ALSACAT-1667-00-00-RUELISHEIM-1
Between the cité Sainte Barbe straddling the grounds of Wittenheim and Ruelisheim and the village of Ruelisheim, not far from the main road from Mulhouse to Wittenheim - Ensisheim, is a large pilgrimage chapel, "Notre-Dame du Chêne" - "Our Lady of the Oak".
The legend has embroidered a poetic story as the origin of this chapel, as is very often the case for pilgrimage places in Alsace. It has been said that boys from Ruelisheim who were keeping cattle in the forest between Ruelisheim and Wittenheim at dusk, had returned to the village when they saw an old oak burning in front of them.
The oak burnt entirely, except the bottom of the trunk in which was a statue of the Virgin. The boys quickly returned to the village and told what had happened, and since that day, the faithful gather in front of this tree trunk to venerate "Our Lady of the Oak". Later, a small chapel was built there, and even later, not far, a larger chapel, "Our Lady of the Oak" was built.
Another version is that one abbot Zimberlin, parish priest of Ruelisheim from 1837 to 1841, Alsatian history buff, collected in the oral tradition that around 1667, one Oswald Fischesser, of Battenheim, was a farm hand in Battenheim or Ruelisheim. One day, having lost a head of cattle, he was fired. He went to the nearby forest, saddened, when he heard, accompanied by a beautiful melody, a celestial voice that comforted him and assured him that he should go home in peace, that he was going to find the lost beef, but he had to place a statue of the Virgin at this place.
He did find the beef but forgot about his promise. He was still hearing a voice reminding him of his safe return from the war, and eventually put a wooden statue of the "Blessed Virgin" in the hollow of an oak tree.
There would also be a document, in the past, at the Parish Archives of Ruelisheim, about a man saved by the Virgin in a painful situation and who had put in the hollow of an oak a statue of Our Lady.
All this, it seems to me, has nothing to do with the UFO issue, however Jean-Pierre Schirch, a local ufologist, mentioned this during his investigation into an alleged UFO landing in Riedisheim in 1971, assuring that in Ruelisheim, according to legend, young people lost in the forest would have seen an old oak tree suddenly burning, and from "the calcined trunk rose a statue of the Virgin, intact and resplendent."
| Date: | 1667 |
|---|---|
| Time: | ? |
| Duration: | ? |
| First known report date: | N/A |
| Reporting delay: | N/A |
| Department: | Haut-Rhin |
|---|---|
| City: | Ruelisheim |
| Place: | In the old forest near Ruelisheim. |
| Latitude: | 47.823 |
| Longitude: | 7.347 |
| Uncertainty radius: | 1 km |
| Number of alleged witnesses: | Several, 1. |
|---|---|
| Number of known witnesses: | 0, 1 |
| Number of named witnesses: | 0, 1 |
| Witness(es) ages: | Young, adult. |
| Witness(es) types: | Boys, farm hand. |
| Reporting channel: | Oral history. |
|---|---|
| Type of location: | Forest. |
| Visibility conditions: | ? |
| UFO observed: | No |
| UFO arrival observed: | N/A |
| UFO departure observed: | N/A |
| Entities: | No |
| Photographs: | No. |
| Sketch(s) by witness(es): | No. |
| Sketch(es) approved by witness(es): | No. |
| Witness(es) feelings: | ? |
| Witnesses interpretation: | ? |
| Hynek: | N/A |
|---|---|
| ALSACAT: | Not UFO-related. |
[Ref. jsh1:] UFOLOGY MAGAZINE "LUMIERE DANS LA NUIT":
If one goes back in history, in Ruelisheim (6 km or N), according to the legend, young people lost in the forest reportedly saw an old oak tree suddenly in flame, and from the calcinated trunk reportedly rose a statue of the Blessed Virgin, intact and resplendescent: a chapel was built by subscription in 1704.
|
See the summary.
Clearly, what is said to have happened at Ruelisheim in 1667 comes from several different legends, and is nothing like a UFO sighting.
It turns out that in French ufology at the end of the 1960's and since then, some "schools of thoughts" consider for various reasons that any "phenomenon" is ufology: ghosts, apparitions of the "Blessed Virgin", paranormal phenomena would be only one "phenomenon", UFOs being its modern manifestation. Jean-Pierre Schirch quoted this legend also in the context of theories of sighting locations that would be in line to each other.
Not UFO-related.
* = Source is available to me.
? = Source I am told about but could not get so far. Help needed.
| Main author: | Patrick Gross |
|---|---|
| Contributors: | None |
| Reviewers: | None |
| Editor: | Patrick Gross |
| Version: | Create/changed by: | Date: | Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | Patrick Gross | February 1, 2018 | Creation, [jsh1]. |
| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | February 1, 2018 | First published. |
