Hans Glaser

Looking towards the horizon, thousands of city residents, as well as its surrounding settlements, observed strange, dark shapes appearing against the morning sun.

Having witnessed the event firsthand, Hans Glaser, Nuremberg's chief letter painter, described the ensuing air battle in a detailed news broadsheet published in the days following the sighting.

In the morning of April 14, 1561, at daybreak, between 4 and 5 a.m., a dreadful apparition occurred on the sun, and since this was seen in Nuremberg, in the city, before the gates, and in the country, by many men and women, At first there appeared in the middle of the sun two blood-red semicircular arcs, just like the moon in its last quarter.

And in the sun, above and below and on both sides, the colour was blood.