The "War in Heaven" of 1561

[Orphalesion]

So, recently I once again read about a strange phenomenon that happened in 1561 over the city of Nuremberg. Weird crescents appeared on the sun and then a number of colourful spheres, rod and crosses appeared and seemed to "war" with one another. Afterwards something like a black spear lance appeared and various objects fell to the Earth in the countryside and "burned up" (strangely enough no damage is reported as far as I can tell...)
 

Quote

"In the morning of April 14, 1561, at daybreak, between 4 and 5 a.m., a dreadful apparition occurred on the sun, and then this was seen in Nuremberg in the city, before the gates and in the country – by many men and women. At first there appeared in the middle of the sun two blood-red semi-circular arcs, just like the moon in its last quarter. And in the sun, above and below and on both sides, the color was blood, there stood a round ball of partly dull, partly black ferrous color. Likewise there stood on both sides and as a torus about the sun such blood-red ones and other balls in large number, about three in a line and four in a square, also some alone. In between these globes there were visible a few blood-red crosses, between which there were blood-red strips, becoming thicker to the rear and in the front malleable like the rods of reed-grass, which were intermingled, among them two big rods, one on the right, the other to the left, and within the small and big rods there were three, also four and more globes. These all started to fight among themselves, so that the globes, which were first in the sun, flew out to the ones standing on both sides, thereafter, the globes standing outside the sun, in the small and large rods, flew into the sun. Besides the globes flew back and forth among themselves and fought vehemently with each other for over an hour. And when the conflict in and again out of the sun was most intense, they became fatigued to such an extent that they all, as said above, fell from the sun down upon the earth 'as if they all burned' and they then wasted away on the earth with immense smoke. After all this there was something like a black spear, very long and thick, sighted; the shaft pointed to the east, the point pointed west. Whatever such signs mean, God alone knows. 
By Hanns Glaser, letter-painter of Nurnberg.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1561_celestial_phenomenon_over_Nuremberg

Now I don't believe in UFOs or extraterrestrial visitors but.....what on Earth was that? Just Sundogs that were exaggerated by the minds of a culture that very much believed in and expected "signs in the sky"? A  mass hallucination? Were the reports completely fabricated by somebody to critique the tensions between Protestants and Catholics? Some sort of comet swarm?

And something similar apprently happened in Basel in 1566:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1566_celestial_phenomenon_over_Basel

Edited June 5, 2019 by Orphalesion

[darkmoonlady]

Reading it I'm curious as it was described as a mass event. But the account is a flyer by one person. I wonder if there were other people who wrote about the event as first person witnesses at the time it happened and what they described. 

[the13bats]

i always enjoy the old stories but so many times they were out right made up, jacko the baby bigfoot was such a case,

the Nuremberg case just like most has basically zero evidence, i want to believe they saw something non paranormal non extraterrestrial and tried to explain it best they could for that era but somehow i lean to this one being made up.

[Orphalesion]

19 minutes ago, darkmoonlady said:

Reading it I'm curious as it was described as a mass event. But the account is a flyer by one person. I wonder if there were other people who wrote about the event as first person witnesses at the time it happened and what they described. 

Very good point, I looked on the German Internet to see whether there's any more wittness accounts of this, and nope, no other reports, no diary entries by the local bishop or authors, no nothing. Really seems like the guy just made it up. I didn't even think about that. And apparently reports about "signs" and "wonders" in the sky were quite popular around that time, the UFO sightings of their age I suppose. Which makes sense considering that the Bible told them to look for such signs. 
Still, I suppose the report is pretty imaginative.

Edited June 5, 2019 by Orphalesion

[darkmoonlady]

I don't doubt that atmospheric occurrences happened that people of that time tried to explain. Sun dogs, sun pillars, circumhorizontal arcs, there are lots that could be mistaken as a celestial event. No other accounts in a city like that where there other people with writing skills seems highly suspect. 

[moonman]

Probably just that time periods version of "war of the worlds".

[Harte]

Hans Glaser was an artist. He worked on commission. These "UFO" woodcuts (there are several, some of them shown here) all were made long after the supposed event (5 years after in this particular case) and were paid for by the Church. Almost all of the broadsheets these "aerial phenomena" woodcuts were printed on had a dominant religious message.

You can read a collection of the different ways this Nuremberg claim has been made here.

When you read that this was in some newspaper, you can go ahead and close that particular tab. Newspapers weren't invented then. People paid to spread their own propaganda with flyers called broadsheets.

Harte

[Orphalesion]

1 hour ago, Harte said:

Hans Glaser was an artist. He worked on commission. These "UFO" woodcuts (there are several, some of them shown here) all were made long after the supposed event (5 years after in this particular case) and were paid for by the Church. Almost all of the broadsheets these "aerial phenomena" woodcuts were printed on had a dominant religious message.

You can read a collection of the different ways this Nuremberg claim has been made here.

When you read that this was in some newspaper, you can go ahead and close that particular tab. Newspapers weren't invented then. People paid to spread their own propaganda with flyers called broadsheets.

Harte

Oooooh thank you for that info!
And yeah I only read about it being broadsheets.

[Earl.Of.Trumps]

Didn't they have this on Ancient Aliens...?  

If I remember, there was a very nice painting that a local artist made of the event, in particular, the remains of one of the UFOs on the ground, in flames!

Where is @toast when you need him!? 

[toast]

20 hours ago, Earl.Of.Trumps said:

Didn't they have this on Ancient Aliens...?  

If I remember, there was a very nice painting that a local artist made of the event, in particular, the remains of one of the UFOs on the ground, in flames!

Where is @toast when you need him!? 

I`m not sure but I think some month ago I posted something about a copperplate engraving showing a comet over Germany in the 16th century. Are you talking about this one?

Edited June 11, 2019 by toast

[Earl.Of.Trumps]

18 hours ago, toast said:

I`m not sure but I think some month ago I posted something about a copperplate engraving showing a comet over Germany in the 16th century. Are you talking about this one?

I found this, from Nuremburg 1566

 

But I seem to recall a painting as well.  But I cannot find that painting. Maybe the above is what I recall. not sure.

Edited June 12, 2019 by Earl.Of.Trumps

[the13bats]

earl, ive seen a lot of versions of it but all are as you posted not paintings with the exceptions of people who used that print as a paint by numbers type idea, i did that myself in highschool art class,

here is a good read,

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread907719/pg1

[toast]

41 minutes ago, Earl.Of.Trumps said:

I found this, from Nuremburg 1566

 

But I seem to recall a painting as well.  But I cannot find that painting. Maybe the above is what I recall. not sure.

Will take an image of the copperplate engraving  this week and post it here.

[Orphalesion]

1 hour ago, Earl.Of.Trumps said:

I found this, from Nuremburg 1566

 

But I seem to recall a painting as well.  But I cannot find that painting. Maybe the above is what I recall. not sure.

That's literally the print shown in the link I posted in the OP :-P

Edited June 12, 2019 by Orphalesion

[+Desertrat56]

On 6/5/2019 at 4:29 AM, darkmoonlady said:

Reading it I'm curious as it was described as a mass event. But the account is a flyer by one person. I wonder if there were other people who wrote about the event as first person witnesses at the time it happened and what they described. 

How many people could read And write back in 1561?  Apparently most people, average, not the rich did not learn how to write more than their name back then.  And women were usaully not taught to read.  Maybe that explains the lack of documentation on the event, OR it was made up as someone suggested.  Another possibility is that the priest were the only ones who were able to write and they would not write of such or it was kept secret in the vatican.

[Harte]

1 hour ago, Desertrat56 said:

How many people could read And write back in 1561?  Apparently most people, average, not the rich did not learn how to write more than their name back then.  And women were usaully not taught to read.  Maybe that explains the lack of documentation on the event, OR it was made up as someone suggested.  Another possibility is that the priest were the only ones who were able to write and they would not write of such or it was kept secret in the vatican.

Uh...

The Church paid to have these printed. It's all about a warning from God.

Big Vatican secret, eh? LOL

Harte

 

[+Desertrat56]

@Harte  In that case I would suspect it was made up, or something actually happend and the church used it to frighten everyone into submission.

[darkmoonlady]

2 hours ago, Desertrat56 said:

How many people could read And write back in 1561?  Apparently most people, average, not the rich did not learn how to write more than their name back then.  And women were usaully not taught to read.  Maybe that explains the lack of documentation on the event, OR it was made up as someone suggested.  Another possibility is that the priest were the only ones who were able to write and they would not write of such or it was kept secret in the vatican.

Being a larger city yes literacy wasn't rare.

https://brewminate.com/the-growth-of-literacy-in-western-europe-from-1500-to-1800/

[Harte]

3 hours ago, Desertrat56 said:

@Harte  In that case I would suspect it was made up, or something actually happend and the church used it to frighten everyone into submission.

That would be my guess also. Some spectacular sun dogs. The region is well known for those.

Harte

 

[Emma_Acid]

On 05/06/2019 at 11:21 AM, Orphalesion said:

So, recently I once again read about a strange phenomenon that happened in 1561 over the city of Nuremberg. Weird crescents appeared on the sun and then a number of colourful spheres, rod and crosses appeared and seemed to "war" with one another. Afterwards something like a black spear lance appeared and various objects fell to the Earth in the countryside and "burned up" (strangely enough no damage is reported as far as I can tell...)
 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1561_celestial_phenomenon_over_Nuremberg

Now I don't believe in UFOs or extraterrestrial visitors but.....what on Earth was that? Just Sundogs that were exaggerated by the minds of a culture that very much believed in and expected "signs in the sky"? A  mass hallucination? Were the reports completely fabricated by somebody to critique the tensions between Protestants and Catholics? Some sort of comet swarm?

And something similar apprently happened in Basel in 1566:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1566_celestial_phenomenon_over_Basel

It's literally one account. Why does it have to be anything? One account does not mean it actually happened.

[Orphalesion]

6 minutes ago, Emma_Acid said:

It's literally one account. Why does it have to be anything? One account does not mean it actually happened.

Because I wanted to talk about the colourful account and nice woodcut?

[the13bats]

while i never thought it was aliens i like this art enough i have a print hanging up...

[toast]

On 12.6.2019 at 1:34 PM, toast said:

Will take an image of the copperplate engraving  this week and post it here.

Here we go:

This is an original copperplate printing from the 17th century, showing 2 comets over the city of Hamburg in the year 1665, copperplate engraved by artist G. Gerardi. Some of his artworks are also owned by the MIT Museum .