When we think of alien visitation and UFOs we generally assume that the incidents involved happened in at least the past 100 years – or at some distant time when ancient astronauts visited Earth and produced massive civilizations that worshiped them as gods. But a curious case from 1886 was immortalized in the then relatively new periodical “The Scientific American” and became immortalized as a curiosity before the UFO phenomenon would provide an ever stranger context to the case.
The event itself was detailed in a letter to the magazine that began quite candidly in its description of the event itself and the phenomenon involved. It’s important to keep in mind that at this juncture the majority of people were completely unfamiliar with any concept of UFOs and there weren’t even any science fiction authors detailing the possibility of an alien invasion to Earth. And even if there had been, the inhabitants of Maracaibo in Venezuela would have been unlikely fans of such literature. And yet Venezuela has always been known as a major target of unexplained aerial phenomena.
The incident began when nine residents were suddenly awakened after an otherwise normal night by a brilliant light outside. Weighing the possibility of a nearby fire the group quickly exited the house and soon found the source of the object to be up in the sky. When they saw the object they immediately thought it was the end of days and began praying. Soon after that they became violently ill and had their mucous membranes became quickly inflamed. Days later they noted that the trees around the area where the brilliant object had hovered had all died.
The description here is nothing short of shocking. The participants were describing in great detail the symptoms of sudden radiation poisoning in relation to an aerial craft that was brilliantly glowing. They interpreted it as a religious experience despite the fact that it would be recognized later as a simple UFO story. Had they reported the incident a hundred years later they likely would have been ridiculed by skeptics for suggesting alien visitors had touched down. And yet they made no such claim. They simply reported what they saw. And what they saw had an incredible although mysterious impact on them.
It’s often difficult to remember that though we commonly associate UFOs with extraterrestrials there is a very real and very unexplained phenomenon behind these sightings that so commonly appear throughout our lives. While we can simply deny they ever happened, we cannot deny that there are real mysteries, and many of them do indeed happen in the sky. Skeptics of this case have suggested everything from ball lightning to the planet Venus, but neither of these would have caused the violent illness that followed in the Maricaibo incident.
And while we may be able to deny it was an extraterrestrial craft, we cannot deny this is a mystery that shared many traits with alleged UFO incidents and it was described in almost perfect detail the same way out of context and out of its more contemporary timeline.