Question | 1550s-60s Celestial Phenomena over Europe. What was in the skies?

This is one of those cases when wiki articles require no opinionated changes. A mass sighting of celestial phenomena or unidentified flying objects occurred in 1561 above Nuremberg. The phenomenon has been interpreted by some modern UFO enthusiasts as an aerial battle of extraterrestrial origin.

• 1561 celestial phenomenon over Nuremberg - Wikipedia

The text of the broadsheet can be translated as giving the following description of the event:

• In the morning of April 14, 1561, at daybreak, between 4 and 5 a.m., a dreadful apparition occurred on the sun, and then this was seen in Nuremberg in the city, before the gates and in the country – by many men and women.
• At first there appeared in the middle of the sun two blood-red semi-circular arcs, just like the moon in its last quarter.
• And in the sun, above and below and on both sides, the color was blood, there stood a round ball of partly dull, partly black ferrous color.
• Likewise there stood on both sides and as a torus about the sun such blood-red ones and other balls in large number, about three in a line and four in a square, also some alone.
• In between these globes there were visible a few blood-red crosses, between which there were blood-red strips, becoming thicker to the rear and in the front malleable like the rods of reed-grass, which were intermingled, among them two big rods, one on the right, the other to the left, and within the small and big rods there were three, also four and more globes.
• These all started to fight among themselves, so that the globes, which were first in the sun, flew out to the ones standing on both sides, thereafter, the globes standing outside the sun, in the small and large rods, flew into the sun.
• Besides the globes flew back and forth among themselves and fought vehemently with each other for over an hour.
• And when the conflict in and again out of the sun was most intense, they became fatigued to such an extent that they all, as said above, fell from the sun down upon the earth 'as if they all burned' and they then wasted away on the earth with immense smoke.
• After all this there was something like a black spear, very long and thick, sighted; the shaft pointed to the east, the point pointed west.
• Whatever such signs mean, God alone knows.
• Although we have seen, shortly one after another, many kinds of signs on the heaven, which are sent to us by the almighty God, to bring us to repentance, we still are, unfortunately, so ungrateful that we despise such high signs and miracles of God.
• Or we speak of them with ridicule and discard them to the wind, in order that God may send us a frightening punishment on account of our ungratefulness.
• After all, the God-fearing will by no means discard these signs, but will take it to heart as a warning of their merciful Father in heaven, will mend their lives and faithfully beg God, that He may avert His wrath, including the well-deserved punishment, on us, so that we may temporarily here and perpetually there, live as his children.
• For it, may God grant us his help, Amen. By Hanns Glaser, letter-painter of Nurnberg.

According to author Jason Colavito, the woodcut broadsheet became known in modern culture after being published in Carl Jung's 1958 book Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies, a book which analyzed the archetypal meaning of UFOs. Jung expressed a view that the spectacle was most likely a natural phenomenon with religious and military interpretations overlying it. "If the UFOs were living organisms, one would think of a swarm of insects rising with the sun, not to fight one another but to mate and celebrate the marriage flight."

• A military interpretation would view the tubes as cannons and the spheres as cannonballs, emphasize the black spearhead at the bottom of the scene, and Glaser's own testimony that the globes fought vehemently until exhausted. A religious view would emphasize the crosses. Jung thinks the images of four globes coupled by lines suggested crossed marriage quaternities and forms the model for "the primitive cross cousin marriage". He also posited that it could also be an individuation symbol and that the association of sunrise suggests "the revelation of the light".
• Otto Billig made an effort to provide a historical context for the apparition in his comments. He notes Nuremberg was one of the most prestigious cities of the late Middle Ages, a Free Imperial City known for its wealth and nobility. It tried to maintain neutrality during the furious warring between Catholics and Protestants during the Reformation, but when one Protestant prince was rebuffed when he insisted on financial tributes to fund his battles, the city was besieged and its trade cut off. Though ultimately successful in defending itself, the rebuilding of fortifications in Nuremberg necessitated a new round of taxation and the city suffered hard times in its aftermath.

On Good Friday, 1554 another siege happened, and one broadsheet publisher described mock suns that prognosticated God's will wanted confession of sinful ways – i.e. the victims brought it on themselves.

• Another sky apparition followed in July of knights fighting each other with fiery swords, thus warning a coming Day of Judgment. ​
• Very similar apparitions of knights fighting in the skies were frequently reported during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). ​
• Many similar broadsheets of wondrous signs exist in German and Swiss archives; and Nuremberg seems the focus of a number of them, presumably because of the hardships and conflicts of the ex-prosperous. Such conditions typically accentuate apocalyptic thought.​

A series of mass sightings of celestial phenomena occurred in 1566 above Basel, Switzerland. The Basel pamphlet of 1566 describes unusual sunrises and sunsets. Celestial phenomena were said to have "fought" together in the form of numerous red and black balls in the sky before the rising sun. The report is discussed among historians and meteorologists. The phenomenon has been interpreted by some ufologists to be a sky battle between unidentified flying objects. The leaflet written by historian Samuel Coccius reported it as a religious event. The Basel pamphlet of 1566 is not the only one of its kind. In the 15th and 16th centuries, many leaflets wrote of "miracles" and "sky spectacles".

• 1566 celestial phenomenon over Basel - Wikipedia

The event is reported to have taken place in Basel, Switzerland in 1566. According to Samuel Coccius, on 27-28 July and 7 August, many local witnesses in Basel reported seeing three celestial phenomena. The first is described as an unusual sunrise, the second as a total eclipse of the moon with a red sun rising, and the third like a cloud of black spheres in front of the sun.

The text of the broadsheet can be translated as giving the following description of the event:

• It happened in 1566 three times, on 27 and 28 of July, and on August 7, against the sunrise and sunset; we saw strange shapes in the sky above Basel.
• During the year 1566, on the 27th of July, after the sun had shone warm on the clear, bright skies, and then around 9 pm, it suddenly took a different shape and color.
• First, the sun lost all its radiance and luster, and it was no bigger than the full moon, and finally it seemed to weep tears of blood and the air behind him went dark.
• And he was seen by all the people of the city and countryside.
• In much the same way also the moon, which has already been almost full and has shone through the night, assuming an almost blood-red color in the sky.
• The next day, Sunday, the sun rose at about six o'clock and slept with the same appearance it had when it was lying before.
• He lit the houses, streets and around as if everything was blood-red and fiery.
• At the dawn of August 7, we saw large black spheres coming and going with great speed and precipitation before the sun and chattered as if they led a fight.
• Many of them were fiery red and, soon crumbled and then extinguished.

KD: What do you think was going on? What did those people see, flying equipment, or natural atmospheric events?