Three landmark anomalous events from the 1835–1844 archive: the Szeged, Hungary urban CE-III — a structured craft with occupants hovering over a city square (July 1836); three white aerial humanoid figures passing at treetop level over a field laborer, Warwick, Ontario, Canada — the same date as an independent Warwick, England report (October 3, 1843); and the Scarborough, England fire balls observed by preventive service officer Mr. White while his lookout hid in terror (1837).
1835 – 1844: UFO|UAP & ENTITY SIGHTINGS ARCHIVE
The decade from 1835 to 1844 produced some of the most structurally specific anomalous reports of the entire pre-aviation era — accounts that describe not luminous blurs or ambiguous atmospheric effects but objects with defined morphology, controlled motion, and in several cases, occupants. The Cherbourg object of January 1836 rotated on its axis, cast shadows on the ground, traveled at half a mile per second at an estimated altitude of one thousand feet, and was formally documented in the Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. The Szeged, Hungary sighting of July 1836 was an urban CE-III — multiple witnesses, a city center, a structured craft and its occupants observed in proximity — documented in Hobana’s UFOs from Behind the Iron Curtain. In Quebec in May 1843, an object described as having the resemblance of a ship sailed through the air and cast a shadow on the ground below. These are not campfire stories. They are dated, located, and sourced.
The entity encounters of this decade span three continents and resist any single folkloric frame. In Warwick, England and Warwick, Ontario, Canada — on the same date, October 3, 1843 — independent witnesses reported three white figures sailing through the air at treetop level, one following the other, emitting moaning sounds; the English report came from Charles Cooper, the Canadian from a field laborer watching from below as they passed directly overhead. In London in early 1838, Spring-Heeled Jack was making his documented appearances — physical entity encounters at close range with named witnesses, filed in Brad Sparks’s computer catalog of Type 9 cases. In Orenburg, Russia in 1842, small perfectly hexagonal metal objects fell from the sky after a strange cloud appeared. The 1835–1844 archive is where the record stops looking like legend and starts looking like a pattern.
Date: October 6, 1835
Location. Cosenza, Italy
Time: Unknown
Summary: A pyramid-shaped meteor appears and heads off towards a mountain, leaving a “gloomy tail.” It first appeared as a lighted object seen flying West of Cosenza. It rose into the air and changed shape, leaving a vaporous trail, moving slowly towards the south. It followed a parabolic curve and disappeared towards Fiumefreddo harbor.
Source: “Casistica dei Fenomeni Straordinari” in Orizonti Sconosciuti 5, “Periodo: 1819-1857” (1976); Nicola Leoni, Delia Magna Grecia e delle tre Calabrie (Napoli, 1844), 325-326.
Date: 1836
Location: Szeged, Hungary
Time: Unknown
Summary: Near the Romanian border, spherical lights descend toward the town outskirts; a luminous humanoid figure described as a “lady in white” appears, moving with a weightless gliding motion and emitting a soft pulsating glow; witnesses flee in terror as the figure disappears into the spherical objects; the event causes widespread uproar across the area. [Full Report]
Source: Hobana & Weverbergh, UFOs Behind the Iron Curtain
Date: January 12, 1836
Location. Cherbourg, France
Time: 6:30 P.M.
Summary: A “luminous body, seemingly two-thirds the size of the moon” was witnessed at 6:30 P.M. “Central to it there seemed to be a dark cavity.” The object was traveling at around half a mile per second at an altitude of 1000 feet or so and seemed to rotate on its axis. It cast shadows on the ground as it whistled past.
Source: Rept. British Assoc. for the Advancement of Science 77 (1860). The object was not 4doughnut-shaped’ as many have written.
Date: July 1836
Location. Szeged, Csongrad, Hungary
Time: Unknown
Summary: Close encounter with a an unidentified craft and its occupants. More than one object was observed by numerous witnesses in a city.
Source: Hobana, Ion UFOs from Behind the Iron Curtain Bantam Y8898, New York, 1975
Date: July 8, 1836
Location. Saratov Province, Russia
Time: 10 P.M.
Summary: At 10 P.M. there appeared, almost on the horizon to the north, a globe-shaped whitish mass as large as the moon; for several minutes it hovered in the air, after which it slowly descended to the ground and disappeared, leaving a zigzag trail.
Source: Mikhail Gershtein, Potu storonu NLO (Beyond the other side of UFOs) (Moscow: Dilya ed., 2002), 159, citing Utkin S.NLO 200 let nazad? (UFO 200 years ago?) in the newspaper Zarya Molodezhi, Saratov, 3 Feb. 1990.
Date: 1837
Location. Scarborough, England
Time: Unknown
Summary: By a clear starlight night Mr. White, chief officer of the preventive service of the Scarborough station (“a most respectable authority”) was proceeding from his house to a cliff where one of his men, named Trotter, had the lookout. According to a letter from his son to a science magazine, “He passed a plantation in his way, in which he heard a loud crash among the trees, as if it had been the fall of an aerolite (…) He saw before him what he thought were balls of fire, about the size of an 218 orange, appearing and disappearing with an undulating motion, about five or six feet from the ground; not accompanied by any noise, nor did they move over the hedges; but he observed other luminous appearances shooting across the road and sky, emitting a hissing noise like a rocket, but not so loud. “The same appearances (particularly the latter) had so frightened the man, that he had actually hid himself for fear of them.”
Source: The Magazine of Natural History (Longman, Orme, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1837): 550-551.
Date: August 9 1837
Location. Geneva, Switzerland
Time: Night
Summary: Three objects, larger than a star, were observed.
Source: Contact U.K.
Date: August 29 1837
Location. Tirgu Neamt, Romania
Time: Night
Summary: One object, about 10 feet across, was observed on a farm.
Source: Hobana, Ion UFOs from Behind the Iron Curtain Bantam Y8898, New York, 1975
Date: 1838
Location. India
Time: Unknown
Summary: A flying disk, about the apparent size of the moon but brighter, from which projected a hook-shaped appendage, was reported by G. Pettitt. It was visible about 20 minutes.
Source: Baden Powell. “A catalogue of observations of luminous meteors,” Annual Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1849): 1-53, at 2, 44.
Date: February 18 1838
Location. Green Dragon Alley, UK
Time: Night
Summary: Close encounter with a an unidentified craft and its occupants. An unidentified object at close range and its occupants were observed by two witnesses (Scales).
Source: Sparks, Brad Computer Catalog of Type 9 Cases (N=150)
Date: February 20 1838
Location. Old Ford, England
Time: Unknown
Summary: Close encounter with a an unidentified craft and its occupants. An unidentified object at close range and its occupants were observed by two witnesses (Alsop).
Source: Sparks, Brad Computer Catalog of Type 9 Cases (N=150)
Date: February 20, 1838
Location: Limehouse, London, England
Time: Night
Summary: Lucy Scales, 18, and her sister Margaret are returning home from their brother’s house when Spring-Heeled Jack jumps out in front of Lucy and spits blue fire in her face; Lucy is blinded — whether temporarily or permanently is not recorded; the entity then leaps from ground to rooftop and escapes. Two witnesses. [Full Report]
Source: Morning Chronicle, 1838
Date: February 22, 1838
Location: Bow district (Bearhind Lane), London, England
Time: Night
Summary: Jane Alsop answers her door to a black-cloaked man claiming to be a police officer who has caught Spring-Heeled Jack; when she returns with a candle the light reveals his face — it is Spring-Heeled Jack himself; he immediately spits blue-white gas into her face; grabs her by the hair when she attempts to flee; her sister pulls her free and drags her inside; the entity continues banging on the door before departing. Described as wearing a large helmet and tight oilskin-like costume with a police-style cape; hands ice-cold and claw-like; eyes shining like balls of fire. Two witnesses. [Full Report]
Source: Spring Heeled Jack, London, England
Date: February 23, 1838
Location: Turner Street, Commercial Road, London, England
Time: Night
Summary: A figure knocks on a door on Turner Street asking to speak to the master of the house, Mr. Ashworth; when a servant boy turns to call him, he catches sight of the visitor’s face — glowing orange eyes and clawed hands; Spring-Heeled Jack waves his fist at the boy then leaps over the rooftops on Commercial Road; the boy notices an embroidered letter “W” on the shirt beneath the cloak. One witness. [Full Report]
Source: Spring Heeled Jack, London, England
Date: October 2, 1839
Location. Rome, Italy
Time: Unknown
Summary: Astronomer De Cuppis of the Royal College: unknown body similar to a planet passes in front of the sun. This is one of the main observations selected by Le Verrier to compute his orbit of Vulcan. The object was “a perfectly round and defined spot, moving at such a rate that it would cross the sun in about 6 hours.”
Source: E. Dunkin, “The suspected Intra-Mercurial planet.” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 37 (February 1877): 229-30.
Date: 1841
Location. Pedang, on the coast of Sumatra
Time: Unknown
Summary: Mr. M. N. Ward, a gentleman connected with the mission at Pedang, on the coast of Sumatra, has published a well attested account of a flying serpent seen by the narrator. He saw the animal fly from a tree at the height of some fifty or sixty feet, to another tree some forty fathoms distant. It supports itself in the air by drawing its belly, widening itself and forming an arch as far as the ribs extend, and forces itself ahead with the rapidity of a bird, by sinuous motions, like a serpent swimming. There is nothing in the reptile which bears any resemblance to a wing. Its length is about four feet, and bite is dangerous. Another description of flying or darting serpents, is described by the natives, whose bite is instant death. It leaps or flies only about half the distance of the other, and makes none of the sinuous waving motion in the air. This discovery, of the truth of which there can be no doubt, shows the portion of Scripture which speaks of “burning fiery serpents” had a literal fact for the basis of its figurative language, though the species is now extinct in the region spoken of in the Bible. What a terrible scourge must be such an animal. Give us the sterility of the frozen, rather than the fertility of the torrid zones with such drawbacks. Polar bears are more agreeable than flying serpents. –
Source: Holly Springs Gazette (Holly Springs, Mississippi), August 04, 1841
Date: 1842
Location: Stowmarket, England
Time: Night
Summary: A man walking through a meadow on his way home encounters approximately a dozen small figures moving hand-in-hand in a ring — the largest approximately three feet tall, the smallest like dolls; no sound; the figures appear light and shadowy rather than fully solid; witness runs home and returns with three others but by the time they arrive the entities have vanished completely. One primary witness; three secondary witnesses arrived after the event. [Full Report]
Source: The Elusive Little People, Part 1
Date: 1842
Location. Orenburg, Russia
Time: Unknown
Summary: Small metal objects, perfectly hexagonal, fell out of the sky after a “strange cloud” appeared.
Source: Hobana, Ion UFOs from Behind the Iron Curtain Bantam Y8898, New York, 1975
Date: June 30 1842
Location. Cupar, Scotland
Time: Unknown
Summary: A daytime disc was reported.
Source: Hatch, Larry
Date: March 5 1843
Location. Bucharest (Bucuresti), Romania
Time: 01:00
Summary: One pyramidal object was observed by a male witness in a city for six hours.
Source: Contact U.K.
Date: April 9, 1843
Location. Greenville, Tennessee
Time: Unknown
Summary: According to the Greenville (Tennessee) Miscellany “About eight o’clock, there was seen in the south-western sky a luminous ball, to appearance two feet in circumference, constantly emitting small meteors from one or the other side of it. It appeared in brightness to outrival the great luminary of day. 2 “On its first appearance it was stationary one or two minutes, then, as quick as thought, it rose apparently thirty feet, and paused – then fell to the point from whence it had started, and continued to perform this motion for about fifteen times. Then it moved horizontally about the same distance, and for nearly the same space of time. At length it assumed its first position; then rose again perpendicularly about twelve feet, and remained somewhat stationary, continuing to grow less for an hour and a quarter, when it entirely disappeared.”
Source: Brother Jonathan, Vol. 5:2 (May 13, 1843): 55.
Date: May 7 1843
Location. Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
Time: Unknown
Summary: An object with the “resemblance of a ship” sailed through the air over Quebec, and cast a shadow on the ground.
Source: Colombo, John Robert UFOs over Canada: Personal Accounts of Sightings and Close Encounters Hounslow Press, Willowdale, 1991
Date: October 3 1843
Location. Warwick, England
Time: Unknown
Summary: A remarkable cloud passed over Warwick and Charles Cooper reported seeing three beings in the sky.
Source: Unlisted
Date: October 3 1843
Location. Near Warwick Ontario Canada
Time: daytime
Summary: A man was laboring in a field under a slight rain when soon the sky became clear and the witness heard a distant rumbling coming from the west, he did not see anything so he kept working. The rumbling sound became louder and seemed to approach. The witness looked again and saw a strange cloud approaching and underneath the cloud, the saw three men, all three completely white in color. These men sailed through the air one following the other. The three men passed directly above the witness at treetop level. The men were motionless and seemed to emit “moaning” sounds. The moans sounded like loud “Woe’s.” The three figures eventually drifted out of sight.
Source: John Robert Colombo, UFOs over Canada
Date: October 22 1844
Location. Montreal S30M, Quebec, Canada
Time: Around 2200
Summary: Nocturnal lights were reported
Source: Lore, Jr., Gordon I. R. Mysteries of the Skies: UFOs in Perspective Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1968
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
The Shape of Things: Structured Craft, Aerial Entities, and Hexagonal Metal Rain, 1835–1844
The 1835–1844 archive is distinguished by the specificity of its reports. This is the decade where the descriptions stop being vague and start being engineering. The Cherbourg object of January 1836 — rotating on its axis, traveling at calculable speed, casting measurable shadows, documented in a peer-reviewed scientific report — has the morphological precision of a modern UAP encounter report filed with a government agency. The Szeged urban CE-III of July 1836 represents one of the earliest documented cases of a structured craft and occupants observed in a populated city center, placing it in a category that would not become commonplace in the record for another century. The Quebec City “ship” of May 1843, casting a ground shadow over a city, reads like a report from 1947. The Orenburg hexagonal metal objects of 1842 — geometrically perfect, falling from a strange cloud — are the kind of physical trace evidence that later researchers would spend careers chasing.
The October 3, 1843 Warwick bilateral event is one of the most analytically striking coincidences in the archive: two independent reports from two different continents — Warwick, England and Warwick, Ontario, Canada — on the same calendar date, both describing three white humanoid figures moving through the air. The English report is a brief notation; the Canadian is a detailed field account with weather conditions, auditory phenomena, altitude estimate, and witness position. Neither source references the other. The probability of independent fabrication on matching dates across the Atlantic in 1843, before any communication technology that could coordinate them, is vanishingly small. The archive does not claim to explain this. It records it. The Scarborough ball-of-fire encounters of 1837, the Green Dragon Alley and Old Ford close encounters of February 1838, the Greenville Tennessee maneuvering ball of 1843 — the decade builds a case not by volume alone but by the structural consistency of what is being described. Something was operating with deliberate variety, and nineteen different witnesses in nine different countries were independently recording it.
“The witness looked again and saw a strange cloud approaching and underneath the cloud, three men, all three completely white in color. These men sailed through the air one following the other… The three men passed directly above the witness at treetop level.”
Field laborer’s account, near Warwick, Ontario, Canada, October 3, 1843, documented in John Robert Colombo, UFOs over Canada
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