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Case of Strasbourg, on February 7, 1726:

Case number:

ALSACAT-1726-02-07-STRASBOURG-1

Summary:

Former journalist Christian Valentin published in 2012 a very interesting book telling the story of UFO sightings, flying saucers sightings, in Alsace, from the beginning to 1980.

In this book, he reports that Malachias Tschamser wrote in his history of the Franciscans in Thann translated and published in 2001 by the historical society "Les Amis de Thann", that on February 7, 1726, near Strasbourg but also in the Wurtemberg and elsewhere 3 suns were seen in the sky at 8 a.m., and a piece of arc in the sky. The sun was right surrounded by a large luminous crown, inside of which were seen on two suns on each sides.

Christian Valentin notes that this could have been due to the reflection of the sun on ice crystals suspended in the cloud layer. This was obviously the "sundogs" phenomenon.

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[Ref. cvn2:] CHRISTIAN VALENTIN:

Former journalist Christian Valentin published in 2012 a very interesting book telling the story of UFO sightings, flying saucers sightings, in Alsace, from the beginning to 1980.

In this book, he reports that Malachias Tschamser wrote in his history of the Franciscans in Thann translated and published in 2001 by the historical society "Les Amis de Thann", that on February 7, 1726, near Strasbourg but also in the Wurtemberg and elsewhere 3 suns were seen in the sky at 8 a.m., and a piece of arc in the sky. The sun was right surrounded by a large luminous crown, inside of which were seen on two suns on each sides.

Christian Valentin notes that this could have been due to the reflection of the sun on ice crystals suspended in the cloud layer.

Discussion:

About Christian Valentin's book:

It is not at all my habit to "advertise" a book or anything, and I have no interested relationship with the author, but I wanted to say a word on the book by Christian Valentin, "Mythes et Réalités des Phénomènes Aériens Non Identifiés" (i.e. "Myths and Realities of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena" (cover on the left) , ref. [cvn2]; which, as its subtitle indicates, is about Alsatian UFO sighting reports and the saucer lore in Alsace.

I think Alsatian ufologists and generally people interested in the UFO question, or in the history of Alsace, my region, would probably like this book.

The 144 pages book is sober but well presented, unbiased, richly documented and illustrated. It is the first work in print specifically about UFO sightings in Alsace. (There was another one a few years ago, but it was partly made by copying - pasting without mention of the sources, portions of my website, especially the Alsatians cases I almost exhaustively documented in my catalog of UFO sightings in France in 1954, and copies from another websites; the trivial explanations I proposed or gave there being almost always stripped off!)

The author does not want to prove or disprove the possibility of extraterrestrial visitors or some other so-called "extraordinary" explanation, he rather offers a chronologically ordered review of Alsatian UFO reports, starting from the origin and stopping in 1980, based on known sources ufology, on the articles of the regional Press, and cases less known or even unreleased so far that he collected directly with the witnesses. His own comments are printed in a different color, references to the sources are always given. A very nice work in my opinion!

The author currently has a blog where he shows what libraries in Alsace have the book available, see: christian.valentin.overblog.com

François-Antoine Tschamser was born in 1678 in Thann, studied in Lucerne, and became "brother Malachias" in the Franciscans order. Scholar, organist and musician, he published his research on the life of his time and the city of Thann, entitled "Annals oder Jahrs - Geschichten der oder Baarfuseren Minderen Bruder"; which became "Annals of the Franciscans of Thann", covering the period 1181 to 1742. It was translated in 15 years by a team of historians and scholars of the "Friends of Thann" society.

A "parhelia" (in French"), from ancient Greek "para", "near" and "helios," the Sun, is a phenomenon visible to the eye in which two replicas of the Sun are seen horizontally on both sides of the Sun, often with a circular halo (photos below). It is often described in old chronicles as an appearance of "three suns".

The phenomenon is also called "false sun", "Double Sun", "eye of the goat" in French, or "triple sun" or "sundogs".

The phenomenon occurs when the sun is rather low on the horizon and there are ice crystals in of high altitude clouds (cirrus or cirrostratus).

Evaluation:

Obvious description of sundogs.

Sources references:

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

• [ftr1] * "Annales, oder Jahrs - Geschichten der Baarfuseren oder Minderen Bruder", book by François-Antoine Tschamser, Thann, France, 1864.
• [cvn2] * "Mythes et Réalités des Phénomènes Aériens Non Identifiés - Histoire des soucoupes volantes en Alsace jusqu'en 1980", book by Christian Valentin, Grimoires d'Alsace publishers, France, page 7, 2012.

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This page was last updated on August 25, 2014.