“Terrifying” celestial phenomena that were seen between Mansfeld and Eisleben on February 27, 1561. The text interprets the smoking pillars as a reference to the Russians and Turks, who will threaten the Christians, and the bundle of rods as a sign of war, bloodshed and pestilence.

Featured on PDR in the collection Signs and Wonders: Celestial Phenomena in 16th-Century Germany

The villagers of Strasbourg may have heard about a war in heaven while reading the Book of Revelation; in 1554, they witnessed one with their own eyes. As a broadsheet published in June of that year records, a bloody, fiery ray bisected the sun, followed by a clash between cavalry — each side bearing guidons. War raged for hours, and then, as suddenly as they appeared, the combatants trotted off into the clouds. Seven years later, this time in Nuremberg, the Bavarian horizon was blotted out by an extraterrestrial skirmish between unidentified orbs. “The globes flew back and forth among themselves and fought vehemently with each other for over an hour”, wrote the broadsheet’s author. Some of these vehicles crashed down beyond the city limits,…