March of the ghost armies. Weird phenomena in the sky

Visions of ghostly armies and battles are as old as humanity itself. References to them can be found in the Bible and other sources of venerable antiquity. Many reports of "heavenly battles" can be explained by mirages or northern lights distorted by the superstitious minds of people of the past, but some stories remain unexplained. They have specific features characteristic of the UFO phenomenon and strange visions at sea, like the "burning ships" of the North Atlantic.

Jerusalem, 169 BC. e. "It happened that over the whole city for almost forty days, horsemen in golden robes and like warriors armed with spears appeared in the air, and slender detachments of cavalry, and attacks and retreats from both sides, the circulation of shields, a lot of spears and the waving of swords, throwing arrows and the glitter of gold armor and all kinds of weapons." (Second Book of Maccabees 5:1-4).

Ghost armies are usually dressed and armed according to their era, and the details of the vision do not raise questions from eyewitnesses. But any rules have exceptions. There are cases when the form and weapons of phantom soldiers belonged to the distant past or are not comparable to anything known. The movement of ghost troops and battles can take place in the air or on the ground: the phenomenon ignores the height and can change it in front of eyewitnesses. One of these observations, which took place in 1608 in Angouleme, France, made a great impression on everyone. Pierre Robert wrote in his "Chronicle":

The day was clear and windless, and suddenly a lot of small thick clouds appeared. They sat down on the ground and turned into warriors. There were 10-12 thousand of them, all tall and handsome, in blue armor, standing in formation behind unfurled red and blue banners... This sight alarmed the peasants and even the nobility. A lot of people gathered to watch the maneuvers; they noticed that when the warriors approached the dense forest, maintaining their formation, they rose above the trees, barely touching the leaves with their feet, and, passing through the forest, descended again to the ground, where they disappeared. I am describing this based on a handwritten report by the late Monsieur Prevost, the cure of Lussac-les-Églises

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Soon a brochure dedicated to the vision was published in Paris. It has some interesting details.

A brochure describing the march of the ghost army over the forest.

ThIn the lands of Angouleme, just two months ago, a terrifying sight of ghosts and spirits was seen. The vision appeared in daylight, and the sky was clear everywhere, except for that part of the sky where many small clouds appeared. They descended to the ground and there turned into figures of people, of which there were up to 12 thousand. They were all tall, handsome, and armed with blue weapons, with banners half red and half blue partially unfurled, and the drummers held the drums as if they were preparing for battle. At the head of this army, ten paces ahead, was a commander of majestic appearance; the army marched through the fields with great haste, but nevertheless maintained its formation with a division into regiments and detachments. It seemed the most terrible to all the eyewitnesses, and a number of peasants, who thought it was a real army, rushed home to hide their valuables in nearby castles. Several gentlemen mounted their horses and followed her; they noticed that when the army approached a dense forest, in order not to break the formation, it rose above the trees, only touching the leaves with its feet, and after crossing the forest, it sank back to the ground and continued moving towards the next forest, while the nobles still followed it to see what it will happen next. This time they all entered the forest, where they disappeared, and were not seen again... Over three hundred notable persons from among the eyewitnesses subscribed to the report they sent to the king

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The vision of the phantom army can be silent or "voiced". In the "Chronicle" of Maciej Stryjkowski it is mentioned that in 1269 over Poland "two fighting armies were visible on the clouds and even the clang of weapons was heard". When firearms appeared in the arsenal of the troops, the rumble of cannon shots and the crackle of muskets also began to be heard from the places of ghostly battles.

In December 1517, in the area of Bergamo, Italy, the vision of the battle with all the accompanying sounds was repeated three or four times over the course of eight days. Contemporary to these events, the brochure "Littera de le maragliose battaglie apparse novamente in Bergamasca" (Cesena, 1517/8) reports that formidable battalions of infantry, cavalry and artillery were seen in Verdello, advancing in battle order "with the greatest organization and in perfect order." In front of them rode three or four royal figures, led by another ruler who seemed to be the greatest among them. They all went to negotiate with another king, who was standing in front of his army and waiting for them, surrounded by barons, halfway between the two armies.

And there, after a long negotiation, one could see how the one-armed king, with the most ferocious look and impatience, removes the iron glove from his hand, throws it into the air, and immediately shakes his head with a worried expression, turning to his men standing in battle formation. At this moment there are so many sounds of trumpets, drums and rattles, as well as the most terrible roar of artillery... A multitude of banners and standards enter into battle, and [the soldiers] attack each other with the greatest fury and force, chopping everyone to pieces in the fiercest battle... After half an hour, everything subsides, and nothing else is visible. And anyone who has the courage to stay near that place sees a lot of pigs that stay for a short time, and then go into the forest

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The author of the brochure, Bartolomeo de Villa Chiara, adds that he wanted to personally verify these events, so he went there with other gentlemen. They confirmed that at the end of the visions, "nothing was found in that very place except traces of horses' hooves, carts, human footprints, burnt spots and many trees smashed into splinters"

Ghost battles in Italy were discussed all over Europe. The secretary of the Doge of Venice , Gian Giacomo Caroldo , in a letter to his brother dated January 12 , 1517/8 , expressed a skeptical opinion on this matter:

And there, after a long negotiation, one could see how the one-armed king, with the most ferocious look and impatience, removes the iron glove from his hand, throws it into the air, and immediately shakes his head with a worried expression, turning to his men standing in battle formation. At this moment there are so many sounds of trumpets, drums and rattles, as well as the most terrible roar of artillery... A multitude of banners and standards enter into battle, and [the soldiers] attack each other with the greatest fury and force, chopping everyone to pieces in the fiercest battle... After half an hour, everything subsides, and nothing else is visible. And anyone who has the courage to stay near that place sees a lot of pigs that stay for a short time, and then go into the forest

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Ghost battles in Italy were discussed all over Europe. The secretary of the Doge of Venice , Gian Giacomo Caroldo , in a letter to his brother dated January 12 , 1517/8 , expressed a skeptical opinion on this matter:

In Bergamo, some simpletons saw fumes rising above the dung heaps and, seized with great fear, thought they were armed soldiers

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The diplomat simply ignored the sounds of the battle

The first page of an anonymous brochure about the events in Bergamo

It was impossible to approach the ghostly armies fighting in heaven, but the situation was different with the phantom armies on earth. It turned out that when people try to approach them at a certain distance, they stop seeing a spectacular sight, and those who follow the daredevils from afar see both them and the phantoms. At the same time, ghost soldiers react to the appearance of people, bypassing them, and not passing through.

... together with some others, he ventured to run to the place of the meadow where the troops were visible, but they saw nothing there and there were no tracks in the snow. Meanwhile, those watching from the villages continued to see the phenomenon and in the middle of it Pan Dombrovsky with others who ran with him

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Interestingly, at the same time in another province of Russian Poland, Petrokovskaya, ghostly troops were observed in the sky. On the horizon

... two rapidly converging columns of troops appeared; a knight towered above them, rising up. The phenomenon lasted about half an hour, during which it was perfectly possible to see the horses, guns and soldiers accompanying them

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Perhaps the most interesting case of "interaction" between the ghost army and people occurred in the winter of 1785 in Ujest, Upper Saxony (now Ujazd, Poland). The first vision occurred on January 27 between 3 and 4 p.m. About 50 people working in the field suddenly saw an infantry corps lined up in three ranks. In front of him were two flag bearers with red flags. Coming closer to the peasants, the army stopped and the first rank opened fire in their direction, kneeling. People clearly saw the thick smoke from the shots rising above the line, but did not hear the sound of shots or bullets that should have whistled past their ears. When the smoke cleared, the infantry disappeared, and in its place appeared mounted hussars, who in turn suddenly disappeared.

For the second time, the ghost army appeared on February 3 at about 8 o'clock in the morning. Among those who saw them was a retired tax collector. He took a horse and galloped to the soldiers, but when he arrived there, he saw no one and nothing, although at that time other peasants saw him among the ghosts dressed in different uniforms. When the brave peasant, returning, looked back, he saw all the troops in place. This time there were at least three regiments on the field. The ranks began to move and disappeared into the forest in the direction of the Goat.

On February 15, the ghost soldiers appeared for the third time in front of about thirty people. This overwhelmed the patience of the authorities, and General von Zass sent a detachment to the West with orders to investigate what was going on. Eight days later, the commander of the detachment learned about the new appearance of the ghosts and, spurring his horse, rushed in their direction. An officer also separated from the ghost army and went to meet him. They saluted each other, and the Prussian officer asked who he was and what they were doing here. Having received no answer, he pulled out his pistol and was about to shoot, when suddenly everything disappeared!

As in the case of UFOs and "fire ships" at sea, ghost armies are not able to see everything. In England and Scotland, it is believed that such spectacles can only be seen by people who have the gift of "second sight", that is, clairvoyance. Examples when some people see an unusual phenomenon, while others do not, are often cited as an example of a mass hallucination, but this explanation is too simple and hardly applicable to cases when the same thing was seen from different places before the invention of the telephone. In 1686, the English Presbyterian Patrick Walker caught a very unusual sight:

In June and July 1686, as many of the survivors can testify, a lot of people gathered near Crossford Boat, two miles below Lanark, especially in the Maines, on the banks of the Clyde, for several days in the afternoon; they saw hats, shakos, guns and sabres falling from the sky, which trees and the ground were covered; regiments of armed men marched in formation along the river bank, fought with each other, passed through the ranks, and then fell to the ground and disappeared; other regiments appeared immediately, marching in the same way. I went there three times in a row in the afternoon and noticed that two-thirds of those present saw it all, and a third did not see it. Although I couldn't see anything myself, everyone who saw it was so scared and shaking with fear that it was noticeable to those who didn't see the marchers. There was a gentleman standing next to me, who, like many other gentlemen and people of ordinary rank, said:

"A bunch of damn witches and wizards have second sight! Damn me, I have to see it too!"

And then something changed in his face. With trembling and fear, like those women I saw, he shouted:

"Hey, all of you who do not see, be silent; I assure you that this exists and is visible to everyone who is not blind as a stone!"

And those who saw began to talk about what locks the guns had, about their length and caliber, what handles the sabers had, whether the guns were small, three-barrelled or like the Scottish Guards, blue or black bows were on their hats, and everyone who saw it watched hats and sabers fall, until those didn't disappear

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Before the appearance of phantom armies on earth, fireballs and other flying objects are often seen in the sky. Scottish Bishop Robert Forbes cites a letter from one of his parishioners about a ghostly battle observed on August 5, 1748, a few miles from Aberdeen:

This is a real fact, witnessed by more than thirty eyewitnesses at the same time. The army in brown and dark clothes with white waving flags crossed by the St. Andrew's Cross attacked twice in the same place the army in red with the Union Jack flag; it rallied twice, but the third time was so defeated that it was completely defeated and dispersed. There are not even minor differences in the stories of different viewers about this fantastic battle, most of them were not very far from the scene of action, saw flags, smoke, weapons, etc., but did not hear any noise. I forgot to mention that four hours before the battle, the same spectators observed three small glowing balls in the sky around two o'clock in the afternoon, which they took for what we in the north call "weather gall" [i.e. incomplete rainbow], but they gradually increased to the size of the sun, and that shortly before the appearance of the armies of twelve men in very clean and bright clothes seemed to have crossed very carefully and had a good look at the area where the action was taking place, but retreated before the armies appeared

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The observation of the ghost army near Lewisburg (West Virginia, USA) on September 1, 1863 at 3 p.m. was preceded by the appearance in the sky of many cotton-colored cylinders or smoke "the size of a door." It was only after they were out of sight that the first marching ghosts appeared on the ground in the valley. They marched in a clear formation, but none of the "soldiers" had rifles or any weapons:

In 1453, over the Italian Alps, not only knights and cavalry were seen in the sky, but also animals. The spectacle lasted for three hours and gradually disappeared with the onset of night

When a ghost army appears, the motor of a nearby car may stall, as well as during the passage of a UFO. This happened, for example, in November 1960 in Otterburn, Northumberland, Great Britain.

Suddenly the engine stalled, the speedometer needle was swept up and there was an impression that the car crashed into an invisible wall," said Mrs. Dorothy Strong, who was driving a taxi at that moment. – It seemed that the soldiers were surrounding us, but then everything disappeared into thin air

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The question of how material the ghost troops are has been discussed more than once, but so far all evidence of their density and materiality is extremely doubtful. Most often it is mentioned that after the vision of the phantom army, footprints, hooves and cart wheels were left on the ground, but no one can guarantee that there were no traces before or that such a detail is not a literary decoration, especially in the works of authors like St. Augustine. In other cases, on the contrary, witnesses emphasize that the vision did not leave any traces. Contrary to the opinion of a number of authors, there is no blood or any objects left at the site of the phantom battle.

Ghost marches and battles are not classic ghosts, because they very rarely repeat events that once happened. The Battle of the Phantoms on August 5, 1748 near Aberdeen, where the Scottish military won under the flag with the St. Andrew's Cross, has no analogue in our history. In fact, the uprising of the Scots in 1745, suppressed by the British, put an end to their dreams of independence. The incredible details of the row of seats also make you think. In August 1888, infantry divisions were seen marching across the plain in Hungary, with their commander holding a flaming sword in his hands.

In some cases, it seems that the process that creates the army of phantoms has remained unfinished, and the walking figures have not gained the right size and have not acquired a color coloring. Visions of "blanks" made eyewitnesses genuinely perplexed as it happened on July 31, 1806 in Rutherford County, North Carolina, USA.

Recorded August 7, 1806, in the presence of David Dickey, Esquire of Rutherford County, Jesse Anderson and the Reverend George Newton of Buncombe County, and Miss Betsy Newton of Georgia, who agreed that Mr. Newton should inform Mr. J. To Gales, editor of the Raleigh Register. Patsy Reeves, a widow living near the Appalachian Mountains, stated that on July 31, at about 6 p.m., her daughter Elizabeth, about eight years old, was in a cotton field, about 10 deliveries [50 m] from an apartment building, which, according to calculations, stands 6 furlongs [1200 m] from Chimney Rock and that Elizabeth told her brother Morgan, 11, that there was a man on the mountain.

At first Morgan was incredulous; but the little girl confirmed it and said she saw him rolling stones or collecting sticks, adding that she saw a bunch of people. Then Morgan went to the place where she was and shouted that he saw a thousand or ten thousand objects flying in the air. Hearing the scream, Polly, Mrs. Reeves' daughter, 14, and a black woman ran up to the children. They called Mrs. Reeves to come and see the spectacle. According to Mrs. Reeves, she walked about 8 genera [40 m] towards them; without experiencing any tangible anxiety or fright, she turned towards Chimney Rock and found a very large crowd of creatures similar to humans, but could not distinguish either individual members of the human body or their sexes; that they were of all sizes, from the tallest men to the smallest babies; that there were more little ones among them than adults.

They were all dressed in shiny white clothes, but Mrs. Reeves could not describe the shape of the robes. It seemed that they were rising from behind the mountain to the south of the aforementioned rock to about the same height. A significant part of the peak was visible above this shining host moving in a northerly direction and gathering near the top of the Chimney Rock. When everyone, with the exception of a few people, reached the cliff, two more rose, and behind them, about two feet [60 cm], a third rose. These three moved towards the crowd with great agility and were the most like people they had ever seen.

Watching these three, they saw three more people rising from the same place and moving in the same order and direction. Then a few more people got up and headed for the rock. During this spectacle, which, according to all the spectators, lasted about an hour, she sent for Mr. Robert Searcy, who did not come at first; he came when he was called a second time about fifteen minutes later, and being now in front of us, he gives the following testimony, with the essence of which Mrs. Reeves I agree. Mr. Searcy said that when he walked, he did not expect to see anything unusual.

When he arrived, he was asked if he saw people on the mountain, he replied, "No"; but he said that when he looked a second time, he saw more sparkling white human figures than he had ever seen people at any general viewing; that they were of different sizes – from men to babies that they were moving in a crowd around a big rock, not far from Chimney Rock, describing a semicircle between it and the rock, and so passed south between it and the mountain, to the place where Mrs. Reeves said they had climbed; and that two men of full stature walked in front of the crowd at a distance of about 20 yards [18 m]; approaching one after another to that place, they disappeared from sight, leaving a solemn and pleasant impression, accompanied by a weakening of bodily strength

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In 1811, a better spectacle was seen over the same rock – a heavenly battle between horsemen. Eyewitnesses claimed that shouts, commands and the clang of sabers could be heard from above. The battle lasted 10 minutes, after which one squad took to flight, and the victors rushed after them. The vision disappeared in the darkness that followed.

A vision observed in June 1815 over the city of Verviers, Belgium

Such spectacles cannot be a projection of a pre-recorded picture, even if one does not take into account stories about the reasonable reaction of individual figures to eyewitnesses. It seems that each figure of the ghostly spectacle is autonomous or controlled independently of other figures, as in an advanced computer simulation. The presence of intelligence hiding behind seemingly meaningless phenomena cannot but cause alarm, although we know other phenomena that combine reasonableness and absurdity of manifestations: the UFO phenomenon, ghost ships that occur even where navigation is impossible, fireballs in "anomalous zones", ghosts, etc.

Perhaps we are not dealing with a separate phenomenon, but with one of the facets of a single phenomenon that can generate spectacles of any scale for purposes unknown to us. Jacques Vallee in the last century compared what we experience when faced with the unknown, with a cinema:

As after watching a movie that horrified you or made you cry, laugh or sweat with fear, the experience becomes an integral part of the eyewitness's reality. Ufologists behave as if sociologists, trying to understand the phenomenon of cinema, interviewed people leaving the cinema, taking every evidence at face value. Like eyewitnesses who have seen UFOs, these people do not lie. Some saw Godzilla, others saw Bambi. In each case, the experience was an absolute reality for the witness. But the reality that should be questioned, the reality that researchers ignore, is the same movie projector... Like cinema technology, UFO technology is a meta–system. It generates a phenomenon that in each epoch best corresponds to our level of perception, a certain state of a certain "market" to which all this is addressed

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The current "market" has already managed to wean itself from the fear generated by wars. Spectacles of a militaristic nature, such as heavenly battles or the march of troops, ceased to cause violent emotions after the Second World War and in the 1960s almost disappeared. We can only guess what will come in their place in the XXI century – visions of angels, global catastrophes or something else unknown. Isn't this the first testing of the BLUE BEAM technology? Or setting up our world after settling in? We must be attentive and ask the right questions in search of answers.

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About author:

Serg Toporkov Ufologist, Ph.D., blogger, I go on my own expeditions for UFOs. I use scientific methods to investigate the UAP phenomenon. Write to me

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conspiracy  ufo  phenomena  weird  armies  sky  blue beam  hologram