On July 18, 1689, lightning struck the high altar in the church of Saint-Sauveur, in Ligny, France. Fifty witnesses watched a statue of Christ levitate into the air while its stand was shattered. Altar cloths were scorched; one had an X-shaped gash ripped across it. Curtains around the altar were blown off their rings, but the rings stayed on the curtain rods. The rod, rings, and cloth were undamaged. Words appeared on the altar cloth from a book that had been lying face down on it. The words were reversed and magnified; all the holy words and phrases had been left out. Father Lamy, who documented the incident, realized that the missing words were those that had been printed in red ink. Only those words printed in black ink were transmitted. A shadowgraph had been created.
In 1812, in Combe Hay, Somerset, U.K., six sheep were struck dead by lightning, and the lightning had tattooed pictures of the landscape onto their skin. In another case, a triple lightning fork hit a tree, killing a bird sitting in it and a lamb standing under it. The bird fell onto the lamb, leaving behind a detailed silhouette on the sheep's body. Another incident involved a boy who was struck by lightning while stealing a bird's nest from a tree. He was knocked to the ground, and "the image of the tree, with the bird and nest on one branch, appearing very plainly" on his chest.
Two incidents involving sailors hit by lightning have been recorded in Greece. One sailor had a shadowgraph of the number forty-four, which was attached to nearby rigging, appear on his body. Another sailor in the Adriatic was sitting below the mast when he was hit. Imprinted by his groin was the image of the horseshoe that had been nailed to the foremast for luck.
Text from: Almanac of the Infamous, the Incredible, and the Ignored by Juanita Rose Violins, published by Weiser Books, 2009
