FELL TO EARTH IN ALSACE, FRANCE, 1492; MODERN CUTTING

"Truly, after four hundred, one thousand
And ninety-two years, as the sun follows its course,
On the seventh day before the fearful Ides of November
As the sun approached the meridian,
There came a horrendous explosion; a thunderbolt clanging in the air
Multisounding: and there fell a burning stone
Shaped like a Grecian Delta; triangular with three sharp corners,
Singed and earthy and metalliferous.
It fell obliquely through the air
As though hurled from a star like Saturn.
Ensisheim felt the force of it; all Sauntgaudia felt it,
As it plunged into a field and devastated the ground."
Sebastian Brant, 1492

Ensisheim long reigned as the oldest preserved meteorite fall in the world. The meteorite landed in a wheat field in Alsace, France on 16 November 1492, exactly five weeks after Columbus first landed in the West Indies. The Ensisheim fireball created much commotion generating sonic booms in the atmosphere that were heard for miles. Austria’s Emperor Maximillian is said to have interpreted the Ensisheim event as a divine sign to declare war on France and officials had the mysterious stone kept in a local church, caged and tethered to a chain, ostensibly to prevent it from departing in the same way it had arrived. Ensisheim is the oldest preserved meteorite in Europe.









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