500 – 899: UFO & Alien Sightings

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Date: 507
Location: Poitiers, France
Summary: A peculiar phenomenon took place when French king Clovis defeated the Visigoths, killing their king Alaric II, and taking over their French lands, including Aquitaine. “The decisive moments were wasted in idle deliberation. The Goths too hastily abandoned, perhaps, an advantageous post; and the opportunity of a secure retreat was lost by their slow and disorderly motions.”After Clovis had passed the ford, as it is still named, of the Hart, he advanced with bold and hasty steps to prevent the escape of the enemy. His nocturnal march was directed by a flaming meteor, suspended in the air above the cathedral of Poitiers; and this signal, which might be previously concerted with the orthodox successor of St. Hilary, was compared to the column of fire that guided the Israelites in the desert.” Shortly thereafter Clovis moved the Frankish capital to Paris.
Source: Gibbon, Edward. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. London: T. Cadell (1837), 594.

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Date: 540
Location: Rome, Italy
Summary: “Often a little spark has seemed to come down from the sky to the Earth; then, having grown into a kind of orb like the Moon, it has been seen as disc-like. This very thing recently happened and foretold a danger of seditions and misfortunes beyond measure.”
Source: John Lydus, On Portents, 6. Quoted in “The Roman Fireball of 76 BC” by Richard B. Stothers, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, New York. The Observatory 107 (1987): 211.

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Date: 540: Monte Cassino Italy Sighting

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Date: 541
Location: Gaul (France)
Summary: A comet so vast that the whole sky seemed on fire.
Source: Roger of Wendover, Flores Historiarum.

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Date: 553
Location: Clonfert, Ireland
Summary: Another early instance of what would be called “abduction” today took place when “Brennain of Birra was seen ascending in a chariot into the sky this year.”This refers to Saint Brendan (“Breanainn”) of Clonfert (ca. 484 – ca. 578), an early Irish monastic saint sometimes believed to have sailed to America.
Source:The Annals of the Four Masters, historical chronicles compiled in the 17th century by four friars of the Abbey of Donegal in Bundrowes, near Bundoran. They are also known as The Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland

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Date:  556
Location: Japan, exact location unknown
Summary: A strange man, a visitor from the sky was encountered during the rule of Emperor AMe-Kuni-Osi-Hiroki-Niro-niha and told the emperor when he met him: “In the past during the rule of Emperor Oho-Hatsuse, your country has experienced strong pressure from Korea and was in a quite critical situation. If after a respectful prayer to the divine being—founder of your country—you will help the ruler who is threatened by destruction, the state will then achieve tranquility and peace will be established among nations. Recently I was informed that your country has stopped honoring the Supreme God. If you will now repent of your former sins, and build a temple to this God and make a sacrifice in honor of his divine spirit…your country will flourish. Don’t forget about this.”
Source: Space Visitors in Ancient Japan. By Mikhail Rosenshpitz in: “Unbelievable World”, Kiev Ukraine # 8, August 2004

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Date: 584
Location: France
Summary: Many witnesses. St. Gregory, Bishop of Tours in France, states in his Historia Francorum, how in 584 AD ‘there appeared in the sky brilliant rays of light which seemed to cross and collide with one another,’ 
Source: Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, op. cit.

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Date: September 585
Location: France
Summary: ‘in the month of September, certain people saw signs, that is to say rays or domes such as are customarily seen… to race across the sky.’ Elsewhere, St. Gregory describes ‘golden globes’ that, on several different occasions, were seen flashing at enormous speeds across the skies of France.
Source: Inforespace 22 (August 1975): 35. M. Bougard quotes Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, op. cit.

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Date: November 596
Location: Horyuji temple, Japan
Summary: An object like a canopy or lotus flower descends and appears suspended above the Horyuji temple. It changes color and shape.
Source:  Fusouriyatuki Vol. 3 (Buddhist history), quoted in: Takao Ikeda, Nihonnu ufo (Tokyo: Tairiki shobo, 1974). We have not seen the book and give references from it with reservations.

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Date: June 9, 597
Location: Ireland
Summary: “Another vision also given at the same hour under a different form was related to me, Adomnan, who was a young man at the time, by one of those who had seen it, and who solemnly assured me of its truth…He said: “‘On that night when St. Columba, by a happy and blessed death, passed from earth to heaven, while I and others with me were engaged in fishing in the valley of the river Fend, which abounds in fish, we saw the whole vault of heaven become suddenly illuminated. Struck by the suddenness of the miracle, we raised our eyes and looked towards the east, when, lo! there appeared something like an immense pillar of fire, which seemed to us, as it ascended upwards at that midnight, to illuminate the whole earth like the summer sun at noon: and after that column penetrated the heavens darkness followed, as if the sun had just set. “‘And not only did we, together in the same place, observe with intense surprise the brightness of this remarkable luminous pillar, but many other fishermen also, who were engaged in fishing here and there in different deep pools along the same river, were greatly terrified, as they afterwards related to us, by an appearance of the same kind.'”
Source: William Reeves, ed. Life of Saint Columba, founder of Hy. Written by Adamn, Ninth Abbott of that Monastery (Edinburgh: Edmonston & Douglas, 1874).

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Date: January  14, 616
Location China
Summary: “A large shooting star like a bushel fell onto the rebel Lu Ming-yueh’s camp. It destroyed his wall-attacking tower and crushed to death more than 10 people.”
Source:

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Date: After 618
Location: China
Summary: The Dong Tien Ji (Peeping on the Sky) says: “In the Tang Dynasty a celestial ship, over 50 feet long, was found and placed in the Ling De Hall. The ship gave out a metallic sound when struck, and was of very hard material which was rustproof. Li Deyu, the Tang Prime Minister, cut over a foot of a slender, long stick of the ship and carved it into a figure of a Taoist priest. The Taoist figurine flew away and then returned. In the years of Emperor Darning, the figurine disappeared and the ship also flew away.”
Source: Paul Dong, China’s Major Mysteries: Paranormal Phenomena and the Unexplained in the people’s Republic of China (China books, 2000), 68-9.

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Date: 619
Location: Japan
Summary: A bright object like a human figure was seen over the Gamo riverin Central Japan.
Source:

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Date: 637
Location: Japan
Summary: A great star floated from East to West and there was a noise, like that of thunder. The people of that day said it was the sound of the falling star. Others said that it was earth thunder. Hereupon the Buddhist Priest, Bin, said, “It is not the falling star but the Celestial Dog, the sound of whose barking is like thunder.”
Source: Nihongi or Chronicles of Japan (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1956). Quoted by W. Raymond Drake in Gods and Spacemen in the Ancient East (London: Sphere, 1973), 104.

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Date: 640
Location: Japan
Summary: On the 7th day of the second month of Spring, a star entered the moon.
Source: The Nihongi book two

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Date: 640: Faremoutiers-en-Brie, France Sighting

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Date: 642
Location: Japan
Summary: In Autumn, 9th day, 7th month, during the reign of the Empress Toyo-Tokaro-Ikashi-hi-Tarahishi-Hime a guest star entered the moon.
Source: The Nihongi book two

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Date: 643
Location: Japan
Summary: “Five colored banners and umbrellas shone in the sky, and descending, hung over the Temple to the sound of various music.”
Source:

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Date: 650
Location: India
Summary: One night in the hot season, they (Hari Swami and his new wife) were laying on the roof of the summer house. The veil on the woman’s face slipped off in the night while a demi-god was seated in his car over head. His gaze suddenly fell upon her. The demigod lowered the car and placed her asleep within. She was never seen again
Source: As told by Hari Swami, translated from Hindu by J. Platts

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Date: May 655
Location: Mt. Katsuragi, Japan
Summary: “A man who rides a Dragon is seen in the sky. The figure is said to look “like a Chinese man.” We have no other data about this curious description, so our first inclination is to reject it. We mention it here in the hope to stimulate more research into ancient sources in Asia.
Source: Takao Ikeda, Nihon nu ufo (Tokyo: Tairiki shobo, 1974). The author quotes Fusouriyatuki, vol. 3 (Buddhist history).

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Date: 664
Location: Kent England
Summary: “In the dead of night there appeared from God a glittering pillar of light shining over the hall of the king’s [Ecgbert I, king of Kent] palace, which by its unwonted illumination aroused many of the king’s household; and they in their great astonishment uttering loud cries, the king was awakened, and, ignorant of what had occurred, arose from his bed, and set out to go to the hymns of matins while it was yet night. On leaving the house, he saw a globe of extraordinary splendor burning with a white flame, the origin of which proceeded from the aforesaid wonderful seat of light. […]”
Source: Symeon of Durham, Opera et Collectanea, Vol. 1 (Durham: Andrews and Co., 1868). 

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Date: Sept. 6, 670
Location: Nara Prefecture, Western Japan
Summary: Flaming object was seen flying to north from many countries in Japan, one year before the war of the Jinshin. A cloud like an umbrella appeared, accompanied with a strange sound, over the Nara prefecture. This does not provide enough information to understand the full circumstances of the phenomenon. Although meteors have been known to emit sounds, they are not described in terms of “clouds with the shape of an umbrella.” Therefore the phenomenon has to remain unidentified, at least until a detailed reference is provided in the course of future research.
Source:  Takao Ikeda, Nihon nu ufo (Tokyo: Tairiku shobo, 1974). The author quotes from the Teiohennenki. 

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Date: 675
Location: Berecingum Convent, near London, England
Summary: A large light came down over praying nuns At Berecingum (Barking) convent, circled their location, and flew up. The description suggests that the light came from a well defined object: “For one night, after matins had been sung, and those handmaids of Christ had gone out of their chapel to the tombs of the brothers who had departed this life before them, and were singing the customary songs of praise to the Lord, on a sudden a light from heaven, like a great sheet; came down upon them all, and struck them with such amazement, that, in consternation, they even left off singing their hymn. “But that resplendent light, in comparison wherewith the sun at noon-day might seem dark, soon after, rising from that place, removed to the south side of the monastery, that is, to the westward of the chapel, and having continued there some time, and rested upon those parts, in the sight of them all withdrew itself again to heaven, leaving no doubt in the minds of all, but that the same light, which was to lead or to receive the souls of those handmaids of Christ into Heaven, also showed the place in which their bodies were to rest and await the day of the resurrection.” We note that, although the “great sheet” of light could have been caused by a meteor, the later behavior of the phenomenon (rising and circling) seems to exclude this explanation.
Source: J. A. Giles, D.C.L., ed. The Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of England, Book IV, ch. VII (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1867).

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Date: 679
Location: Japan
Summary: Cotton like matter about 5 to 6 feet long fell all over Naniwa, former name of Osaka, and was drifted by the wind here and there.
Source:

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Date: November 21 684
Location: Japan
Summary: At dusk, seven stars are said to have “drifted together” to the north-east, after which they sank below the horizon. The information is too sketchy to reach any conclusion regarding the nature of the unusual “drifting stars.”
Source: W. Raymond Drake, Gods and Spacemen in the Ancient East (New York: Signet, 1968), 1

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Date: May 698
Location: Japan
Summary: A passage extracted from a 17th century transcription of an older but undated manuscript offers another example of the use of the term ‘shield’ in connection with a phenomenon in the sky. As noted by researcher Yannis Deliyannis, “it is interesting and unusual in medieval records. It is reminiscent of course of the ‘clipei’ of the authors of the Roman period.” The text reads: “Three shields were seen in the heavens, as it were warring from the east to the west, after the manner of undulating waves on a very calm night, being that of the Ascension of the Lord. The first was snowy, the second fiery, the third bloody; which prefigured, as is thought, three succeeding evils: for in the same year the herds of cows throughout Ireland were nearly destroyed, and not only in Ireland, but also throughout the whole of Europe.”
Source: Annals of Ireland, three fragments copied from ancient sources by Dubhaltach Mac Firbisigh, trans. John O’Donovan (Dublin: Irish Archaeological and Celtic Society, 1860). The date would have been 40 days following that year’s celebration of Easter.

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Date: June 741
Location: Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey
Summary: In the reign of Constantine, Copronymus, son of Leo, Emperor of Byzantium, three columns of fire and flame appeared in the sky during the month of June. The same phenomenon was also seen in the month of September: “There appeared a thing, also in 735 AD, like a half-moon, in the northern quadrant of the sky, and little by little, over a rather long time, it passed to the southern quarter, and then returned to the north, and finally descended under the Earth.” (i.e., presumably dropped down below the horizon).
Source: Jean-Baptiste Chabot, Chronique de Michel le Syrien, patriarche Jacobite d’Antioche 1166-1199 (Paris, 1899-1910).

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Date: 746
Location: England
Summary: ” Dragons were seen in the heavens”
Source:

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Date: 747
Location: China
Summary: Huge flame-breathing dragons were reported being seen in skies, accompanied by men in airships.
Source:

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Date: 748
Location: England
Summary: ” Ships were seen in the air with their men”
Source:

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Date: 749
Location: Cluain Moccu, Ulster, Ireland
Summary: ” Ships were seen in the air with their crews”
Source: The Annals of Ulster.

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Date: April 750
Location: Cordoba, Spain
Summary: “In the nones of April, on Sunday during the first, second and almost the third hours, all the citizens of Cordoba saw three suns which shone and twinkled in a wonderful way preceded by a sickle of fire and emerald; and, from its appearance, by order of God, his angels devastated all the inhabitants of Spain with intolerable hunger.”
Source: Cronica Mozarabe of the year 754 (or “Continuatio Hispana de San Isidoro”).

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Date: 760
Location: France
Summary: During the reign of Pepin le Bref (715-768) many extraordinary phenomena are said to have appeared in the French skies. The air was filled with human figures, ships with sails and battling armies. Several individuals stated they had been abducted by aerial beings. A contemporary source has never been found and there is a strong suspicion that it originated with the Comte De Gabalis (1670), by Abbe N. de Montfaucon de Villars.
Source: Jules Garinet, Histoire de la Magie en France (Paris, 1818).

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Date: 763
Location: Meath County Ireland
Summary: While King Domnall Mac Murchada attended the fair at Teltown ships were seen in the air.
Source:

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Date: 776
Location: Charlemagne’s castle at Syburg Castle, Germany
Summary: In 776 the Saxons rebelled against Charlemagne and attacked the castle of Syburg with continued lack of success, finally deciding to storm the castle. They reportedly “saw the likeness of two shields red with flame wheeling over the church. When the heathens outside saw this miracle, they were at once thrown into confusion and started fleeing to their camp in terror. Since all of them were panic-stricken, one man stampeded the next and was killed in return, because those who looked back out of fear impaled themselves on the lances carried on the shoulders of those who fled before them. Some dealt each other aimless blows and thus suffered divine retribution.”

Source: Carolingian Chronicles: Royal Frankish Annals and Nithard’s Histories, trans. Bernhard Walter Scholz (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1970), 53, 55.

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Date: 793
Location: England
Summary: ” …dragons were seen flying in the air”
Source:

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Date: 796
Location: England
Summary: ” In the same year small globes were seen about the Sun”
Source:

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Date: 800
Location: Lyon, France
Summary: A prolific author and notorious anti-Semite,  was a Spaniard who was born in the year 775. Agobard moved to Lyon, France in 792 and would take his vows of priesthood in 804, eventually becoming the archbishop of Lyon during the Carolingian Renaissance. Sometime after he received his vows, Agobard scribed the Latin text for “Liber Contra Insulam Vulgi Opinionem” roughly translated as “On the other hand — the opinion of the common people.” In this manuscript the archbishop wrote a denunciation against the provincial and — at least in Agobard’s estimation — naïve residents of Lyons, who were known to believe in a “certain region called Magonia from whence come ships in the clouds.” The pilots of these sky ships were called “storm wizards” and they had a penchant for stealing any booty that had been destroyed by the storms that they navigated with apparent ease. They were also notorious for bribing human collaborators with, of all things, vegetables. According to Agobard:  

“[The storm wizards] in order carry back to that region [the sky] those fruits of the earth which are destroyed by hail and tempests; the sailors paying rewards to the storm wizards and themselves receiving corn and other produce.” The archbishop also testified that he bore witness to three men and a woman who had apparently plummeted from one of these floating vessels:“Out of the number of those (who) believe those things possible, I saw several exhibiting in a certain concourse of people four persons in bonds — three men and a woman like they had said had fallen from those same ships, and they had brought, them before the assembled multitude to be stoned. But truth prevailed.”

While most assume that Agobard is claiming to have he stepped in and used his influence to prevent their deaths, some accounts maintain that they were executed all the same , which just goes to show how difficult it is to wrestle the truth from these antiquated accounts. The next anomalous anchor report comes to us from the ever popular…
Source:

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Date: 804?
Location: Nazca Lines Peru
Summary: Peru Aerial landing strips are built in the Peruvian Andes.
Source:

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Date: 810 or 811
Location: Near Aachen on Via Aquisgrana, Germany
Summary: Emperor Charlemagne sees a great flaming globe descending from east to west and is thrown from his horse. Although the horse may have been frightened by an especially bright meteor, the situation suggests either that the object was close to the emperor’s party, or that the meteor was very spectacular indeed: “One day in his last campaign into  Saxony against Godfred, King of the Danes, Charles himself saw a ball of fire fall suddenly from the heavens with a great light, just as he was leaving camp before sunrise to set out on the march. It rushed across the clear sky from right to left, and everybody was wondering what was the meaning of the sign, when the horse which he was riding gave a sudden plunge, head foremost, and fell, and threw him to the ground so heavily that his cloak buckle was broken and his sword belt shattered; and after his servants had hastened to him and relieved him of his arms, he could not rise without their assistance. He happened to have a javelin in his hand when he was thrown, and this was struck from his grasp with such force that it was found lying at a distance of twenty feet or more from the spot.”
Source: Einhard: The Life of Charlemagne, trans. Samuel Epes Turner (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1880).

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Date: 813
Location: Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Summary: One night, a hermit named Pelayo heard music in a wood and saw a peculiar shining star above Mount Libredon, a former Celtic sacred site. Because of this sighting the place was called, in Latin, “Campus Stellae,” field of the star, a name that was later turned into Compostela. A modern brochure adds: “Bishop Teodomiro, who received notice of that event, instituted an investigation, and so the tomb of the Apostle was discovered. King Alphonse II declared Saint James the patron of his empire and had built a chapel at that place (…) More and more pilgrims followed the way of Santiago, the ‘Path of Saint James,’ and the original chapel soon became the cathedral of the new settlement, Santiago de Compostela.” 
Source: Concordia de Antealtares, a text dated from 1077. .

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Date: 815: Lyons France Sighting

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Date: 817
Location: China
Summary: A globe appeared at the zenith, followed by a tail. It flew slowly West under the moon, while witnesses heard something like the sound of birds. We include the case because of the slow motion noted in the report. It is rare, yet not impossible, to hear a sound in connection with a meteor, but they do not fly “slowly.”
Source: Abel Remusat, “Bolides en Chine,” Journal de Physique (1819): 358

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Date: 827
Location: Barcalona, Spain
Summary: Eginard writes that “terrible things in the sky” were observed during the night while Pepin I was at war in Spain. The objects emitted lights, pale or red in color. Here again, the interpretation is difficult: meteors are not “pale and red.”
Source: Michel Bougard, Inforespace 22 (August 1975) :36, citing the Vita Hludowici Pii by Astronomus (835 AD).

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Date: 840
Location: Lyon, Rhone-Alpes, France
Summary: Agobard of Lyons, a bishop during the Carolingian Era in France, wrote about the various “superstitions” he encountered among the peasantry. One such tale was that beings (“slyphs” or air elementals) travelling in sky-sailing ships were stealing farmers’ crops and abducting people. Many people claimed that anchors of these sky “ships” had become lodged in the rooves of buildings and showed them to the clergy. Agobard heard the rumor that four of these sylphs had been captured, and that they claimed to be from “Magonia,” a land high up in the clouds. These four beings were apparently stoned to death by an angry mob. Agobard dismissed the rumors because they contradict the Bible, which has no mention of such an aerial kingdom.
Source: Agobard of Lyons

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Date: 842
Location: France
Summary: Multicolored armies were seen marching in the sky…These sightings of infernal armies were nocturnal. They several times accompanied the siege of Jerusalem.
Source:

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Date: November 879
Location: China
Summary: Two “suns” fought energetically in the sky. On another day of the same month, two Suns fought, and then merged together.
Source: Shi Bo, La Chine et les Extraterrestres, op.cit., 47.

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Date: April 25, 880
Location: Montserrat-Santa Cova, Spain
Summary: Towards the end of April in the year 880 seven young children from Monistrol in Barcelona saw a strange light descend from the sky and head towards a small grotto on the mountain of Montserrat, accompanied by a soft melody. A week later a group of priests headed by the Bishop of Manresa returned to the spot, and saw it again. On four Saturdays in a row the light reappeared in the sky and dropped towards the mountain grotto. In the end seven men were sent to the place the light seemed to indicate, which was in an area called Santa Cova. When they entered the cave they discovered an image of a black virgin, surrounded by a magical light and giving off a pleasant aroma. The locals tried to carry the sculpture to Manresa but, according to their story, the further they moved it, the heavier it became. It grew so heavy that they had to leave it in the middle of the fields, where they decided to erect a hermitage in the name of St. Mary. The hermitage is still there today.
Source: Josep Guijarro, Gufa de la Cataluna Magica (Barcelona: Ediciones Martinez Roca, 1999), 42-43.