Wonders in the Sky (26 page)

 

Source: Giuseppe Scalia, ed.,
Cronica Fratris Salimbene de Adam ordinis minorum
(Laterza, 1966).

119.

3 August 1294, Japan, exact location unknown
Red shining object

During a parade, a red shining object appeared, coming from the direction of a shrine. It resembled the Moon, and flew north.

 

Source: Morihiro Saito,
Nihon-Tenmonshiriyou
. Chapter 7, “Meteor, the Messenger from Space.”

120.

May 1295, I Hing, China
Two flying Dragons fall into a Lake

A strange phenomenon was witnessed in the fifth month of the year yih-wei, which corresponds with 1295:

“In a short time a heavy wind came riding on the water, reaching a height of more than a chang (ten ch'ih or feet). Then there fell from the sky more than ten fire balls, having the size of houses of ten divisions. The two dragons immediately ascended (to the sky), for Heaven, afraid that they might cause calamity, sent out sacred fire to drive them away.”

The 14th-century chronicler of this incident, Cheu Mih, adds that he had personally observed the results of another ‘dragonfall.' Seeing the scorched paddy fields of the Peach garden of The Ts'ing, he interviewed one of the villagers. “Yesterday noon a big dragon fell from the sky,” he was told. “Immediately he was burned by terrestrial fire and flew away. For what the dragons fear is fire.”

 

Source: M. W. De Visser,
The Dragon in China and Japan
(Amsterdam: Johannes Müller, 1913), 48-49.

121.

8 September 1296, Loreto, Italy
Globes of light, and an elliptical object

Before dawn, mysterious globes of light appeared repeatedly in the sky of Loreto, falling, stopping and disappearing suddenly. The phenomenon was witnessed by a hermit, Paul Selva, who wrote a famous letter to Charles II dated June 1297. The phenomenon appeared as a body of elliptical shape. A writer named Mantovano who obtained the information from a record dating back to 1300, notes: “He saw a light in the shape of a very bright comet measuring twelve feet in length and six in width, coming down from heaven in the direction of the church and after it approached, vanished at the site.” The object, obviously, was not a comet.

 

Sources: G. Garrat,
Loreto, nuova Nazaret
(Recanati, 1894); O. Torsellini,
Laurentana istoria
, trans. B. Quatrini (Bologna, 1894).

122.

24 December 1299, Tier (Trèves), Germany
Globes of light, and an elliptical object

The Chronicle of the Archbishops of Trier, the
Gesta Trevirensium Archiepiscoporum
, makes an interesting reference to an object in the sky. The term they employed,
cometa
, could actually refer to virtually any luminous body in the sky, not necessarily to a comet as we define it today. In fact, this particular “comet” behaved very strangely.

It was just after midnight. The sky was unusually misty and a foggy frost covered the land.

“Inside the darkness itself, a comet the size of the moon appeared as if hanging in the air, tinted by an ardent redness and which disappeared after an hour. And again, in-between a small interval, two comets appeared simultaneously a short distance from one another, exhibiting the same size and color as earlier; but they disappeared immediately. A third time, after a short hour, [another] one appeared, in all respects visible in the size and color of its predecessors, and which also vanished immediately.”

 

Source:
Gesta Trevirensium Archiepiscoporum
, in E. Martene and U. Durand,
Veterum Scriptorum et Monumentorum…amplissima collection
, vol. IV (Paris, 1729, Col. 370).

123.

1320, Durham, Saint Leonard, England
Luminous phenomenon over a the burial site

Upon the death of the Abbott of Saint Gregory monastery, an unknown object (“a great light”) lit up the sky over his burial site in Saint Leonard. Later it came lower, moved away and disappeared. The symbolic meaning of this event leaves its connection with ufology open to debate.

 

Source: Robert de Graytanes,
Historia Dunelmensis
. As published in
Historiae Dunelmensis Scriptores tres
(London-Edinburgh: Publications of the Surtees Society, 1839).

124.

4 November 1322, Uxbridge, England
A pillar with a red flame

“In the first hour of the night there was seen in the sky over Uxbridge a pillar of fire the size of a small boat, pallid, and livid in color. It rose from the south, crossed the sky with a slow and grave motion, and went north. Out of the front of the pillar, a fervent red flame burst forth with great beams of light. Its speed increased, and it flew thro' the air…Many beholders saw it in collision, and there came blows as of a fearful combat, and sounds of crashes were heard at a distance.” We note that an object moving with a “slow and grave motion” could have been neither a comet nor a meteor.

 

Source:
Flores Historiarum
attributed to Robert of Reading,
Rerum Brittannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores
95, v. 3: 210-211.

125.

About 1347, Florence, Italy: Low-flying cigar-shaped
objects at the time of the Black Plague