Observations placeholder
Charles Fort - Sightings of miscellaneous UFOs with odd shapes
Identifier
028710
Type of Spiritual Experience
None
Background
And some more examples from other sources
1. 20 September 1498, Japan - Umbrella-shaped object
A bright object resembling an umbrella crossed the sky with a rumbling sound. Source: Brothers 1,1, Dainihonjisinsiriyo Nihon-jisinsiriyo; Takao Ikeda, UFOs over Japan.
2. 13th November 1547, Near Rome, Italy - Strange objects fly over
A rod and a cross appeared in the sky at 3 P.M., with a bird-like object above them. The weather was clear and the sky was calm. The objects were seen for three days. The event is depicted in a German broadsheet in the Johann Jacob Wick's collection, held by the Zurich Zentralbibliothek.
Wheels are actually very common, here is an example
3. May 1606, Kyoto, near Nijo Castle, Japan - Hovering red wheel
Numerous witnesses, including Samurais, see balls of fire kept flying over Kyoto and one night, a red wheel had come over and hovered above Nijo castle. We have not located an original Japanese source for this interesting case. Source: Michel Bougard, La chronique des OVNI (Paris: Delarge, 1977), 86.
4. 30 October 1660, Yelden, England: A bright Roman S shaped object seen in the sky for two hours by a credible witness. The record reads:
"Very early was seen a great Star which., .gave so great a light, that some inhabitants here. ..could see to do business in the house by the light of it; one credible person here beheld it two hours together, and at last saw it turn into the perfect form of a Roman S, and then presently it divided in the middle, and one half went to the north-east, and the other to the south-west, and so by degrees disappeared." Source: Mirabilis Annus (1661).
5. 23 April 1661, Bednall-Green, England - Pillar containing lights
People saw a great pillar of fire with smaller objects (compared to "burning coals") within it, and at 10 o'clock that night "several persons near Pickadilly saw strange fiery clouds and other objects very terrible to the spectators, from some of whose mouths we received the information". Source: Mirabilis Annus Secundus (1662).
6. 11 May 1662, near Salt Ash, Cornwall, England - A great star with legs and a black square object
At St. Stephens near Salt Ash, a "very great star" was reported, with the likeness of two red "legs" and a black square object. The star moved to and fro. Source: Mirabilis Annus Secundus (1662).
7. Late July 1663, Saint Martin, Brittany, France - Flying red cross
In the parish of Saint-Martin, near Quimper, a man named Francois Carre, from Bordeaux, saw a red cross in the sky. It seemed to fly away from Saint Martin church and headed towards the chapel of Saint Michel. Jerome de Lestour, a priest in Caudan in the diocese of Vannes, reports that "fearing to be the victim of an illusion, Carre called his wife without saying anything else than to look in the same direction. 'Do you see anything?' he asked. 'Yes, a red cross heading towards the chapel of Saint-Michel,' she answered." Source: The diary of Jesuit Father Julien Maunoir, written in 1672, kept in the library of the Society of Jesus in Rome. Translation of this passage is by Yannis Deliyannis.
A description of the experience
Book of the Damned
Disks
"Most extraordinary and singular phenomenon," North Wales, Aug. 26, 1894; a disk from which projected an orange-colored body that looked like "an elongated flatfish," reported by Admiral Ommanney (Nature, 50-524);
disk from which projected a hook-like form, India, about 1838;diagram of it given;
disk about size of the moon, but brighter than the moon; visible about twenty minutes; by G. Pettit, in Prof. Baden-Powell's Catalogue (Rept. Brit. Assoc., 1849);
very brilliant hook-like form, seen in the sky at Poland, Trumbull Co., Ohio, during the stream of meteors, of 1833;
Square table
visible more than an hour: large luminous body, almost stationary "for a time"; shaped like a square table; Niagara Falls, Nov. 13, 1833 (Amer. Jour. Sci., 1-25-391);
grayish object that looked to be about three and a half feet long, rapidly approaching the earth at Saarbruck, April 1, 1826; sound like thunder; object expanding like a sheet (Am. Jour. Sci., 1-26-133; Quar. Jour. Roy. Inst., 24-488);
In Cosmos, n.s., 39-356, a satisfactory correspondent writes that, at Lille, France, Sept. 4, 1898, he saw a red object in the sky. It was like the planet Mars, but was in the position of no known planet. He looked through his telescope, and saw a rectangular object, with a violent-colored band on one side of it, and the rest of it striped with black and red. He watched it ten minutes, during which time it was stationary; then, like the object that was seen at the time of the Powell-mystery, it cast out sparks and disappeared.
Cloud
something described as a bright white cloud, at night, Nov. 3, 1886, at Hamar, Norway; from it were emitted brilliant rays of light; drifted across the sky; "retained throughout its original form" (Nature, Dec. 16, 1886-158);
Oval
thing with an oval nucleus, and streamers with dark bands and lines very suggestive of structure; New Zealand, May 4, 1888 (Nature, 42-402);
Trumpet shape
something like a gigantic trumpet, suspended, vertical, oscillating gently, visible five or six minutes, length estimated at 425 feet, at Oaxaca, Mexico, July 6, 1874 (Sci. Am. Sup., 6-2365);
Figure of eight
two luminous bodies, seemingly united, visible five or six minutes, June 3, 1898 (La Nature, 1898-1-127);
Red
large body, colored red, moving slowly, visible 15 minutes, reported by Coggia, Marseilles, Aug. 1, 1871 (Chem. News, 24-193);
Red part of a rainbow
In Nature, 58-224, a correspondent writes that, upon July 1, 1898, at Sedberg, he had seen in the sky--a red object--or, in his own wording, something that looked like the red part of a rainbow, about 10 degrees long. But the sky was dark at the time. The sun had set. A heavy rain was falling.
Large and stationary
thing that was large and that was stationary twice in seven minutes, Oxford, Nov. 19, 1847; listed by Lowe (Rec. Sci., 1-136);
report by an astronomer, N.S. Drayton, upon an object duration of which seemed to him extraordinary; duration three-quarters of a minute, Jersey City, July 6, 1882 (Sci. Amer., 47-53);
object like a comet, but with proper motion of 10 degrees an hour; visible one hour; reported by Purine and Glancy from the Cordoba Observatory, Argentina, March 14, 1916 (Sci. Amer., 115-493);