When the English Witnessed Battles in the Sky | Hacker News Reader

When the English Witnessed Battles in the Sky

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1561_celestial_phenomenon_over...

Possibly related to the phenomenon researched by Peratt, et al, albeit a much more recent occurrence:

Characteristics for the Occurrence of a High-Current, Z-Pinch Aurora as Recorded in Antiquity

https://plasmauniverse.info/downloadsCosmo/PerattTPSv31-2003...

Related publications:

https://plasmauniverse.info/NearEarth.html

Carrington Event 1859 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event

Interesting how perceptions of what was happening were so different then compared to this earlier event

The industrial revolution has irreversibly changed how society and we as individuals within that society perceive and describe things. Less analogy to lived and experienced phenomena in the form of tales and myths and more mechanical breakdowns of shape, size, dimensions, and scientific measurements needed for reproduction in a factory.

Makes you wonder how future societies would describe phenomena among their members

A youtuber I follow has recently started a series where he takes a myth or supernatural subject and splits it into two parts: the first he presents it as a total believer, with the idea that the viewers pick it apart, then in the second he picks it apart.

You reminded me of the one on the Mothman sightings, where in the second part he made a really good point that if you ignore all the naming, the eyewitness descriptions sound like a man with a jetpack and red goggles.

Do you mind if I ask who?

I second this, sounds really interesting!

Armoured Skeptic, the two Mothman videos are these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN_fBBDydO0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYOu7MLZ_Dg

Large solar storms. When they happen, they cause the Auroras to appear at lower latitudes than typical. They happen so rarely in a persons lifetime, that people are very unlikely to see one more than once, if at all.

I wonder if Robert Jordan was inspired by this when he wrote The Great Hunt (spoiler follows, I guess!) The protagonist experiences a hallucinatory battle with his arch nemesis, then learns that it was somehow projected in the sky:

"In the sky?" Rand said in wonder.

"Both of you," Moiraine said. "Your battle took place across the sky, in full view of every soul in Falme. Perhaps in other towns on Toman Head, too, if half what I hear is to be believed."

This then ruins his plans of keeping a low profile. Those books had some fun ideas.

This article reminded me of the exact same thing!

'The Great Hunt in the Sky' is an ancient European myth which has existed perhaps since the pleistoscene. It has manifested in a lot of interesting ways; Johnny Cash's 'ghost riders in the sky', santa and his reindeer, Wagners ride of the Valkyries,

Note: most of the etymological research on this was done in what is now modern germany, but this myth was equally prevalent in france, british isles, scandinavia etc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Hunt

Cash's "Riders in the Sky" is based on Native American mythology [0]. Cash felt it important to highlight Native American history and struggles [1]. "Riders in the Sky" was only one of many such songs.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/(Ghost)_Riders_in_the_Sky:_A_C...

[1] https://www.aclu.org/blog/racial-justice/american-indian-rig...

I didn't know about that. Do you happen to know which tribe's mythology inspired him to write this? The wiki says "possibly Apache" and doesn't cite where that possibility came from. I've been trying to learn more about the people who have been here longer than my people since learning what they're still going through and how little I learned about that growing up beyond stereotypes.

He was definitely inspired by the part where the aurora tugs its braid angrily and crosses its arms under its heaving bosoms, while scowling at a woolheaded man.

I thought this was going to be about the Battle of Britain.

Honestly, this sounds like it could be ergot poisoning. It's about the right era -- the last major outbreak of ergot poisoning was in 1926.

Ergot is a type of fungus that infects rye and other grains, and has a ton of negative health effects, especially if consumed for a long period of time. However, acute ingestion leads to powerful hallucinations. Lysergic acid is the precursor for a ton of ergoline alkaloids, and of course, LSD.

All their descriptions sound an awful lot like a mushroom or acid trip.

tl;dr: IMO they were probably high on wacky loaf.

From the fine article:

> On the night of March 6, 1716, people all over England witnessed a bloody war unfolding in the sky.

> the aurora was bright enough to read by

Aurora. Visible across the country. Rare in England, hence the amazement.

Is "aurora" a term used at the time, or was it added later by people who thought they knew better?

'Aurora borealis" seems to have begun appearing in print at rougghly this period:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=aurora+boreali...

References prior to 1714 (daate attributions may be inaccurate):

https://www.google.com/search?q="aurora%20borealis"&tbm=bks&...

The question is one of revisionist history. Did the people writing of the event at the time recognize it for what it was? Or did a later transcription of the event substitute their current understanding and lose the confusion surrounding the original?

At least some reports at the time were of heavenly armies and other fantastic things. So at the time the phenomenon was not described (at least universally) as aurora.

The article - written much later - assumes that it was in fact an aurora. The comment I replied to proposed "tl;dr: IMO they were probably high on wacky loaf." Which is an alternate explanation that doesn't really match the fact that this was seen all over the country on the same night, and not other nights.

Which happened to affect all sorts of people across a country, for several days, all at the same time, which they recorded in various writings?

Are you sure you've thought this out?

Nope, I’m not at all sure :) just throwing my hat in.

I’m as skeptical as you are but your hypothesis makes no sense. You’d have to take an exceptional amount of potent hallucinogens to have an experience like the one described in the article, let alone share such an experience with others in such vivid recalled detail.

I have no conclusive evidence of course, just positing a hypothesis.

re: amount you'd have to consume, "entire families would find themselves afflicted with either symptoms of burning and eventual gangrene in the hands and feet or with epileptic-like convulsions, headaches and hallucinations." [1]

re: timing, ergot tends to thrive in summer after cold winters followed by damp springs. March is a bit early, but not out of the question.

re: wide-spread, ergot outbreaks affected huge populations all at once. [2]

For what it's worth there's a decent chance that ergot poisoning may be responsible for the Salem Witch Trials. [1]

The best argument I could find against my case is that it was rare in the UK as the climate is less favorable to rye [2].

> ...let alone share such an experience with others in such vivid recalled detail.

It's an acid trip. Ask someone whose done acid. They'll tell you exactly what they experienced.

[1] https://asm.org/Articles/2018/November/From-Poisoning-to-Pha...

[2] https://cropwatch.unl.edu/2017/has-ergot-altered-events-worl...

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