Pat Shingleton: "Lightning Oddities"
On this date in 1689, lightning zapped the altar church of Saint-Sauveur,
in Ligny, France. Fifty witnesses watched a statue of Christ levitate as
altar cloths were scorched and curtains were blown off their rings. However
the rings remained on the rod. In 1812, in Combe Hay, Somerset, United Kingdom,
six sheep were killed by lightning and witnesses noticed tattooed pictures
of the landscape on their skin. Two similar incidents occurred in Greece
where a sailor, struck by lightning, had a shadowgraph of the number 44
on his body that was attached to a nearby rigging. Another sailor, in the Adriatic
was hit while sitting below the mast. Imprinted on his groin was the image
of a horseshoe, nailed to the foremast.