the towers of Byzantium…”

It seems to us today that an object that “changes its place in the sky, making sudden and fast movements,” cannot be a comet if the description is accurate. However Gary Kronk's
Cometography
indicates that Halley's Comet was visible in the night sky during July and August of 989, based on Chinese accounts, so some confusion is possible.

 

Source:
Istoria
(“History”), a 10th century manuscript by Byzantian writer Lev Diakon. Quoted from a modern Russian edition: Lev Diakon,
Istoria
, trans. M. Kopylenko (Moscow: G. Litavrin, 1988), 91.

73.

3 August 989, Japan, exact location unknown
Three bright objects meet in the sky

“The three objects became bright, in extraordinary fashion, and met at the same point of their trajectory.”

 

Source: Christian Piens,
Les Ovni du passé
(Paris: Marabout, 1977), 41.

74.

Circa 998, Budapest, Hungary
King Stephen's aerial trips

King Stephen (Istvan), who lived from 975 to 1038, and was crowned King of Hungary in 997, was said to be lifted to the sky with some frequency. His biographer, Chartruiz, Bishop of Hungary, revealed that this sometimes happened spiritually and at other times physically.

On one occasion, as detailed in Chartruis'
Life of St. Stephen, King of Hungary
: “While praying in his tent, he was lifted into the air by the hands of angels.”

 

Source: Ebenezer Cobham Brewer,
A Dictionary of Miracles
(London: Chatto & Windus, 1901), 217.

75.

Circa 999, Abbey of Saint-Léger, Côte d'Or, France
Bedroom visitation

Rodulphus Glaber, a monk and chronicler, writes “Not so long ago such (visions) happened to me, by the favor of God. At the time I was staying in the monastery of the martyr Saint-Léger, also named
Abbaye de Champeaux
. I saw one night, before Matines, a hideous little monster of vaguely human form appear at the foot of my bed. It seemed to be, as much as I could discern, of medium size with a frail neck, a thin face, very black eyes, a wrinkled and narrow forehead, a goatee, straight and pointed ears, straight and dirty hair, dog teeth, a sharp occiput, its breast swollen, a bump on the back, hanging buttocks and dirty clothes, with its whole body appearing to shake.

“He grabbed the edge of the bed in which I was lying and shook it with terrible violence and said: ‘You will not stay here any longer.' And at once I woke up terrified, and suddenly I saw the figure I just described. It was gnashing its teeth while repeating the same thing: ‘You will not stay here any longer.' I got up from bed at once and ran to the monastery, where I kneeled in front of the altar of the very Holy Father Benedict, extremely terrified. And I began to recall the offenses and serious sins I had committed by being impudent or negligent.”

 

Source: Rudolphi Glabri,
Historiarum Libri Quinque ab anno incarnationis DCCC usque ad annum MXLIV
, book V, chapter I, paragraph 2.

According to Ernest Petit (“Raoul Glaber,” in
Revue Historique
, XLVIII, 1892) Glaber stayed in Saint-Léger between 997 and 1005 AD. This is the first of his visions. The five books of his
Historiae
contain other such experiences as well as many anecdotic accounts of superstitions around the year 1000.

What can we say about the above sightings? They range in credibility and significance from curious events where a natural explanation is improbable (but not entirely impossible, if some of the elements of the observation were reported mistakenly) to extraordinary stories that have evoked paranormal, or even mystical interpretations among the people of the time. All of them made enough of an impact for a record to have been kept by the witnesses and later chroniclers. The very fact that they have come down to us through so much troubled history is quite remarkable.

These reports do not constitute “evidence” for physical visitation by non-human creatures. All we can say is that they are consistent with modern descriptions of unidentified phenomena and the secondary effects surrounding them. In fact, we could have stopped our work at the year 1000 and we would have presented a fair cross-section of phenomena gathered by modern authors under the label of ufology, including abductions and hard traces. These ancient records show how powerful the concept of such intervention into human affairs can be: most of our religious texts today can be traced to such events, and to the philosophical movements they triggered.

About the year 1000 many things changed on our planet. Large towns became real cities; in Europe, the feudal system stabilized society. Stone castles and monasteries would become genuine centers of learning while commerce expanded, bringing faraway lands in more frequent contact with Europe. Even the Crusades, the source of so much pillage and bloodshed, would soon play a role in creating an infrastructure for the exchange of knowledge, the rudiments of international banking and the management of complex projects. The nature of the reports will be even more intriguing and detailed in the following sections.