What Happened at Basel in 1566?

Term: Wickiana: a collection of 16th-century news sheets and chronicle entries kept by Zurich pastor Johann Jakob Wick, now held in the Zentralbibliothek Zürich.

Term: Broadsheet: a single printed sheet sold to the public, often with news and a woodcut picture.

Term: Omen: a sign that people of the time believed foretold events, usually a warning from God.

What Happened at Basel in 1566?

In the summer of 1566, Basel, Switzerland, saw a series of strange sky events. On July 27 and 28 the sun and moon looked blood red. On August 7, at dawn, many black and red spheres seemed to fight in front of the rising sun. A printed broadsheet recorded the event, and people of the time read it as an omen.

The three events

The broadsheet describes three occasions. On the evening of July 27, the sun appeared to lose its brightness and looked like a bleeding, blood-colored disk, and the moon turned red. On July 28 the sunrise was again unusual. On August 7, at dawn, a large number of black and red spheres appeared to move toward the sun, collide with each other, and turn red and fiery before burning out.

The broadsheet

The leaflet was printed by Samuel Apiarius and Samuel Coccius, a student who recorded the event. The woodcut shows Basel’s cathedral square and a sky filled with whirling black and white spheres. The Swiss National Museum preserves the image.

How it was read at the time

Sixteenth-century printers sold such sheets as news and moral warnings. Many people saw unusual sky events as signs from God. The Basel sheet was later included in the Wickiana collection in Zurich, along with other reports of sky wonders.

What people have made of it

Some researchers suggest a sun dog or another atmospheric optical effect. Some UFO researchers read the spheres as objects in an aerial battle. The description of spheres that collide and change color reads like an account of something people struggled to describe.

What is solid and what is not

The broadsheet exists, and it dates to 1566. What people saw in the sky is not established. In my book Disclosure: They Are Not Extraterrestrials, I present Basel with Nuremberg as an early report of strange objects filling the sky. Disclosure is available on Amazon. You can find more of my work at ckqbooks.com.

Sources

Swiss National Museum, The celestial event over Basel in 1566 (blog, July 2024). Wikipedia, 1566 celestial phenomenon over Basel. Broadsheet by Samuel Apiarius and Samuel Coccius, 1566, Zentralbibliothek Zürich (Wickiana).