Pliny 26, Dio Cassius 14, Cicero 9, confirming their psychological impact on the — 30
educated Roman mind. Lycosthenes writing in AD 1552 collated 59 heavenly portents in
Roman times.” No less a political and classical authority than Cicero mentions the topic in his writing (De Re Publica 1.19.31), where a character named Laelius scolds the young Tubero for his fascination with a celestial phenomenon - a vision of a double Sun in the sky reported to the Roman Senate. Another Roman philosopher, Seneca, on the other hand (in Questiones Naturales 7.1.1) sides with the young man because man’s imagination gets dulled by the endless repetition of ordinary phenomena. It takes an exceptional sighting, a “sweet spectacle,” to bring back our feeling of wonderment before the beauties of nature, he argued. G”;crcappc. irofcDtijemtl?ct|?c Clcmcnt c anioutensof(oitciv anagoiGrange Com-fs. ki n o t f fumg f ana n g i n * to My.mettuueeUutt?Oitlo.icrsLungof//•<•‘;ant)put(juntoflight, ana tkMgof ofingijtjjtV’ im mat i‘“p«>,bidtfjerebcfccgeIjimtf»?ir^fcircs.SUtjrii F.onctu g otti toaB ocao, Alunciutyp feme dio tuccccoc i;un ;n t(;c htugaomc. Mini* n n’rf<j uer init (jfifT)cflfceretafccn,info?jofefcale.6 ttjerorne oTt f j a fpcarc low a o bi n cngrauen, tlje fame verc let c i ana IJ ua « > hwr u j o f ttjc ‘K^‘uhj toent about to tymtt the /<•>»/<> out ortljc Country iD.i’om \janqiu1)cc ana flcU5c,.tr.a i’.lmo£tocfacco tv,? nation ol’tijc CClw\nbiftinguilljinstvC Dju fenn a tfifljop ofamt tirelc fa(3.lnt Cw^f/^/r I3.iptifcn ore 5 -i truutic nam? of F u l l e r thsou^h t h e lonnc the lm!v ChcP (Bafnz.o ie liurTheoJo rc V.-trc£te: frfft.t OJoafcr r A n x n D-.1-1).., B a p t i f c t h e e Liarb.i m i l . u hiHumntptiru ptr fl’utn in ftirtiM <Ofi!- )t\X JU4tCr batlitljca aU);”.^. (Po:coucr hi tlpfc owes, (bcrea^prarcb in Affrit.. Ccio icucnge* ^ the in r ( ibitUn?hutbpon aner,falbebt enpt.)iYi»mti<. \ual;ioncUfy’ G beoreana UuljcablIjis bcaoe i:i luo.-Ds, i j bnat ng out ccrt bntoojt’ a fpfj c mous teaming tf;c tyft? beliefs auotfjctrmitic , t!;crc cair.c fcoaiiulp c f.cric Fig. 60: A fragment from the English translation of Lycosthenes, whose book bore the full title ” The Doome warning all Men to the Iudgemente wherein are contayned for the most parte all the Straunge Prodigies hapned in the Worlde, with diuers Secrete Figures of Reuelations tending to marines stayed conuersion towardes God: in tnaner of a generall Chronicle, gathered out of sundrie approued authors by St. Batman professor in diuinite, by Konrad Lykosthenes, 1518-1561.” (Imprinted by Ralphe Nubery assigned by Henry Bynneman. Cum priuilegio Regal, London 1581). In many historical periods the phenomenon was taken very seriously indeed. It should be remembered that it was the Roman custom to report every year to the Consuls anything that could be interpreted as a portent, as the Consuls wanted to be aware of it in making their decisions. Unfortunately for us, the Annales Maximi that contained these “prodigies” is lost, but it is supposed that Livy, Pliny and Obsequens had access to these annals and drew from them. Among other classical sources was Boece (Boetius or Boethius), ca. 475-525 AD, Roman philosopher and statesman. There are several editions of Boece’s work. An honored figure in the public life of Rome, where he was consul in 510 AD, he became the able minister of the Emperor Theodoric. Late in Theodoric’s reign false charges of treas^A were brought against Boethius; after imprisonment in Pavia, he was sentenced without trial and put to death. Fig. 61: Boetius While in prison he wrote his greatest work, De Consolatione Philosophise (The Consolation of Philosophy). His treatise on ancient music, De musica, was for a thousand years the unquestioned authority on music in the West. One of the last ancient Neoplatonists, Boethius translated some of the writings of Aristotle and made commentaries on them. His works served to transmit Greek philosophy to the early centuries of the middle Ages. Translations vary widely because of the unusual vocabulary used in the text. There are both prose and metrical versions and they differ in some details. Another important source, John the Lydian (John Lydus), 490-ca. 565 AD was a bureaucrat in the praefecture in Constantinople and an antiquarian scholar. He wrote three treatises that preserve much information from earlier sources while responding to contemporary controversies. On Offices (‘De magistratibus’) is translated as Ioannes Lydus: On Powers or The Magistracies of the Roman State (Anastasius C. Bandy: Philadelphia, 1983). On Months and On Portents have not yet been translated into English. Another author often quoted in our Chronology is Matthew of Paris (or “Matthew Paris”). He was an English Benedictine monk whose extensive and detailed chronicles of events in the 13th century form one of the most significant primary sources in medieval studies. Although Paris wrote voluminously, very little of his works shed any light on his own life. We do know he was a monk at St. Albans and that he occasionally visited the royal courts. He spent most of his life at St. Albans, but he put his acquaintance with persons of import and his few trips outside the monastery to good use in acquiring news to include in his chronicles. Fig. 62: Matthew Paris In 1248 he went to Norway to reform the Benedictine Monastery of St. Benet Holm; on his journey he was entrusted with letters for King Haakon IV, with whom he formed a friendship. Paris was also personally acquainted with King Henry III of England and Richard, Earl of Cornwall. Another influential chronicler is Gregoire de Tours, a sixth-century historian. Born Clermont-Ferrand in 595, he went to Tours seeking a cure for an illness at the tomb of Saint Martin, and stayed in that city where he became a bishop. He left many treatises on history and astronomy, including a hagiography of Saint Julian and Saint Martin; a book about ecclesiastical cycles, and a tumultuous History of the Franks that earned him the title of first French historian. Fig. 63: Gregoire de Tours and Salvius facing King Chilperic. Notable among later authors we have consulted is John Howie (1735-1793) “chronicler and biographer, who lived on his ancestral farm of Lochgoin, in Renfrewshire, a noted place of refuge in Covenanting times. He early developed an interest in the Covenanters and Reformers, and went on to amass a wealth of material from manuscript and published sources he used as a basis for series of biographical sketches which he published in 1775 under the title of Biographia Scoticana or Scot Worthies,” (according to Scottish Church Hist. & TheoL, 414). Screening The Internet has introduced a revolution in our access to ancient texts. In particular, the network’s ability to link together groups of researchers interested in the same topics and willing to share their data has allowed us to take a giant step beyond the parsimonious and often erroneous databases available prior to this work. Fig. 64: Three suns seen in 1492 Having assembled such a body of information, in itself a never-ending process, the challenge becomes one of validation and selection. In order to avoid creating the kind of misleading framework found in the literature, we cannot presuppose anything about the nature of the data we present. At the same time, we have to be faithful to the beliefs and statements of the participants: if they thought they were witnessing a divine manifestation or a contact with a creature from another world, we cannot censor that information, and indeed it is relevant to the way they color their testimony. The primary phase of the selection process has to do with the elimination of what we now recognize as natural phenomena. Reliable knowledge about meteors and comets is of quite recent introduction: as late as 1803 the French Academy of Sciences didn’t believe that stones could fall from the sky, and the movement of comets still baffles the average citizen today. Reports of seemingly miraculous events, such as pillars of light in the sky or triple moons, are explained today as atmospheric effects but were understandably baffling to ancient writers. We should be grateful to them for preserving these items, even as they presented them in a supernatural context. Their contribution has augmented our ability to compute the orbit of comets by going back to sightings over the centuries. Similarly, the frequency of meteors, hence the structure and origin of our solar system, is better known because of such ancient records. In his book entitled L ‘Atmosphere, Camille Flammarion gives numerous examples of stories based on meteorological observations misinterpreted as supernatural phenomena, and later correlated with political events. Flammarion cites such a compilation by a friend of his, Dr. Grellois, concerning “mystical meteorology.” In compiling the data for this book we have tracked down, read and ultimately rejected far more cases than we have kept. As we saw in Part II, many events listed in the contemporary literature of unusual aerial phenomena turn out to be meteors, comets, auroras or tornadoes reframed as “disks” or “craft”. When medieval witnesses observed something burning in the sky they could only assume it was made of wood, hence the “flaming beam” over a German hillside in one classic illustration. Modern witnesses make similar assumptions when they jump to the conclusion that unidentified flying objects are necessarily spaceships from another world. Every century, every culture (including our own Western scientific culture) has its own myopia and peculiar obsessions. For our own purposes, whenever we could not find compelling evidence to indicate the object was NOT a meteor, a comet or an atmospheric effect, we have generally excluded the case from our Chronology. Rules for inclusion Once such natural misidentifications are removed, one is left with a mix of stories that range from the factual description of puzzling phenomena (perhaps because we are missing a crucial piece of information) to extraordinary claims that are the stuff of legend? and are often embedded into religious belief systems. The problem then becomes one of setting consistent criteria. In the present book we have applied the following set of rules: Rule 1: Credibility. Cases that we found, to the best of our estimation, to be fictional or fraudulent were excluded from the main chronology, but some of them were kept as background reference, historical milestones or educational material in our section on “Myths, Legends, and the Chariots of the Gods” (Part II of the book). Rule 2: Space and time. Cases must have a specific place and time associated with them in order to be retained in the Chronology. Statements like “There were numerous reports of lights in the sky in tenth-century Asia” or “Hopi traditions allude to contact with space beings” are not helpful. They offer no historical correlation and are almost impossible to research in the context of our project. Legendary events cannot be assigned a date in a real chronology. No years can be given for the dynasties of probably fictitious kings. We expect to have at least a specific region or location and an approximate date. We relaxed this rule somewhat for ancient cases and gradually tightened it as one got closer to the present century. We take pride in starting and ending the chronology at real, reliable dates. Rule 3: Description of the phenomenon. Cases must describe a specific phenomenon in sufficient detail so that common explanations (such as meteors, comets or illusions) can be recognized and excluded. The phenomenon should be linked to an aerial phenomenon or items closely related to contact with an aerial object or a non-human entity. Here again, we have relaxed these standards somewhat as we looked further back in time. Rule 4: Witness identification. Cases where witnesses are cited (or, even better, identified by name and function) are given greater weight than general statements about an event, especially when they make it possible to verify the existence and credibility of that particular person. Hoaxes We have attempted to detect and eliminate hoaxes from our chronology, but we do see such stories as important social indicators rather than spurious narratives: in order for a hoax to be credible to those who hear it, it must fit into the general belief system of the society that surrounds the author of the hoax. If we assume that actual stories of unusual observations are repressed in a given era (by Church authorities intent on fighting witchcraft, or by a “rationalist” regime determined to stamp out potentially subversive ideas) then it makes sense that we would only hear of the phenomena through the indirect channel of legends, fairy tales, and hoaxes. The problem of false testimony becomes more complex when the authors of the hoax belong to a power system, such as a religious group or a political structure. Hoaxes then become tools for disinformation and for the shaping of society, using the credulity of common citizens to propagate a certain faith or to maintain existing structures. Throughout history this device has been used for the convenience of emperors, kings, and Popes, and it is still being used today in disinformation and psychological warfare. For this reason we have made a special effort to track down the sources of the stories we have related, to the extent that the background could be researched. “Explanations” One of the secret pleasures and rewards of this work has been the study of the various “explanations” given by scholars of every era to dismiss the observations brought to them by common people. The following figure is a case in point: on 7 March 1715, starting in the evening and lasting until 3 A.M., a strange mist arose over an English village. Inside this mist or cloud, the witnesses thought they saw the figure of a frightening giant holding a sword. This is related fully in a pamphlet entitled A Full and True Relation of the Strange and Wonderful Apparitions, etc., which is kept in the British Museum. Fortunately for rationalists everywhere, a certain expert named Doctor Flamstead was able to “explain” this phenomenon (and several following it) in terms of “the darkness of people’s conscience,” which “seeks to destroy Church and State.” Fig. 65: “Full and true relation…” Thus the fantastic celestial apparition, instead of shaking up the existing state of knowledge, became interpreted - on the contrary - as a solemn reminder that the masses must stay in line, and always support the ruling class. As for the man in the cloud, “his heart is full of envy, heart and fury, seeking the destruction of all love and charity.” In all periods, we are able to observe the stupidity and the arrogance of such selfstyled “rationalist” scholars who seize upon the sense of wonder, terror or hope of their contemporaries to advance their own preconceived theories, and to reinforce the existing order. The special problem of crashed saucers
Source: Case: W525