A 1767 UFO sighting?

Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2000 20:03:36 -0700 (PDT)

To: […]

Hello.

As a doctoral student in the Humanities, I’ve been spending much time reading 18th-century British periodicals. In one of them I have found a report of an unexplained phenomenon somewhere in Scotland. I leave it to your judgment and experience to decide its merits as a UFO sighting.

I do not have an active interest in UFO research though I do believe in the existence and benevolence of our Space Brothers. Consequently, I would appreciate your not getting back to me. All the information I have is given below and my only desire is simply to make it available to you.

Thanks

Ilias Chrissochoidis

Ph.D. candidate

Stanford University

California, USA

The British Magazine 8 (1767), p. 500.

“Domestic Intelligence”:

Saturday, September 12

......................

Extract of a letter from Edinburgh, Sept. 8.

We hear from Perthsire, that an uncommon phaenomenon was observed on the water of Isla, near Cupor Angus, preceded by a thick dark smoke, which soon dispelled, and discovered a large luminous body, like a house on fire, but presently after took a form something pyramidal, and rolled forwards with impetuosity till it came to the water of Erick, up which river it took its direction, with great rapidity, and disappeared a little above Blairgowrie. The effects were as extraordinary as the appearance. In its passage, it carried a large cart many yards over a field of grass; a man riding along the high road was carried from his horse, and so stunned with the fall, as to remain senseless a considerable time. It destroyed one half of a house, and left the other behind, undermined and destroyed an arch of the new bridge building at Blairgowrie, immediately after which it disappeared. As few appearances of this kind ever were attended with like consequences, various conjectures have been formed concerning it.