Wonders in the Sky (10 page)

The army of Emperor Hou Chu saw a red object with pointed rays that flew over them three times.

This case is reported in a compilation of “shooting stars and meteors,” but the notion of an ordinary meteor returning three times to fly over an army stretches credulity.

 

Source: Edouard Biot,
Catalogue des étoiles filantes et des autres météores observés en Chine pendant 24 siècles
(Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1846).

30.

240, Che-chiang Province, China
The dragon and the little blue boy

“Under the Emperor Ta Ti of the Wu dynasty (AD 228-251), in the seventh month of the third year of the Ch'ih-wu era, there was a certain Wang Shuh who gathered medicinal herbs on T'ien Tai Mountain. At the hottest time of the day he took a rest under a bridge, when suddenly he saw a little blue boy, over a foot long, in the brook.

“
The boy held a blue rush in his hand and rode on a red carp. The fish entered a cloud and disappeared little by little.

“After a good while Shuh climbed upon a high mountain top and looked to all four sides. He saw wind and clouds arising above the sea, and in a moment a thunderstorm broke forth. Suddenly it was about to reach Shuh, who terrified hid himself in a hollow tree. When the sky cleared up, he again saw the red carp on which the boy rode and the little boy returning and entering the brook. It was a black
kiao
!”

We include this case, clearly unexplained in terms of ordinary phenomena, because it illustrates characteristics ascribed to “dragons” in the Chinese literature.

 

Source:
Dr. M. W. De Visser,
The Dragon in China and Japan
(Amsterdam: Johannes Müller, 1913), 80-81. Visser quotes from “the
Wu ki
.” A Kiao is a “scaled dragon.”

31.

Circa March 260, China, exact location unknown
A child from Mars flies away

At a time when the government of Wu faced critical dangers, during the reign of Sun Hsiu (258 to 263) the generals of border garrisons used to leave their wives and children (known as “hostage children”) as pledges of loyalty. It was not unusual for a dozen of these children to play together. The record goes on:

“A strange child suddenly joined the hostage children in their play. He was less than four feet tall, dressed in dark clothes, and appeared to be between six and seven years old. None of the other children recognized the newcomer, so they asked him, “To what family do you belong, that you should suddenly appear among us?”

“I came only because you seemed to be enjoying yourselves so much,” was the reply. On closer examination, it was noticed that light rays from the stranger's eyes flashed brilliantly, and the other children began to be afraid. They asked him about his past. “Do you fear me, then?” he asked. “Don't. Though I am not human, I am the star-god Yung-huo (Mars) and have come to deliver a message to you: ‘The Three Lords will return to Ssu-ma.'

“The children were startled, and some ran off to tell their parents. The adults arrived in haste to witness all this, but the visitor said, ‘I must leave you.' So saying, he propelled his body upward and transformed himself.

“The children looked up and watched him rise to the heavens leaving what appeared to be a great train of flowing silk behind him. Some of the adults arrived in time to watch him drifting gradually higher. A moment later, he vanished.”

Given the political crisis, nobody reported this at the time. Four years later Hsiu was overthrown; in 21 years Wu was put down, and the power fell to Ssu-ma.

 

Source:
In the Wu Kingdom during the Three Kingdoms Period
(222-280), cited in
In Search of the Supernatural: The Written Record
, trans. Kenneth J. DeWoskin and J. I. Crump (Stanford University Press: 1996), 110.

32.

January 314, China, exact location unknown
Three suns, flying east

The Sun came down to the ground and three other suns rose together over the western horizon and “flew together towards the East.” This is yet another frustrating example of partial information which, taken literally, indicates a most unusual phenomenon. Only reference to the original text could permit a fuller interpretation.

 

Source: Shi Bo,
La Chine et les Extraterrestres
(Paris: Mercure de France: 1983), 47. We have not been able to find an original source for this case.

33.

Circa 334, Antioch, Turkey
An object emitting smoke for hours

“In Antioch a star appeared in the eastern part of the sky during the day,
emitting much smoke as though from a furnace, from the third to the fifth hour.
” The duration of the phenomenon precludes a comet, but it was seen too long for a meteor.

 

Source: Theophanes,
Chronographia
, trans. C. Mango & R. Scott, with G. Greatrex,
The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor: Byzantine and Near Eastern History AD 284-813
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 49.

34.

Circa 350, Emesa, Syria: Dialogue with a globe of fire

In Ancient Greece, where meteorology played an important role in religion and scientific philosophy, claims involving strange aerolites abound. Damaskios, in his book,
The Life of Isidorus
, relates that one sacred baitylos (meteorite) was kept by a man named Eusebios, who acquired it in strange circumstances. A Byzantine scholar called Photios, who lived in the 9th century A.D., described the story in his own writings. The following is from Arthur Bernard Cook's
Zeus, A Study in Ancient Religion,
Vol. III, 888:

“This man stated that there had once come upon him a sudden and much unexpected desire to roam at midnight away from the town of Emesa as far as he could get towards the hill on which stands the ancient and magnificent temple of Athena. So he went as quickly as possible to the foot of the hill, and there sat down to rest after his journey. Suddenly he saw a globe of fire leap down from above, and a great lion standing beside the globe. The lion vanished immediately, but
he himself ran up to the globe as the fire died down and found it to be the baitylos. He took it up and asked it to which of the gods it might belong. It replied that it belonged to Gennaios, the ‘Noble One.' He took it home the self-same night, traveling, so he said, a distance of over 210 furlongs…. It was, he says, an exact globe, whitish in color, three hand-breadths across. But at times it grew bigger, or smaller; and at others it took on a purple hue. He showed us, too, letters that were written into the stone, painted in the pigment called cinnabar.”