Peru: Another mysterious “non-comet” — August 1533
Garcilaso de la Vega, the Incan, writes in Chapter 23 of his work Historic General del Peru, that Tupac Huallpa’s fear of his own death was exacerbated by the sighting of a great greenish black ‘comet’ in August 1533. It was an unusual comet, “a little narrower than the body of a man and longer than a pike” (spear-headed medieval weapon), and had been seen by many witnesses on several occasions at night. This made Huallpa particularly depressed because a similar object had been observed a few days before the death of his father, Huayna Capac. This comet was evidently not of the ordinary kind, at least in the opinion of Huallpa, who was accustomed to heavenly phenomena. Besides, comets are not “greenish-black!” Tupac Huallpa was executed on 29 August 1533.
Source: Inca Gracilaso de la Vega, Historia General del Peru (1617), Book I, Chapter XXXIV. Case: W126