Most people who have read about UFOs get the impression that they have been reported only
since World War II. In fact they go back much, much further.
During World War II both Allies and Nazi air forces reported strange lights that often buzzed
their aircraft. Each thought that the lights were some kind of secret weapon of the other,
possibly unmanned flying observatories. Partly in jest, partly in frustration at their
elusiveness the Americans nicknamed them "foo fighters". After a while, since nothing seemed to happen, both sides ignored them.
In the late 1890s a world-wide series of sightings of "airships" gripped the headlines.
Dirigible-like aircraft were seen over Europe, the United States and even Australia.
In fact Australia has a long UFO history. Bill Chalker --one of Australia's best known UFO
researchers-- has spent years compiling dozens and dozens of older Australian cases from
newspapers, magazines and other sources. Australia's oldest abduction case dates back to 1860
in Parramatta Park in Sydney. There are also many Dreamtime references among the Aborigines
and other local peoples which strongly suggest UFOs, and textbook cases of abduction. In one Island
group off northern Australia the shamans instruct the tribe in special chants to sing to calm
themselves when being abducted by beings.
There were many puzzing reports in the 17-and-1800s. For example, Sir Edmund Halley, the
great astronomer who gave his name to the famous comet, on March 1716 recorded seeing a
brilliantly lit object over London for two hours. And over the French town of Embrun on
September 7, 1820 witnesses reported seeing a groups of disc-shaped objects flying in tight
formation execute a perfect 90 degree turn.
But strange reports go back much further and over much wider a field.
Japan and China have recorded many events over the centuries. Among them was an object like
the full moon, shiny and bright, that appeared on September 12. 1271. Another event occured on
March 17, 1458 when five stars suddenly appeared cirling the moon, and changed colour three
times before vanishing. One of the more spectacular sightings happened on August 3, 989 when
three round objects of high brilliance were seen in the sky and later merged together.
Europe was full of sightings which arouse one's curiousity. One of the most spectacular of its
time was recorded at Basle, Switzerland on August 7, 1566. To the confounding of the populace
giant glowing globes covered the sky. And in an amazing Close Encounter of the Third Kind in
1270 AD at Bristol, England a spaceship was seen at low level and when an occupant climbed
down its ladder he was stoned and asphyxiated in the earth's atmosphere.
During the reign of Charlemagne in Europe there were so many reports of encounters with
"tyrants of the air, and their aerial ships" the Emperor became so concerned that people
reporting these strange events were subject to torture and death.
Going further back the Greeks and Romans regularly reported phantom chariots appearing the
night sky. These from civilisations well acquainted with the night sky and falling stars.
Further still, hundreds of years before Christ, Ezekiel, the Biblical prophet, described a scene
he experienced in captivity. In the King James version he says:
"...it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month...the
heavens were opened... Out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures...[that] had the likenesss of a man... Now as I beheld the living creatures, behold one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures..."
He goes on to describe other wheels, all the color of "beryl"
"And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them: and when the living creatures
lifted up from the earth the wheels were lifted up."
©1996 Robert Marx
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