A broadsheet by Samuel Coccius, printed in Basel in 1566, describes three strange skies that summer. On July 27 the sun lost its brightness and seemed to weep blood; the next morning it rose blood-red and lit the streets and houses as if on fire.
At dawn on August 7, people saw many large black spheres in the sky in front of the sun, moving at speed toward it and turning against one another as if fighting. Some turned red and fiery and then faded away.
Coccius presented it as a sign from God, as many broadsheets of the time did. Ufologists list it alongside Nuremberg 1561 as an early mass sighting; historians and meteorologists put it down to unusual sunrises and sunsets and a total lunar eclipse. The broadsheet survives in the Wickiana collection in Zurich.