Description

I personally never heard of it and always see the Nuremberg Sky Spectacle from 1561 posted everywhere. It hit me by surprise, that in Berlin, Germany a whole exhibition will be curated around the sighting of 1665 and other sensational news of that time regarding UAP or UFO like sightings.

Excerpts of illustration from Erasmus Francisci - Nuremberg, 1680 (https://preview.redd.it/oh00l30bk9va1.jpg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto…)

This is what the sighting was all about: Everything revolves around one of the most bizarre media sensations of modern times: on April 8, 1665, 2 p.m., according to contemporary reports, six fishermen fishing for herring off Stralsund watch flocks of birds in the sky transform into warships engaged in thunderous aerial battles. Ghostly figures swarm on the decks. When, towards evening, "a flat round shape like a plate" appears to them above the church of St. Nicholas, they take flight. The next day - so it is reported - they tremble all over and complain of pain.

In the media, the news spread like wildfire. Leaflets and newspapers competed with each other with a wide variety of versions and interpretations. Above all, religious convictions determined the media transformation of the event, for people lived in the belief that the world was ruled by a god who projected impending visitations into the sky. The air battle was also interpreted as such a "prodigium" (Latin for "portent").

When on June 19, 1670, lightning struck the Church of St. Nicholas, of all places, over which the disk had appeared ominously five years earlier, the celestial phenomenon was subsequently interpreted as a sign of God's wrath. Contemporary descriptions and depictions of the event conjured up a mysterious connection with the destruction of Babylon by a gigantic millstone, as described in the Revelation of John.

Thus, no source of the 17th century mentions extraterrestrials in connection with inexplicable celestial phenomena. The human imagination had long since reached the point of imagining expeditions to inhabited planets and corresponding propulsion systems. Why, however, no one had the idea that extraterrestrials could appear in our skies with flying machines is one of many mysteries that the exhibition tries to solve.

Biblia, Frankfurt\/Main 1704 (https://preview.redd.it/2wero2lvl9va1.jpg?width=1088&format=pjpg&auto…)

Design of a floating saucer, illustration from: Gaspar Schott, Technica Curiosa, Nuremberg\/Würzburg, 1664 (https://preview.redd.it/mmf07ue7m9va1.jpg?width=1088&format=pjpg&auto…)

Fireball in the sky - Gustav Freytag Collection, 1697 (https://preview.redd.it/rn4zaq0hm9va1.jpg?width=1088&format=pjpg&auto…)

So much was never angered God, emblematic representation from: Daniel Meisner: Politica - Politica, Newes Emblematisches Büchlein, I-VIII, Nuremberg 1700 (https://preview.redd.it/hr726rsom9va1.jpg?width=1088&format=pjpg&auto…)

Link to a english description of the exhibition (https://www.visitberlin.de/en/event/ufo-1665-air-battle-stralsund)

edit:
for everyone who got interested in the sighting, in the June 2015 edition of EdgeScience magazine (http://www.scientificexploration.org/edgescience/edgescience-issue-22), Chris Aubeck and Martin Shough detail their investigation of the event. Shough is a research associate for the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP). Aubeck is the founder of the historical research group Magonia Exchange, an international archival project.

and a link to an "ancient origins (https://www.ancient-origins.net/unexplained-phenomena/1665-many-said-…; article mentioning the event.