On December 26, 1760, eyewitnesses reported a strange object seen in Vejle (today Vejle), a Danish city under the Diocese of Raipen in North Jutland on the Oftsee River.
“On December 26, at 10 o'clock in the evening, a strong storm arose here. It was the night from the 26th to the 27th, at 2 o'clock 4 minutes I was not yet in bed. An hour before, I had discovered from my window a very clear phenomenon, which I at first mistook for a Lightning Beam. The storm intensified.
Noticing this airy phenomenon, I did not go to bed, and at 4 o'clock in the afternoon there was a phenomenon that seemed to come from Mondt and which moved horizontally.
It seemed to be about 1.5 fathoms long (about 3 meters) and as thick as an arm, and it threw beams of fire from both sides. I went to my garden and there I noticed another fireball, which was in the shape of a canon ball, slowly turning from south to north.
At first, this ball seemed very dark, like the sun when it hides behind the clouds, emitting just enough rays to be visible.
After two minutes, the glow of this ball became fainter and slightly redder, and then completely disappeared. Shortly thereafter, there was a storm, accompanied by such strong and terrible gusts of wind that many people thought it was an earthquake.
I have spoken with many older people about this phenomenon, and although I myself have seen several aerial phenomena in Norway, I have never seen such a thing under the circumstances that accompanied it."
Description of the event in the newspaper Oprecgte Groninger Courant, June 23, 1761.
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