Wonders in the Sky (19 page)

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 demonic.

 

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., 14
^th
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.