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Wonders In The Sky - Unexplained Aerial Objects From Antiquity To Modern Times - and Their Impact on Human Culture, History, and Beliefs - Jacques Vallee and Chris Aubeck

Consider the following incident, which transports us to the year 438 AD. An earthquake has destroyed Constantinople; famine and pestilence are spreading. The cataclysm has leveled the walls and the fifty-seven towers. Now comes a new tremor, even stronger than all the previous ones.

Nicephorus, the historian, reports that in their fright the inhabitants of Byzantium, abandoning their city, gathered in the countryside, "They kept praying to beg that the city be spared total destruction: they were in no lesser danger themselves, because of the movements of the earth that nearly engulfed them, when a miracle quite unexpected and going beyond all credence, filled them with admiration."

In the midst of the entire crowd, a child was suddenly taken up by a strong force, so high into the air that they lost sight of him. After this he came down as he had gone up, and told Patriarch Proclus, the Emperor himself, and the assembled multitude that he had just attended a great concert of the Angels hailing the Lord in their sacred canticles. …………………….

Acacius, bishop of Constantinople, states, "The population of the whole city saw it with their eyes." And Baronius, commenting upon this report, adds the following words:

"Such a great event deserved to be transmitted to the most remote posterity and to be forever recorded in human memory through its mention every year in the ecclesiastical annals. For this reason the Greeks, after inscribing it with the greatest respect into their ancient Menologe, read it publicly every year in their churches."