This incident popped up on another, completely unrelated forum today and has apparently been popping up a lot on the, ahem, less skeptical sites otherwise as well as of the last few years, so I thought it might be nice to have a go at here too

http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case486.htm

So, what do the local skeptics and the "alien contact experts" (you know who you are ) alike make of this incident? Anybody know any previous more-or-less credible research into the case, including but not limited to anything where the original article from the Nuremberg Gazette could be viewed? At a glance, it might be a blown-out-of-proportions description of a particularly violent meteor shower but ascertaining this in any way would require some research

Skirmish between the imperial fleet and the rebel alliance. I find your lack of faith disturbing.

I was actually there. It was the quidditch world cup 1561.

Far be it from me to say you are pulling my leg, but as more of a starwoid than a potterian (or whatever they are supposed to be) I'd prefer twistor's hypothesis

A bit more seriously, doesn't anybody else recall seeing the picture or at least a transcript of the original article form NG? I don't mean the a posteriori-made woodcut, it's all over the place. I've got a feeling I've seen it but can't seem to find it now.

Wiki has a jpg which includes the woodcut, and some text below it on here. I can't read the text (even if I could remember more that a smattering of my German 'O' Level, I doubt it would help with this text).

Googling "Nuremberg Gazette" comes up with pages of UFO stuff, mostly copy-pasta of the same words, but no references to the incident that I can see from any "authoritative" source. One site, talking about the history of Printing And Publishing, mentions that the NG was founded in 1457 and

Among the most important bits of news which it was the good fortune of this paper to publish to the world was the discovery of Peru.

but it doesn't mention a report of strange aerial phenomena.

Best suggestion I've seen is that it's a WW2 dog-fight seen through some sort of time slip!!

Paul wrote:Wiki has a jpg which includes the woodcut, and some text below it on here. I can't read the text (even if I could remember more that a smattering of my German 'O' Level, I doubt it would help with this text).

So it does. Managed to overlook the most obvious somehow. I seem to recall a bigger and hence more legible versio tho but maybe that's just imagination.

Now all we need is somebody who is somewhat more versed than me or you in the old German -- I only understand random words of German really

Googling "Nuremberg Gazette" comes up with pages of UFO stuff, mostly copy-pasta of the same words, but no references to the incident that I can see from any "authoritative" source

Well, yes that would be one problem with trawling for info on this.

There is also the aspect apparently rarely considered that such an impressive aerial display should presumably have been visible from fairly far off... Why does it look like the only source from immediately after the fact appears to be NG?

Hmm. I've had a look at the woodcut, and the script is a bit difficult to decipher, and so is (for me) the antiquated language, but it does indeed talk about "balls" fighting with each other, some blood-coloured, some black, as well as some red crosses and a black spear (not clear to me what the black spear is doing).

Reminiscent of apocalyptic visions in Revelation or Ezekiel or the like (in fact the text begins by calling it a vision - ein sehr erschröcklich gesicht). Sounds to me like a natural phenomen (thunderstorm, meteor shower, whatever), the report on which has gone through many mouths, each embellishing and adding, until we get what is in the Gazette.

Thx -- I got mostly the balls bits

Roundly speaking then, one may assume that the most often seen bitz of the story (see the link in my OP) might be based off of the original at least...

Nobody seems to have a clear idea what the Imperial Star Destroyer was doing exactly, according to the original text

I spent quite some time in Nürnberg in the last year. Funny. You'd think they'd have memorial statues and plaques and museums devoted to such an remarkably important incident all over the place.
Well... They don't.

Maybe the local MIBs have "erased" them

tnjrp wrote:This incident popped up on another, completely unrelated forum today and has apparently been popping up a lot on the, ahem, less skeptical sites otherwise as well as of the last few years, so I thought it might be nice to have a go at here too

http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case486.htm

So, what do the local skeptics and the "alien contact experts" (you know who you are ) alike make of this incident? Anybody know any previous more-or-less credible research into the case, including but not limited to anything where the original article from the Nuremberg Gazette could be viewed? At a glance, it might be a blown-out-of-proportions description of a particularly violent meteor shower but ascertaining this in any way would require some research

It must be true since there is a picture:

It must be accurate since the sun really does have a face.

I've had a look, and have absolutely no idea! It reminds me of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun

Kinda sorta does too, at that. Obviously the Fatima "miracles" are a bit better chronicled, being a lot more recent.

Yes. In which case maybe sun dogs, maybe "enthusiasm", who knows? You can get pretty unusual atmospheric effects. Kevin McClure wrote an excellent book on Fatima, but I don't have a copy here

j x

BlackBart wrote:Remember kids, just say no to Ergot. It really screws you up.

You don't say...

If the good people of N. were tripping wholesale, then it might've as simple as somebody looking into the sun long enough and going wonky from seeing ergot-magnified afterimages to induce mass hysteria.

I think ergot poisoning was pretty well recognised though, and the other effects - (like death) might have been mentioned?

Hello fellows,

greetings from Germany . This is my first post here (and could be my last). I stumbled over this strange phenomenon today after an amusing Apollo/MoonBase/AliensEverywhere-roundtrip. Having studied History and German Language I should be able to translate the woodcut text of Hans Glaser in a reasonable quality for you. But I have to say, I am not a professionally trained translator for 16th century German into common modern English. So my first glance at the text reveals some unknown vocabulary I would have to research in a dictionary, and I cannot read one letter adhoc. But most of the text is plain simple to understand for me. I will not speculate on this topic, not now, maybe later, if the discussion will go on. I wanna say: this seems to be heavy stuff - and it would be interesting, what other chronicles of and around Nuremberg would have to say about April,14th 1561. There are tons of paper in the archives here in Germany from this era, well-documented times. There must be more than Glaser's report and woodcut. But it would be a hard task for trained professionals only. Let me tell you, that there is another woodcut in Glaser's series for March 1561, where he reports about strange lights around the moon (the UFO fleets leaving their bases ).

So, here is my (I think reasonable, but not watertight) "translation". Ask, if you have questions, folks:

In the year 1561 on the 14th day of April in the morning between ... [difficult special time phrase] ... and ... [difficult special time phrase], that is in the morning between 4 and 5 on the little clock, a very horrible vision showed at the sun when she rised and was seen at Nuremberg in the town and in front of the gate and at the countryside by alot of male and female persons. First the sun showed and was seen with two bloodcolored, halfround strokes like the diminishing moon right through the sun, and in the sun, above, under and on both sides stood bloodcolored and partly blueish or ironcolored, also blackcolored round orbs. The same on both sides and in circled plates around the sun - there were such bloodcolored and the other orbs in great numbers, standing three in a row, sometimes four in a quadruple, also alot as singles. And between such orbs alot of bloodcolored crosses have been seen, and between such crosses and orbs were bloodcolored strips, thick behind ["streyme hinden dick"] and to the front a bit smoother than ... [ ? "hocken rho[?]"]. Mixed in between together with others stood two big tubes, one to the right and the other to the left [hand's side], in those little and big tubes were three, four and more orbs. This alltogether began to fight ["streyten"], the orbs first in the sun moved towards the ones standing at both sides, so the ones, which were outside, moved together with the orbs out of the small and large tubes into the sun.
Also the tubes moved towards each other like the orbs and everything fought and battled ["gestritten und gefochten"] with each other nearly one hour long. And after the battle, which moved for a while into and again out of the sun from one side to the other most violently, exhausted itself by each other, everything (as drawn above) fell from the sun and the sky down to the earth like burning alltogether and vanished ["vergangen"] down on the earth gradually [? "allgemach"] in a big smoke. After such events something like a black spear, the shaft from sunrise [east] and the head towards sundawn [west], has been seen with big thickness and length.

[It follows a lengthy phrasal standard passage from a typical christian viewpoint of that time, about warning signs of Godfather, the sin of the non-believers and the awaited day of judgement etc. Not very related to the event as such, but there is a hint by Hans Glaser, that the "signs" in the sky were significant in quality and numbers in the recent time.]

EDIT: I corrected "stepwise" to "gradually" (that's what I meant ... )

Hello from Australia. Perhaps you might want to start a thread in our welcome forum and tell us a little more about yourself ?

Durro

Stapledon wrote:Hello fellows

I wanna say: this seems to be heavy stuff - and it would be interesting, what other chronicles of and around Nuremberg would have to say about April,14th 1561. There are tons of paper in the archives here in Germany from this era, well-documented times. There must be more than Glaser's report and woodcut. But it would be a hard task for trained professionals only. Let me tell you, that there is another woodcut in Glaser's series for March 1561, where he reports about strange lights around the moon (the UFO fleets leaving their bases ).

Indeed it would be very strange if nobody else reported phenomena of this (reported) intensity. But all I've ever heard about are NG and the a posteriori Glaser's woodcut. Perhaps German UFO proponents should stop watching U-t00b for evidence for a while and go hang out in the old newspaper archives

So, here is my (I think reasonable, but not watertight) "translation"

Thx, I think I got the gist of it

The early part of the phenomenon does decidedly bring to mind sundogs which has been suggested to much boo-booing by the extraterrestrial hypothesis proponents. I do believe they aren't necessarily visible over a very wide area but still there should be more references to such spectacular show in the sky.

there is a hint by Hans Glaser, that the "signs" in the sky were significant in quality and numbers in the recent time.

This is in fact more interesting than perhaps is readily apparent. It might be worth looking into if there was something particular going on in the atmo for example in the spring of 1561 that might have resulted in more than usual amount of halo phenomena.

Or, it could just be the inherent Christian millenialism we've been having perhaps a bit too much fun of hereabout of late