Elsewhere he describes 'golden
globes' that on a number of occasions flashed across the French skies. However
despite these descriptions, these 'lights' are in all probability natural
phenomena. This 11th century painting (above) also appears to show
another natural phenomenon, a meteorite. However there are accounts of objects sighted in the sky that
seem to fall outside the 'natural' category. One such event took place at about
9.45pm on the evening of 18th August 1783 when four witnesses on the
terrace of Windsor Castle observed a luminous object in the skies of the Home
Counties of England. The sighting was recorded the following year in the
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
According to this report, witnesses observed an "oblong
cloud moving more or less parallel to the horizon. Under this cloud could be
seen a luminous object which soon became spherical, brilliantly lit, which came
to a halt ... This strange sphere seemed at first to be pale blue in colour but
then its luminosity increased and soon it set off again towards the east. Then
the object changed direction and moved parallel to the horizon before
disappearing to the south-east ... the light it gave out was prodigious; it lit us
everything on the ground." The image was captured in this aquatint (above)
created by Thomas Sandby (a founder of the Royal Academy) and his brother Paul,
both of whom witnessed the event.
Tiberius Cavallo, one of the group who
witnessed this event, concluded that all they had witnessed was a meteor, yet
the movements and general descriptions of the object seen do not appear to
support this idea. In 1809 the Journal of Natural History and Philosophy and
Chemistry published the experience of John Staveley, an observer at Hatton
Garden, London. This observer was astonished by the sight of 'many meteors'
darting round a black cloud during a thunderstorm. "They were like dazzling
specks of light, dancing and traipsing thro' the clouds. One increased in size
till it became of the brilliancy and magnitude of Venus, on a clear evening. But
I could see no body in the light. It moved with great rapidity and coasted the
edge of the cloud. Then it became stationary, dimmed its splendour, and
vanished." (14)
Historically, ocean
UFO sightings have been common. Since 1760
seamen have recounted sightings of unidentified flying objects in the form of a
wheel. On 15th May 1879, a passenger aboard a ship, the
Vultur in the Persian Gulf watched as "two giant, luminous wheels" spun
slowly towards the ocean. They were seen for thirty-five minutes and had an
estimated diameter of forty meters and were about four metres apart. A similar
phenomenon was reported to have taken place in the same area a year later in the
same part of the ocean but from another ship, the Patna (15).
In 1906 as a British
steamer ploughed its way through the same gulf near Oman in 1906, an enormous
wheel of light appeared. The vast 'wheel, apparently bigger than the ship
itself, was revolving in the sky not far above the surface of the water at that
point. Vivid shafts of light emitted from the huge wheel and passed right
through the steamer, although these beams of light did not disrupt the
functioning of the ship. This sighting of 1906 was one of
eleven reports between 1848 and 1910 (16). Like most of the accounts, this one
remarked on the eerie silence of the phenomenon. It could of course be argued
that the sightings were merely visions of seamen too long at sea. Yet the French
token (above) was minted in 1680 and appears to show such a wheel spinning in
the sky over a hundred years before the first written account that remains
available to us. Quite why the token was minted is now lost in history but it
has been suggested that the design may be to commemorate a daytime UFO sighting.
In June 1881, the two sons of the Prince of Wales (one of whom
was later to ascend to the throne as George V) were steaming off the coast of
Australia when the noted an object in the sky that appeared to be an airborne,
fully illuminous ship (17). Then on 12th August 1883 it appears that for the
first time ever a 'UFO' was captured on camera. It happened at the observatory
at Zacatecas, eleven thousand feet up a Mexican mountain.
The director, Jose Bonilla, had been observing 'formations'
of circular objects that crossed the Sun on a west-east course. He counted 283
of the objects and was able to photograph one with a camera attached to a
telescope.
Bonilla later reported
in the astronomical press, "I was able to fix their trajectory across the solar
disk ... some appeared round or spherical, but one notes in the photographs that
the bodies are not spherical but irregular in form. Before crossing the solar
disk these bodies threw out brilliant trains of light but in crossing the sun
they seemed to become opaque and dark against its brighter background." (18)
One of the objects Bonilla photographed resembled a "five-pointed star with dark centre". It was suggested that he had only observed birds or insects crossing the path of his telescope, however
Bonilla calculated that they appeared not as far out as the Moon.
Strange UFO sightings are noted in paintings of biblical scenes.
This 14th century fresco (above) shows a man traversing the sky in an egg-shaped vehicle. Another Russian fresco/icon has been interpreted as
showing Jesus entering (or leaving) a vehicle which seems to emit rocket-like
rays that throws (or protecting their eyes by throwing
themselves) the near crowd to the ground. However it is prudent to be cautious when considering such
biblical images, for the Bible yields dozens of stories that
later painters could interpret as space vehicles.
Explore forgotton clues scattered throughout history that are suggestive
of an alternative history.
Join the world-wide search for evidence
of a lost civilisation that predates
known history.
Has Earth already been contacted by other civilisations either in the distant past or in recent centuries?
A discussion of the emergence of advanced technologies and the bizarre invasion of Antarctica after WWII.
A discussion of sightings of UFOs in the sky above Earth and within the solar system, including Moon anomalies.
Evidence the Earth has been visited by extraterrestrials and how the public had been subject to disinformation.
A list of credits and sources for the themes and issues explored
in Violations.
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