Celestial Battle

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as humanity slowly perfected its military dominance over the land and sea it didn't take long for some of the prominent leaders and great minds of the past to turn their attention upward ground combat had been mastered but what about the sky if a man could somehow find a way to rain hell on his enemy from above then who could hope to challenge him.

Long before the invention of powered flight, the prospect of ruling the air, while often seen as mere fantasy, was taken seriously by some military and government leaders.

In a 1784 letter written just after the successful flight of the world's first hot air balloon, Benjamin Franklin himself mused over the strategic possibilities offered by such vehicles, saying, quote, 5,000 balloons capable of raising two men each would not cost more than five ships of the line.

And where is the prince who can afford so to cover his country with troops for its defense, as that 10,000 men descending from the clouds, might not in many places do an infinite deal of mischief before a force could be brought together to repel them?

In short, Franklin predicted the success of paramilitary operations well before they were finally implemented in the 20th century.

However, for the people of Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries, then torn between newfound science and devout religious faith, the sky was still a place of mystery, a place of angels and gods where no mortal man was ever meant to walk.

So saying, without the existence of flying machines to speak of, in the year 1566, many Europeans were, of course, startled when they witnessed something beyond explanation in the skies overhead.

Against the backdrop of a peaceful summer morning, The citizens of the Swiss city of Basel saw what can only be described as a great battle in the sky between hundreds of sphere-shaped objects.

This is the story of the unexplained battle over Basel.

I'm Luke Lamana,

and this

is Wartime Stories.

In the early years of the 16th century, the European continent was in the midst of a major societal evolution.

The 1400s had brought about the Renaissance, a period defined by the rediscovery of ancient Greek and Roman texts that forever changed how people looked at, well, everything.

On the back of newfound philosophies, the very foundations of European societies began to change, with people reanalyzing everything they thought they knew about art, human nature, religion, and science.

With Renaissance ideals placing great value on individual thought and open questioning of the world around them, it wasn't long until people began to challenge the political systems and religious doctrines of the early modern world.

The Catholic Church in particular drew its share of outspoken critics, and as the 16th century rolled around, their voices only grew louder.

In 1517, a disgruntled monk and theology professor by the name of Martin Luther marched up to the steps of the Wittenberg Castle Church in Germany before nailing his thesis to the front door.

His 95 thesis, a scathing critique of corruption within the Catholic Church, sent shockwaves throughout Europe and is often credited with starting the Protestant Reformation.

Inspired by Luther, new religious sects began to rise and break away from the church's authority.

This would result in numerous clashes all over Europe as Protestant, Lutheran, Calvinist, and Anglican supporters came to blows with Catholic authorities.

As the religious landscape became more and more fractured, war was all but inevitable.

In the loose collection of German states known as the Holy Roman Empire, peasant revolts against the feudal lords resulted in brutal crackdowns, claiming over 100,000 lives.

Meanwhile, in neighboring France, periods of civil war between Catholics and French Protestants, known as the Huguenots, would rage for over 30 years.

By the time the Catholics had claimed victory, 2 to 4 million more people are believed to have perished.

Finding itself at the crossroads of France, Italy, and the Holy Roman Empire, the small country of Switzerland was similarly affected by the strife wreaking havoc across its regional neighbors.

The The two Wars of Kappel, waged between Protestant and Catholic forces in the late 1520s and early 1530s, resulted in hundreds of deaths and a decisive Catholic victory.

About 30 years later, the effects of the conflict were still widely felt in Swiss society, with disgruntled Protestants often budding heads, with the Catholic still in power.

For the citizens of Basel, a small city straddling the Rhine River on the country's northern border with both France and the Holy Roman Empire, the latter half of the 16th century was filled with fear and uncertainty.

With war and plague spreading all over Europe, everyday people found themselves spiritually torn.

Protestant and Catholic factions only worsened these tensions by leveraging the fears of the common person in order to sway public support for their respective causes.

Still, despite the ongoing turmoil, July 27, 1566 started just the same as any other day for the people of Basel.

A bustling economic hub, the city docks echoed with the calls of merchants, the waterway filled with fishing and commerce vessels making their way up and down the Rhine River.

As the sun began to dip beneath the western horizon, this seemingly ordinary day would quickly become quite extraordinary.

Well, how about it?

Any bites?

No, not in the slightest for the past few hours.

I think it's about time we found a new spot.

It's all these damn boats, I tell you.

Up and down the river they go all day long, good for nothing but scaring away all the fish.

You think this is just the Lord's way of getting us to crawl back to the Catholics?

How

if only the man himself were here.

He helped Peter and the others fill two whole boats.

I'd do anything for even a bite at this point.

Is it just my eyes, or is the sky suddenly getting darker?

darker?

What, in God's name?

According to a number of witnesses, the morning and afternoon of July 27th unfolded without incident, but around 9 p.m., the sun suddenly went dark, its dull glow bathing the city in ominous red light.

In a news pamphlet widely published in the days following the dramatic events, writer Samuel Kochus describes the unnerving scene

During the year 1566, on the 27th of July, after the sun had shone warm on the clear, bright skies, and then around 9 p.m., 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.

For 24 hours, the people of Basel looked up at the red sky with a mix of fear and confusion.

Desperate for answers, it didn't take long for the scientific thinkers and religious zealots to begin offering up a number of theories.

Were they witnessing some kind of atmospheric phenomenon?

Or as many feared, was God sending them some kind of prophetic warning?

Before panic got the better of people, the city breathed a collective sigh of relief when on the morning of July 29th, the vibrant sun and blue skies returned as if they had never left.

Despite this welcome return to normalcy, the citizens of Basel were left with far more questions than answers.

And, as they were soon to discover, the heavenly drama was far from over.

Several days later, on August 7, 1566, the sun rose over Basel, bringing with it a bizarre sight seen by many citizens.

High in the sky over the eastern horizon, against the backdrop of the rising sun, writer Samuel Cochius describes the scene that followed.

At the dawn of August 7, we saw large black spheres coming and going with great speed and precision before the sun and chattered as if they led a fight.

Many of them were fiery red and soon crumbled and then extinguished.

While the average 16th century person may have lacked the technical vocabulary to describe what was seen, Cochius' report, gathered from numerous first and second-hand sources, paints the picture of an air battle playing out in the skies over Basel.

Hundreds of sphere-like objects, described by eyewitnesses as cannonballs, chased one another in dizzying patterns across the sky, moving with speed, intelligence, and intent.

Silhouetted against the rising sun, the spheres were seen to be black in color.

However, a number were noted as burning fiery red as they suddenly plummeted from the sky, dissolving into smoke and ash before impacting the ground.

As what appeared to be rival squadrons of these fighting cannonballs met each other over the city, city, a distinct chattering noise echoed across the sky, the strange sounds seeming to come from the unknown objects as they were knocking one another out of the air.

For the next several hours, the people of Basel were transfixed by the sight, watching as these strange objects continued to chase and shoot one another down until finally, all of them had faded from view.

In the eerie silence that followed, a frightened and confused population was left desperate for an explanation, and the competing Protestant and Catholic leaders were more than happy to provide one.

The unidentified aerial phenomenon cited over Basel is fascinating in that it took place at a point when humanity was taking its first tentative steps into the world of science.

We were only just beginning to grasp the workings of the natural world and the universe at large.

With both the invention of the aircraft and the notion of the possible existence of other advanced life forms still centuries away, this mid-16th century event was largely interpreted through a religious lens.

The strange events were recorded in a document known as the Basil Pamphlet, which was written by Samuel Cochius and illustrated by Samuel Appiarius.

This document was widely publicized in the days following August 7th.

Considering the incredible story it told, the document document was quickly carried well beyond the borders of Switzerland.

Reading about the blood-red skies and supposed air battle, enlightened thinkers who placed their faith in science struggled to explain what was seen.

Meanwhile, devout religious believers proclaimed the events to be a sign from God.

But both Protestants and Catholics seemed to have different interpretations, competing to see who could win the favor of the masses.

While some saw the Basel incident as an ominous warning of the coming Judgment Day, others saw it as God voicing his displeasure with humanity, a call for everyone to repent, trust in faith, and right their wrongs.

For thousands of people all over Europe, their countries ravaged by war and plague, or torn between religion and science, taking a side was often easier said than done.

However, as the civilized world debated over the unknown, the people of Nuremberg, a German city of the Holy Roman Empire, were struck by an overwhelming sense of familiarity.

Reading about the strange happenings in Basel, many residents couldn't help but recall the strange sights that played out in the skies of their own city just five years prior.

On April 14, 1561, in an event eerily similar to that in Switzerland, the early morning sun over Nuremberg would suddenly fall dark, now dull against a deep red sky.

Looking towards the horizon, thousands of city residents, as well as its surrounding settlements, observed strange, dark shapes appearing against the morning sun.

Having witnessed the event firsthand, Hans Glasser, Nuremberg's chief letter painter, described the ensuing air battle in a detailed news broadsheet published in the days following the sighting.

In the morning of April 14th, 1561, at daybreak, between 4 and 5 a.m., a dreadful apparition occurred on the sun.

Hansensis 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 semicircular 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 larger 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 rods of reed grass which were intermingled.

Amongst them two big rods, one on the right, the other on the left, and within the small and big rods there were three, also four or more globes.

These all started to fight amongst 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 amongst 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 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 no means discard these signs, but will take it to heart as a warning of their merciful Father in heaven, who 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 Hans Galaser, letter painter of Nuremberg.

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Glasser's detailed account of the Nuremberg air battle bears striking similarities to the one witnessed over Basel, the dimming sun seeming to signal the arrival of these strange flying objects.

However, the nature of the spheres seen over Nuremberg seemed to be far more varied in their physical appearance.

While orbs or sphere-like shapes were similarly prominent, there were also crosses, crescents, and cylinders or rods described among the many objects seemingly combating each other in the sky.

Not only that, but some of these objects, namely the cylinders, appeared to launch squadrons of the spheres into the battle, operating in a manner that might be described as similar to that of a modern aircraft carrier.

Whatever they were, What's interesting to note is that while the numerous unknown phenomena moved in an intelligent manner, Glasser observed that a number of them fell from the sky as if exhausted.

Perhaps his meaning was to say that these must be a kind of living being or creatures of a divine nature.

Angels fighting demons, to put it bluntly.

Then of course, there's the matter of the much larger spear-like apparition that followed in the battle's aftermath.

With its tip pointing west and the shaft pointing east, it eerily loomed over the city for a number of hours before vanishing from view.

Much like their Swiss counterparts only a few years later, the people of Nuremberg found themselves at a crossroad between science and faith.

Whether it was a battle between the forces of heaven and hell, a little understood natural event, or something else, there was one thing everyone could agree on: something strange was happening in the skies over Europe.

And whatever forces were at play, they weren't done fighting just yet.

Nearly a hundred years after the strange events over Switzerland, Europe was still reeling in the wake of the Protestant Reformation.

The religious fracturing and resulting civil conflicts left no shortage of bad blood between Catholic and Protestant sects all over the continent.

With the dawn of the 17th century, those old tensions once again threatened to boil over into all-out war.

Within the Holy Roman Empire, which was already a fragile alliance of loosely connected German states, harsh anti-Protestant measures enacted by Emperor Ferdinand II, a staunch Catholic, resulted in a Protestant rebellion against the crown in 1619.

What began as a localized conflict soon roped in some of Europe's major powers, each seeking to expand their political and territorial influence over lands controlled by the Habsburg dynasty.

This event would become known as the Thirty Years' War.

Resulting in some 4-8 million deaths, this conflict would forever reshape the political and territorial maps of Europe, with new powers rising out of Holy Rome's diminishing strength.

One of these powers was the Swedish Empire.

In the aftermath of the war, which came to an end in 1648, The Swedish crown established itself on the European mainland, now controlling parts of northern Germany as its navy dominated the Baltic Sea.

By the 1660s, the Swedish Age of Greatness was in full swing, a time of economic prosperity, stability, and military prestige earned on the backs of their conquests.

As in the previous stories, for the residents of the German city of Stasland, which was now under Swedish control, April 8th, 1665 started out like any normal day within the empire.

Along the waterway near the city, six fishermen were setting out on their daily voyage to the popular Baltic fishing grounds.

However, their attention would soon be drawn away from the water and towards the sky above.

Dows those sails, undrop anchor, lads.

Ready those nets to cast off.

I've got a good feeling about this one.

A better feeling sensifon you had off Bahov yesterday, I hope, Captain.

Ah, that's enough out of you.

The seas and all her creatures are about as easy to predict as the wind.

You'll come to know that with age, boy.

Ah, the wisdom of the old salts.

Never before has it led us astray.

Hey, Sven,

what on earth are you looking at?

Huh?

Come help me with these lines.

Oh, sorry.

Say, do you see that?

The birds.

Yeah,

you ever see starlings fly like that?

There's so many and in such a strange formation.

Now you mention it.

No, I don't think I have.

That is quite strange.

As the captain of the small vessel ordered his crew to strike their sails and drop anchor, one of the young fishermen drew their attention to a massive flock of nearby birds.

likely starlings.

Taking flight as one massive formation, the crew watched in bewilderment as the black mass moved across the sky, eventually breaking apart.

It was then that things truly got weird.

In the name of God, get down, boys!

In arguably one of the most remarkable accounts of unidentified aerial phenomenon ever recorded, the fishermen describe seeing this large flock of birds now taking the shape of floating wooden warships, which proceeded to fight one another in the skies.

The fleets circled and unleashed broadsides at one another, the sounds of their cannons like distant thunder as the gunpowder smoke created an eerie haze.

Soon, other ships floated in from the skies to the east and west, these smaller vessels quickly joining the fierce aerial battle.

After the fishermen had watched this bizarre fight for quite some time, the skies once again became quiet, the haze created by the heavy gunfire fading to reveal the damaged floating wrecks of the remaining ships.

Stunned and terrified, the fishermen then saw that among the torn sails, flags, and collapsed masts of these floating wooden ships, the shapes of men were running about the decks, seeming to work at repairing the vessels.

Standing on the edge of one of the ships was one particularly distinct figure, possibly an officer clad in a brown coat, a hat tucked under his arm as he seemed to be watching the crew around him work on their various tasks.

Eventually, around 6 p.m., the floating airships appeared to move north, fading from the fisherman's view as yet another strange object descended through the clouds.

Now floating in silence over the city of Strassland, the fishermen watched as a large, disc-shaped object, dark gray in appearance, came to hover above the central spire of St.

Nicholas Church.

Writing about the event some years later, Erasmus Francisi, a popular author of the German Baroque period, describes what the fishermen saw from a distance.

After a while, out of the sky came a flat round form like a plate, looking like the big hat of a man.

Its color was that of the darkening moon, and it hovered right over the church of St.

Nicolai.

There it remained stationary until evening.

The fishermen, worried to death, didn't want to look further at the spectacle and buried their faces in their hands.

On the following days, they fell sick with trembling all over and pain in the head and limbs.

Many scholarly people thought a lot about that.

What's especially interesting to note about Francisi's report is the mention of the fishermen having some sort of physical reaction to the unidentified craft.

This is something documented in contemporary UFO encounters, in which witnesses who happened to be in close proximity to the crafts later experienced strange burns, skin irritation, or other symptoms of radiation exposure.

With the fisherman's sickness being defined by fever, intense muscle pains, and trembling, it's possible that the six men could have fallen victim to bubonic plague, which was wreaking havoc all over Europe in the 1660s.

However, with their ailment coinciding with the armada of mysterious airships and the apparent flying saucer seen over Strasland, many do wonder if the events were somehow connected.

Again, as with their Swiss and German counterparts a century earlier, the Swedish fishermen and the inhabitants of Strasland were left dumbfounded by the events they witnessed.

While these events remain an unsolved mystery, a sincere quest to find answers to these and other encounters wouldn't begin until well after humanity had already taken flight.

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The strange events seen over Basel, Nuremberg, and Strasland intrigued people all over the continent at the time, but they were soon forgotten.

It wouldn't be until the mid-20th century that the sightings were once again re-examined, this time against the backdrop of modern science and the recent UFO craze sweeping the United States.

In his 1958 book, Flying Saucers, A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies, Swiss psychologist and author Carl Jung examined the Basel incident and other such cases with an eye for both human psychology and natural phenomenon.

Perhaps his decades-long study of UFOs was in part based on these incidents having taken place in his homeland of Switzerland.

But Jung was never an outright believer in the existence of UFOs as concrete physical objects.

He postulated instead that they could represent psychic phenomena expressing the inner workings of the human mind.

Through his observation, Jung otherwise believed that many of these early sightings could be attributed to simple misidentification.

Jung proposed that events like these were more likely the result of little understood natural phenomenon, something that the Europeans at that time were generally unaware of, how light could be influenced by elements both within and beyond Earth's atmosphere.

Optical illusions caused by unique atmospheric conditions, such as Fata Morgana, or the effects of thermal inversion can create distorted images of objects located just beyond the horizon.

Some have even gone so far as to theorize that the Strassland air war was the result of one of these mirages, with the fishermen witnessing an actual naval battle that was playing out in the Baltic Sea, but was being refracted and reflected through the Earth's atmosphere overhead.

It is also suggested that solar and lunar eclipses and even clouds of dust traveling thousands of miles north from the Saharan desert could result in the red skies and darkened suns observed in both the Basel and Nuremberg sightings.

On a more localized level, perhaps even the smoke of forest fires burning many miles away played a role in creating a haze that passed through the skies over the two cities.

While all of these theories sound fairly reasonable, save for the refraction of a naval battle one, none of them can fully account for the many strange objects witnessed by hundreds of people seemingly locked in vicious aerial combat.

Perhaps large formations of birds or possibly even swarms of insects are to blame, rising from the ground in migratory flights or mating displays.

The latter would explain why some of the mystery objects appeared to chase and even collide with one another in the sky.

However, if these were just ordinary animals, then how do we explain the testimony of those who saw these objects burst into flames or fall from the sky in smoking ruins?

Or how about the chattering noises or cannon fire often heard emanating from the airborne frenzy?

The only possible explanation for all these stories to be explained by science is that the witness accounts of the events were largely exaggerated and embellished with added details.

For many UFO enthusiasts, the people of Basel, Nuremberg, and Strasland caught glimpses of a war between rival extraterrestrial forces.

This theory, though possibly outlandish when paired alongside the other more scientific alternatives, does raise its own set of thought-provoking and hair-raising questions.

Who are these alien beings and where did they come from?

Why are they fighting one another?

And why in the skies over our planet?

And finally, even with our advancements in military aircraft and other technology, could we possibly stand a chance against fighting something that we can't even explain?

Wartime Stories is created and hosted by me, Luke Lamana.

Executive produced by Mr.

Bollin, Nick Witters, and Zach Levitt.

Written by Jake Howard and myself.

Audio editing and sound design by me, Cole Lacascio, and Witt Lacascio.

Additional editing by Davin Intag and Jordan Stidham.

Research by me, Jake Howard, Evan Beamer, and Camille Callahan.

Mixed and mastered by Brendan Kane.

Production supervision by Jeremy Bone.

Production coordination by Avery Siegel.

Additional production support by Brooklyn Gooden.

Artwork by Jessica Cloxen Kiner, Robin Vane, and Picada.

If you'd like to get in touch or share your own story, you can email me at info at wartimestories.com.

Thank you so much for listening to Wartime Stories.

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