Wonders in the Sky (31 page)

Fig. 9: Arabian “rocket”

154.

18 October 1482, Albisola, Savona Province, Italy A dazzling object stops a battle

The facts date back to when the inhabitants of two neighboring villages, Albisola and Stella, decided to fight over territorial issues. A bloody attack took place. The sky was totally clear of clouds, when, an hour after midday, a small white cloud came from the east, so bright it seemed to collect all the rays of the sun. Dazzled by the light, the fighters heard a sweet clear voice repeating three times the word “peace,” and then everything disappeared. All were astonished, their eyes looking up at the sky, and they abandoned their weapons.

 

Sources: Giovanni Bernardo Poggi in the manuscript of his
Memoirs
. Details can be found in the magazine
Maria Ausiliatrice
, September 2005, and at this webpage:

http://www.mariadinazareth.it/Prodigi%20luminosi/Madonna%20della%20Pace.htm

155.

August 1487, Forlì, Italy: Floating cartwheel in the sky

“In that same year, on a morning (two hours before day)
a big star seemingly appeared, coming from the mountain and going toward Ravenna. It looked quite like a butterfly flying in the air.
I saw it and so did a lot of peasants who had put either wood or wheat onto their carts, and also those coming to Forlì. I was in the country and had risen to come to Forlì in the cool hours. It lasted a very short time. Some people say they had seen it when on the mountain, half an hour before.” Others saw it as a huge ‘cartwheel' floating in the sky.

 

Source: Leone Cobelli, an Italian historian, in
Cronache Forlivesi dalla Fondazione della Città all'anno 1498
(Bologna, 1874).

156.

1491, Vladimir, Russia: A Figure rises in the air

The apparition in the air of the Saint Grand Prince Alexander Nevsky. “In the year 6999 (of the old Russian calendar) in the great city of Vladimir there was an awe-inspiring apparition and frightful and terrible sign of the wrath of the Lord. Thus the Lord punishes us and leads us from sin toward repentance.

“On a certain day after morning Mass many saw the following appearance above the stone church of Our Lady and the residence of the abbot: just above the place where the remnants of the Saint prince Alexander repose, on the very dome of that church, they saw a strange sign.

“
It was as if a light cloud or thin smoke spread around, white as a pure frost and bright as the sun. Then the people saw the likeness of the Holy Prince on a white horse rising up toward the sky. The people who saw it were very frightened and began to toll the bells all over the city.”

 

Source: A. N. Vyssotsky, “Astronomical Records in the Russian Chronicles from 1000 to 1600 A.D.” Historical Notes and Papers 22,
Meddelande Fran Lunds Astronomiska Observatorium,
Ser. II., 126, (Sweden, 1949), 45.

157.

13 August 1491, Milan, Italy: Summoning the Aliens

Seven “men” appeared before Philosopher Facius Cardan (Fazio Cardano) in his study. According to his son Jerome the story left by his father, a mathematically-gifted lawyer and friend of Leonardo da Vinci, read as follows:

“When I had completed the customary rites, at about the 20th hour of the day, seven men duly appeared to me clothed in silken garments resembling Greek togas, and wearing, as it were, shining shoes. The undergarments beneath their glistening and ruddy breastplates seemed to be wrought of crimson and were of extraordinary glory and beauty. Nevertheless all were not dressed in this fashion, but only two who seemed of nobler rank than the others. The taller of them who was of ruddy complexion was attended by two companions, and the second, who was fairer and of shorter stature, by three. Thus in all there were seven. They were about forty years of age, but they did not appear to be above thirty. When asked who they were, they said they were men composed, as it were, of air, and subject to birth and death. It was true that their lives were much longer than ours, and might even reach to three hundred years' duration. Questioned on the immortality of our soul, they affirmed that nothing survived which is peculiar to the individual…

“When my father asked them if they did not reveal treasures to men if they knew where they were, they answered that it was forbidden by a peculiar law under the heaviest penalties for anyone to communicate this knowledge to men. They remained with my father for over three hours. But when he questioned them as to the cause of the universe they were not agreed. The tallest of them denied that God had made the world from eternity. On the contrary, the other added that God created it from moment to moment, so that should He desist for an instant the world would perish.”

Fig. 10: Jerome Cardan (Girolamo Cardano, 1501-1576)

Source: Jerome Cardan,
De Subtilitate Rerum Libri XXI
(Nuremberg, in-folio 1550), XIX.

158.

11 October 1492, Guanahany, Bahamas
The light seen by Columbus

Two hours before midnight Christopher Columbus and a crew member saw a light alternately going higher and lower. The actual passage reads as follows:

“The land was first seen by a sailor called Rodrigo de Triana, although the Admiral at ten o'clock that evening standing on the quarter-deck saw a light, but so small a body that he could not affirm it to be land; calling to Pero Gutierrez, broom of the King's wardrobe, he told him he saw a light, and bid him look that way, which he did and saw it; he did the same to Rodrigo Sanchez of Segovia, whom the King and Queen had sent with the squadron as comptroller, but he was unable to see it from his situation.

“The Admiral again perceived it once or twice, appearing like the light of a wax candle moving up and down, which some thought an indication of land. But the Admiral held it for certain that land was near; for which reason, after they had said the Salve which the seamen are accustomed to repeat and chant after their fashion, the Admiral directed them to keep a strict watch upon the forecastle and look out diligently for land, and to him who should first discover it he promised a silken jacket, besides the reward which the King and Queen had offered, which was an annuity of ten thousand maravedis.”

 

Source:
Personal Narrative of the First Voyage of Columbus to America: From a Manuscript Recently Discovered in Spain,
trans. Samuel Kettell (Boston: T. B. Wait and Son, 1827), 32-33.

159.