Wonders in the Sky (21 page)

 

Source: Claude Lecouteux,
Chasses fantastiques et cohortes de la nuit au Moyen Age
(Paris: Imago, 1999), 31-32, quoting
La Chronique des Temps Passés
. See also, in Russian,
(
Povest' vremennykh let
) as published in
CCCP, 1926-1928.

89.

July 1096, Japan, exact location unknown
A necklace of ten lights in the sky

Ten flying objects combined to form a necklace in the sky in the northwest. In the absence of an original quote, it is impossible to analyze this event further.

 

Source: Takao Ikeda,
Nihon nu ufo
(Tokyo: Tairiku shobo, 1974).

90.

Circa 15 September 1098, Antioch, Turkey
Scintillating globe

In the
Historia Francorum qui Ceperint Jerusalem
of Raymond d'Aguiliers, Count of Toulouse, we read that during the First Crusade: “very many things were revealed to us through our brethren; and we beheld a marvelous sign in the sky. For during the night there stood over the city a very large star, which, after a short time, divided into three parts and fell in the camp of the Turks.”

Alfred of Aachen writes: “In the silence of the night, when benevolent sleep restores men's strength, all Christians on guard duty were struck by a marvelous sight in the sky. It seemed that all the stars were concentrated in a dense group, in a space the size of about three
arpents
, fiery and bright as coals in a furnace, and gathered as a globe, scintillating. And after burning for a long time, they thinned out and formed the likeness of a crown, exactly above the city; and after remaining for a long time gathered in a circle without separating, they broke the chain at a point on that circle, and all followed the same path.”

 

Source: August C. Krey,
The First Crusade: The Accounts of Eyewitnesses and Participants
(Princeton, 1921); Albert d'Aix,
Alberti Aquensis Historia Hierosolymitana
in
Recueil des Historiens des Croisades. Historiens Occidentaux
. RHC. OCC0 Tome IV, 265-715. Translation by Yannis Deliyannis.

91.

Circa 1100, Germany
Prodigies herald the coming Crusade

“The signs in the sun and the wonders which appeared, both in the air and on the earth, aroused many who had previously been indifferent…A few years ago a priest of honorable reputation, by the name of Suigger, about the ninth hour of the day beheld two knights, who met one another in the air and fought long, until one, who carried a great cross with which he struck the other, finally overcame his enemy…Some who were watching horses in the fields reported that they had seen the image of a city in the air and had observed how various troops from different directions, both on horseback and on foot, were hastening thither.

“Many, moreover, displayed, either on their clothing, or upon their forehead, or elsewhere on their body, the sign of the cross, which had been divinely imprinted, and they believed themselves on this account to have been destined to the service of God.”

 

Source: Ekkehard of Aurach.
On the Opening of the First Crusade
(1101).

92.

11 February 1110, Pechorsky Monastery, Russia
A fiery pillar

There was an omen in the Pechorsky monastery: “On February 11th there appeared a fiery pillar that reached from the ground to the sky, and lightning lit all earth, and thunder rattled at the first hour of night, and everyone saw it. The pillar first stood over the stone trapeznitsa (monastery dining room), blocking the sight of the cross, and, after a short while, moved to the church and stood over Feodosiev's (Theodosius) tomb; it then went to the top of the church, turning its face to the east, and afterwards made itself invisible.” The record reads: “It wasn't an usual fiery column, but the apparition of an angel, because angels often appeared as a fiery column or a flame.”

 

Source: Nestor,
Russian Primary Chronicle
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1930), 296-297. The date is sometimes given as 1111.

93.

1130, Bohemia, Czechoslovakia
Flying “serpent” in the sky