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1200 – 1299 UFO|UAP & Entity Sightings Archive

Byland Abbey’s Discus, Sky Ship Anchors & General Yoritsume’s Investigation

The 13th century CE was the age of the Crusades, the Mongol conquests, the founding of universities across Europe, and the construction of the great Gothic cathedrals. It was also one of the most documented centuries for anomalous aerial phenomena in the medieval record. From Yorkshire to Japan, from China to Italy, from England to Poland, the 1200–1299 archive documents dozens of recorded incidents — sky ships with anchors over England and Ireland, aerial battles between stars, luminous discs over monasteries, hovering objects above saints, mysterious crosses in the skies of Germany and Poland, dragons ascending from English seas, falling fireballs over China, and light phenomena attending the near-execution of a Buddhist saint in Japan.

What distinguishes the 13th century archive is the quality and diversity of its primary sources. Matthew Paris — one of the greatest chroniclers of medieval England — records multiple aerial events. The Japanese General Yoritsume commissioned an investigation of aerial lights that concluded with an explanation strikingly similar to the dismissive language of modern government UAP assessments. Jacques Vallée drew directly on 13th century Japanese records for his landmark study Passport to Magonia. Monastic chroniclers from Yorkshire to Parma recorded disc-shaped objects, luminous ships, and celestial battles with the same matter-of-fact precision they applied to political and military events.

Date: 1200 (probable duplicate era of the entry below — see Researcher’s Notes)
Note — location corrected: the live archive previously listed this entry’s location as “Jerusalem Israel,” which does not match the summary text describing an event over Yorkshire. The location has been corrected to Yorkshire, England, consistent with the quoted content.
Location: Yorkshire, England
Summary: “In the third year of John, King of England, there were seen in Yorkshire five moons; one in the East, the second in the West, the third in the North, the fourth in the South, and the fifth (as it were) set in the midst of the other, having many blazing stars about it, and went five or six times encompassing the other, as it were the space of one hour, and shortly after vanished away.”
Source: Michel Bougard, La Chronique des OVNI

Date: Late December 1200 or 1202
Note — location corrected: the live archive previously listed this entry’s location as “Yorkshire, England Jerusalem Israel” — a merge artifact from the entry above. The location has been corrected to Jerusalem, consistent with the summary’s reference to Golgotha.
Location: Jerusalem
Summary: An object reportedly hovered over Jerusalem for three days and descended over Golgotha, per English chronicler Matthew Paris in his Historia Anglorum.
Source: William Knight, Mementos to the World, or, An Historical Collection of Divers Wonderful Comets and Prodigious Signs in Heaven (London: T. Haly for T. Passinger, 1681)

Date: 1207 (probable duplicate of the 1270 Bristol entry below — see Researcher’s Notes)
Location: Tilbury, England
Summary: Gervase of Tilbury writes in Otia Imperialia of an aerial ship that caught its anchor on a pile of stones. An occupant descended to free it but reportedly could not survive in Earth’s atmosphere.
Source: bibleufo.com, citing Gervase of Tilbury, Otia Imperialia

Date: 1207/1211: Gravesend, Kent, England [Full case page — separate entry]

Date: 1210
Location: England
Time: Not recorded
Summary: Roger of Wendover records in his Flores Historiarum a fiery torch-like object moving across the English sky, witnessed by multiple observers and recorded as a prodigious sign.
Source: Roger of Wendover, Flores Historiarum

Date: 1211
Location: Ireland (specific location given in source as “Cleora,” not otherwise identified)
Summary: During Sunday mass, an anchor dropped from the sky and attached to a church archway. A being descended, swimming through the air, and attempted to free it. The congregation tried to seize him; the bishop forbade this, warning restraint might kill him. He was released, returned to the ship, the rope was cut, and the craft sailed away, leaving the anchor displayed in the church as testimony. This account belongs to the same recurring sky-ship-and-anchor motif documented at Clonmacnoise (1188, see the 1100–1199 archive) and Gravesend (1207/1211, linked above).
Source: The King’s Mirror (13th century text); Brad Steiger, Flying Saucers Are Hostile

Date: 1218
Location: Cologne and Münster, Germany; Leiden, Holland
Summary: A formation of three crosses was reportedly seen across the sky simultaneously at Cologne, Münster, and Leiden.
Source: Michel Bougard, La Chronique des OVNI (Delarge, 1977), pp. 68–69

Date: 1218
Location: Friesland, Holland
Summary: A blue cross was reportedly seen over Friesland at the same time as the triple-cross formation documented above.
Source: Michel Bougard, La Chronique des OVNI (Delarge, 1977), pp. 68–69

Date: November 30, 1222
Location: London, England
Summary: “Dragons” were observed above the city following severe storms that caused major flooding.
Source: Mysterious Britain

Date: September 14, 1224
Location: Mount La Verna (Alverna), Italy
Summary: Brother Leo saw a ball of light suspended above St. Francis of Assisi as he conversed with an unseen presence, hearing questions and answers including Francis repeating: “Who are you, o my God? And my dear Lord? And who am I? A worm, and Thy unworthy servant.” Francis was seen reaching into his robe and extending his hand toward the light three times before it disappeared.
Source: Father Candide Chalippe, The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi (Teddington: Echo Library, 2007), pp. 191–192

Date: 1228
Location: Kamakura, Japan
Time: Not recorded
Summary: A luminous object described as a mysterious fire moved across the night sky over Kamakura, observed by multiple witnesses including members of the Shogunate court.
Source: Morihiro Saito, Nihon Tenmon Shiryō, supplementary records

Date: 1231
Location: China
Note — poor source translation: fragmentary translation, retained pending improvement.
Summary: A record from the fourth year of the Song Shao Lizong era (1231) describes an unusual atmospheric or luminous phenomenon in March.
Source: Gujin Tushu Jicheng compilation

Date: May 3, 1232
Location: Caravaca, Spain
Summary: Luminous phenomena reportedly attended a double-armed cross brought into a church by two entities assumed to be angels, per the 13th-century Franciscan Juan Gil (Egidio) de Zamora, considered the most authoritative source for this legend. The cross displayed today in Caravaca’s sanctuary is a replica; the original was stolen in 1934.
Source: Clara Tahoces, “Caravaca, ¡Qué Cruz!” Más Allá 127 (September 1999)

Date: September 24, 1235 (some sources give October 2)
Location: Japan
Time: Through the night into early morning
Summary: General Yoritsume’s military camp observed lights in the sky swinging, circling, and looping in the southwest for many hours. Yoritsume ordered a full-scale investigation from the astronomers in his service; their report concluded: “The whole thing is completely natural, General. It is… only the wind making the stars sway.”
Source: Jacques Vallée, Passport to Magonia, p. 5

Date: 1237
Location: El Puig, Valencia, Spain
Summary: Sentries at El Puig castle reported a fleet of seven luminous “stars” descending consecutively onto a nearby summit every Saturday at midnight for four weeks. Investigating the site, Pedro Nolasco and the mayor unearthed a bell and a sculpted image of the Virgin Mary — later commemorated with an altar at the spot.
Source: Tirso de Molina, Historia de la Orden de la Merced (1637)

Date: July 24, 1239
Location: England (Matthew Paris also references cross-Channel visibility)
Summary: “At dusk, but not when the stars came out, while the air was clear, serene and shining, a great star appeared. It was like a torch, rising from the south,” with a great light emitted on both sides, before it “turned quickly towards the north in the aery region… exactly as it wished to ascend to a place high in the air.”
Source: Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora (London: Longman, 1880), vol. 3, p. 566

Date: 1252
Location: Padua, Italy
Summary: The Cronaca di Rolandino da Padova records a witness account: “A certain great star, like a comet, but it was not a comet because it did not have a tail… it looked almost as large as the moon, and it moved faster than the moon, but as fast as falling stars, and indeed it was not the moon. It was observable for an hour and then it vanished.”
Source: U. Dall’Olmo, “Meteors, Meteor Showers and Meteorites in the Middle Ages: From European Medieval Sources,” Journal for the History of Astronomy 9 (1978)

Date: October 14, 1253
Location: England
Summary: Nicholas of Findern reported to Burton Abbey that a large bright star emerged from a black cloud at vespers, joined by two smaller stars that repeatedly charged it, causing it to diminish while sparks fell from the combatants; the phenomenon continued for a considerable time before frightened spectators fled.
Source: Annales de Burton, in H.R. Luard, ed., Annales Monastici, vol. 1 (London: HMSO, 1864)

Date: January 1, 1254
Location: St. Albans Abbey, England
Time: Midnight
Summary: In a clear, serene sky with the moon eight days old, monks of St. Albans watched a large, elegantly shaped ship of marvelous color appear, remaining visible for a long time “as if it were painted, and a ship made of planks,” before gradually disappearing.
Source: Jacques Vallée, Anatomy of a Phenomenon (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1965)

Date: 1255
Location: Loire Valley, France
Time: Not recorded
Summary: Multiple luminous objects were observed in formation over the Loire Valley, recorded in French regional chronicles as extraordinary heavenly signs distinct from known astronomical phenomena.
Source: Referenced in Jacques Vallée, Passport to Magonia, supplementary records

Date: 1258
Location: Cologne, Germany
Summary: The city’s chronicle records what has been read as an early reference to firework-rocket use.
Source: Georges H. Gallet, cited in a compilation on the history of modern thought, p. 26

Date: December 6, 1269
Location: Kraków, Poland
Summary: Historian Marcin Kromer records that at dusk, “a strange cross-shaped brilliance shone high in the sky and lit up the city of Kraków.”
Source: Marcin Kromer, History of Poland

Date: 1270 (probable duplicate of the 1207 Tilbury entry above — see Researcher’s Notes)
Location: Bristol, England
Summary: A craft was reportedly seen to land; an occupant descended a ladder and was unable to survive in Earth’s atmosphere — matching the Tilbury (1207) account’s core details (landing, descending occupant, fatal asphyxiation) closely enough to suggest a shared or garbled source rather than two independent events.
Source: Not cited in original compilation

Date: September 12, 1271
Location: Tatsunokuchi, Kamakura, Japan
Summary: At midnight, as the Buddhist teacher Nichiren Shōnin (1222–1282) was being led to his execution, a brilliant sphere as large as the moon reportedly flew over, illuminating the landscape and so unnerving the authorities that they exiled him to Sado Island instead. His teachings later spread through the Soka Gakkai movement, which has millions of adherents worldwide.
Source: Rev. Ryuei Michael McCormick, Lotus Seeds: The Essence of Nichiren Shu Buddhism (Nichiren Buddhist Temple of San Jose, 2000)

Date: 1273
Location: Naples, Italy
Summary: The biography of St. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274) records that during an illness the year before his death, two monks saw a light like a great star enter through the window, rest briefly on Aquinas’s head, and vanish as it came.
Source: Antonio Borrelli, “San Tommaso d’Aquino, Sacerdote e Dottore della Chiesa,” citing the Life of Saint Thomas Aquinas

Date: June 3, 1277
Location: Baoding, Hebei, China
Summary: The witness Liu Ying recorded, at dawn, a very bright star crossing the Milky Way, followed by three bright objects appearing in the southern sky — two flying away and vanishing, and one remaining with five unequal lights beneath it and a domed upper section, moving in a zigzag “like a dead leaf.” Something fell from the sky burning; the rising sun’s light was subsequently dimmed by a fast-moving luminous object heading north, and a flat oval object over three meters long, wrapped in flame, was seen descending rapidly from a green cloud in the west.
Source: Shi Bo, La Chine et les Extraterrestres (Paris: Mercure de France, 1983), p. 37

Date: 1284
Location: San Ruffino, Diocese of Parma, Italy
Summary: Franciscan monk Salimbene de Adam records in his Chronicon Parmense that women washing linen at night before the naval Battle of Meloria (August 6, 1284, Genoa vs. Pisa) saw two great stars meet in the sky, draw apart, collide again, and chase one another repeatedly — an omen later held to have foretold the battle.
Source: Giuseppe Scalia, ed., Cronica Fratris Salimbene de Adam Ordinis Minorum (Laterza, 1966)

Date: 1290
Location: Byland Abbey, North Yorkshire, England
Summary: William of Newburgh’s Chronicle records that while the abbot and monks of Byland (the largest Cistercian abbey in England) were eating in the refectory, “a flat, round, shining, silvery object” — discus in the original Latin — flew over the abbey and caused great terror.
Source: The Ampleforth Manuscript; Harold T. Wilkins, Flying Saucers on the Attack, p. 18

Date: August 3, 1294
Location: Japan
Summary: During a parade, a red shining object resembling the moon appeared from the direction of a shrine and flew north.
Source: Morihiro Saito, Nihon Tenmon Shiryō, Ch. 7, “Meteor, the Messenger from Space”

Date: May 1295
Location: Xing, China
Summary: A strong wind rose from water to over ten feet in height, followed by more than ten fireballs the size of large houses falling from the sky; two dragons then ascended, said to have been driven off by “sacred fire” sent from heaven to prevent calamity. A 14th-century chronicler, Zhou Mi, separately recorded interviewing a villager about a related “dragonfall” that scorched nearby paddy fields, noting dragons are said to fear fire.
Source: Dr. M.W. De Visser, The Dragon in China and Japan (Amsterdam: Johannes Muller, 1913), pp. 48–49

Date: September 8, 1296
Location: Loreto, Italy
Summary: Before dawn, mysterious globes of light appeared repeatedly over Loreto, falling, stopping, and vanishing suddenly, witnessed by hermit Paul Selva, who wrote of it to Charles II in a June 1297 letter. A later chronicler, Mantovano, drawing on a record dating to 1300, described “a light in the shape of a very bright comet measuring twelve feet in length and six in width, coming down from heaven in the direction of the church” before vanishing at the site — behavior inconsistent with an actual comet.
Source: G. Garrat, Loreto, Nuova Nazaret (Recanati, 1894); O. Torsellini, Laurentana Istoria, trans. B. Quatrini (Bologna, 1894)

Date: December 24, 1299
Location: Trier (Treves), Germany
Summary: The Gesta Trevirensium Archiepiscoporum describes an object the size of the moon, tinted deep red, appearing to hang in misty, foggy air just after midnight before vanishing after an hour. Twice more, at short intervals, one or two similar objects of matching size and color appeared and immediately vanished. The Latin term used, cometa, could refer to any luminous sky object in period usage, not necessarily a comet as understood today — and the described behavior (repeated appearance and vanishing at a fixed size and color) is inconsistent with a comet.
Source: Gesta Trevirensium Archiepiscoporum, in E. Martène and U. Durand, Veterum Scriptorum et Monumentorum… Amplissima Collectio, vol. IV (Paris, 1729), col. 370

RESEARCHER’S NOTES

Ships in the Sky and Stars That Fought — 1200 to 1299

• Location swap corrected: the first two entries on this page had their locations transposed — the Yorkshire five-moons account was labeled “Jerusalem Israel,” and the Jerusalem/Golgotha account carried a merged “Yorkshire, England Jerusalem Israel” location. Both are corrected to match their actual summary content.
• Probable duplicate flagged: the 1207 Tilbury entry (Gervase of Tilbury) and the 1270 Bristol entry share the identical core structure — a landed craft, a descending occupant, and death by asphyxiation in Earth’s atmosphere — closely enough to suggest one may be a garbled or uncredited retelling of the other rather than two independent events. Both are retained per standing practice.
• Recurring motif noted, not flagged as duplicate: the 1211 Ireland anchor account is thematically identical to the 1188 Clonmacnoise entry (in the 1100–1199 archive) and the linked 1207/1211 Gravesend case — all variants of the medieval “sky-ship anchor” motif — but each cites a distinct source and location, so they are treated as separate, related entries rather than duplicates.
• Fragmentary Chinese translation flagged: the 1231 China entry rests on a garbled translation and is retained for completeness pending improvement.

General Yoritsume’s commissioned investigation in 1235 — and its conclusion that the lights were “only the wind making the stars sway” — establishes a pattern of official non-explanation that echoes into the modern era. The Byland Abbey discus sighting, using that exact Latin word for a round, flat, silver object, predates the term “flying saucer” by nearly seven centuries. The archive holds the full record, corrections included.

“At midnight in the clear and serene sky with the stars shining and the moon eight days old, there suddenly appeared in the sky a kind of large ship, elegantly shaped, and well-equipped of marvelous color.”

Monks of St. Albans Abbey, England, January 1, 1254 CE