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Sighting record / 196

Silver rain over the Forum of Augustus, Rome

c. 196 · Forum of Augustus, Rome, Italy
33Partially documented UAP Other 16 sources

Rome, around AD 196. The empire is at war with itself. Septimius Severus faces his rival Clodius Albinus, and the city is uneasy with omens. Then, from a clear sky, something falls on the Forum of Augustus. Cassius Dio, senator and historian, calls it "a fine rain resembling silver." He did not see it come down. He found it afterwards. He rubbed it onto bronze coins and plated them with silver. For three days they kept their shine. By the fourth day, the coating was gone. Of all that year's portents, this was the one Dio "marvelled at most." Modern writers file it as an early case of angel hair.

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Context

AD 196. Rome was living through a civil war. Septimius Severus had once made Clodius Albinus his Caesar. Now the two men were rivals, and the city waited on the outcome.

Sources (16, most influential first)

  1. List of reported UFO sightings · Wikipedia · Wiki, blog, podcast · wiki
  2. Cassius Dio, Roman History, Epitome of Book 76 (Cary translation, Loeb 1927) · LacusCurtius (Bill Thayer, University of Chicago)· 1927 · Academic / paper of record · book
  3. Unidentified Flying Objects in Classical Antiquity (abstract) · NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies· 2007 · Academic / paper of record · academic
  4. Unidentified Flying Objects in Classical Antiquity (PDF) · NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies· 2007 · Academic / paper of record · academic
  5. Dio Cassius, Roman History, vol. IX (LCL 177), p. 205 · Loeb Classical Library · Academic / paper of record · book