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Case of Kientzheim, in 1480:

Case number:

ALSACAT-1480-00-00-KIENTZHEIM-1

Summary:

In 1973, the authors of a ufology book thought it was fit to link the issue of UFO sightings with an alleged "apparition of the Blessed Virgin" in Kientzheim in 1480, ensuring that in a book about such events, she made "revelations in every way comparable to the best known revelations of Les Trois-Epis and La Salette."

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Ufology data:

Classifications:

Sources:

[Ref. fle1:] FERNAND LAGARDE - "LUMIERES DANS LA NUIT" GROUP:

Discussion:

One may wonder why an alleged "appearance of the Blessed Virgin" appears in a ufology catalog.

I wonder about that myself. But since at least one source believes that this story is part of ufology, whatever the reason is, I also have to deal with it, to assess the meaning this "appearance the Blessed Virgin" case might have in connection with ufology, I need to see what this is all about before I can deny or accept the relevance of the story to ufology.

A part of the ufologists, usually those who consider the idea of extraterrestrial visitors false or stupid, blame others who do not agree to "ignore" or "silence" a range of "phenomena", such as the "apparitions of the Blessed Virgin." They consider that such events teach something to ufologists and that ignoring them is a methodological error, or a form of "closed mindedness" or even "stupidity".

So, they are wrong here, as I did not "reject" the matter without consideration, on the contrary, I looked for the best possible documentation on the case so that I can make a thoughtful assessment about it; and it is only after doing this that I state whether this case teaches something useful in ufology.

I should explain briefly to the possibly ufologically "novice" reader, the reasoning that some ufologists give to justify that a "Blessed Virgin appearance" would indeed be relevant to ufology. Many reasons are put forth, some of which are contradictory with the others. But they exist:

• There are "UFO skeptics" ufologists who say all UFO sightings are nothing but misinterpretations and hoaxes, who believe that contemporary UFO sightings are of the same nature as, for example, the "Blessed Virgin appearances" reported in the past. "UFOs and aliens" would be the "modern" versions, using the imagery of technology and space exploration replacing the religious themes of yesteryear, the whole having no other reality than hoaxes or misinterpretations of all kinds.
• Some ufologists argue that any "abnormal" event, thus "paranormal" event, is one particular aspect of a single phenomenon, that of "the paranormal" , Ufology should be a "sub-discipline" of the study of the "paranormal". Ufologists who do not recognize this are said to be "close-minded". This idea is often unjustified, we are not told what the explanation of the whole "paranormal" would be, we are not told what "theory of everything" would link all the "paranormal" together. The "trademark" of this school of thought seems to be the refusal of both the notion of UFOs being extraterrestrial craft and the denial that they would all be "explained" as misinterpretations and hoaxes. Sometimes, however, justifications have been proposed; such as the following ones.
• Some ufologists believe that all paranormal phenomena including UFOs and extraterrestrials encounters would have a single cause - except for the hoaxes and misunderstandings - : some "intelligence" coexists with us in some "other dimension" - whose nature is rarely specified - and this intelligence is not from another planet at all, although it conceals itself. It "creates" the paranormal phenomena in order to "deceive" us, to manipulate humanity to some end. They call it an "intraterrestrial", "ultraterrestrial", "paraterrestrial" intelligence, some claiming that it is a "giant thinking crystal at the center of the Earth" causing all this hassle "for the purpose of having us believe in aliens" - who knows what the ultimate goal of that should be - or "to make us more environmentalists" or whatever other goal...
• Some ufologists share exactly the foregoing views, except that they claim this "deceptive intelligence" which they claim to be the cause of paranormal phenomena in general would be an extraterrestrial intelligence. That is, "real aliens" would "show us" "fake aliens" but also the "Virgin Mary" , ghosts, poltergeists etc.
• Some ufologists defending the idea that aliens visit us claim systematically or occasionally, that all, or this or that "Blessed Virgin" case, had been misinterpreted in the context of religiosity, as it was actually an extraterrestrial encounter. The existence of a very small number of case where some sort of "Blessed Virgin" is seen with some sort of "UFO" - from a classical flying saucer from which the "Blessed Virgin" emerges, to some vague light in the sky seen more or less in the same area and more or less at the same - is used as argument.
• Other "ideas" exist. I was told of "random quantum phenomena" of the "reality" of the Blessed Virgin, I read two French authors who claim all the paranormal can be explained by a "germ" that would make people's infected brain "see things", etc. etc.

These are, in short, why visions of the "Blessed Virgin" are sometimes found in UFO literature.

Now what do we have regarding this 1480 Kientzheim case?

This was reportedly an apparition of the Blessed Virgin to a nun, with "revelations."

In 1466, the church of Kaysersberg, mother-church of Kientzheim, was burned during a war and only the statues of the "Virgin" and "Saint John" on either side of a large crucifix had been saved, and made safe in the church of Saints Felix-et-Régule in Kientzheim. A few days later, many people allegedly saw the two statues "crying tears" - one can obviously think of condensation of water vapor after the move. Subsequently, many miracles allegedly occurred, quickly attributed to the "Blessed Virgin" and a "revelation" actually claimed by Colinon to have been "comparable in all respects to those more familiar in Les Trois-Epis and La Salette."

As for the "revelations", impossible to find those made in Kientzheim, but the well-known revelations to the blacksmith Dietrich Schoeré in Les Trois-Epis were:

"See these wheat stems. They are the symbol of the abundance of good harvest which will reward the generous virtuous beings, and bring well-being and happiness in the homes of the faithful Christians. But this ice means that hail, frost, flood, famine, and all its attendant miseries and desolation will punish the disbelievers whose gravity of sins tired the divine mercy. Go, man, go down to the villages and announce to all the residents the meaning of these prophecies."

(Other versions are similar, it is usually a story about the blacksmith being given a mission to urge people to virtue, those who believed became healthy, disbelievers were "struck with infertility" or "died of pestilential diseases" naturally sent to them by "God".

The 1846 "revelations" to Mélanie Mathieu, a shepherdess of La Salette, were essentially:

"Melanie, I'll tell you something you will not tell anyone: time of the wrath of God has come. If, when you have told the people what I told you just now, and what I will tell you to say it again, if, after that, they do not convert, (if one does not do penance, and one does not stop working on Sundays, and if one continue to blaspheme the holy name of God), in a word, if the face of the earth does not change, God will take revenge against the ungrateful people of slaves of the devil. My Son will show his power! Paris, this dirty town with all sorts of crimes, will inevitably perish. Marseilles will be destroyed in a short time. When these things happen, the mess will be complete on earth. The world is wicked with passions. [...] After all these things occur, many people will see the hand of God, they will convert, and will repent from sins. The great king will ascend the throne, and reign for a few years. Religion will bloom and spread throughout the earth and fertility will be great, the happy world that will lack nothing will resume its disorders, forget about God, and will engage in their criminal passions. [...] The time is not far off, it will happen in less than twice 50 years."

I have a hard time to see that these revelations are "in every way comparable"...

What prompted Fernand Lagarde and the LDLN ufology group mention such things as UFO-related? In their book, they claim that there are "places relations" between UFO sightings and "mystical phenomena." for the 496 UFO sighting cases in Alsace I have noted, only one is located in Kientzheim, in 1955, but it was reported only in 2012, the authors therefore could not know about it. No cases in the area that would justify a "locations relationship" here. Especially since chance alone would obviously bring UFO sightings in places where religious claims were made, over time. And besides, shouldn't we consider only those events that would be really credible and of high strangeness?

The authors then say that another relationship is that of "miracle cures" that would be found with both in "mystical phenomena" and UFO sightings reports. I studied tens of thousands of cases of UFO sightings, the proportion of "miracle cures" is extremely tiny, and well below the number of cases with physiological damage to the witnesses, real or alleged, in UFO cases.

In Kientzheim, no less than 187 miracles were noted down - there are even "resurrection of the dead" - 162 of them occurred between 1467 and 1480, prompting an important pilgrimage. But after that date, the frequency drops sharply, and there none after 1507. It was wisely suggested that the chaplain who had noted down the miracle from 1475 to 1505 had lost his zeal, and that none of this is really credible...

As for the last argument noted by the authors, the so-called total identity of the revelations in Les Trois-Epis and La Salette and Kientzheim, we saw what it really was.

No, really, I do not see any reason to see a real "relationship" between the alleged "revelations of the Blessed Virgin" in Kientzheim in 1480 and the question of UFO sightings.

Evaluation:

Religious inventions, not related to the question of UFO sightings.

Sources references:

* = Source is available to me.
? = Source I am told about but could not get so far. Help needed.

• [mcn1] * "Guide de la France Religieuse et Mystique", book by Maurice Colinon, Tchou publisher, France, page 360, 1969.
• [fle1] * "Mystérieuses Soucoupes Volantes", book edited by Fernand Lagarde and the Lumières Dans La Nuit ufology group, Albatros publishers, page 282, France, 1973.

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This page was last updated on August 20, 2014.