Flaming fire and falling rocks. How the sky opened over Vysočina

The unexplained phenomenon that happened over Vysočina and gave birth to legends still arouses the interest of scientists and historians. At the beginning of the Thirty Years’ War, several buildings fell near two villages. Was it a meteorite or something else?

It is June 11, 1619. Something like a strange cloud appeared in the sky near the village of Jimramov in Vysočina. And inside the cloud is said to be a wheel with an inscription. Subsequently, Šebestián Antonín Želechovský, who was an official from the nearby Nové Město in Moravia, went to the place, who interviewed the locals and wrote down their testimonies at length.

“Back then, the villagers were not literate, so if there really were any letters, unfortunately no one read them,” journalist Jaroslav Mareš says in the True Czech Mysteries podcast. Today, we can no longer tell if it was a real inscription or if it just reminded the villagers of letters.

In any case, it scared the locals, as evidenced by another testimony recorded by Želechovský: “Others who were on the mountains, belonging to that cloud, saw the demi coming out of there. Some even had to run away, fearing that the hand of the angry Lord God would touch them.”

It is not known exactly what event it was. However, a number of traces suggest that it may have been a meteorite that disintegrated in the atmosphere and its parts fell to the earth’s surface. Historical records speak of a total of three pieces of something that the locals identified as bells. The object fell apart above Jimramov and three of its fragments fell towards the neighboring village of Odranec

One landed in front of Odrance, the second directly on the semi-trailer and the third somewhere in the forest behind the village. “The moment the locals dug it up, they burned themselves. The other larger object was approximately one meter deep, the ground was heated, just like the object,” Jaroslav Mareš describes. According to contemporary records, the two found pieces were then taken to the Vienna museum.

As the unknown object disintegrated over Jimramov, locals observed the falling dust there. When they examined it, they found that it was flammable. This is also why the local chronicler called the powder gunpowder or gunpowder.

The third, as yet unfound fragment of an unknown object, may be connected to a legend that tells of the arrival of some kind of miraculous being in nearby Žďár nad Sázavou. After 1619, an angel or a warrior of God was supposed to appear there, who allegedly helped the local monks in the fight against the Swedes during the Thirty Years’ War. Another version of the legend speaks of a shapely Templar.

Looking at the map, an almost perfect straight line connects the surroundings of the Židár monastery, Odranec and Jimramov. It is therefore possible that the third fragment, which has not yet been found, could have fallen much further than in the forest behind Odrance, as the locals described at the time.

Moreover, the connection with Žďár and the monastery there is not the only one. One hundred years later, in 1719, it was decided to build a pilgrimage church on the nearby Zelené vrch. Its architect was Jan Blažej Santini Eichel, and the tabernacle has an atypical floor plan, a number of mythological and numerological subtexts. At the same time, he is said to be the source of miraculous divine power.

Is the church hiding the remains of a meteorite? And why was the only evidence that would help solve the event destroyed?

Listen to the third part of the new series in the player at the beginning of the article.