Wonders in the Sky (74 page)

19 September 1846, La Salette, France
Brilliant light and apparition

Two cowherds, an eleven year old boy, Maximin, and a fourteen year old girl, Mélanie Calvat, saw a sudden flash of light. She testified:

“I could see our cows grazing peacefully and I was on my way down, with Maximin on his way up, when all at once I saw a beautiful light shining more brightly than the sun. ‘Maximim, do you see what is over there? Oh! My God!' At the same moment, I dropped the stick I was holding. Something inconceivably fantastic passed through me in that moment, and I felt myself being drawn. I felt great respect, full of love, and my heart beat faster. I kept my eyes firmly fixed on this light, which was static, and as if it had opened up, I caught sight of another, much more brilliant light which was moving, and in this light I saw a most beautiful lady.”

The “lady” was dressed in white and gold, with a cap of roses on her head. She was surrounded by a brilliant light and was weeping. The lady complained that Sunday was being desecrated and the peasants were blaspheming the saints in swearing. (The Curé d'Ars and other clergy were complaining about these very sins in their sermons). If there was no amendment, there would be great disaster, the harvest would fail and people would starve

The parish priest declared the lady to be the Blessed Virgin; the apparitions were later approved by the Bishop of Grenoble, and pilgrimages began. Mélanie became a nun and continued to receive revelations. Maximin tried unsuccessfully to become a priest but was always in debt.

 

Source: Mélanie wrote down her testimony in 1878. On 15 Nov. 1879 it was published with the “Imprimatur” of the Bishop of Lecce. In 1904, a few weeks before her death, it was reprinted “ne varietur” at Lyon.

436.

November 1846, Rangoon River, China
Light beam and extreme heat

By a dark night, at about 7:30 P.M., a bright light appeared, accompanied by extreme heat, and moved rapidly in front of the ship where the witness, (the wife of the ship's owner) was standing with the captain and a 4 year old child.

The light did not come as a bolt of lightning but rather as a compact flame that terrified the witnesses. Several people in the vicinity felt the sudden increase in heat, although they were not in a position to see the light.

 

Source: Collingwood,
Philosoph. Magazine
, and
L'Institut
, 29 April 1868, 144.

437.

19 March 1847, Holloway, London, England
Unknown object ascending

“On the evening of Friday, March 19, “A” and I left Albion road, [Holloway], about half-past eight. Not any stars were then visible, but when we were in Highbury place, “A” called my attention to what we thought a fire-balloon ascending slowly. It was in the west, a little inclining to the south. As it passed on slowly to the west, its intense brilliance convinced me that it was not an earthly thing.

“When it appeared to be over Hampstead (but as high in the heavens as the sun is at six o'clock in the evening when the days are longest) it shot forth several fiery coruscations, and whilst we were gazing at it broke into an intensely radiant cloud: this cloud sailed on slowly, and we never took our eyes off it. At this time the stars were shining. When we were in the gravel path opposite to Highbury terrace, the cloud was higher in the heavens and more to the west. It cast a most brilliant light on the houses there, brighter than moonlight, and unlike any light I ever saw. It appeared of a blue tint on the bricks, but there was no blue light in the cloud itself.

“Suddenly, over the radiant cloud appeared another cloud still more brilliant, but I now felt so awe-struck, that I cannot say precisely how long they hung one over the other before the most wonderful sight happened. Perhaps they remained so for two or three minutes, when from the upper cloud a small fiery ball (about the size that the largest planets appear to the naked eye) dropped into the lower cloud, and was instantly absorbed. Soon after, another similar ball dropped from the upper to the lower cloud and then a ball apparently four or five times the size of the two preceding, fell from one cloud to the other.

“Shortly after this both clouds disappeared, apparently absorbed in the heavens, though I did see a few particles of the brilliant clouds floating about for a minute or so. Presently the moon appeared, considerably to the northward of the place where the clouds had hung. We then saw the bright light across the heavens, which you told me, was zodiacal light, which lasted for more than an hour.”

 

Source: “Meteoric Stones,”
The Living age,
vol. 56, No. 717 (Feb 20, 1858), 503. Also
Excelsior: Helps to Progress in Religion, Science and Literature
, vol. V (London: James Nisbet and Co., 1856).

438.

11 October 1847, Bonn, Germany
Fast-moving intruder

Single object, a small black spot rapidly crossing the disk of the sun, reported by astronomer Schmidt.

It was “neither a bird nor an insect crossing before the telescope.”

 

Source: R. C. Carrington,
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
20 (January 1860): 100-1.

439.

19 November 1847, Oxford, Wytham Park, England
A large object makes two stops

A large object reported by Mr. Symonds was stationary at two points of its trajectory, which took seven minutes.

 

Source:
Report of the eighteenth meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (year 1848)
(London, 1849): 9-10.

440.

1848, Arabian Sea, Arabia: Two wheels at sea

A ship at sea was approached by two “rolling wheels” that exploded with a crashing sound:

“Sir W. S. Harris read a report from a ship towards which two fiery wheels described as rolling haystacks on fire had whirled. When they came close there was a horrible crack as two masts had ruptured under a violent shaking. A strong odor of sulphur was noted.”

 

Source: Mentioned in
GEPA Bulletin
, new series no. 2 (Feb. 1965), 17, the original source was
The Athenaeum
, no. 1086 (19 August, 1848).

441.