Wonders in the Sky (91 page)

After 618, China
Capture of a celestial ship – It flies away!

The Dong Tien Ji (
Peeping on the Sky
) says: “In the Tang Dynasty a celestial ship, over 50 feet long, was found and placed in the Ling De Hall. The ship gave out a metallic sound when struck, and was of very hard material which was rustproof.

Li Deyu, the Tang Prime Minister, cut over a foot of a slender, long stick of the ship and carved it into a figure of a Taoist priest. The Taoist figurine flew away and then returned. In the years of Emperor Daming, the figurine disappeared and the ship also flew away.”

 

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”).