Celestial phenomenon

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

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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.

The Nuremberg Celestial Phenomenon of 1561: A Battle in the Sky, or a Trick of the Light?

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Hans Glaser's 1561 woodcut broadsheet showing the sun with a face, surrounded by spheres, crosses, cylinders, and a large black spear-like shape above the city of Nuremberg

About 6 min readAt dawn on 14 April 1561, the people of Nuremberg watched spheres, crosses, and cylinders fight in the sky for over an hour. A printer named Hans Glaser recorded it in a broadsheet that still survives — and the argument over what it shows has never ended.