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seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. For instance, in May1l606, fireballs were continuously reported over Kyoto, and one night a whirling ball of fire resembling a red wheel hovered near the Nijo Castle and was observed by many of the samurai. The next morning the city was filled with rumors and the people again muttered: "This must be a portent." Beginning one noon in September 1702, the sun took on a bloody color several days in succession and cotton-like threads fell down, apparently falling from the sun itself — phenomena reminiscent of the 1917 "miraculous" observations in Fatima, Portugal. Chaos spread all over Japan on January 2, 1749, when three round objects "like the moon" appeared and were seen for four days. Such a state of social unrest developed, and seemed so clearly linked with the mysterious "celestial objects," that the government decided to act. Riot participants were executed. But confusion became total when people observed three "moons" aligned in the sky and, 4 1s Fi " " several days later, two "suns." Undoubtedly, the Japanese may have experienced some natural phenomena similar to mirages and incorrectly interpreted them in the context of social rebellion. From this distance, however, it is impossible to separate the reliable observations from the emotional interpretation. What matters here is the link between certain unusual phenomena — observed or imagined — and the witnesses' behavior. These accounts show that it is possible to affect the lives of many people by showing them displays that are beyond their comprehension. A brief examination of legendary elements in Western Europe in the Middle Ages will show that a similar rumor about strange flying objects and supernatural manifestations was spreading there. Indeed, Pierre Boaistuau, in 1575, remarked: The face of heaven has been so often disfigured by bearded, hairy comets, torches, flames, columns, spears, shields, dragons, duplicate moons, suns, and other similar things, that if one wanted to tell in an ordenly fashion those that have happened since the birth of Jesus Christ only, and inquire about the causes of their origin, the lifetime of a single man would not be enough. About the sun many dark clouds appeared, such as we are wont to see during great storms: and soon afterward have come from the sun other clouds, all fiery and bloody, and others, yellow as saffron. Out of these clouds have come forth reverberations resembling large, tall and wide hats, and the earth showed itself yellow and bloody, and seemed to be covered with hats, tall and wide, which appeared in various colors such as red, blue, green, and most of them black. Especially interesting to us will be the fact that these reports of celestial objects are linked with claims of contact with strange creatures, a situation parallel to that of modern-day UFO landings. Since these rumors have been puzzling to many authorities in the Roman Catholic Church, perhaps it is appropriate to begin with a quotation from the life of St. Anthony, the Egyptian-born founder of Christian monasticism who lived about 30 A. D. In the desert, St. Anthony met with a strange being c wou. to oman 1 c wat Before long in a small rocky valley shut in on all sides he sees a manikin with hooded snout, horned forehead, and extremities like goat's feet. When he saw this, Anthony like a good soldier seized the shield of faith and the helmet of hope: the creature none the less began to offer him the fruit of the palm tree to support him on his journey and as it were pledges of peace. Anthony perceiving this stopped and asked who he was. The answer he recieved from him was this: According to the 1594 edition of the same book, this is what happened a few miles from Tubingen, Germany, on December 5, 1577, at 7:00 A.M.: of small stature, who fled after a brief conversation with him: "I am a mortal being and one of the inhabitants of the Desert whom the Gentiles deluded by