Description

Annals of Physics and Chemistry - Google Books (https://books.google.de/books?id=vEvkAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA373&lpg=PA373&dq=%…)

Saarbrücken 1826: Germany's oldest UFO file still missing (https://www.grenzwissenschaft-aktuell.de/saarbruecken-1826-deutschlan…)

Date: April 1, 1826
Location: Saarbrucken, Germany

About a strange meteoric phenomenon, on April 1, 1826, not far from Saarbrücken

*E.F.F. Chladni*

Although the weather is sunny and warm and the sky is almost cloudless, several witnesses suddenly hear an apparently deafening "rolling, thundering and crashing" near the former forest on the Rastpfuhl, which is why the witnesses already suspect an approaching storm. But a look at the sky shows everyone that this is not the case. At least one of the witnesses, the brickmaker Johannes Becker, immediately sees an object that is initially described as a "terrible" and later as a "wondrous something" that comes flying towards him "at lightning speed at a height of 6 to 7 feet (GreWi's note: about the height of a man) above the earth's surface".

The witness later compared this "something" to "two pieces of sheet metal, 1.5 feet wide and 3.5 feet high, which hovered parallel to each other and had a grayish appearance" and, when later asked by the meteorologically interested investigators, explained that he had perceived "no fire or light" around the object. It continues: "He thought he was lost when this 'wonderful something' rushed towards him, and (presumably only apparently) fell 7 steps from him to the ground. The crash was as if a thousand thunderstorms had struck next to him. This 'wonderful something', which rolled shortly before falling down and flew along like a roller, had spread out in front of him in the size of a linen cloth and had a greyish-white appearance."

After about a minute of complete silence, the object then rose again from the place where it had fallen, accompanied by thunder and crashes, and moved away. Recovered from this fright, the witness then remembered the final observation of a rapidly receding "terrible whirlwind gust". Looking back, Johannes Becker estimated that the entire incident "could have lasted about 3 to 4 minutes.

The thunder-like thunder, crashing and rolling was later witnessed by at least three other witnesses, who apparently did not see the flying object described by Johannes Becker themselves. However, the effects of the described whirlwind could be impressively confirmed by numerous other people on site.

What Johannes Becker saw at that time can no longer be clearly reconstructed from today's perspective. What is certain is that the description can be explained neither by a known "meteoric event" nor by the properties of a meteorological whirlwind, and that the capabilities and behaviour of the object also occupy an exotic special status within the very diversely described properties of unidentified flying objects, in the past as well as today.

However, it is precisely this aspect that makes the witness's descriptions particularly interesting from an anomalistic point of view, since it is difficult to accuse the witness of having oriented himself on other well-known contemporary incidents and "miracle reports" due to his very unique behaviour. It should also be ruled out that Johannes Becker, a brickmaker in the aforementioned local brickworks, could have had knowledge of the contemporary, but rather academic discussions about meteorological and meteorological phenomena – which in turn do not cover the described properties of the object.