Centuries ago there were accounts of “flying ships” in the sky, and a recent study has investigated a particularly intriguing report of them battling each other 350 years ago.
A group of fishermen near the Baltic city of Stralsund — then in Sweden, now in Germany — reported witnessing a titanic battle between many ships in the sky, followed by an immense hat or plate hovering overhead. The story received serious attention at the time, and the witnesses were interviewed by writers, scientists and military men.
The fishermen were in their boats at around 2pm on April 8, 1665, when a large flock of birds appeared in the sky flying in close formation and forming a shape “like a long passage in a house” that turned into a warship, followed by other ships. Fire and smoke was seen as two of the ships fired cannons at each other, and although one of the ships vanished, its opposite number remained in view. Fleets of ships then appeared and a remarkable round dark plate seemed to descend from above at around 6pm. According to the writer Erasmus Francisci, who gathered together reports of the phenomenon: “After a little while a flat, round form, like a plate or a large man’s hat, came straight out of the sky, shining before their eyes in colours like the darkening moon, motionless above Saint Nicholas Church, where it remained until evening.”
Chris Aubeck and Martin Shough, writing in the magazine EdgeScience, investigated this story and suggested that the “ships” in the sky may have been flocks of birds, possibly a murmuration of starlings, swirling in ship-like shapes. As for the disc, they ruled out any phenomena linked to the Sun, Moon or stars by using simulations of the astronomical aspects of the sky at that time. Instead, they proposed that the most likely explanation was a lenticular cloud, a lens-shaped occurence that can look like a very convincing flying saucer, especially in low evening sunlight.