One of the Earliest Accurate Recorded UFO Sighting from China
Shen Kuo, a man ahead of his time
To say that Shen Kuo (1031-1095) was ahead of his time is an understatement, he was mathematician, astronomer, meteorologist, geologist, zoologist,botanist, pharmacologist, agronomist, archaeologist, ethnographer, cartographer, encyclopedist, general,diplomat, hydraulic engineer, inventor, academy chancellor, finance minister, governmental state inspector, poet, and musician. He is credited with discovering magnetic north long before the compass was invented. He was an astronomer extraordinaire and eventually became head of the Bureau of Astronomy in the Song Court (960-1279).
Shen is credited with writing many books of which very few survive today, some of his books were significantly altered and others had their content either purged or changed so it is difficult get accurate historical data. His most famous work was 'Dream Pool Essay' which is an amazing journal where Shen describes a few things that were not believed for centuries after his death. A small sampling of his beliefs is listed below.
Science Centuries Ahead of the Rest of the World
To say that Shen Kuo (1031-1095) was ahead of his time is an understatement, he was mathematician, astronomer, meteorologist, geologist, zoologist,botanist, pharmacologist, agronomist, archaeologist, ethnographer, cartographer, encyclopedist, general,diplomat, hydraulic engineer, inventor, academy chancellor, finance minister, governmental state inspector, poet, and musician. He is credited with discovering magnetic north long before the compass was invented. He was an astronomer extraordinaire and eventually became head of the Bureau of Astronomy in the Song Court (960-1279).
- He said the moon and the sun were like "balls" and not flat.
- Accuratly described why we have lunar and solar eclipses
- Provided a reason of why lightning could melt metal but not a thatched roof
- Wrote about petrified forest and animals
- Understood that the climate had changed over the centuries
Interest in UFO and divination
He had an interest in divination and the supernatural, the latter including his vivid description of unidentified flying objects from eyewitness testimony. He also wrote commentary on ancient Daoist and Confucian texts.
UFO lights up, casting a shadows for 10 miles
A passage called "Strange Happenings" contains a peculiar account of an unidentified flying object. Shen wrote that, during the reign of Emperor Renzong (1022–1063), an object as bright as a pearl occasionally hovered over the city of Yangzhou at night, but described first by local inhabitants of eastern Anhui and then in Jiangsu. Shen wrote that a man near Xingkai Lake observed this curious object; allegedly it:
...opened its door and a flood of intense light like sunbeams darted out of it, then the outer shell opened up, appearing as large as a bed with a big pearl the size of a fist illuminating the interior in silvery white. The intense silver-white light, shot from the interior, was too strong for human eyes to behold; it cast shadows of every tree within a radius of ten miles. The spectacle was like the rising Sun, lighting up the distant sky and woods in red. Then all of a sudden, the object took off at a tremendous speed and descended upon the lake like the Sun setting.
Shrine erected in honor of UFO
Shen went on to say that Yibo, a poet of Gaoyou, wrote a poem about this "pearl" after witnessing it. Shen wrote that since the "pearl" often made an appearance around Fanliang in Yangzhou, the people there erected a "Pearl Pavilion" on a wayside, where people came by boat in hopes to see the mysterious flying object.
