El Puig, Valencia: A fleet of seven lights — 1237
According to one record, seven mysterious lights in the night sky were seen on four
Saturdays in a row. They appeared to be falling from the sky and entering the earth at a particular spot. Quoting from Tirso de Molina’s Historia de la Orden de la Merced, the chronicle in which the story was originally written: “The sentries and custodians of the castle [at El Puig] observed that every Saturday, at midnight, a fleet of luminous stars, seven in number, consecutively descended upon the summit nearest the said fortress, in the same place where our monastery now lies.” When the guards informed their masters, Pedro Nolasco (1189-1256) and the mayor, supposing that the phenomenon was trying to announce something important, went up to the site together and carefully excavated the spot. Whether by some amazing coincidence or divine providence it did not take too long to find a hidden treasure: a bell, and below that a sculpted image of the Virgin Mary. Nolasco thanked the angels for the wondrous gifts and a little time afterwards constructed an altar at the spot.
Source: Tirso De Molina, Historic de la Orden de la Merced (1637). Today the monastery has a website: www.monasteriodelpuig.es.tl. Case: W063