Cloera, Ireland/Gravesend, Kent/Bristol UFO (1211AD)

In 1211AD Gervase of Tilbury recorded a strange event in the borough of Clorea in Ireland. During a Sunday Mass at the church of St Kinarus in the borough of Cloera, an anchor was seen to descend from the sky and hook on to the church door.

The parishioners watched as a man seemed to swim down to the anchor from a ‘sky ship’ to try and release it. The local Bishop stopped the people from capturing him and he ‘swam’ back up to the ship, cut the rope and the ship sailed away. The anchor is said to have been kept within the church.

The exact same story has been attributed to a number of other places including Gravesend in Kent, and Bristol in Somerset in the same year. It seems unlikely that the same event would occur (you would think that the crew would have got wise to dropping anchor near churches). Other sources suggest that the Cloera tale dates from 965AD and appeared in the ‘Speculum Regale’ which is a Norse-Irish collection of Icelandic saga. This tangled web of information needs further research, but the story is remains intriguing.