What happened
The Annals of the Joseon Dynasty preserve an official dispatch from Yi Hyeong-uk, governor of Gangwon Province, entered in the Gwanghaegun Diary in the 9th lunar month of 1609. It collects reports from several districts about the same day, the 25th of the 8th month. In Gangneung, under a bright clear sky in mid-morning, an object appeared with a faint sound, shaped like a big gourd bottle with a pointed top and a broad base. It grew red as it descended, left a white trail and was followed by thunder. Ganseong reported smoke-like forms emerging from a cloudless sky with drum-like thunder. At noon Chuncheon saw a fiery shape like a large jar moving fast as an arrow, trailing curling blue-white smoke. Most strikingly, in Yangyang that afternoon a round, shining object like a washbasin rose from the ground of an official named Kim Mun-wi's yard. It was white, blue and red, turned fully red as it climbed, then split in two, and one part flew off to the southeast.
The official explanation
Several of the district reports (a bright body falling from the sky, a lingering white or blue-white smoke trail, and thunder-like booms heard afterwards) match a large daytime fireball or bolide breaking up in the atmosphere, seen from different places across the province. The Joseon annals record many such 'objects with smoke and thunder', which modern readers generally treat as meteors. The Yangyang account of an object rising from the ground is harder to place, and may reflect a witness's misjudged perspective or ball lightning.
The anomalous case
This is one of the best-sourced premodern sightings anywhere. It is an official provincial report sent to the royal court and preserved in the dynasty's Veritable Records, with named places, times of day and, in Yangyang, a named property owner. The reports from different districts are consistent in timing and describe the object's shape and colour changes in detail. The Yangyang account does not fit a meteor. A round, glowing, tricoloured object rises from ground level, climbs, turns red, seems to move along the sky, then splits in two, with one part departing in a set direction. Science writer Lee Seong-gyu, who popularised the record in 2010, argued that the upward motion seen at Yangyang makes a simple meteor hard to accept. Korean ufologists have mapped the reports to suggest a single object travelling across the province over several hours.
The strongest argument that this was something genuinely unknown or classified, with each claim attributed to the person who made it.
Documents
- Gwanghaegun Ilgi, vol. 20 (Annals of the Joseon Dynasty), as excerpted in Kyunghyang Shinmun official, khan.co.kr
Sources
- Records of UFO in the Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty (Han Dae-kwang) Kyunghyang Shinmun
- 'Gwanghaegun year 1, washbasin-shaped flying object rose into the sky' Seoul Shinmun
- List of reported UFO sightings Wikipedia
- UFO Sightings in Old Joseon? La Seoulite (Substack)
Witness reports elsewhere
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