The Basel Phenomenon of 1566: Black Spheres Over a Swiss City

The 1566 Basel broadsheet woodcut showing large black spheres in the sky above Basel, with townspeople pointing upward, and the German title 'Seltsame Gestalt, so in diesem MDLXVI Jahr'

About 6 min readFive years after Nuremberg, the sky over Basel filled with black spheres that seemed to fight one another at sunrise. A second broadsheet recorded it — and the two pictures, side by side, remain one of the strangest pairs in the history of unexplained sightings.